Elin Hilderbrand - The Surfing Lesson

But now that Margot’s reservoir of romantic feelings for Drum had run dry-and when she said dry, she meant DRY-she found herself excited, happy even, to have an unexpected encounter with Hadley Axelram. This might be just what Margot needed. Hadley Axelram’s presence at the Juice Bar might be seen as a miracle, a last lifeline. Jealousy as defibrillator.

From her spot a chess move away, Margot listened to Hadley Axelram order. Double scoop of butter pecan in a waffle cup with caramel sauce and crushed Heath bars for the older son, a kiddie cup of cookie dough for the younger son, and… pistachio in a waffle cone for Hadley.

Margot almost couldn’t believe it. But then she recalled that in the periods of their dating-not only the summer of 1999 on Nantucket, but also part of the summer of 2001 on Nantucket and briefly in the winter of 2002 in Aspen-Hadley had exerted enormous influence over Drum. She was the reason he got the tattoo of the god Ganesh on his hip, she was the reason he listened to Better Than Ezra, and apparently she was also the reason he always ordered pistachio ice cream. For all Margot knew, Drum and Hadley had come to the Juice Bar together times too numerous to count and had ordered pistachio ice cream together.

Margot wanted to care. She yearned to care.

Once Hadley had received her cones and cup, Margot beamed in her direction, her smile as bright as a searchlight.

Hadley turned, saw Margot and Drum, and her expression appeared to be one of genuine delight. Not to see Margot, of course, but to see Drum.

“Hey!” Hadley said. She had her hands full with her ice cream and the child’s ice cream and the child, and she had to twist and maneuver through the crowd toward Margot and Drum, which was not a path anyone else waiting in line wanted to clear for her.

Margot heard Drum mutter. “Oh, Jesus.”

Normally, it was Margot who would have said this. Years before they had bumped into Hadley at the art gallery, they had seen her at the Matterhorn, in Stowe, Vermont. She had been wearing a white cashmere sweater and jeans and long feather earrings. She had been drinking a beer at the bar, surrounded by men ten years her junior. Margot had spotted her first and said, “Oh, shit.” She and Drum had had both boys in tow, Carson was pitching a fit after having spent all day in the Kinderhut, and all Margot had wanted was a glass of wine. She was the one who had insisted they stop at the Matterhorn, but once Drum saw Hadley, Margot’s dream of a fun, relaxing après ski was ruined. Hadley had shrieked with joy upon seeing Drum, causing her other suitors to scatter. Margot had been left to deal with her recalcitrant and exhausted children while Hadley and Drum “caught up,” Drum with that insipid look on his face. Margot had been bitterly jealous then, her stomach roiling with concealed rage.

She wanted rage now. She wanted to feel something .

“Hey, Hadley!” Margot said. She bent in and kissed the woman’s tanned cheek. Soft as suede.

“Hey, guys!” Hadley said. “Hey, Drum!”

“Hey,” Drum said. He gave her half a wave.

Suddenly, it was their turn to order. No time for a reunion. Margot said to Hadley, “Why don’t you wait for us outside? We’d love to catch up!”

Hadley said, “Yes, of course!”

She scooted past Margot and Drum and the kids and Margot caught the scent of Hadley’s intoxicating perfume, a scent that had nearly caused her to vomit at the Matterhorn, and again at the art gallery. Did Drum smell it? She looked at him. His mouth was a grim line.

“What’s wrong?” Margot said.

Drum didn’t answer her. He was placing their order with the adorable fifteen-year-old server, who wore her hair in two Alpine braids like Heidi. When he was done, he said, “I don’t feel like dealing with Hadley Axelram tonight.”

“We aren’t ‘dealing’ with her,” Margot said. “We’re just going to say hello.”

“It always ends in disaster,” Drum said. He looked at her. He had gotten some nice sun on his face the past three days, and his eyes seemed very blue; he was getting the golden streak back in his hair that Margot had so loved when she first met him. He was such a great-looking guy. He was kind and sweet and a fabulous father and a doting husband. He was the best surfer she had ever seen, and maybe an even better skier. But she didn’t love him; that knowledge pierced her like a Chinese star in her gut. “You have to admit, it always ends in disaster when we see her.”

“Well, guess what?” Margot said. “It won’t tonight. I promise.”

Margot met Drum in the summer of 2001, eight days after his second breakup with Hadley. Hadley and Colin O’Mara had been “taking a break” that summer, and one late night at the Chicken Box, Hadley and Drum found themselves on the dance floor, stuck together like magnets. But by the end of July, Hadley had become frustrated with Drum, saying he didn’t make enough time for her, and she returned to Colin. Margot had been on Nantucket for just one week-the first week of August-whereas in the previous twenty-five-odd years of her life she had spent the entire summer on the island, at her family’s home on Orange Street. But that summer Margot had an internship at the executive search firm of Miller, Sawtooth, and a week was all she could finagle. She was lucky to get a week.

Margot had been lying on her towel at Cisco Beach, intent on finally getting some sun on her office-worker-white body, and she had whiled away the hot hours by watching Drum surf. Margot’s brother Nick said he knew Drum casually from “around,”-which meant, Margot assumed, that Nick and Drum drank at the same bars and hit on the same women-and Nick introduced them when Drum came in off the water. Margot had been surprised at how tall and solid Drum was up close; on his board, he crouched and bent and twisted like a jockey riding a temperamental horse. Up close, Margot could see his eyes were silvery blue, the color of water, and he had sunbleached streaks in his hair. He was as handsome as Apollo the sun god, but Margot refused to let herself worship. She was twenty-five years old, halfway through her MBA at Columbia. She was a serious person, beyond gushing over a surfer.

Who wanted to be treated to their love story? Drum had asked Margot out pretty much on the spot. “Do you have plans tonight?” And because Margot did not have plans and because the other girls on the beach were looking at Drum covetously, Margot said no. She had always had a competitive streak.

Margot and Drum had gone out every remaining night of her vacation-drives up the beach in his Jeep to see the sunset, dinner at the Blue Bistro and the Galley and Le Languedoc (where Drum always paid with a wad of tens and fives, his tips from bartending). They went to one movie ( Ocean’s Eleven ) and had lots of very exciting sex in the down-at-the-heels cottage Drum rented on Hooper Farm Road. When Margot left at the end of the week, Drum had taken her number and her address in the city, and she thought, I will never see this guy again.

A part of her had also thought-admit it!- I won’t go back to New York. I’ll quit my internship. I’ll stay here the rest of the month and watch Drum surf. She had taken this a step further, thinking, I won’t go back to business school. I’ll go to Aspen with Drum. I’ll get a ski pass. I’ll work as a barista.

But she had gone back to New York. Drum had stopped to see her on his way to Aspen. He had showed up wearing jeans and a wrinkled white linen shirt and flip-flops; when they made love, Margot noted he still had sand in the crevices of his ears. But during that twenty-four-hour visit, Margot learned other things about him: Drum’s father was an executive with Sony, and Drum had grown up jetting back and forth between New York and Tokyo. He had attended the American International School in Japan until tenth grade, and then he finished high school at Dalton. He could negotiate the subway better than Margot could. He took her to a sushi place in the East Village where the chef came out from the back and conversed with Drum in Japanese. Margot was stunned. Drum had instantly become a different person; he had become a wonder. But no sooner did Margot have this revelation than he was gone to the mountains.