Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

Tate fell asleep on the sofa with the TV on. She had worked her way through three Coronas and half the can of peanuts. When Barrett woke her up at 1:10, the evidence was on the coffee table: empty bottles, the open can of peanuts, Steph’s picture.

“Hey,” he said. He lifted her legs, sat down, put her legs in his lap.

“Hey,” she said. She wasn’t mad anymore. She was too tired to be mad.

“I’m sorry about the phone call,” he said.

Tate was silent. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

“I have some explaining to do,” he said.

She stared at him in the dark. What was he going to say?

“Anita wanted to buy your aunt’s sculpture. The little one in the bedroom that we saw the other day.”

“Roger?”

“Roger,” Barrett said. “She really wanted to buy it. And the thing is, when Anita decides she wants to buy something, it takes on incredible importance. She obsesses about it. Because she has nothing else to do. No job, I mean, and no kids. Acquiring things is her life’s purpose.”

Tate wanted to comment on how sad and pathetic this was, but there was no need.

“So anyway, I asked your aunt. I told her Anita wanted to buy Roger for fifty thousand dollars and would probably go to seventy-five. But your aunt said no. She’s not going to sell it at all.”

“She has plenty of money,” Tate said. “And Roger belongs on Tuckernuck.”

“Right. Any other person would understand that. But not Anita. She isn’t used to being turned down. She isn’t used to encountering things that aren’t for sale because what’s left in the world anymore that isn’t for sale?”

“She’s upset because she can’t buy Roger?” Tate said.

“Devastated,” Barrett said. “And you have to know Anita. She sees it as your aunt-and you, the four of you on Tuckernuck-having something that she can’t have. And she’s jealous of you for other reasons-because I come over twice a day, because I’m fond of your family, because you and I are dating. So she pulled a power play the other night and begged me to come for the barbecue. She said she’d pay me overtime, knowing that I could never turn that kind of money down. Then she made me promise to bring her to Tuckernuck the following day. I wish you could understand how manipulative she is. She doesn’t leave room for me to say no.”

“Have you slept with her?” Tate asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m sure you find that hard to believe, but the answer is no. I am not attracted to Anita. She is pushy and inappropriate and a deeply sad and empty person.”

“Okay,” Tate said. “So that was the whole phone call? Anita being upset about not being able to buy Roger, and you explaining, and… what? Comforting her?”

“No,” Barrett said. “Not exactly.”

“So what else?” Tate said.

“She offered me a job,” Barrett said.

“You have a job. You own a business.”

Barrett sighed. “She offered me basically three times what I make in a year, plus health insurance, to work for her only.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Work for her, here on Nantucket? Or do you have to go to New York, too?”

“Here on Nantucket,” he said. “I would do everything-oversee the house, the gardens, the boats, the cars. I would manage everything and everyone, get them a driver, make their dinner reservations, schedule their flights, make sure the newspapers are delivered, order the flowers, oversee the maids. I would be the house manager, the caretaker, their personal assistant.”

“Would you still work for us?” Tate said. “Or any of your other clients? The AuClaires?”

Barrett shook his head. “Only the Fullins.”

“Is this what you want?”

“It can’t be about what I want,” Barrett said. “They gave me Girlfriend; they could take her back. And another thing you don’t know is that I borrowed a lot of money from Roman and Anita when Steph was sick. A lot of money. Two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Holy shit,” Tate said.

“I needed it to pay the private nurses,” Barrett said. “So we could keep Steph at home at the end.”

“Oh,” Tate said.

“I was going to go to the bank and take out a second mortgage,” he said, “but Anita offered. She said I could pay her back whenever I wanted. I didn’t have to worry about defaulting and losing the house.”

“Okay,” Tate said.

“It was worth it,” Barrett said. “Even if I have to take this job and give up my business, it was worth it to have Steph at home.”

Tate looked at the photograph of Steph, smiling. Of course, she should say. Of course you’re indebted to Anita Fullin for the rest of your life because she gave you Girlfriend as a bonus, and she lent you the money that allowed you to keep your dying wife at home. But this wasn’t true.

“It’s blackmail,” Tate said. “Or something like that.”

“I can’t turn down the money,” Barrett said. “Or the health insurance. I have two kids.”

“I know you have two kids,” Tate said. “I bathed them and dressed them and fed them while you were on the phone.”

“Tate…”

“She’s trying to buy you,” Tate said. “Tell her you’re not for sale. Tell her she’s fired. You don’t want her for a client anymore.”

He laughed, but not nicely. “And what am I supposed to do for money? And what about my debt? You can tell me she’s trying to buy me, and you’re right, she is, but I’m not a wealthy man, I wasn’t born with money, I didn’t grow up in New Canaan with a summer home on Tuckernuck. I am me, I need money. I’m taking this job, Tate, because I have no choice.”

She wasn’t buying it. “You do have a choice. You can choose to work for other clients. You can pay Anita back steadily or take out that second mortgage and pay her back all at once. I can see how you think working for Anita would be easier. It’s the quick fix and there will be more money. But you will end up paying out more in the end. You’ll be paying out your integrity. And your freedom.”

Barrett stood up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?”

“Good night,” he said.

At the first light of dawn, Tate sneaked down to Barrett’s room and made love to him before he was fully awake. He accepted her, welcomed her, cherished her; she could feel the love in his touch. Desperation. Apology. Afterward, she cried on his chest. She was going to lose him.

D ay twenty.

Plans for the wedding were taking over my life. My mother was insisting on a floating island in her pond; she’d had a dream about it and she was determined to make it a reality. My father didn’t want to pay for a floating island. I stepped in, I pleaded my mother’s case, I pretended I really did want a floating island, though I couldn’t have cared less. My father, perhaps, realized I couldn’t have cared less, but he relented. I hung up the phone, then stared at it, thinking not only did I not care about the floating island, but I didn’t care about any of the wedding plans.

I didn’t want to get married.

I knew Nick was back in New York because Michael had told me. Evelyn wanted to have a family dinner honoring Nick’s return, celebrating his record deal. She wanted to have it at the country club.

I said, “Nick will never agree to that.”

Michael said, “He already has.”

It was mid-April, and New Jersey had received springtime like a benevolent gift. The trees were that bright greenish yellow, and the country club had just cut the grass for the first time. They had beds planted with daffodils, crocuses, tulips the color of Easter eggs. Many of the members of the club were still down in Florida, but because of the balmy weather, there were people on the driving range. The country club was the Morgan family’s second home; Cy and Evelyn had joined when the kids were small, and it had become for them a lush, quiet, safe haven where family life unspooled as it should. Nick, I knew, hated the country club, embodying as it did wealth and privilege and exclusivity. Michael loved it; I had to talk him out of holding the rehearsal dinner there.