The Castaways (39 page)

“Amen,” Jennifer said, and they clinked glasses.

The band started up. Phoebe had asked for Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, all the oldies. She wanted a real old-fashioned feel to this party; she wanted it to evoke an era gone by, the country club parties that her grandparents used to attend. The cocktail of the evening was the savannah sidecar. The caterers were passing devils on horseback, pimento cheese toasts, clams casino, classic shrimp cocktail, mini lamb chops with mint jelly, and gougeres. People streamed in along a temporary walkway lined with luminarias. Phoebe and Jennifer stood at the entrance to the tent and greeted everybody. Phoebe talked with people she hadn’t seen in years. She had studied the guest list; the trick was pinning the right names to the right people. She was listening to herself and was impressed. She was charming; she was funny! She wanted the party never to end. She would find something else to chair, she decided. She would follow in her grandmother’s footsteps and be a philanthropist and hostess. It was her calling.

Suddenly Addison was upon her. She took stock: he was wearing khaki pants, white shirt, navy blazer, madras bow tie (Phoebe had insisted on the bow tie). He was wearing loafers with no socks. His hair, what there was of it, was combed. He smelled like aftershave and Jack Daniels. It was odd to see him this way—approaching her like any other party guest. It made him seem like a stranger. Phoebe remembered the spring she’d met Addison and how much she had adored him. He was balding, true, and he was divorced from a notorious socialite and had a baby daughter. He was not quite what she had imagined for herself (she had imagined someone like Reed). But Addison was rich and he was charismatic, he was seasoned, he had lived in other countries and done interesting things. He understood the way the world worked and he wanted to show Phoebe. She knew herself well enough to know that she needed someone older. This had ended up benefiting her. Addison had been strong enough for both of them. He was able to endure. That he had eventually fallen in love with Tess only showed that he was human after all. It also showed Phoebe how deeply she’d been buried. And despite Tess, Addison had not left her. She would thank him for that someday.

She wished she could greet Addison with the same enthusiasm and joie de vivre she greeted everyone else with, or she wished she could greet him with the kind of secret, quiet love that her grandmother always reserved for her grandfather (she had bloomed in his presence and wilted in his absence, even after sixty years of marriage). But what Phoebe felt when she saw Addison was concern, weariness, a dash of contempt, a dash of pride, a dash of hope.

How many drinks at home? she wondered.

He bent to kiss Jennifer first, out of courtesy, and then Phoebe. “Looks great,” he said, of the tent, she supposed.

The contempt popped up, like a bottle Phoebe had been trying to hold underwater. “How many drinks have you had?” she whispered.

He smiled at her fondly, but it was an act. He held up one finger and moved into the tent.

One, she thought. Which meant two. Or, more likely, three.

The Chief and Andrea arrived a little while later. To Phoebe’s delight, and her considerable surprise, they looked sensational. Normally when they went out on the town, they wore neutral colors. The Chief often wore a gray suit that he’d bought off the rack at Anderson-Little in 1989. Phoebe teased him mercilessly about that suit, but it didn’t matter—she loved Eddie, bad suit and all. Andrea normally wore boring beige, or black. Tonight, however, Andrea had on a red silk halter dress and red sandals, and Ed wore navy pants, a white shirt, and a blue-and-white seersucker jacket. The Kapenashes might have raided Phoebe and Addison’s own closets, they looked so dashing. Phoebe did a little dance, waving her arms in the air. The champagne was going to her head.

“You look gorgeous!” Phoebe said to Andrea.

Andrea smiled, but Phoebe sensed impatience. She had to tone it down, or she was going to scare them away like two beautiful, exotic birds. “You look gorgeous, too, Eddie. Thank you for coming.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it,” the Chief said.

“Where did you get the dress?” Phoebe asked Andrea.

“Hepburn.”

“You’re breathtaking.”

“Well,” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

“I’m honored you’re here,” Phoebe said.

Andrea nodded matter-of-factly, as though to say,
You should be.
The Chief, however, squeezed Phoebe’s arm and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “The tent looks great. I’m ready for a savannah sidecar. Where’s Addison?”

“In there somewhere,” Phoebe said, waving into the tent. “I have a really big surprise for later, okay? Try to stand near the front when I take the microphone.”

“A surprise?” the Chief said.

“Big one,” Phoebe said.

Andrea smiled again, but Phoebe could see the balloon over her head, and the words in the balloon said,
Whoop-dee-do.

At eight o’clock Phoebe and Jennifer left their posts by the door and wandered inside to enjoy the party themselves. The band was playing “In the Mood,” and the first guests had started dancing. Phoebe was offered a devil on horseback. What was it, exactly? A date stuffed with soft white cheese, wrapped in bacon, glazed with brown sugar and Worcestershire.

“Really?” Phoebe said. She had picked it off the catering menu because it had sounded old-fashioned. Phoebe ate it; it was delicious.

She was supposed to make her remarks at eight-thirty, but she didn’t want to speak until everyone had arrived, and Jeffrey and Delilah were still at large—which went to show how backward everything was this summer. Delilah was normally the first one to arrive anywhere, and the last one to leave. She loved “to gather,” whether it was a fancy event like this one or the kids’ holiday sing or a sandwich picnic out at Smith’s Point. Delilah thrived when she was being social, she loved good conversation, she sought gossip, she savored food and drink, she loved music; she always danced, dragging Jeffrey onto the floor against his wishes. She did not like to miss one single second of the action, and if she did, then she had to hear what she’d missed in excruciating detail so she felt like she’d been there.

But not this summer. This summer Delilah stayed home. There was no longer anything worth gossiping about. She ate Pop-Tarts and pizza and drank Diet Dr Pepper like a person who lived in a trailer park. Delilah reminded Phoebe of a doll she had had as a child. This doll—Annabel, her name was—had an off/on switch at the nape of her neck. When the doll was on, she giggled and cooed, she gulped her bottle and let out a healthy belch. When the doll was off, she lay there, blank and mute.

Delilah had been turned off.

At eight-thirty Jeffrey and Delilah still had not arrived. Phoebe, though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t, called the house. Answering machine. Were they on their way? She would wait five more minutes. Ten minutes passed, and Jennifer touched Phoebe’s back.

“You have to speak. People are getting ready to leave.”

“Leave? Already?”

“The early birds. You have to do it now, while you have your audience.”

But Phoebe didn’t have her audience. She needed Jeffrey and Delilah. She checked the entrance to the tent. They wouldn’t skip it, would they? They had bought tickets; Phoebe had spoken to Delilah yesterday morning. Phoebe had said, “I’ll see you tomorrow night?” And Delilah had responded affirmatively: “Tomorrow night.” Were they blowing it off? It would be an infraction from which the friendship would never recover. But Phoebe herself had committed so many infractions.

Just then she saw Jeffrey enter the tent. His face was very brown. It was farmer brown. He wore Nantucket Reds, a white shirt with navy stripes, a double-breasted navy blazer. Jeffrey always looked good. It was Cornell, Phoebe thought. Jeffrey always looked like he was attending an Ivy League garden party.

She hurried over to him. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “Where’s Delilah?”

He frowned. He had a prominent brow, which knit itself into an expression Phoebe couldn’t read. Exasperation? Fear?

“She didn’t come?” Phoebe said.

“She’ll be here,” he said. “She’s coming late.”

“May I have your attention, please?” Jennifer had taken the microphone from the bandleader and was standing in the middle of the dance floor, waiting for the crowd to quiet down. Someone tapped a glass with a spoon. There were overlapping shushing noises. Shhhhhhh. Phoebe turned, panicked. Wait! Delilah wasn’t here! She wasn’t here yet, she was coming late, but not before Phoebe had to speak. Phoebe scanned the crowd for Addison, Andrea, and the Chief—where were they? She couldn’t find them. When she had imagined this moment, she imagined the five of them lined up across the front. She imagined making her announcement and watching their faces pop open in private fireworks, happiness, surprise, joy. Maybe they would cry poignant, touching tears. Now this wouldn’t happen. Would it still be okay? Phoebe had planned this party so thoroughly, every detail, down to the selection of the hors d’oeuvres, the choice of songs, the color of the balloons. And yet she hadn’t been able to make things go the way she wanted them to.

“First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for coming. This is a very special night…”

Phoebe looked at Jeffrey. He lifted a cocktail off a passing tray and took a deep drink.

“There are so many people we’d like to thank. For the delicious food and wine, Mark and Eithne Yelle of the Nantucket Catering Company…”

Phoebe looked around. She saw a splash of red in the corner of the tent. Andrea? Was the Chief with her? Would they move forward when it was Phoebe’s turn to speak? And where was Addison? Phoebe now rued her decision not to tell him what she’d done, but she had wanted him to be surprised, just like everyone else.

“I’d like to thank Sperry Tents, and the Perri Rossi Orchestra…”

Applause.

“But the real force behind tonight’s festivities is our dedicated chairperson. This woman gave hours of her precious time, as well as donating her considerable talent, her keen eye for detail, and her unparalleled organizational skills…”

They had a rule in the group: no gifts. They’d had that rule from the beginning.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Phoebe Wheeler!”

Applause.

As Phoebe made her way to the front, the people standing around her cleared a path. She would be okay; she’d had only one glass of champagne, and she hadn’t succumbed to the lure of the valium. She would stay focused. Delilah wasn’t there, but Phoebe couldn’t worry about that now. Her heart was thudding, she had a case of the shakes. Deep breath! She took the microphone. It had been a long time since she had spoken in public, but she could do it. She had won a fifty-dollar savings bond in the Junior Miss pageant for poise and appearance. Poise! She had stood on her high school stage and announced Reed and Shelby Duncan as prom king and queen.

“Thank you,” Phoebe said. She gazed out over the crowd. Faces, collars, necklaces, cleavage, hands holding drinks, legs, shoes, hairspray, perfume, cigarette smoke, Jack Daniels. They were just people, they all had hearts and lungs and tear ducts just like she did. She saw Andrea and the Chief in the back corner with Addison. Jeffrey approached them. No Delilah, but Phoebe couldn’t let her mind wander. “As you know, one of the goals of Island Conservation is to create nature walks through our properties where such walks are appropriate, where families can best learn about the topography and the flora and fauna of the island without disturbing it. We have long wanted to create such a walk here on the savannah.” She paused. She did not look at Andrea or Addison; she looked up front, at Jennifer beaming, at Jennifer’s husband, Swede, at Hank who owned the sailboat and his glamorous French girlfriend, Legris. “In June, I lost two dear friends in a sailing accident. They were schoolteachers here on the island, who left behind seven-year-old twins.” The crowd quieted. The tent was silent; three hundred people held their breath. “And I decided I would like to honor my friends by underwriting the cost of the savannah nature walk and naming it after them. So in September, work will begin on a three-mile loop that will be known as the Tess and Greg MacAvoy Nature Walk.” Phoebe smiled. Had she said that correctly? She thought she had. There was thundering applause; someone whistled. Phoebe had an ending line:
I hope you and your families will treasure this walk in years to come.
But there wasn’t going to be a chance to add this. The orchestra launched into Dionne Warwick’s “Walk on By” (as Phoebe had requested), and Phoebe relinquished the microphone.

She stepped back into the crowd and Jennifer hugged her and handed her a fresh glass of champagne. “We are all so excited about this!” she said.

Phoebe felt like she was going to faint.

She said, “I have to find…” and she wandered away.

She meandered through the crowd, but these were her fifteen minutes of fame, she was the party’s It girl, people wanted to talk to her.

A woman with butterscotch-colored hair in a beauty parlor do grabbed her arm and said, “My God, Phoebe, you’re such an angel! Doing something like that in memory of your friends. And their children. Are the children still here? On island?”

“Yes,” Phoebe said. “They live with their aunt and uncle now.”

“God bless them,” the woman said. “And God bless you!”

“Thank you,” Phoebe said. She didn’t want any congratulations and she did not want to be thought generous. Naming the trail had cost her $225,000. But she and Addison had money just sitting in the bank accruing interest, and they had nothing meaningful to spend it on. Phoebe wanted to give Greg and Tess a piece of Nantucket; she wanted the twins to be able to walk the savannah trail and see the beauty of the island and feel like Tess and Greg were still alive. Or if nothing that mystical happened, fine, at least the twins would feel like their parents had been remembered and honored. Phoebe had come up with the idea in her sleep. She had been thinking of Reed and the scholarship at Whitefish Bay High School and how happy it made her father, Phil, to hand a graduating senior a check for six thousand dollars each spring.