The Love Season (28 page)

“You feel responsible,” Marguerite said. “Guilty.”

“God, yes,” Renata said.

Marguerite stood up to slide the asparagus into the oven. Guilt, responsibility—these were topics Marguerite knew intimately. She should be able to offer some words
—things just happen; we don’t have any control; we can’t blame ourselves for the fate that befalls others—
but Marguerite didn’t believe these words to be true. Guilt lived in this house with her; it was as constant as the clock.

“I understand the way you must be feeling,” Marguerite said. She cut two pieces of tart and set them down on the table.

Renata blinked her eyes; tears fell. Marguerite replenished their champagne and touched Renata’s hand.

“Is the girl all right?” Marguerite said. “She went to the hospital?”

“She went to the hospital here,” Renata said. “Then they flew her to Boston in a helicopter. I don’t know if she’s all right. I have no way of knowing.”

Marguerite sniffed the air, as if she
were
a witch, or an intuitive person, capable of divining things.

“She’s all right,” Marguerite said. “I can feel it.”

“Really?” Renata said.

For a second, Marguerite felt cruel. The conversation with Dan seemed like aeons ago, but she did recall his words:
You’re like Mata Hari to her, Margo. She’s going to listen to what you say
.

“Really,” Marguerite said. “But if it makes you feel better, we can call someone. We can call the hospital in Boston and ask.”

Renata searched Marguerite’s face. More tears threatened to fall and Marguerite panicked. She wasn’t prepared for any of this. But then Renata’s features settled and she picked up her fork. She gazed at the tart. “This looks delicious,” she said. She took a bite, then eyed the dark glass doors that led to Marguerite’s garden, as though she expected the bogeyman to appear.

She started talking again—about Cade demanding that Renata stay for dinner, about the Robinsons, their daughter, Claire, the ex-girlfriend no one had mentioned to Renata, about the shared semester at the London School of Economics.

“The semester before he met me,” Renata said. “And he never said a word.”

Marguerite forked a bite of tart. The pastry was flaky, the cheese creamy, and although she registered no flavor at all, she could tell the tart was a success. Renata devoured hers, then pressed the pastry crumbs into the back of her fork. Marguerite cut her another piece, a small piece, because there was more food to come.

“Oh, thank you, Aunt Daisy,” Renata said. “Thank you just for listening. It has been the weirdest day. Nothing was as I expected it to be.”

“Indeed not,” Marguerite said. She marveled at Renata’s story. And Marguerite thought
her
day had been extraordinary—because she left the house, visited old friends, stopped by her former place of business,
because she drove to the country side of the island and back, because she had telephone conversations, because she polished silver and drank tea, because she looked at old photographs, because she sacrificed her Alice Munro stories in favor of the old, useless stories of her own life, because she cooked a meal for the first time since Candace’s death. Ha! That was nothing.

“I’m glad you escaped,” Marguerite said, only a little ashamed at herself for lauding the girl for leaving a dinner party without any excuse, warning, or word of good-bye. Marguerite was being horribly selfish. “You’re safe here.”

“I haven’t told you the real reason I left,” Renata said.

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Marguerite said. The champagne had officially gone to her head. She had lost her wits, or was about to.
Water
, she thought. She fetched a tall glass of ice water for herself, and one for Renata, who simply stared at it. “What is the real reason you left?”

“My father is here.”

Marguerite hiccupped, then covered her mouth and closed the top of her kimono with her other hand. “Here where?”

“On Nantucket. He flew in tonight. When I snuck out, Cade was leaving to pick him up at the airport.”

Marguerite let her eyes flutter closed. She remembered Dan’s promise to show up if he thought that was what it would take to save his daughter.
But look, Dan
, Marguerite thought as she gazed at Renata—bruised from the surfboard, sunburned, her two ringless hands pushing her corn silk hair back from her forehead
—she saved herself
.

“Daddy will call,” Renata said. “Once he realizes I’m gone. He’ll come here.”

“Yes,” Marguerite said. How it panicked her, knowing she didn’t have much time, knowing she still had a story of her own to tell. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

8:11 P.M.

Claire Robinson was the first one to notice Renata’s absence. She figured Renata was upstairs in her bedroom, pouting like a child, because no one, it seemed, had told her that Cade and Claire had been a couple for seven years. Either that or she was hiding, afraid Claire would tell Cade about her frolic with Miles in the dunes. Claire chuckled; this was just too good. She had battled her parents about coming tonight—haw could they possibly ask her to share a meal with Cade and his new fiancée? But when Claire saw Renata, a bell sounded. It took her a while to be sure—but sure she now was—Renata was the same girl that everyone playing volleyball at Madequecham that afternoon had watched Miles lure into the dunes. Eric Montrose had pointed it out. “There goes Miles with another Betty. Young one this time.”

Claire tiptoed up the stairs, grinning with the stupid pleasure it gave her to be privy to this scandalous information.

To the left, Claire spied the dark doorway of Cade’s room, a room she knew intimately. How many nights had she sneaked up and slept with Cade, both of them naked and salt-encrusted from a late-night swim, arms and legs and hair entwined until one of them woke up to the sound of the early ferry’s horn or the cry of seagulls. Claire sighed. She had thought, for certain, that she and Cade would be married. Now she was headed to graduate school at Yale to study Emily Dickinson, and she
should be grateful she hadn’t married Cade Driscoll. Hell, if Miles had looked at
her
twice, she would have followed him into the dunes herself. She might even tell Renata this; they would conspire.
Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul
.

Claire tapped on the guest room door. Light spilled out from the bottom of the door, but Claire heard no noise. Maybe Renata had fallen asleep; Claire noticed the way she had been pounding back the drinks. Claire knocked again. Nothing. She cracked the door. “Renata?” Claire hated to admit how much she loved the name; it was a poetic name, both harmonic and sensual. It meant “reborn.”

Claire peeked into the room. It was empty. The bed was made, though a bit rumpled; there was a head-shaped indentation in the soft, white pillow. One of Suzanne Driscoll’s canvas beach bags lay on its side on the floor among a scattering of sand. Inside the bag, Claire found a damp beach towel and a piece of folded-up paper. Did she dare? She checked the bathroom, empty, and the deck, deserted. Renata must have slipped downstairs.

Carefully Claire smoothed out the paper. It was a list, written out in Suzanne’s hand. Wedding stuff. Claire sniffed. The list was silly—flowers, cake, party favors—and yet Claire felt a pang of…what? Regret? Jealousy? She reminded herself of her disastrous reunion with Cade in London: He admitted that he felt nothing for Claire anymore, nothing but a great fondness, a brotherly love. Claire was quick to agree.
Of course. I feel the same way
. This wasn’t true, but at least she’d escaped with her pride.

Claire laid the list on top of the dresser. As she did so, she gasped. Sitting there all by itself like someone’s forgotten child was Renata’s engagement ring. The stone was huge, square, in a Tiffany setting; the stone must have been close to three karats. Claire turned the ring in the light.
The diamond was clear, flawless. Claire’s hands were trembling. Did she dare? Why not? It was obvious at that moment, though perhaps only to Claire, that Renata was gone for good.

Claire slipped the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

The ride from the airport to Hulbert Avenue was a quarter hour of hell for Daniel Knox, forced as he was to listen to Cade, a kid with a shirt and a watch and a car more expensive than Daniel’s own, make a twenty-point case about why he should be allowed to marry Renata. Daniel said very little during this presentation, figuring silence was the best way to put Cade on edge. Daniel had given his “blessing” to Renata that morning, in a panic. Never in fourteen years of raising his daughter had he used reverse psychology, but for some reason the announcement of her engagement cried out for it. If Daniel said yes when she expected him to say no, it would frighten her. And it must have worked, because clearly Renata had said nothing to Cade about Daniel’s cheerful response. Despite the tedium of listening to Cade describe how he would care for Renata, Daniel felt triumphant. He knew his daughter better than these people.

It was very dark, and Nantucket, out of town, had few streetlights, but Dan peered through the window nonetheless. It was a singular experience, returning to the place where your life had once been. He had
lived
here—alone at first, running the Beach Club, then he lived here with Candace, and then with Candace and Renata. He knew the streets, cobblestone, paved, dirt, and sand; he knew the smells of bayberry and of low tide on a still, hot day; he knew the sounds of the ferry horns and the clanging bell at the end of the jetty. This had once been his home, but now he was very much the visitor.

Cade hit the turn signal and pulled into a white shell driveway. The
house loomed in front of them—it was huge, bedecked, terraced, landscaped, a castle of a place, and every light in the house was on; it was as bright as a Broadway stage. Dan couldn’t help thinking that this looked suspiciously like new construction; they had probably bought the lot and then torn down the fine old summer cottage that stood here in order to build this monstrosity.
VITAMIN SEA
, the quarterboard said.

“So I hope, Mr. Knox, that Renata and I have your blessing,” Cade said. “I know she’s young, but we wouldn’t be getting married until the spring.”

“Spring?” Daniel said, to show he was listening.

“Yes, sir. After school is out.”

Daniel Knox said nothing else, though he was dying to utilize his “one shouldn’t get married until one’s traveled on three continents” speech. He was cognizant of the fact that he had shown up without warning and would be relying on Cade’s family and their good graces for a place to sleep tonight. And dinner—Daniel wasn’t particularly hungry, but he’d gathered from something Cade said walking from the terminal to the parking lot that there was a dinner party in progress. Lobsters or some such, with family friends, and that was what had, miraculously, kept Renata from going to Marguerite.

A woman with red hair and the tight face of someone who’d had plastic surgery appeared in the door, waving a glass of wine.

“Welcome!” she called out. “Welcome, welcome!”

“My mother,” Cade whispered.

Uh-huh. Dan felt a familiar disappointment. Why was it that women his own age went to so much trouble to beautify that they ended up erasing any natural beauty they might have possessed in the first place? It was
one of the things that had kept Dan from dating again after Candace’s death: the way women tried so hard. Cade’s mother, for example. Clearly a pretty woman, if you could get past the fact that she was fifteen pounds underweight, had suffered a chemical peel, colored her hair, wore too much makeup and too much jewelry. Women like this made Daniel long for Candace, who had looked her most beautiful first thing in the morning when she woke up, or after she got home from a run—when she was sweaty, sticky, and the picture of all-natural glowing good health. Candace would never have done these things to herself. Her idea of glamour was a shower and a clean dress.

Daniel Knox ascended the stairs and shook hands with the woman, Cade’s mother. She planted a wet kiss on his cheek, which seemed awfully familiar, though she was probably under the impression they were soon to be family—and what, really, was more familiar than showing up unannounced?

“I’m Daniel,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Suzanne,” she said in an exaggerated way, as though she weren’t trying to tell him her name so much as sling it at him.
Sha-zaam!
“I’m so glad you could come.”

“I’m sorry it was last-minute,” Daniel said. He had no good reason to offer these people for why he’d shown up out of the blue, and he was counting on them being too polite to ask.

“Come in; come in,” Suzanne said. “Your timing is perfect. Nicole is just putting dinner on. And you must meet our dear friends the Robinsons. They’ve been so charmed by Renata that to meet you is just icing on the cake.”

“Icing,” Daniel repeated. He was ushered into the foyer, where there was a black-and-white parquet floor and a Robert Stark painting hanging on the wall—the lone sailboat with the flame red sail; every house on
Nantucket must have that painting. There was a curving staircase to the left; down the stairs came a pale milkmaid of a girl with messy dark hair. She smiled at Daniel.

“Hello!” she said.

“Claire, this is Daniel Knox, Renata’s father. Daniel, this is Claire Robinson, a dear friend of the family. Claire and Cade went to Choate together.”

“I see,” Daniel said. He extended a hand to the girl, then began to wonder after the whereabouts of his own daughter. It didn’t surprise him that she’d skipped the airport run; Cade had obviously seen that as an opportunity for a man-to-man chat. However, now that Daniel was in this enormous house with perfect strangers, he wanted to set eyes on his own flesh and blood. Renata was not going to be happy to see him; she would be decidedly unhappy, angry, mortified. That was the risk he had taken.

They moved into the living room, which was decorated in seventeen shades of white. Suzanne asked what he was drinking.