Elin Hilderbrand: The Beach Club

When Maribel was thirteen, she begged Tina to describe her father. “Remember, Mama, remember everything you can.” Tina sucked on her cigarette and closed her eyes: Hisname was Stephen, he had sweet, chocolaty breath and a pencil-line scar above his eyebrow. I remember the scratch of bark against my back. It was getting dark, the sky turning pink and lavender through the trees. I didn’t know your father real well. But when I was with him, I had a feeling something good would come of it .

Maribel wanted to get married for two people-herself and her mother. She wanted Mack to take care of them, the way Stephen might have. Mack made just as many comments about the future as Maribel did, if not more. There was no doubt in Maribel’s mind that Mack wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He loved her.

So what, then, was the problem?

After years of taking self-help books off the shelves at the library, Maribel drew a conclusion: Mack was afraid to grow up. The phone call he received from David Pringle last week proved it. Mack owned a huge farm in Iowa, but he didn’t want to go back and run it and he didn’t want to sell it. Both options involved too much commitment, too much responsibility. It was as though he wanted the farm to exist on its own, magically, a farm from a dream, while he stayed on Nantucket and ran the stupid hotel. At any minute, Bill Elliott could drop dead and the hotel would go to Cecily, and Mack would be out of luck. But Mack loved his job at the hotel-six months on, six months off, never telling Bill if he were coming back or not-because it gave him freedom. Because he didn’t have to take it-or anything else-too seriously.

In Maribel’s opinion, Mack needed to ask Bill Elliott to profit-share. Thirty percent of the hotel’s profit should go to Mack each year. Many of the guests who took Mack and Maribel out to dinner admitted (after a few cocktails) that should Mack ever leave his job, they would stop coming. The hotel was lovely, they said (but expensive, and the rates went up every year); it was the service that kept them coming back. It was walking into the lobby and having Mack there with his cheerful, booming voice, “ Hel-lo , Mr. Page! Welcome back. How was your winter?” It was Mack who picked up the Page children and swung them around while he complimented Mrs. Page on her new haircut. And that was what people paid for. They wanted to be coddled; they wanted to be courted.

Maribel was convinced profit sharing was the answer. If Mack profit-shared, he would take his job seriously. He would take his life seriously. He could afford to hire someone really qualified to run the farm. His house would be in order. He would propose. And the empty spot inside of Maribel would shrivel, shrink, disappear.

On May first, Maribel and Mack had just moved into their “summer place”-a basement apartment in the middle of the island. It was the only housing they could afford in the summer, when island rents doubled and tripled. In winter, things were different; in the winter, they lived on Sunset Hill, next to Nantucket’s Oldest House. The house on Sunset Hill was just a cottage, but Maribel and Mack called it the Palace. They loved the Palace-its low doorways and slanted ceilings and floors. In the quiet, cold, gray mornings of January, they lit a fire in the kitchen and Maribel made Mack cinnamon toast and oatmeal before he went out to bang nails. In the evenings, they walked into town through the deserted streets, past houses closed for the winter, sometimes not seeing another soul. They loved the Palace and it was sad every year to pack up their belongings and move to mid-island.

Maribel waited to broach the topic of profit sharing until Mack had worked at the Beach Club for three days. By then he’d gotten a taste of all the work the hotel needed and he’d had a chance to reflect on the crazy summer ahead of him. Then, on the fourth morning, Maribel made Mack scrambled eggs with fresh herbs. They sat at the dining table surrounded by stacks of unpacked boxes and duffel bags. Moving in went slowly.

“I’ve been thinking about money,” she said. “And the housing.”

“I know you hate this place,” Mack said. “But every year you get used to it.”

“I had an idea, Mack.” She curled her bare toes into the fibers of the shag carpet. “I think you should ask Bill to profit-share.”

There was a long silence, Mack eating. “You’ve been talking to your mother?” Mack said. “You’ve been reading one of those Men Live on Mars books?”

“You need to secure yourself a future at the club. It’s been twelve years. It’s time to ask Bill to profit-share.” She spread her painted-pink fingernails out on the dining table and counted off twelve years, then she counted off six years of Mack and her together.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I can be replaced. If I ask to profit-share, Bill can say no, and fire me. He can hire someone else.”

Maribel clasped her hands and leaned forward. She wasn’t eating. Too nervous. “He would never fire you. He loves you. And you say he’s not doing well. Don’t you think he wants to know that you’ll be there to take care of the hotel after he’s gone?”

“The hotel will be Cecily’s,” Mack said, his mouth full.

“She’s a child.”

“She’s eighteen. She’ll figure it out.”

“What about you, then?” Maribel said. “Us? What do we do when Bill dies? I know it’s not something you want to think about…”

“You’re right, it’s not. He’s not on death’s door, Maribel. He’s just a little frail.”

“He’s never been well. Now he’s just one year closer.”

Mack finished his eggs and buttered a piece of toast. Maribel brought him a jar of Concord grape jam. Then he said, “I don’t want to ask.”

“Why not?” Maribel said. She dipped a finger into the jam and tasted it.

“Because it’s his business to pass on to Cecily. My father left me a business. I understand how it works. I’m not going to put Bill in the awkward position of having to relinquish part of his profits to keep me happy.”

“You could use the money to hire someone to run the farm,” Maribel said. Mack slathered the jam over his toast. Maribel watched his every move; he was a mystery to her. “And it’s not as though you’re asking him to hand over the business. You’d simply be asking for part of the profits. Don’t you think you influence those profits?”

“Of course,” Mack said. “But I’m not going to ask him. I’ve worked for Bill for a long time. It would embarrass us both.”

“Okay, then,” Maribel said. “If you don’t want to ask Bill, let’s move to Iowa. Let’s run the farm ourselves.”

“You don’t want to move to Iowa,” Mack said.

“Yes, I do,” Maribel said. This wasn’t a lie, exactly. If it would take moving to Iowa to get Mack to marry her, she would do it. She thought of her mother’s life-twenty-eight Christian calendar years of being alone. That would not be Maribel’s life.

“But I love Nantucket,” Mack said. “I’m happy here.”

“So you’re going to sell the farm then?” Maribel said. “You’ve decided?”

“No,” Mack said. Maribel felt a twinge of guilt, because he did look completely at a loss. He wiped his plate with the crust of his toast. “Why do I have to decide now?”

“Because you’re thirty years old, Mack. Because you want more money, more respect. Don’t you want things to change?”

“I guess,” he said.

Maribel reached across the table and touched his hand. He trusted her; he knew that her thinking was for both of them. “Ask Bill to profit-share. If he says no we can leave for Iowa.”

Mack took his empty plate to the sink. He turned the faucet on, then off, then on, and he poured a glass of water and drank it slowly and deliberately, in a way that made Maribel want to scream. He was always making her wait!