Elin Hilderbrand - The Surfing Lesson

There had been phone calls that winter, drunk, late-night phone calls, most often initiated by Margot, who would sometimes cry. Sometimes she called and Drum didn’t answer. He was asleep. Or he wasn’t home.

The following summer, Margot had a bona fide job offer from Miller, Sawtooth, but in a brilliant bit of negotiating, she didn’t start working until September 15. She would have all summer free to spend on Nantucket. She would have all summer with Drum.

By Labor Day weekend, she was pregnant.

Hadley was standing right outside the door when they exited. Her child’s face was smeared with ice cream and the older son grimaced at his mother and rolled his eyes. He looked so much like Colin O’Mara at that moment that Margot wanted to hug him.

There were repeat greetings. Margot kissed Hadley again, Drum kissed Hadley, the children were introduced.

Hadley said, “Wow, I can’t believe I bumped into you. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

This was obviously a statement directed at Drum. Hadley would never be thinking of Margot all day, or even for a second.

“We always come the last two weeks of August,” Margot said. “We like to save it for the very end.”

“I’ve been here all summer,” Hadley said. She set the child down, which caused him to whimper, but she ignored this. “I left Jan eighteen months ago. I was dating a private equity guy, and that has sort of ended as well, although he’s letting us use his house all summer. It’s on the water in Monomoy.”

Margot nodded. It wasn’t surprising that Hadley had left Jan Jaap, nor was it surprising that she had traded up from Starving Artist to Private Equity Guy. What set Margot’s mind reeling was that Private Equity Guy would allow Hadley and her children to stay in his waterfront house despite the fact that their relationship had “sort of ended.” This was the kind of thing that only happened to Hadley Axelram.

“Nice!” Margot said. She took quick stock of her children-all consumed with the business of eating ice cream. “So, you were thinking about Drum today?”

Drum made a noise of exasperation, which Margot ignored.

Hadley raised her big brown eyes to Drum. Here it was, Margot thought, the Kill. Drum had never been able to resist that look from Hadley. It turned him to vapor. He could deny it, but Margot knew better.

But not today. Today, Drum was staring at Hadley like she was a skunked beer, or an invoice for back taxes from the IRS.

“Curtis really wants to take surfing lessons,” Hadley said. She nudged her older son, Curtis, who was staring at his untied Osiris sneakers. “And I found myself wishing that you were around, because who better to learn from than Drummond Bain?”

“No,” Drum said.

And at the same time, Margot said, “Of course!”

There was a look of confusion from Hadley, then an awkward silence, which was broken when the little guy started to really wail and Hadley bent to pick him up.

“I don’t give surfing lessons,” Drum said.

“Sure you do!” Margot said. For the past three days, Drum Sr. had tried to coax Drum Jr. out to the waves. Drum Jr. had no interest in surfing. He would fool around in the water with his brother, and then when he tired of that, he would get his lacrosse stick and go in search of other kids to play catch with.

“I really don’t,” Drum said.

“All right,” Hadley said. “Okay.”

“You could, though,” Margot said. “You could give Curtis a surfing lesson. We don’t have anything going on the rest of the week. You could meet him anytime. You could meet him tomorrow morning.”

Drum hadn’t touched his pistachio ice cream. It was starting to drip. He smiled at Curtis. “There’s a guy who hangs out down at Cisco Beach named Elvis. He gives lessons.”

Hadley shook her head. “No,” she said. “That’s not going to work.”

“Oh,” Drum said. “Right.”

Margot looked between Hadley and Drum. She had never heard of anyone named Elvis, although he was clearly a holdover from their surfing days. Maybe he was one of the people in the group photos in Drum’s underwear drawer. Maybe Hadley had slept with Elvis. Margot would have to ask Drum later.

Curtis kicked a pebble and it ricocheted off the side of the building. “That’s okay,” he said. “My dad said he’d teach me when I go to Hawaii in February.”

Drum smiled at the kid. “Your dad is a great surfer.”

Hadley made a face. She said, “February is fine, but it’s six months away. I thought it would be nice if Curtis could learn the basics now. He’s ready.”

“I can wait,” Curtis said.

Drum coughed and stared at the melting ice cream in his hand as though he couldn’t figure out what it was doing there. To Margot he said, “We have nothing tomorrow morning?”

“My dad is taking the kids out for breakfast,” Margot said. “And I’m going running. But you are as free as a bird.”

“I’ll meet you at seven o’clock,” Drum said to Curtis. “At the antenna. You have a board, or I should bring one of mine for you?”

“I have a board,” Curtis said.

“Oh, thank you!” Hadley said. “This is so great!”

“Great!” Margot said.

When she told Drum about the pregnancy, Margot had been certain he would insist on terminating. Despite their luminous summer together, their lives were about to go in different directions. Drum was heading back to Aspen to ski, and then in late March he was flying to Sri Lanka to surf. Margot had her job waiting in the city. She was going to wear a suit every day and get an expense account. The managing partner of Miller, Sawtooth, Harry Fry, loved Margot. He saw something in her-a tenaciousness, a natural instinct-that made him believe she would succeed. His faith in her would be shattered if he knew she had allowed herself to become accidentally pregnant at the age of twenty-five. Go home, he would say. Spend your days drinking wine out of sippy cups with the other mommies at the Bleecker Street playground. Or hire a nanny and do charity work. Harry Fry would never have hired Margot if he’d known this was going to happen.

But instead of giving Margot the money for an abortion, Drum had taken Margot to dinner at the Blue Bistro, where the waiter served her a diamond ring embedded in an Island Creek oyster. When Margot saw the ring, she ran to the ladies’ room to vomit. Once she returned to the table, Drum had cleaned off the ring; it was perched in its velvet box where it belonged.

He said, “I want you to marry me.”

She said, “Aren’t you supposed to ask?”

He said, “Margot Carmichael, will you marry me?”

Margot knew the sane answer was no. It would never work. Neither a baby nor a husband figured into her plans-not now, possibly not ever. But there was the specter of those drunken, late-night phone calls, a loneliness so profound that Margot had cried, despite living in a city of eight million people. She thought, Drummond Bain, King of the South Shore, wants to marry me. As it turned out, her heart was only steel-plated on three sides. As it turned out, her body was holding on to the cluster of cells growing inside her.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay?” Drum said. “Aren’t you supposed to say yes or no?”

“Yes,” Margot said.

When Margot was a junior in college, she had “fallen in love” with a graduate teaching assistant in her philosophy course, a Canadian named Reese.

Reese had not reciprocated Margot’s love. Reese had also, thankfully, not seen fit to use Margot for sex and walk away. Reese had been a good guy. When Margot made her feelings known to him one night in the reserve reading room over a confusing passage of Hume, Reese had held her chin and told her the following words about love.