Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

There was a lull at the table. They were waiting for her. What is the greatest song the Rolling Stones ever recorded? I say “Loving Cup.” Andrea, how about you? No, she wouldn’t. Was anyone looking at her? She didn’t care. She didn’t care if they ate their whole meal in awkward silence. She studied her menu.

Out of the blue, the Chief started talking. This was truly amazing, as the Chief normally said very little, in the way that serious men who had important, quasi-confidential jobs said very little. The Chief had apparently bumped into an officer with the LVPD at the roulette wheel. The Chief showed his badge. The other officer was on the vice squad, he said. The Chief and this officer chatted it up for quite a while.

“You would not believe the things he told me,” the Chief said.

“Like what?” Delilah said, forgetting to keep her mouth shut.

The Chief drank from his beer bottle (the waiter had wanted to pour the beer in a glass, but the Chief held his palm up and said, It comes in a glass, in a way that was very Chief-like). He shook his head at Delilah. He wasn’t going to tell them anything else. He was famous for bringing up teasers like that and letting them drop.

Okay, fine, forget it, Delilah wouldn’t push it, though the life of a Las Vegas vice squad officer sounded fascinating if you loved the raw and the raunchy, which Delilah did-and it would be relevant besides. But she’d taken a vow of silence and she meant to stick to it.

Phoebe regaled the table with details of her hours by the pool- Okay, does everyone in this town have fake boobs or what? -and Delilah’s mind wandered. It became clear, now that she had stepped out of her role as the conversational master of ceremonies, how firmly established that role was. They all had their roles, each one of them; they had their personalities, proclivities, interests, likes and dislikes. They were adults, they were known quantities. Was this good or bad? They could not surprise each other. They were not likely to change or act out of character. Like the Chief insisting on drinking his beer from a bottle, even here at Le Cirque, because that was how he drank his beer. Utterly predictable.

But the roles gave them comfort, the lack of surprise lent security, a sense of understanding, friendship, family, acceptance. Right?

The Chief was their spiritual leader. He was their man in case of emergency; he was the best problem solver (though Jeffrey was a damn close second). He was the police chief, he knew everything and he knew it first, but he gave nothing away. The man was a vault. If they ever broke him open, what would they find? A treasure trove of secrets and confidences bound up by his honor. The Chief was principled and discreet. He was part of a fraternity across the country, across the world. Law enforcement. The earth’s finest.

Andrea was the den mother, Mother Earth, Mother Nature. Delilah had always thought it would be boring to be Andrea-she was matronly, sexless, she wore skirts to the knee and one-piece bathing suits, she wore comfortable shoes-but Andrea seemed content. She wasn’t looking for anything, she wasn’t searching for herself, trying on identities or attitudes the way Delilah sometimes did, the way Tess and Phoebe did, too. Andrea had a firm grip on who she was, and this left her plenty of time and energy to focus on others (the Chief, her kids, Tess). When Delilah was sixty or seventy, she wanted to be just like Andrea. She said this once to Jeffrey, and Jeffrey made a face indicating that he found this statement ridiculous or inappropriate. Jeffrey had been in love with Andrea years and years ago; they had dated, kissed, groped, copulated, fallen in love, moved in together. They had talked about marriage and kids. But back then, Jeffrey wasn’t ready. Andrea was the first woman he’d made love to (Jeffrey’s long-time girlfriend in high school and college, Felicity Hammer, was a devout Baptist, determined to remain chaste until her wedding day, and so for six years Jeffrey was dragged along on that virginal ride). But Jeffrey didn’t leave Andrea because he had wild oats to sow; he left her because he had real oats to sow, real corn, real vegetables. He’d inherited a hundred and sixty-two acres of fertile farmland, a legitimate business opportunity, and he wanted to succeed. He could not put the farm first and put Andrea first. They broke up. It was, in his words, very sad.

This could have moved Delilah right along to thinking about Jeffrey, but she couldn’t allow herself to deconstruct him. He was her husband, she knew him too well, and she was angry. She would skip him. You really disappoint me. God, it infuriated her, but it did not surprise her.

Addison was talking now, rescuing them from Phoebe’s discourse on life as seen from the chaise longue. He was describing Las Vegas real estate trends (Addison loved trends) and how the old casinos-the Sands, the Golden Nugget, the Desert Inn-were being medicine-balled and replaced by theme-park giants-the Luxor, the Venetian, Treasure Island.

The waiter reappeared, and they ordered. Delilah ordered the salade frisée avec lardons and the steak. Jeffrey wanted the beets, but would not order them because they were out of season. And so he went with the grapefruit and avocado salad and the pasta with lump crabmeat. (Even their ordering could not surprise her. Phoebe ordered a salad with roasted vegetables. Addison and the Chief got the steak, like Delilah.)

Addison was the businessman, the money man. His last name was Wheeler, and every single person on Nantucket called him “Wheeler Dealer.” Addison was tall and thin and bald; he wore horn-rimmed glasses. He was part nerd, part aristocrat. His father had owned a carpet and flooring business in New Brunswick; his mother had been a nurse in the infirmary at Rutgers. Until high school, Addison’s life had been very Exit 8. It had been McDonald’s after football games; it had been Bruce Springsteen and summers spent “down the shore.” But like cream, Addison rose to the top. If you believed him, he did so without trying. He was bright, polite, and charming. He had a silver tongue. He was a social genius, and because of this, he stood out. The junior high school principal suggested that Addison make a run at boarding school, where he could take advantage of some real opportunities.

He got into Lawrenceville based on his interview alone. From Lawrenceville he went to Princeton, where he was president of his eating club, Cottage. There was something funny about his graduation, and by funny Delilah meant peculiar-he hadn’t had the correct credits at the end of his senior year to get his diploma. He had finished up the following summer at Rutgers. Had he graduated from Rutgers, then, technically? Or was it a Princeton diploma with a Rutgers asterisk? Delilah had also heard that Addison had been thrown out of Princeton for conducting an affair with the wife of the dean of arts and sciences, whom Addison had met at a faculty cocktail party he’d crashed. Now that sounded like Addison, but Delilah did not have confirmation of that story, and the one time she had been brave enough to ask Phoebe, Phoebe had said dismissively, I can’t keep track of all the stories. The man has had nine lives.

That was the truth about Addison: he had had nine lives. The stories were too numerous and byzantine to keep track of. Which were real and which were lore? He claimed to have lived in Belfast, Naples, and Paris while working as a broker for Coldwell Banker. But he had only just turned forty: how had he possibly fit it all in? He spoke fluent French and Italian, he spoke Gaelic, he knew everything there was to know about food and wine, painting, sculpture, architecture, classical music, literature. His first wife was an anorexically thin rubber heiress named Mary Rose Garth, who had a brownstone on Gramercy Park and a penchant for younger men-her personal trainer, the handsome Puerto Rican doorman. Mary Rose had taken Addison for the ride of his life; she had shown him all of the best ways in the world to spend money. But she had been too much even for Addison; they divorced amicably, and Mary Rose now lived in Malibu with their daughter, Vanessa. If you were to believe Addison, Mary Rose and Vanessa shared boyfriends.