Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Storms

Ava has an interview scheduled at the Raleigh-Dawes School on the East Side at ten o’clock the next morning but after her last interview today, she decides to cancel. She wants the job at Copper Hill more than she has ever wanted anything in her life. It’s a huge, challenging position where she would run a department, manage a budget, and encourage a philosophy of living a life steeped in the arts! It is so much bigger than her classroom job at Nantucket Elementary School that she feels intimidated. But also energized! This is a career. A career for Ava Quinn!

She expresses her fervent wish to her mother and Drake over dinner at Café Cluny.

“Copper Hill?” Margaret says. “On West Seventieth?”

Ava nods as she dives into her Cluny burger. This place is adorable and the food is delicious, and Ava is pretty sure Darcy picked it out when Margaret told her she needed somewhere that would make Ava feel excited about moving to New York. It does boggle Ava’s mind how great this restaurant is, but there are thirty others just as good in a ten-block radius. The variety! The choices! Ava can’t believe how long it’s taken for her to realize what she’s been missing.

“Lee and Ginny Kramer’s children go to Copper Hill,” Margaret says. “I’m sorry, I heard you say the names of the schools but I didn’t put two and two together until just this second.”

“Oh,” Drake says, raising his eyebrows. “Does Lee sit on the board?”

Margaret laughs. “He hardly has time. And Ginny is even busier than Lee is. But…”

“No,” Ava says. “Don’t.” She doesn’t want any help from the head of CBS and the editor of Vogue, although a phone call from either one would no doubt do the trick. “I want to get this job on my own merits.”

Drake plucks a frite from Margaret’s plate. “Good for you,” he says.

On the way to her second Copper Hill interview in the morning, Ava stops at Holy Trinity and lights a candle for Bart. Is any act truly selfless? she wonders. She aches for Bart’s return as keenly as she ever has, but now there’s even more at stake. She’s likely going to leave Nantucket. Move out of the inn. Kelley and Mitzi will have an empty nest and Ava isn’t sure they can handle that.

Ava is wearing a winter-white dress with black trim and black lace Manolo Blahniks-both her mother’s. She loves dressing up for work and never gets the chance; she would sooner wear roller skates to Nantucket Elementary than heels. The only teacher in the district who wears heels is… Roxanne Oliveria.

Ava can’t think about Roxanne right now. Here she goes!

She knocks the interview out of the park. She pauses and considers before every answer; she is funny, self-effacing, knowledgeable. She draws on her classical training at Peabody, her love of the piano, her practical experience with musical theater. (She directed The King and I, Pippin , and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the high school.) She sings a few bars from Godspell . Why not? And when they ask if she has anything to add, she says: “My father moved us from Manhattan to Nantucket when I was nine years old. My mother stayed in New York to pursue her career.” Pause. She nearly said her career in broadcasting but then thought better of it. “My father wanted to raise us in a small, close-knit community where we didn’t have to lock our cars, where we knew our neighbors, where we could ride our bikes to school. I love those aspects of Nantucket and I also love the way the island expands socially and intellectually in the summer. But I’m ready to grow beyond the confines of Nantucket. On a personal level, I am unencumbered-no husband, no children-so there is nothing and no one to stop me from getting some air under these wings. I am so excited by the opportunity to lead the music department at Copper Hill. You may have candidates who are more qualified, but you don’t have anyone who will give this position more of him- or herself than me.”

The committee looks-intrigued? Impressed? Ava mists up, then reins in her surging emotions.

The headmistress beams at her. “Thank you, Ava,” she says. “We value nothing at Copper Hill more than heart.”

Ava is all dialed up when she leaves the school. She wants to call her mother but Margaret is filming a 60 Minutes interview with Ellen DeGeneres. Ava doesn’t feel she can call her father, Mitzi, Kevin, or anyone on Nantucket; she fears they won’t understand her brand-new love affair with the city. Shelby will be at school, and even if she took Ava’s call, she would be the worst of the lot. Every time the topic of Ava moving to New York comes up, Shelby starts to cry.

Nathaniel? No.

Scott? Definitely not.

Who does she know who will appreciate her imminent leap into a new, urban life?

Potter Lyons is so excited to hear from Ava that Ava gets excited as well.

“I have a seminar from one to four today,” he says. “Otherwise, I would take you out drinking. I can’t believe you’re here! I can’t believe you’re moving here!”

“Definitely moving,” Ava says. She has the offers from the Albany and Bainbridge Academy, like two gold coins in her pocket. “The question is… great job or dream job?”

“Copper Hill is such a utopia,” Potter says. “If the chairmanship of the literature department became available, I would snap it up.”

“You’d leave the Ivy League?” Ava says.

“The students are ruined by the time they get to me,” Potter says. “I love the wonder of high school kids. Middle school, even better. You can actually mold them, influence them, make a difference.”

He’s speaking her language. That’s what Ava wants. A classroom filled with kids who want to learn.

“You have to have dinner with me tonight,” Potter says. “Can you? There’s a place called Fish down on Bleecker. It’s basically a dive with cold PBR and a ridiculous raw bar. A guy shucks ten kinds of oysters while you throw peanut shells on the floor.”

“Sounds divine,” Ava says. Margaret and Drake have a benefit for the Boys and Girls Clubs tonight, so she was on her own anyway. “I’ll meet you there at seven.”

It is only when Ava sees Potter standing in front of Fish that she wonders if this counts as a date. Potter is wearing jeans and a black crewneck sweater and black suede loafers without socks, even though it’s November.

He is too good-looking for her, yet he beams when Ava emerges from the cab.

He nearly picks her up off the ground in his embrace. She feels the surge of desire she experienced on the Sunfish in Anguilla and then again at the Bar after her mother’s wedding.

Fresh perspective, she thinks. She raises her face, and Potter doesn’t hesitate. He kisses her until she feels light-headed and has to grab his arms. His sweater is so soft. It’s cashmere.

Two things occur to Ava in that moment: She is going to owe Shelby dinner at the Club Car. With caviar. And no matter which job she takes, she will never have to teach the recorder again.

It’s a quiet Thanksgiving this year. Patrick, Jennifer, and the boys are going to San Francisco to spend the holiday with Jennifer’s mother, Beverly, and Ava has chosen to stay in New York with Margaret, a decision that shows where her heart is. It has taken thirty years but Ava has finally-and inevitably, he supposes-turned into Margaret. On Wednesday morning, she was offered the job of her dreams, as the director of musical studies at Copper Hill School on West Seventieth Street.

Kelley writes this down word for word so he can put it in the Christmas letter.

Kevin, Isabelle, and Genevieve will be on the island and Kevin has suggested that Kelley and Mitzi allow Isabelle to cook and that they eat in the pocket-size dining room of the cottage they’re renting.