A Summer Affair (14 page)

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take Zack.”

Father Dominic was stunned to see Claire and Zack sitting in the front pew when he exited the confessional; the surprise registered on his face. A slender, pretty young woman hurried out of the church, and Claire wondered what
she
had confessed and whether it was anywhere close to as appalling as what Claire was about to admit to. Father Dominic said nothing; he simply gestured to the empty booth, and Claire carried Zack in and knelt. She wished fervently that she had been born a Protestant because at that moment, owning up to this enormous sin, saying it out loud to another human being, seemed a beastly punishment.

She started in with the act of contrition.
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins
. . . Zack clawed at her neck. He needed his fingernails cut: it felt like he was drawing blood. Claire took a deep breath. She eyed Father Dominic, whose head was bowed in prayer. She was trembling, as terrified as she’d ever been in her life. What was she afraid of? She was afraid he would hate her. He saw her, not every week, but many weeks, in church with the kids. He thought her to be a devout person; he had called her daily when Zack was in the hospital in Boston and had prayed with her over the phone. Now he would see her for who she truly was.

“I’m committing adultery,” Claire said. She expected Father’s head to pop up, she awaited his aghast expression, but he was still. She was grateful for this stillness, this posture of acceptance. “I’m having an affair with Lockhart Dixon.” Claire said his name because not to say his name felt like holding back a part of the truth. Claire had no idea if Father Dominic knew Lock—Lock was a member of Saint Paul’s Episcopal. They might have known each other through one of Nantucket’s Children’s programs.

Father Dominic remained still. Claire closed her eyes. “That’s all,” she whispered. Zack started to cry.

When Father Dominic raised his head, his expression was blank. In regard to confession, Father Dominic had once claimed that there was a hole in the back of his head. People’s sins drained out nearly as soon as they entered, he said. But Claire was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen today.

Father Dominic said, “You will stop? You came to confess, so you understand what you’re doing is wrong. Will you stop?”

Tears fell—Zack’s, and Claire’s own. Of course he would ask her to stop, or demand it.

“I don’t know if I can,” she said.

“You can, Claire,” Father Dominic said. “You must pray for strength.”

“I can pray for strength, but I don’t know if I can stop seeing Lock. I could tell you I’m going to stop, but I would be lying.”

Father Dominic shook his head, and Claire felt an argument rising in her. It was the argument that ran like ticker tape through her mind. Did the adultery automatically make her a bad person? Did the good things that she did—caring for her kids, washing Jason’s T-shirts, chairing a benefit that would bring important programs and enrichment into the lives of hardworking families, being a kind and thoughtful friend, helping injured birds on the side of the road rather than letting them suffer—did these things count, too? Or did only the sins count? Was there some kind of moral accounting that would put her ahead? Because she didn’t feel like a
bad person
or an
evil person
. What, anyway, did Father Dominic know about heart-stopping passion?

Zack was crying now; his cries reverberated against the walls of the confessional booth. Claire said, “Can you give me my penance?”

“You have to stop,” Father Dominic said. “Then I can give you your penance.”

She had to stop. She repeated this in the car on the way home. Zack screamed in the backseat and kicked his legs; his cries were echoing inside her. She was not a barroom urchin addled by drink, like her father; she was a reasonable woman. She had to stop.

By the time she got home, she did have a headache, so she took some Advil and lit a fire and poured a glass of wine, all with Zack snuggled against her chest, on his way to sleep. She had a pot of chili on the stove, and corn bread, and homemade applesauce. At five thirty, it was pitch black outside and the kids and Jason came home, their cheeks rosy from the cold and the exercise.

Jason did not ask how she was feeling, but he did taste some chili from the wooden spoon and declared it delicious. J.D. stripped off his pads and his sweaty long underwear while Ottilie set the table in her cheerleading outfit.

Jason touched Claire’s back and said, “This is how I always sort of imagined it. Our life.”

The fire, the pot of chili, her children at home on a chilly fall evening. What was not to love?
She had to stop.

Claire nodded. Her heart was a bad apple, soft and rotted. “Me, too,” she said.

PART TWO

CHAPTER SIX

He Loves Her

I
t was boom or bust, their business, and it was starting to wear on Siobhan. She slaved through the summer and fall, fielding phone calls from impetuous brides-to-be and their mothers; she woke up in the morning knowing she wouldn’t see the boys for five minutes because she had a sit-down lunch for fifteen people at noon, cocktails for a hundred in Brant Point at six, and a dinner buffet in Pocomo at six thirty. (Could she really be in two places at once? She would have to be.) This all-hell-has-broken-loose, wild-ass chaos was slightly preferable to suffering through the winter and spring, making good on all the dinners for eight that Island Fare put up for bid at charity auctions, and constantly worrying about money and illegal staff and getting jobs and money again. The business made a profit, but life was expensive. Liam had hockey, which had cost a fortune even before he broke his arm and took an eight-thousand-dollar jet ride to Boston, where he underwent two surgeries and incurred bills from a three-day hospital stay and five subsequent weeks of physical therapy. That was behind them now, but there was the mortgage, heating oil, and Christmas approaching, and Siobhan was beginning to suspect that Carter had a gambling problem. The man loved sports, but that was hardly unusual; God knows Siobhan had seen a pub full of men, including her father and her five brothers, scream bloody murder at the telly when rugby was on, or even worse, cricket. Carter spent so much time in the confines of the hot kitchen, it was healthy for him to have some release, and Siobhan was glad it was sports and not porn on the Internet. He was in a football pool, she knew that, but then the other night at dinner he announced that he had lost twelve hundred dollars on the Patriots game. Twelve hundred dollars! Siobhan nearly sprung a leak. She knew nothing about sports in this country and even less about the gambling that attended the sports, but she had assumed it entailed a bunch of guys throwing twenty bucks onto the bar. Twelve hundred dollars was six lovely dinners out; it was an entire weekend in Stowe or New York City.

Don’t overreact,
Carter had said.
It’s not exactly a fortune.

It damn well is so,
Siobhan had countered. She was the one who counted the beans. When Carter decided to quit his job as head chef at the Galley Restaurant and start a catering business, it was because of the kids, because of the flexible scheduling, being his own boss. That was all well and good, but there would be no barter up in lifestyle if money kept flying out the door. For Siobhan, owning a business meant anguish and indigestion day in and day out.

They did one big job in November: the private Montessori school dinner auction. Siobhan liked doing this dinner. Because it was her only big job between wedding season and the holidays, she was able to give it time and careful attention, and each year, it was a masterpiece. This year the theme was the Far East. Siobhan dropped the boys at school and went straight to the catering kitchen, which was located in the back half of a commercial building out by the airport. It started to snow on her way there, which brightened her mood. Siobhan was a fan of layered sensory stimulation. She unlocked the door to the kitchen, made herself a cup of Irish breakfast, and put on a Chieftains CD, which Carter did not tolerate at home. The first snow of the year was falling in feathery bits out the window. Siobhan pulled her notebook out of her purse. She was in charge of the appetizers and dessert; Carter would do the entrée. Her appetizers were duck, mango, and scallion spring rolls for one hundred, sesame-crusted rare tuna on cucumber rounds with pickled ginger and wasabi for one hundred, and jumbo shrimp satay with peanut dipping sauce for one hundred. For dessert, she was making a complicated passion fruit and coconut cream parfait with macadamia nut brittle, which Carter called her crazy as Larry for even attempting. But hey, this was her masterpiece. Would he rather she was at home, picking up the boys’ disgusting excuse for a bedroom, or lamenting the many ways she might have spent the money that he had flushed down the loo with the disappointing Patriots? Siobhan loved Carter, and she had sworn on the altar that she would always love him, yes, but he was bringing her down.

The tea was steaming, the Irishmen keening, the snow piling up.
Don’t think about a weekend in Stowe!
Siobhan started with the peanut sauce. Technically, Siobhan’s mother had taught her to cook, though the porridge and cabbage and finnan haddie of Siobhan’s youth in no way resembled the delights that now came out of her kitchen. She was all about flavor and color and decadence; she was Liberace playing poolside, candelabra ablaze, while her mother’s cooking was like the parish organist, dutifully banging out another funeral dirge.

As Siobhan sautéed onions and garlic and ginger in peanut oil, the phone rang. She looked around the empty kitchen, confused. It was the kitchen phone and not her cell phone, which was unusual. On her way to answer the phone, she saw the machine held six messages. Six!

“Hello?” she said.

“Siobhan? Is that you?”

The voice. She laughed, not because she was amused, but because she was caught off guard.

“Edward?”

“Hi,” he said.

Well, he would be more nervous than she was. Edward Melior, her former fiancé. They lived on the same island, which was four miles wide, thirteen miles long, and yet she rarely saw him. Maybe once or twice a month they passed each other in their cars. Edward always waved, but Siobhan never realized it was him until he was in her rearview mirror. What was becoming more common was that Edward would attend an event Siobhan was catering—she had a way of sensing when he was going to be there—and she would stay in the tent, or give the whole thing to Carter. It wasn’t that she was avoiding Edward Melior; she just didn’t want to have to offer him a canapé.

“Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”

“How are you?” He said this the way he always said it: How
are
you? As if he really wanted to know. He really did want to know; he had a zealous interest in other people. He remembered their names, their children’s names, their situations—if they were thinking of buying a new car, or if they were caring for an elderly parent, or if their dog had just died. This was stuff he cataloged in his brain. It was unusual how much he remembered, how much he genuinely cared. It was feminine. But that was why he was a great (and wealthy) real estate agent. People lapped it up.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Siobhan said breezily. She recalled the flowers Edward had sent to the house when Liam broke his arm. They were pink calla lilies, Siobhan’s favorite, about fifty of them, fantastically expensive. She got rid of them before Liam and Carter came home from Boston. She hadn’t sent a note for the flowers, which was monstrous, but dealing with Edward was tricky. He loved her still. He took every communication from her as a sign that they would reunite.

They had been together during Siobhan’s first four years on the island. When she was scooping ice cream and making sandwiches at Congdon’s Pharmacy, he was handling rentals at the real estate office upstairs. Edward was charmed by Siobhan’s accent (which she found ludicrous); he fell in love immediately. Because Edward had far more money and knew far more people than Siobhan did, he assumed the role of Henry Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle. He believed he’d “discovered” her. Looking back, Siobhan was annoyed at how she’d played along with this notion. She became the pantry girl at the Galley and then the garde-manger, and then a line cook at lunch. Edward always referred to her as a chef, which wasn’t accurate, but she never corrected him. He, meanwhile, had acquired a broker’s license and was thinking of going out on his own, which sounded to Siobhan like a reckless idea. The Nantucket real estate market was a gold mine, a diamond mine; brokers were printing their own money, yes, but Edward was such a good, sweet, accommodating guy that Siobhan feared he would get swallowed up. (She came by this doomsday attitude honestly—she was Irish!) Before Edward set up shop, they got engaged—on a perfect autumn afternoon at Altar Rock. Edward had champagne and berries and melon and pink calla lilies, and he got down on one knee and presented a whopper of a ring.
Will you be my wife?
Siobhan laughed, covering her mouth, and nodded, because who would say no to such a beautiful, well-orchestrated proposal? It was only after the engagement was a publicly known fact, after it had been in the newspaper, after Edward’s parents had thrown a party at their house on Cliff Road, that Siobhan began to falter. She didn’t believe in Edward, and she realized that Edward didn’t believe in her. Why else would he tell people she was a chef, when in fact she stood at a sauté pan for twelve hours a day making goat cheese omelets and lobster eggs Benedict? She grew less fond of the idea that she was a piece of Irish white trash that Edward had picked from the rubbish bin, and she became increasingly annoyed by Edward’s interest in her every thought and mood. She had grown up in a family of eight children; no one had paid attention that closely to Siobhan, ever. She yearned to be left alone with her interior life rather than to explain it.

And, too, there was a new sous-chef at work, a cute guy who had come from Balthazar in New York, whose knife skills put even the head chef’s to shame. And—funny thing!—his last name was Crispin. Siobhan called him Crispy; he called her Trouble.
How’re you doing there, Trouble?
His first name was Carter, which made him sound rich, though clearly he wasn’t, and Siobhan liked that. She was growing sick of Edward and his discretionary income and the way he bought things just because he could. This kind of waste offended her Irish sensibilities.

“How are the kids?” Edward asked. Siobhan smelled the garlic and ginger turning bitter and she hurried back to the stove and killed the heat. “How’s Liam’s arm?”

“Fine. All better. Just fine.” Siobhan reached for the curry powder, the peanut butter, the soy sauce. She could chat and cook all day, but not with him. “What can I do for you, Edward?”

“I’ve called and left a bunch of messages for you,” he said. “On your office phone?”

“I just saw them this second,” Siobhan said. “Honestly, Edward, this is the first time I’ve set foot in the kitchen since Columbus Day.”

“I’m calling about the summer gala for Nantucket’s Children,” Edward said. “I’m the head of the catering committee and we’d like you to submit a bid. It’s a bar bid, plus passed hors d’oeuvres, sit-down dinner, dessert sampler at the table. A thousand people. Can you give us a bid?”

“I can,” Siobhan said uncertainly. She had several thoughts at once, and she tried to arrange the thoughts neatly in her mind, the way she’d seen Carter arrange cards in his hand when he played poker. She had been waiting for this request for quite a while. Claire had asked Siobhan to be on the gala committee back in September, and Siobhan had said yes, thinking this meant she and Carter would nab the catering job, but when Siobhan mentioned the catering, Claire backpedaled. And Siobhan had thought,
There’s no flipping way I’m going to sit on the committee if we don’t get the job
—and so she hadn’t attended any of the meetings, and Claire hadn’t asked why, and the whole topic was left suspended. This might have made their friendship awkward, but Claire and Siobhan’s friendship encompassed such vast territory that the summer gala catering question registered as no more than a tiny pinch.

“We’d like all the bids submitted by the first of the year,” Edward said. “Though I won’t lie to you: it’s going to be a while before we decide. Most of my committee lives in New York, and so I have to get everyone the bids, ask them to review the bids, then find time to set up meetings . . . A decision will be made sometime in the spring.”

“I’ll fax you a bid,” Siobhan said. “I’m doing the dinner auction for the Montessori this weekend, but I can probably get it to you before Thanksgiving.”

“Great,” Edward said. “You know, I was thinking of going to that dinner auction.”

“Why would you?” Siobhan said. “You have no children.”

“Well, you know me. I like to support island causes.”

Yes, she knew him. She knew he would go to the dinner auction now because she would be there. And he had probably volunteered for the catering committee because he thought it would mean they would work together. Again, Siobhan’s anger flared: Why hadn’t Claire
told
her? Maybe Claire had wanted Siobhan to be surprised; maybe Claire thought Siobhan would be
happily
surprised. Maybe Claire thought Siobhan wanted to have a fling with Edward. It was true that Siobhan occasionally mouthed off about having a fling with the produce guy at the grocery store or the UPS man—but that was just mouthing off. It was a way for her to throw darts at Carter’s picture without actually hurting him.

“I’ll fax you the bid,” Siobhan said.

“Or drop it by my office,” Edward said. He paused. “We already have two other bids, by the way.”

“Will do. Thanks, Edward.”

“Take care, Siobhan.”

She hung up. That last tidbit from Edward was meant to be what, a taunt? Knowing Edward, it was purely informative. He would never do anything unethical, like ask her to sleep with him in exchange for the job. Ha! This was so outrageous, Siobhan laughed. Then the awkward feeling set in that followed each time Siobhan saw Edward or accidentally thought about him. She still had the engagement ring Edward had given her. It was in a secret compartment in her jewelry box, tucked into a blue velvet bag. The ring was magnificent, two and a third karats in a platinum Tiffany setting; it had cost Edward ten thousand dollars. It was too big for Siobhan to wear while she was working—he had not considered her career when he bought it—and so she had worn it on a chain around her neck for a while. But within the gritty, foulmouthed funk of the restaurant kitchen, the ring had seemed ostentatious. Siobhan was afraid it would fall into the bisque; she was afraid one of the (sketchy) dishwashers would yank it off her neck as she walked to her car in the dark, after service. So she started leaving the ring at home, right around the time that Carter Crispin arrived, and this started the fight that broke Siobhan and Edward up.