Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Storms

Mitzi and Kelley have been very supportive of these plans. The only hiccup came when Kevin brought up the topic of groomsmen. He had initially thought he would be attended by Patrick as best man and Pierre, his boss from the Bar, as the other groomsman, while Isabelle would have Ava and Jennifer.

“But what about Bart?” Mitzi had asked.

Kevin had stared at her, not quite understanding the question.

She said, “He’ll be hurt if you don’t make him a groomsman.”

Kevin nodded slowly. Bart would most definitely want to be a groomsman-if he weren’t being held prisoner in Afghanistan. But Kevin quickly realized that Mitzi’s hopes ran high and if Kevin wanted her full cooperation, he would have to get with the program and proceed as if Bart would be back on Nantucket by December 24.

“Bart will be my groomsman,” Kevin said. “I’ll just have Pierre as backup.”

“You won’t need a backup,” Mitzi said. “Why don’t you ask Pierre to be a reader?”

“Okay,” Kevin said. “That’s what I’ll do.”

Jennifer throws Isabelle’s bridal shower the weekend before Thanksgiving. Her primary stumbling block is that Isabelle has few friends on the island so there aren’t enough attendees for a full-blown party. She decides to reserve the elegant red dining room upstairs at Le Languedoc. Isabelle will feel comfortable and cozy. There will be French champagne and French bistro food. Jennifer invites Margaret, Mitzi, Ava, Ava’s best friend, Shelby, and then, truly desperate for warm bodies, she asks Mary Rose Garth, George’s girlfriend. Everyone accepts; both Margaret and Mitzi are thrilled, Kevin is grateful, and Jennifer feels more like herself than she has since the day Patrick was indicted. She is helping out, getting things done. Isabelle will have a proper bridal shower in an elegant French restaurant.

Patrick and Jennifer arrive on Nantucket for the shower on Saturday afternoon. The streets of town feel deserted because many locals are on Martha’s Vineyard for the annual high school football game known as the Island Cup. Jennifer bought Isabelle a set of plush white towels monogrammed with her and Kevin’s initials, but once Jennifer’s on the island, she goes to Ladybird Lingerie on Centre Street because she wants to get Isabelle something pretty to wear on her honeymoon.

As Jennifer is heading back to the inn with the gift, she sees a black truck rumbling down the cobblestones of Main Street. Jennifer’s heart seizes.

It’s Norah’s truck.

The truck stops abruptly, the driver’s window goes down, and Norah sticks her head out. “Hey, you.”

She sounds normal, friendly, and she looks wonderful. She has gotten her hair colored and styled by someone who knows what he or she is doing, and Norah looks at once younger and more sophisticated.

Drugs, Jennifer thinks. Oxy, Ativan. A familiar longing stirs in her.

“Hey,” Jennifer says. She isn’t sure whether to stop and chat or hurry along up the sidewalk. To stop might make for an uncomfortable situation, but to speed up might seem rude. Jennifer compromises by slowing down somewhat.

Norah nods at Jennifer’s shopping bag from Ladybird. “Get a little something to surprise Paddy?”

“Oh,” Jennifer says. “This is for Isabelle.”

“Kev’s girl?” Norah asks.

Jennifer presses her lips together. She finds herself unable to lie to Norah-but why not?

“Are they getting married?” Norah asks. “Finally?”

Jennifer smiles and keeps walking.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Norah says. “Good for Kev. He deserves to be happy.”

“Yes,” Jennifer says, perhaps more forcefully than she intends. “He does.”

“When is the wedding?” Norah asks.

Jennifer will not tell her. She waves and picks up her pace.

“Okay, then,” Norah says. She drives away.

The shower is sheer perfection, if Jennifer does say so herself. The seven women gather in the vestibule of the restaurant, and everyone is in high spirits, especially Isabelle. She is smiling more brightly than Jennifer has ever seen her smile. Isabelle isn’t a woman who is used to being celebrated, a fact that breaks Jennifer’s heart a little but also makes her happy that Isabelle is marrying Kevin.

Jimmy, the bartender at Le Languedoc and a friend of the Quinn family for many years, leads the women upstairs. The stairs are narrow and steep in a way that promises an arrival -and the room does not disappoint. It is hushed and elegant, the table exquisitely set with white linen, silver, china, crystal, and a low, wide bouquet of fall flowers, a gift from Kevin. There is a magnum of Veuve Clicquot chilling in an ice bucket. At everyone’s place sit two gifts: a wrapped copy of Elin Hilderbrand’s wedding-on-Nantucket novel, Beautiful Day (Isabelle’s copy is in French, and obtaining it took a bit of logistical gymnastics on Jennifer’s part), and a small blue box from Tiffany, tied up with white satin ribbon.

Mary Rose gushes as she takes her seat, marked by a calligraphed place card. “I’ve never been to a shower where I got a present,” she says.

Margaret squeezes Jennifer’s arm. “You did a beautiful job, sweetie,” she says. “You went above and beyond.”

That was by design: Jennifer had badly wanted to impress Margaret and restore herself in her mother-in-law’s good graces. Plus, staging moments like this was Jennifer’s job. She had built a career on making her clients’ homes gracious and comfortable, practical yet inspiring. Essentially, she created set decorations to encourage happy, productive, peaceful lives. But what actually happened in the rooms Jennifer curated was, of course, beyond her control.

Inside each Tiffany box was a heart-shaped silver bookmark engraved with the guest’s initials.

“Inspired!” Ava says. She grins at Jennifer. “I’m never getting married, but if I do, I want you to plan my shower.”

It is one of the most convivial and relaxed evenings Jennifer has had in a long, long time. The service at Le Languedoc is seamless, the food sublime. Isabelle is thrilled with the escargot and the steak-frites. Jennifer orders the chopped salad and the pan-roasted lobster over soft polenta, which she can’t finish and so decides to take it home for Patrick. He’ll be thrilled. They drink one magnum of champagne and order a second. Jennifer had worried about the triumvirate of Margaret, Mitzi, and Mary Rose, but the three of them chat away like sorority sisters. Mitzi is in surprisingly good spirits, considering Thanksgiving is only a week away and Bart still isn’t home. Mary Rose fits into the group easily; they might as well start calling her Aunt Mary Rose.

Before dessert is served-Jennifer requested an opera cake, Isabelle’s favorite-Margaret taps her glass with her spoon then stands to make a toast.

“When my children were growing up,” she says, “I used to joke that I spent five percent of my time taking care of Patrick, five percent of my time taking care of Ava, and ninety percent of my time taking care of Kevin.”

The table chuckles. Jennifer has heard all the stories about Kevin as a kid-the poor grades, the detentions, the scrambling for missing homework and forgotten lunches. Now that Jennifer is the mother of three, she sees that Kevin has long been a victim of birth order, stuck behind Patrick, who is good at everything and driven to do better, and Ava, the baby and only daughter. When Jennifer first met Kevin, she thought he was cute and sweet, a laid-back, less serious version of Patrick, and something about him had appealed to her. Of course, back then Kevin had been defined-absolutely defined -by Norah Vale. Norah had been a black sorceress, leading Kevin down a path of darkness. Kevin had been both afraid of Norah and dependent on her.