Winter Storms (6 page)

“But that was our song,” Kelley says.

“It wasn't our song,” Margaret says. “Our song was ‘Thunder Road.' ‘The Wedding Song' was only a song we considered for the ceremony. Don't be sensitive.”

Is Kelley being sensitive? Probably. What does it matter if Margaret is recycling their first choice of song? This wedding requires adult behavior from everyone.

After all, Kelley will be giving Margaret away.

 

Q
uinns' on the Beach is a gangbuster success, a beyond-his-wildest-dreams moneymaking machine. Kevin
hasn't slept since Memorial Day, but by the end of Fourth of July weekend, he is able to pay Kelley and Margaret back the money they lent him to get the business up and running. From the time the shack opens, at eleven o'clock in the morning, until it closes, at five, there is a line all the way through the parking lot to the road. Quinns' on the Beach is written up in
N Magazine,
the blog
Mahon About Town,
and the
Inquirer and Mirror
. People are crazy about the striped-bass BLT made with Bartlett's Farm tomatoes, gem lettuce, and lemon-herb mayonnaise and presented on a soft pumpernickel roll. On an average day, he sells two hundred sandwiches at fifteen bucks apiece.

If Kevin weren't so bone-tired, he would be ecstatically happy. Finally, finally,
finally,
at the age of thirty-eight he has done it: found his calling. He is no longer slinging drinks at the Bar. He is no longer working for his father. By the end of the season—he'll stay open seven days a week through Labor Day, then on weekends only until Columbus Day—he reckons he'll have enough money that he, Isabelle, and Genevieve can find their own place to live.

There are many things Kevin loves about Quinns' other than the money. For example, he loves working with Ava. He figures that could have gone either way, but the two of them have turned out to be an outstanding team. Ava is brilliant at taking orders and manning the register. He loves to hear her banter with the kids, especially her students from the elementary school. She also excels at the upsell—lobster tacos instead of beef tacos, frappes instead of sodas. And she has phenomenal taste in music. For the shack, she made a variety of playlists. There's the Tropical playlist (Buffett, Bob Marley, Michael Franti), the Classic Rock playlist (Stones, Clapton, Zeppelin), and the Acoustic playlist (Coldplay, James Taylor, some long-lost Springsteen tracks).

Kevin sees every person he has ever known, and he meets new people every day. During the week, it's mostly moms and kids, teenagers, and college students, but on the weekends, the fathers show up.

“I really wish you sold beer,” they all say.

“Me too,” Kevin says. “Next year.” As soon as the place closes for the season, he'll figure out whose ass he has to kiss to get a liquor license.

Isabelle brings Genevieve every day at four thirty, and Ava takes the baby while Isabelle finishes with the customers and tallies the day's receipts. Isabelle isn't as good with people as Ava is but it's important for Isabelle to get the exposure and practice her English.

One day, Haven Silva comes through the line with her son, Daniel. Kevin flashes back to their conversation that spring about Norah selling pills to Jennifer and he hopes and prays she doesn't bring it up. If she were to mention it to Ava, Ava would have a cow. She would call Patrick and Jennifer as soon as she got home and demand answers. That's because Ava likes to deal with problems head-on, whereas Kevin prefers to bury them in his mind at the bottom of the pile known as Quinn Family Dirty Laundry.

Haven orders lobster tacos, a kid's bacon burger, and two frappes. She grins at Kevin and gives him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “I'm happy for you!”

Phew
,
he thinks.

But then, sometime during the insanity that is the second week of August—when all the residents of the Eastern Seaboard have crammed themselves onto Nantucket—the inevitable happens: Norah Vale comes through the line. Ava has run to the ladies' room, so Kevin is a sitting duck.

“Hey, Kev,” Norah says.

The line behind Norah is two thousand people long. Kevin doesn't have time for any kind of scene or breakdown. If it were legal, he would have a sign on the front of the building reading
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
(except Norah Vale).

“What can I get you?” he asks.

Norah scans the menu behind his head but it feels to Kevin like she's trying to read his mind.

“You got your own place,” she says. “Proud of you.”

“Thanks,” he says. “What can I get you?”

“I'll have the fish BLT,” she says. “Extra mayo. Side of coleslaw. And a coffee frappe. Please.”

Kevin scribbles the order down. Where is Ava? He's so flustered by Norah's presence that he can barely do the math. It's only two fifteen, which is right in the middle of Genevieve's nap time, so there's no chance Isabelle will show up and see Kevin talking to Norah. But still.

“How's your family?” Norah asks.

“That'll be twenty-one dollars and sixty cents,” Kevin says.

Norah pulls out her wallet and makes a show of flipping through a wad of cash. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars, it seems. So the drug-dealing part is probably true.

“Hey, Kev, I'll take over here.” Ava is back, thank God! She squeezes his arm. “Hello, Norah.”

“Ava,” Norah says. “I was just asking after your family. Everyone good?”

“Good,” Ava confirms. She takes twenty-five dollars from Norah and gives her change, which Norah stuffs into the tip jar.

“That'll be eight to ten minutes,” Ava says.

“How's Jennifer?” Norah asks.

Kevin freezes.

“Jennifer?” Ava says.

“Norah,” Kevin says. “Come on, we're busy.”

Norah shrugs. “I was just wondering,” she says.

 

N
athaniel has been away on Block Island since July 5, and quite frankly, Ava is too busy with her new job at Quinns' on the Beach to miss him too much. And she certainly doesn't wish she'd gone with him. Block Island is one-tenth the size of Nantucket; it wouldn't have provided Ava with the stimulation she requires. If things with her family ever settle down to where Ava feels like she can leave Nantucket, she will go someplace bigger, not smaller. She was right to
let Nathaniel go. She had had the world's shortest
engagement.

When Scott got back from Tuscany, he called Ava almost immediately. “When can I see you?”

Apparently, a week in Tuscany with Roxanne hadn't been as romantic as Ava had feared.

“I was sick of her before the plane landed in Florence,” Scott said. “It was a very long week. I missed you like crazy. Did you miss me?”

“Nathaniel proposed to me on the
Endeavor,
” Ava said.

Silence from Scott, which Ava savored.

“What did you say?” Scott asked.

“I said yes,” Ava said.

Silence from Scott. The silence was delicious—like
vanilla ice cream with hot caramel sauce, like the feel of silk sheets on her skin, like the first ocean swim of the year.

“So you're getting married?” Scott said. “Really?”

“No,” Ava said. “He asked me to move to Block Island with him because he accepted a long-term job there. I said no. We broke up.”

“Wow,” Scott said. “For a second there, I thought I'd lost you forever.”

Is Ava any closer to solving her quandary? Yes, much. She and Scott see each other nearly every night, although Ava is aware that when Scott isn't with her, he's with Roxanne. Roxanne is fragile, Scott says. And especially lately. He can't break it off completely; he's afraid of what she'll do.

Ava rolls her eyes.

She has created her finest playlist yet: a new 1980s
mix—“Modern Love,” by Bowie, “Tainted Love,” “Life in a Northern Town.” She and Kevin dance and sing into imaginary microphones as they feed the masses. Men at Work, Wham!, Loverboy. It's a good day, a very good day.

It's made even better when Ava sees Shelby in line with her baby, Xavier, strapped to her chest in a BabyBjörn. Shelby gives Ava wide eyes and she mouths something, but Ava is bopping around to Cyndi Lauper and can't make out what Shelby is saying. When it's her turn to order, Shelby says, “I have to talk to you.”

“After work?”

“No,” Shelby says. “Right now. This instant.”

There is an expression of extreme urgency on her best friend's face.

Bart?
she thinks. Her stomach drops. But would Shelby be the one to deliver news about Bart? No.

“It can't wait?” Ava asks.

“It can't wait,” Shelby says. “I'm not even hungry. I just stood in this line so I could talk to you. I've texted you ten times already.”

“Okay, meet me out back,” Ava says. She grabs Kevin. “Watch the register for a minute?”

“Wha—” he says.

“Please,” Ava says.

Out behind the shack, Shelby reaches out to hold both of Ava's hands. Xavier is fast asleep against her chest; his tiny lips make a sucking motion.

“Roxanne Oliveria…” Shelby says.

“Roxanne?” Ava says. “Did something happen?”

“She's pregnant,” Shelby says.

That night, Ava is supposed to meet Scott at the Boarding House. They have plans to eat at the bar and then go to the Chicken Box to see Scott's favorite band, Maxxtone. An hour before they're supposed to meet, Scott calls.

He says, “I have to cancel.”

Ava has been thinking about how to handle this. She has decided to play dumb and let Scott lead the way. She says, “Really? How come?”

“Ava?” Scott exhales a long breath. “I'm going to be a father.”

I'm going to be a father
. This statement tells Ava everything she needs to know. It doesn't matter that Scott is in love with Ava; it doesn't matter that he was planning on breaking up with Roxanne. Scott has a set of values made from solid gold. He always does the upstanding, honorable thing. Plus, he has always wanted a child, three children, ten children. He's going to marry Roxanne and he is going to be a father. Ava can't stand in his way.

“I'm sorry, Ava,” he says. They have to stop, cold turkey, he says. He can't see her one-on-one ever again.

Devastation. Heartbreak. Loneliness.

Ava calls Shelby and cries over the phone. She tells Kevin the news and he gives her the next day off work. She drives out to the beach at Ram Pasture with a bottle of wine and
a bag of peanut butter–filled pretzels. The beach is deserted—
it's the best-kept secret on the island—and this gives Ava the freedom to scream at the ocean and throw her pretzels to the seagulls. Roxanne is pregnant. Scott is going to marry her. Nathaniel is in Block Island, by now probably dating somebody else, some lucky Block Island girl that he met at the Oar, the bar that's apparently the place everybody goes. Nathaniel has asked Ava to come visit, but she has declined. Until yesterday, she had been happy with Scott. She had chosen Scott, and Scott had chosen her.

That's over now.

Scott will marry Roxanne, a woman he couldn't tolerate for seven days even in the picturesque countryside of Italy,
a woman who wears high-heeled, fur-lined boots and requests
“Brown-Eyed Girl” everywhere there's music playing. Ava pours herself a plastic cup of wine even though it's only three o'clock in the afternoon. She used to have two boyfriends; now she has none. It serves her right. She toasts that old bitch Karma and drinks. There is today's pain, which is bad, but she understands that today's pain will pale in comparison to the pain she will feel when she bumps into Roxanne at the grocery store and is confronted with Roxanne's burgeoning belly or when she sees the birth announcement in the
Inquirer and Mirror
or when, years from now, she sees Scott and his son or daughter having an ice cream at the soda counter of Nantucket Pharmacy.

There are emotional landmines everywhere, but there are also pragmatic landmines. It's three days before Margaret and Drake's wedding, and now Ava doesn't have a date. All of the wedding-guest numbers include Scott; without him, the event will be lopsided, off balance, or so Ava convinces herself. She is so desperate that she considers asking Scott if he will break his cold-turkey rule and escort her to the wedding and reception out of mercy; he can tell Roxanne he was grandfathered in. Next, she considers calling Nathaniel and begging him to come from Block Island, but she immediately realizes this is unfair, bordering on cruel. She could always suck it up and go alone.

When she walks out of Flowers on Chestnut carrying the box that holds her mother's bridal bouquet as well as the bouquet that she, Ava, will be carrying as maid of honor, she hears someone call her name.