The Island (53 page)
Then she saw it. A postcard, resting on the top of the pile of mail. A postcard of Central Park in autumn, the trees ablaze with color. In white script across the top, it said,
New York City.
New York City?
Chess thought. Who would send her a postcard of New York City when she lived in New York City? She felt a buzzing along her hairline, and her head snapped up. Central Park. She flipped the card over.
It said:
Okay, baby, okay.
Chess’s heart fell to her feet, like a stone she could pick up and throw.
Nick.
She stood up and walked into her kitchen. Her fridge was nearly empty—she ate breakfast from a street vendor and her other meals at the restaurant—but she had been saving the bottle of Veuve Clicquot that Tate had given her on Tuckernuck for an extraordinary occasion.
She pulled it out. It was shockingly cold.
Okay, baby, okay.
She popped the cork.
There are two challenges in writing about Tuckernuck Island. One is that it is difficult to set a novel in a place where not much happens. (When I asked longtime Tuckernuck residents what they
do
on Tuckernuck, a popular response was, “Do? Why, we visit!”) The other challenge was gaining access to Tuckernuck, because the island is privately owned. So the first people I would like to thank are Mark Williams and Jeffrey Johnsen, who took me to Tuckernuck on one of the most beautiful days of the summer last July. I fell madly in love with the place, and that was largely due to my wonderful guides. Everyone who has ever stayed or lived on Tuckernuck has a story to tell about it, and I heard a lot of those stories, the most colorful of which came from my agent, Michael Carlisle, whose family owned land on Tuckernuck for something like centuries. The summer residents of Tuckernuck are private people, and my hope is that this book celebrates the place where they live rather than exploits it.
Moving from country to city, I would like to thank all of the amazing people I have met at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, or PAFA, most especially Gerry and Rosemary Barth (aka Mary Rose Garth), who introduced me to the world of PAFA, as well as board member Anne McCollum and president of the board of directors Don Caldwell and his wife, Linda Aversa (aka Spencer and Aversa Frost). Huge thanks to Stan Greidus, for giving me the lowdown on student life, and to the president of PAFA, David Brigham, who gave me a comprehensive tour and made me feel like part of the family.
In New York, I would like to thank my dynamic-duo agenting team of Michael Carlisle and David Forrer at Inkwell Management, as well as all of the brilliant and generous minds at Little, Brown/Hachette, including my editor, Reagan Arthur, Heather Fain, Michael Pietsch, David Young, and the wizard-guru of all things trade paperback, Terry Adams.
On Nantucket, I send a big hug and a kiss out to my Inner Circle—you know who you are—who have stood by me through a couple of roller-coaster years. Of special note this year are Wendy Hudson, rock-star independent bookseller and owner of Nantucket Bookworks (who gave me the Tuckernuck story of riding around the island on a bike with no brakes!), and Wendy Rouillard, author of the Barnaby children’s books, who has tirelessly talked publishing with me for more than a decade now. A loud and enthusiastic shout-out to Chuck and Margie Marino, simply because they are two of the finest people walking the earth and I love them to bits.
Thank you to my summer nanny, Stephanie McGrath, for smiling even after a hundred-and-one trips to the Delta Fields and forty-two trips to the Hub for bubble gum. A huge thank you to Anne and Whitney Gifford for use of their house on Barnabas Lane—no book would ever get written if it weren’t for Barnabas! And thank you, always, forever, in extremis, to Heather Feather, for her love, support, friendship, and positive life force.
On the home front, thank you to my husband, Chip Cunningham, the best Mr. Mom in all the world; to my spirited, creative, and very funny sons, Maxx and Dawson, who really know how to rock out (!); and to my singing, skipping daughter, Shelby, who fills our house with sunshine each and every day.
This book is for my mother. Not only does she allow me to move back home for a month each fall so I can revise in peace, but she taught me absolutely everything I know about unconditional love. Thanks, Mom.
E
LIN HILDERBRAND
lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her eight previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.
Essay by Elin Hilderbrand
I decided to set
The Island
on Tuckernuck because I wanted something different, something purer and simpler than Nantucket. Life on Tuckernuck is stripped of everything but the necessities. This allowed my characters to deal with each other without any static from the outside world. It also made the outside world seem foreign and exotic and remote, which was another element I was after. Clearly, all four of my characters needed time away, and they got it.
There is a sense of extreme privilege associated with Tuckernuck. The island is privately owned; to see it, you have to be invited. The families who live there have lived there forever, so there is very limited entrée. It’s
so
New England/Yankee to attach cachet to a place that has nothing—and I mean
nothing
—but peace, quiet, and natural beauty. It’s a reverse snobbism, or perhaps it’s the purest form of exclusivity. There are no big or grandiose houses on Tuckernuck, and there money can’t buy you anything (there are no shops or restaurants). The cars on Tuckernuck are all rough-and-tumble four-wheel-drive vehicles with whirligig propellers on their roofs to keep the seagulls away. The prestige in Tuckernuck is how long your family has summered there, also something money can’t buy. Things on Tuckernuck must always be done a certain way—the way they’ve always been done—otherwise they lose their meaning. It’s important, for example, that Barrett now works for Birdie’s family on Tuckernuck, just as his father did before him; and at the end, when newcomer Trey takes over, that the women are disappointed—it’s just not comme il faut.
So all these factors combine to create a summer getaway unlike any other. For the purposes of
The Island,
Tuckernuck is almost like a character and is a theme. It’s the place with the history and the family memories, the place that draws the women back and reunites them.
Tuckernuck Beach Picnic Menu
•
Buttermilk Herb Dip
•
Yellow Tomato Gazpacho
•
Grilled Cumin Shrimp
•
Sarah Leah Chase’s Corn Salad
•
Rum Cake with Fresh Berries
Recipes for Tuckernuck Beach Picnic
Author’s Note:
These recipes are my own, except for the corn salad, which is a recipe of Sarah Leah Chase, who is perhaps Nantucket’s most famous at-home gourmet and domestic doyenne. This picnic serves six to eight people.
Buttermilk Herb Dip
Serve with potato chips or crudités
—
celery sticks work especially well.
1½ cups sour cream
1¼ cups buttermilk
1 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate, covered, for at least 4 hours. The dip will keep, and the flavors will continue to blend, for up to 4 days.
Yellow Tomato Gazpacho
I make this soup in August, when the yellow tomatoes make their appearance at Bartlett’s Farm here on Nantucket. Sautéing the onion and garlic and adding fresh orange juice and cream make this gazpacho mellow and luxurious.
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
8 medium to large yellow tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 yellow or orange bell pepper, diced
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
Juice of 1 Valencia orange
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
½ cup heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Ripe avocado chunks or ½ cup toasted pine nuts, optional
Sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil until soft, approximately 6 minutes. Place the onion and garlic in a food processor, and add the tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, orange juice, and vinegar. Blend until nearly smooth, then add the heavy cream and salt and pepper to taste. Process until smooth.
Serve chilled or at room temperature. If you’d like, garnish with ripe avocado chunks or toasted pine nuts.
Grilled Cumin Shrimp
These shrimp can be made on a hibachi on the beach or made at home, then transported and served at room temperature.
2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined (21–25 shrimp per pound)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon chili powder
Zest and juice of 1 lime
Place the shrimp in a large shallow dish. Combine the rest of the ingredients and pour the mixture over the shrimp to coat well. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or up to 1 day. Thread the shrimp onto wooden skewers that have been soaked in water (or metal skewers) and grill over medium coals until the shrimp are opaque, about 4 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Sarah Leah Chase’s Corn Salad
Sarah Chase is the author of the
Nantucket Open-House Cookbook,
which can be found on the bookshelf of every true cook here on Nantucket.
8 ears of corn, preferably freshly picked
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
¼ cup pine nuts, toasted
3 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
3 tablespoons fresh chives, snipped
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Strip kernals from the corn cobs and place them in a large bowl. Add the next 6 ingredients, combining well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Allow the flavors to meld at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours.
Rum Cake with Fresh Berries
You’ll need a Bundt pan for this recipe. It is, absolutely, the most delicious rum cake ever, and the packaged ingredients make it a snap to prepare.
The cake:
1 Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Butter Recipe Golden cake mix
1 package French vanilla Jell-O pudding mix
4 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup water
¼ cup dark rum
The glaze:
¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
¼ cup water
¾ cup rum
The garnish:
Confectioners’ sugar
Fresh berries, washed and dried (I like a combination of blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.)
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease the Bundt pan.
Mix the cake ingredients in a large bowl until well blended. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the sugar and water, then bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, then pour in the rum, mixing well. Cool slightly.
