Winter Storms (19 page)

Jennifer rummages through the fridge and cabinets; she has eggs, a pound of bacon, half a gallon of milk. They could always have breakfast for dinner.

Then the power goes out.

There is a shout from Patrick—his computer!

There is a blended shout from the boys—the TV! Their game!

Jennifer goes to the big picture window in the living room. She stands next to their now-dark Christmas tree, looking across Boston Common. The common is dark; every house up and down Beacon Street is dark. The cars on Park Street and Tremont honk in unified panic. Have the traffic lights gone out? Does that ever happen? All Jennifer can see is snow and more snow.

Her phone pings. She jumps, then checks the display. It's Norah.

No,
Jennifer thinks.

The text says:
Are you coming to Nantucket for Christmas?

Paddy's voice out of the darkness makes Jennifer jump again. Instinctively, she tucks her phone in her pocket.

“Do we have candles?” he asks.

 

T
hey should have eloped. They could have left Genevieve with Kelley and Mitzi, flown to St. Barts for four or five days, and come home a married couple.

Genevieve is teething; whenever Kevin or Isabelle puts her down, she starts to cry.

Isabelle has spent at least fifteen minutes every hour for the past ten hours on the phone with one or the other of her parents. They are stuck in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia! The good news is that they have befriended a couple from Montreal who speak French; the bad news is that Logan is closed for the foreseeable future, and even if Logan were open, Nantucket is unreachable—no boats, no planes, coming or going.

They should have eloped.

Kelley and Mitzi are, predictably, worried about Bart. Bart is in Iceland, getting drunk and wooing women with his uniform and his war wounds. Kevin doesn't have the luxury of worrying about Bart right now. He has two females crying in his house; both of them want their parents.

Kevin picks up Genevieve and rubs her back. He takes the teething ring out of the freezer; this works for thirty seconds as Genevieve mad-gnaws on the thing like a dog with a bone, which is just long enough for Kevin to pour three fingers of Jameson into a highball glass, dip a clean washcloth into the whiskey, then rub the cloth on Genevieve's gums. Jameson was what worked when Paddy and Kevin were teething, Kelley has confided. This explains some things.

“Kevin,
mon dieu!
” Isabelle says. She snatches the whiskey washcloth out of his hands.

Caught,
Kevin thinks.

Genevieve starts to cry.

Before Isabelle can admonish him, her phone rings. It's her father. They will be in Nova Scotia overnight, he says. Sleeping in the terminal. Logan will not open until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Isabelle takes the phone into the bedroom and shuts the door.

Kevin is tempted to give the whiskey another try, but instead, he brings Genevieve into the living room and turns on the TV. His mother is broadcasting and immediately Genevieve quiets down. She points at the screen.

“That's right,” Kevin says. “It's Mimi.”

Margaret has been joined this evening by some kid who looks like he's stepped off the pages of
GQ
. It's the meteorologist Dougie, and he is delivering the bad news. The blizzard will reach its maximum force tonight or tomorrow morning. Hardest hit will be New York City, Long Island, coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.

Ha!
Kevin thinks. He feels a childish joy any time Nantucket is mentioned on TV. It's absurd.

“These areas can expect eighteen to twenty-four inches of snow,” Dougie says. The kid looks positively aglow. Margaret, although lovely in an ivory wrap dress, looks exactly like a woman who is about to sit for ten hours—
minimum
—in atrocious traffic inching northward in a car piloted by an inexperienced driver.

During the final seconds of the broadcast, when newspeople usually smile inanely at the camera, the meteorologist Dougie bursts into song: “White Christmas.” He does sound a little like Bing Crosby. Kevin snaps off the set, and Genevieve starts to cry.

They should have eloped.

 

H
e's no stranger to New England winters and he's been coming to Nantucket at Christmastime for nearly fifteen years, so he's learned a few things. He and Mary Rose stay ahead of the storm. They drive George's 1931 Model A fire engine onto the steamship at 2:45 on Wednesday, and the man who helps them park it on the boat says to George, “You're smart. This is the last boat that'll go for days.”

“You think?” George says.

“I know,” the man says, looking up at the sky, which does indeed look white and heavy, like a feather pillow about to burst.

George and Mary Rose check into their room at the Castle. The hotel is cheerfully decorated for the holidays. Johnny
Mathis sings “Sleigh Ride.” The front-desk clerk,
Livingston—George remembers him from last year—says he has a suite available and Livingston can offer it to George at the same rate as the room he booked because George is a return guest. “Wonderful!” George says, and he lets out a robust “Ho-ho-ho!” turning every head in the lobby.

“Shall we call Kelley and Mitzi and tell them we got here early?” Mary Rose asks. “Maybe they can meet us at Lola for sushi tonight.”

“I want you all to myself tonight,” George says. “Room service and Christmas movies.”

“It's a Wonderful Life!”
Mary Rose says.

That it is
, George thinks. His hats were featured in the shopping guide of the holiday issue of
Vogue
and the spike in business was exactly what George needed in order to buy Mary Rose a two-carat diamond engagement ring.

He has the room-service waiter place the velvet box under a silver dome so when Mary Rose lifts it off, expecting calamari, she sees the box instead.

She shrieks. She trembles. She opens the box and sees the ring, and tears stand on her long lovely lashes.

Because of his new exercise regime, George is able to bend down on one knee. “Will you marry me?” George asks. “Will you be my Mrs. Claus?” He can't believe the difference a year makes, never mind two years. Two years ago, Kelley had caught George and Mitzi kissing in room 10, and George's world had gone into a tailspin. Then, last year, he had broken up with Mitzi and met Mary Rose. He's a little old to believe in meant-to-be but he's old enough to know that he wants to live out his days with this delightful, curvaceous redheaded creature right here. She makes him so, so happy.

Mary Rose throws her arms around George. “Yes!” she says.

 

S
he told Potter she would pick him and Gibby up at the ferry on Wednesday evening, but Potter calls to say a guy he met on the boat has offered him and Gibby a ride to the inn so Ava should just sit tight. It has started to snow; the boat they just disembarked from wouldn't be going back to Hyannis, Potter reports.

Uh-oh,
Ava thinks. Paddy and Jennifer, the boys, Isabelle's parents, Margaret and Drake, and Bart. All of them are on the wrong side of this news.

Ava can't worry about everyone else; they'll get here when they get here. She is excited to see Potter. She is still in the stage of major butterflies and although she knows she should go into her bedroom and read or play carols on the piano until Potter arrives, she stands out on the front porch, waiting. The front of the house looks
so
pretty with the tree twinkling through the window and the sled with its bundles and all of the wreaths and candles.

Joy,
Ava thinks. As she waits for her new beau to arrive, she feels pure, unadulterated joy.

A familiar truck pulls up in front of the inn and Ava blinks.

What?

It's Nathaniel's truck. She recognizes the sticker from the Bar in the back window and the dent above the wheel. What is
Nathaniel
doing here? Ava's mind is racing. She receives a text or two from him each week; Ava has told him that she's moving to New York City in June to start a new job, but she hasn't told him what or where the job is, and she hasn't told him about Potter. She needs to get him out of here before Potter arrives, which is sure to be any second.

Nathaniel turns off the ignition.
No!
Ava thinks.
Not okay!
Nathaniel is going to want to catch up. He must be on Nantucket for Christmas? Ava had been sure he would go back to New Canaan for Christmas to see his parents, his sister and her kids, and his pathetic old girlfriend Kirsten Cabot. He has said nothing about returning to the island, and although he still has a cottage here, it seems unfair that he would show up without warning.

Then a horrifying thought enters Ava's mind: Nathaniel and Kevin are friends; is Nathaniel on Nantucket so he can come to the wedding and attend the reception at the inn on Christmas Eve?

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!

“Hey!” Nathaniel calls out with a wave. He goes to the back door of his truck and opens it. He extends a hand, and an elderly gentleman steps out.

Ava's eyes narrow. She has seen this gentleman before. It's…
Gibby
. She realizes this just as she sees Potter get out of the passenger side.

Oh no.

Potter grins and waves like… well, like a little kid at Christmas. Ava wants to return the enthusiasm but she's too addled by Nathaniel.
Nathaniel
was the guy who offered Potter and Gibby a ride to the inn. Naturally. Because Ava is the object of some curse where her love life will forever be an obstacle course.

She hurries down the steps to help Gibby.

“Hello, Gibby!” she says loudly, not because Gibby is hard of hearing but because she wants Nathaniel to realize these are not random guests of the inn. “Welcome to Nantucket!”

“Hello, my dear. Thank you for having me.”

“Our pleasure!” she says. She holds Gibby's arm as he ascends the stairs. She visualizes Potter following behind with their luggage and Nathaniel disappearing with a wave and a “Merry Christmas!”

But when Ava and Gibby reach the safety of the porch and Ava turns around, she sees that both Potter and Nathaniel are heading up the stairs.

Whom to greet first?

There is only one answer to that question. Ava throws her arms around Potter's neck and kisses him so that there can be no misunderstanding the nature of their relationship. When Potter releases Ava, she turns to Nathaniel. He seems unfazed.

“Hey, stranger,” he says and he hugs Ava. Tightly.

“Hey, stranger, yourself,” she says. “I didn't know you were coming.”

“It's a surprise,” Nathaniel says.

Yes, it certainly is.

“I thought I might have Scott to contend with,” Nathaniel says. “But I see my competition this year is taller. And better-looking.”

“Competition?” Potter says. Then he seems to get it. “Oh, are you one of Ava's ex-boyfriends?”

“Her ex-fiancé, actually,” Nathaniel says.

There is a beat of silence, during which Ava wants to vaporize. Then she says, “Gibby, you must be freezing. Let's get you inside.”

“I'm freezing too,” Nathaniel says. “I wonder if Mitzi has made any of her world-famous mulled cider?”

Has Mitzi made any of her Cider of a Thousand Cloves? Why, yes, she has! Mitzi is
thrilled
to see everyone—because what is Christmas without visitors? She hasn't gone so far as to wear her Mrs. Claus dress (Ava thinks she has permanently retired it), but she is wearing a Christmas sweater with a reindeer appliquéd on the front.

“Look who's here!” Mitzi cries out. “It's Potter! And you must be Gibby!” Mitzi gives Gibby a hug. Over Gibby's shoulder, she catches sight of Nathaniel. “Oh, and look… Nathaniel!”

“Hey, Mitzi,” Nathaniel says. “I was happy to hear Bart is safe. I prayed for him every day.”

“Well, your prayers worked!” Mitzi says. She beams at Nathaniel as if it were in fact his particular prayers that kept Bart alive. Ava rolls her eyes. In the tug-of-war between Nathaniel and Scott, Mitzi was staunchly for Team Nathaniel. When Nathaniel first entered their lives, it was as the carpenter who was building Mitzi's pantry doors, which are still the pride of the kitchen.

“We hear there's cider,” Potter says. He's grinning and Ava loves that he isn't letting Nathaniel's presence ruin his evening. He got completely hoodwinked, accepting a ride from Ava's ex-boyfriend—ex-
fiancé,
actually, although they were engaged for all of thirty minutes—and yet he couldn't look happier.

“There's also beer,” Ava says quickly. Worse than subjecting Potter to Nathaniel might be subjecting him to Mitzi's cider.