Elin Hilderbrand - The Rumor

Tums, he thought. He needed Tums.

Eddie headed in the back door of his office and stuck the bag filled with fish fillets in the kitchen fridge, which also held three bottles of Dom Pérignon, kept handy to celebrate big closings, and a couple of cartons of Greek yogurt, which was what Eloise liked to eat for lunch.

He popped out to the main room. Barbie was on the phone, Eloise was on the computer.

“Hello, all,” Eddie said.

“Eddie,” Eloise said. “How was the fishing?”

“I can’t complain,” Eddie said. “A day on the water is better than a day anywhere else.”

“I didn’t even know you liked the water,” Eloise said.

“No,” Eddie said. “Me either.”

“Well,” Eloise said, “I brought you some Boston cream doughnuts from the Bake Shop, just in case you didn’t catch any fish.” She held out a box of doughnuts-eight left, which meant Eloise must have eaten four herself, because Barbie wouldn’t touch doughnuts.

“I did catch fish,” Eddie said. “But I can’t resist.” He plucked a doughnut out of the box.

“Oh, I know,” Eloise said. “I know all your favorite things.”

The phone rang, and Eloise hurried to answer it. Please, Eddie thought, let that be a twenty-million-dollar listing.

Eddie carried the box of doughnuts over to Barbie’s desk and sat down at the chair next to it, meant for the buyers and sellers.

She said into the phone, “Listen, I have to call you back later. Bye-bye.” And she hung up.

“Who was that?” Eddie asked.

“P,” Barbie said.

P for personal. Eddie was aware that Barbie had men, lovers, dates, whatever, but he had no idea who they were and no clue whom to ask. Barbie knew everyone on this island, but she didn’t have any close friends. For holidays, she celebrated with Eddie and Grace and the twins-or else she went away, presumably with the men she knew. Were any of the men wealthy? He wondered. Manolos were expensive, and Barbie drove a 1974 Alfa Romeo that required near-constant upkeep. But Barbie had bought her house in Fishers Landing outright in 1999, and she had no children. Her life was blissfully simple.

Eddie wished he could be more like Barbie. No one was out on the street gossiping about Barbie.

Eddie said, “Why is Eloise being so nice to me?” Sometimes Eloise buttered up Eddie after she’d had a fight with Barbie.

“No idea.”

“You didn’t lose your temper?”

“No, I didn’t,” Barbie said. “How goes your bromance with the Chief?”

“Funny,” Eddie said. “It’s not a bromance. It was two guys fishing, Barb. I caught a striped bass. I have some to share, if you want a pound or two.”

“No, thanks,” Barbie said.

“Do you still have that bad feeling about the other thing?”

Barbie nodded. “I could be wrong. I’ll probably regret not going in. I could use the money.”

So maybe the men Barbie dates aren’t wealthy, Eddie thought. Maybe she dated Chris, the mechanic who fixed her Alfa Romeo.

“That makes two of us.”

“This market had better pick up,” Barbie said. She stared listlessly at her computer screen.

“Have you heard any rumors about me?” Eddie asked.

“Rumors?” Barbie said.

“No?”

“No.”

Eddie nodded and stood up, taking the box of doughnuts with him. He could not resist Boston cream. He devoured the doughnut in three bites.

The annual Nantucket-Martha’s Vineyard all-star baseball game was normally one of Madeline’s favorite days of the summer. But this year, Madeline was distracted by her writing.

Write as fast as you can, Angie had said.

Madeline had spoken to Eddie three times and left him as many messages, but it had become clear that she and Trevor weren’t getting their money back anytime soon. Madeline had gone so far as to drive by the spec houses on Eagle Wing Lane to check on their progress, but all three were boarded up and silent. Nobody was working on them!

She had called Trevor. “There aren’t any trucks out front, no workers, no action, no nothing!”

Trevor said, “Maybe Eddie is taking a hiatus for the summer. Maybe he has other things going on.”

“He said June!” Madeline said. “It’s practically July now. He said August at the latest. But there is no way these houses are going to be finished by August. They might not be finished by next August.”

“Why are you so keen for the money?” Trevor said.

“We have bills, Trev. We promised Brick a car!” she said. “I know it was my idea to invest the money with Eddie…”

“A hundred percent your idea,” Trevor confirmed.

“I’m kicking myself now,” Madeline said.

“Madeline,” Trevor said. “You need to breathe.” This was his standard line when he thought she was being hysterical and he wanted to calm her down-but today, it only served to agitate her further.

“I am breathing!” she screamed, and then she hung up.

Maybe Eddie has other things going on. Eddie had more going on than he even knew! Grace was in love with Benton Coe! She was excited to take things to the next level by going with Benton to the Sunset Soiree.

Listening to Grace was an addiction. Madeline could NOT wait for the next installment of the story. Madeline knew she should advise Grace to turn the car around. But instead, she was Grace’s steadfast sounding board, and not only that-she was using everything Grace told her in her novel. Her characters “B” and “G” were moving full steam ahead. Madeline could not stop writing; nothing had ever come to her this easily. It was black magic, like the séance with Barbie.

Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left.

But in a way, writing the novel felt natural and organic, as if Madeline were giving birth-this novel, somehow, was like the second child Madeline had never managed to have.

She couldn’t stop. Could not pull the plug or abort the mission. She would write the novel and then, later, go back in and change everything so that nothing was recognizable except to Madeline herself.

For years, Madeline had been in charge of the potluck barbecue lunch between the games of the doubleheader with the Vineyard. Last week, she had managed to get the e-mail out, and the usual people signed up to bring the usual things. Cathleen Rook was bringing her pepperoni bread, which all the boys and coaches fought over, and Rachel had overvolunteered as usual and was bringing her potato-and-egg salad, pesto pasta, and a seven-layer Mexican dip. Madeline was in charge of condiments, paper products, Gatorade, bottled water, and ice-but she had spaced on the ice, so she had to stop at the airport gas station, where five bags of ice ran her twenty-five bucks.

She set out the hamburgers and hot dogs, rolls, paper plates and napkins, ketchup, mustard, and relish. The propane gas tanks on the grills were both full. When it came time to watch the actual game, Madeline found a shady spot in the bleachers, pulled out her legal pad, and started to write.

Diana Marz, Parker’s mother, was the first to comment.

“Is that your new novel?” she asked.

Madeline smiled in what she hoped was a cryptic way. She had always wanted people to think of her as a novelist, but now, the less she said about her work, the better. She realized it might have been smarter to have left her legal pad at home, but she couldn’t fight the urge to finish this one particular scene: B and G taking things to the next level by venturing out together in public-in this fictional case, to the Summer House pool, where they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, both under the table and then later, splashing around in the pool. Madeline was currently writing a scene about some clandestine underwater fooling-around between B and G. Angie, she knew, would love it.

Every once in a while, Madeline raised her head from her work to take in a few seconds of the baseball game. Brick was playing first base, smacking his glove, trying to get Calgary McMann, who was pitching, to pick off the Vineyard base runner. Rachel was a few feet to Madeline’s right, wearing a navy-and-white-striped sundress with a giant navy N on the front, which it seemed Rachel had applied herself with an iron. Rachel had brought her pom-pom. She cheered away, stopping every so often to apply SPF 50 to her face, even though she was wearing a large-brimmed straw hat.

Despite her keen interest in the game, Rachel, too, noticed Madeline writing.

“Look at you, scribbling away!” she sang out. “I see ‘A Room of One’s Own’ has worked! You’re a writing machine! I fully expect a mention on the acknowledgments page now.”

Madeline nodded while finishing her sentence. It was the top of the seventh inning; she needed to head back over to the picnic area. But just then, her cell phone rang, and Madeline climbed down from the bleachers to answer it, believing that it might be Eddie, calling her back.

It was Redd Dreyfus.

He said, “You got the e-mail from Angie, yes?”

“From when?” Madeline asked.

“This morning.”

“No,” Madeline said. “I’ve got something else going on today, and I’m not near my computer.” Normally, Redd liked to hear vignettes about “island life,” and Madeline might have launched into a description of the Nantucket-Martha’s Vineyard all-star baseball game, but right now, he sounded all business.

“Well,” he said, “it appears the editorial board of Final Word made an executive decision on the title of your new novel.”

“Oh God,” Madeline said. “But wait a minute, I thought…”

“They’ve gone completely mad,” Redd said. “Or completely postmodern.”