Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

“Apparently,” Tate said.

“So you live on Tuckernuck?” Roman said. “You spend the night there?”

Did people know how asinine they sounded when they asked these questions? “Live there, spend the night there,” Tate confirmed.

“Wait a minute,” Whit Vargas said. “Where is Tuckernuck again?”

“It’s an island, Whit,” Roman said. “Another island.”

“Half a mile off the west coast,” Tate said.

“What do you do about electricity?” Roman said.

By the time Tate finished her dinner, she was the star of the eastern half of the table. She was, more truthfully, a museum exhibit, an anthropological study: Tate Cousins of Tuckernuck, a woman from a respectable family, who was living for a month without hot water (the women couldn’t believe it) and without a phone, Internet, or TV (the men couldn’t believe it). Tate decided to take this particular ball and run with it. She was funny and charming, smart and self-effacing. She checked on Barrett at the other end of the table. Was he watching her? Did he see that she had turned a potentially disastrous social situation on its head and now had all of these Upper East Siders eating out of her hand? Was he impressed? Did he love her?

When the plates were cleared and the band started playing, Roman Fullin stood up and asked Tate to dance.

Tate took his hand. She couldn’t very well turn him down, could she? And yet they would be the first people dancing. Shouldn’t he be asking his wife to dance? Her shoes were another problem; it felt like her feet were caught in a couple of mousetraps.

Tate said, “This is a beautiful party. It’s like a wedding.”

“Every year a wedding,” he said. “Anita has to have it. She lives for this night.”

Other couples joined them on the dance floor, including Barrett and Anita Fullin. Anita was glowing in her orange dress. (Thank God Tate had not worn that dress!) Anita shrieked as Barrett spun her around.

Roman said, “Anita is loaded. I’d better go rescue her.”

They separated and Tate found herself in Barrett’s arms.

He said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Tate said, “You read my mind.”

As Tate buckled herself into Barrett’s truck, she was sober enough to realize that she was drunk, but she wasn’t sober enough to do anything about it. She felt like she was standing at the top of a ski run and had just been pushed. She was headed downhill without her poles. She pried off her shoes and the blood rushed back into her feet. The relief was nearly erotic.

She said, “Anita Fullin doesn’t like me.”

“Anita Fullin doesn’t know you,” Barrett said. “Plus, she’s very insecure.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tate said. “She has no reason to be insecure.”

“Trust me,” Barrett said.

Tate said, “I was so stupid. I had this crazy idea that we were your only clients.”

“You haven’t been here in thirteen years,” Barrett said. “If you were my only clients, I’d be in pretty sad shape.”

“I knew you had other clients,” Tate said. “But I didn’t think about them. I didn’t have to meet them. And Anita is so… possessive.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Barrett said. He fiddled with the radio, then popped in a CD. It was Bruce Springsteen’s 18 Tracks. Tate couldn’t believe it. She said, “Wait a minute, this is Bruce. This is Eighteen Tracks. ”

“It is.”

Tate said, “Do you like him? Do you love him? This album is only owned by people who love him.”

Barrett grinned. He said, “I like him. A lot. But I don’t love him as much as you do. Full disclosure is I asked your mother what kind of music you liked and she said there was only one answer. So I went out this afternoon and borrowed this disc from a friend of mine.”

“You didn’t!” she said.

“I did.”

“You asked my mother?”

“I did. I wanted to make sure I had things you liked. I want you to be happy.”

He wanted her to be happy. He didn’t realize he didn’t have to try. He didn’t realize that she was delirious just sitting in the cab of his truck, just gazing upon his face.

The song was “Thundercrack.” Tate sang along.

Barrett’s house was way out in Tom Nevers, down one dirt road and then another. It was dark, but Tate could see that his house was tall and skinny, with a deck off the second story. The yard was cluttered with things-a boat trailer, buoys clustered like grapes, lengths of rope, plastic buckets and shovels, a spade, a rake, a toy car big enough for two kids to sit in. There was a clothesline with beach towels flapping; the wind had picked up. Barrett led Tate by the hand, and she was taking gulps of chilly night air, trying to sober up. Barrett pointed to a dark square. “There is my pathetic attempt at keeping the garden going,” he said.

The wife’s garden, Tate thought.

He stopped at the clothesline, unpinned the towels, and folded them in neat squares. “It’s supposed to rain,” he said.

He led her up a flight of stairs to a side door, and they entered the house. They were suddenly in the kitchen, which was cluttered and homey. Tate blinked. There were children’s storybooks and coloring books and crayons and empty juice boxes on the counter, a plate with pieces of hot dog and a smear of ketchup, the core of a pear. There was mail in a pile next to a dying houseplant. A stack of old Sports Illustrated s.

Barrett grabbed the dirty dinner plate and the empty juice boxes and said, “I meant to clean up before. The day got away from me.”

Tate said, “Please don’t worry about it.” She liked the mess; she liked the story it told. She could imagine Barrett trying to get his kids dinner so he could drop them off at his parents’ house, while at the same time trying to get dressed up, while at the same time trying to get to Madaket Harbor to get the boat to Tuckernuck for Tate at six. If Barrett were to see the space that Tate called home-the white condo empty and clean except for the mattress on the floor in front of the big-screen TV-he would think what? That she was lonely and worked too hard.

She stepped into the living room. It was an upside-down house with all of the common space on the second floor. There were big windows overlooking the moors of Tom Nevers and the southeast coast. There was a door that led to the deck. Tate peeked out: there was a gas grill, a potted pink geranium that seemed to be faring better than the garden or the houseplant, and two white Adirondack chairs.

“This is nice,” Tate said.

Barrett was busy in the kitchen. Tate noted the TV (a fifty-two-inch flat-screen Aquos, just like her own) and the furniture-some of it newish looking from Restoration Hardware (a leather sofa, a pine coffee table) and some of it thrift-store-esque, perhaps borrowed or inherited from caretaking clients or his parents (a green easy chair that may have been a recliner, a cabinet for the big TV). There was only one thing Tate was interested in, and that was a picture of his wife. She found what she was looking for on a long, narrow table under the biggest picture window. On this table was a glass lamp and a slew of framed photographs.

The first one Tate picked up was a wedding picture: Barrett and Stephanie in a horse-drawn carriage. Stephanie was lovely. She had the kind of red hair that people commented on, and milk glass skin. And lots of freckles. She had a cracking, mischievous smile. Tate was so taken with this picture that she cooed. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she had not been expecting red hair; she had been picturing someone cool and blond like Chess, or maybe someone dark like Anita Fullin. Tate picked up another picture-Stephanie holding one of the babies. This gave Tate a closer look at her face. That milky skin, the pale blue shadows under her green eyes. Her freckles were remarkable. In the picture, she looked exhausted but luminous. Tate reached for another picture-Stephanie sitting in Barrett’s boat. She was wearing a yellow bikini. She was very thin.