Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

Nick saw me. I held up a hand. I needed a minute. I was with Rhonda, after all. It took her only thirty seconds to find someone she knew, some tall, dark Mediterranean guy who absorbed her like water into a sponge.

I said, “I’ll be right back.”

I grabbed Nick and we left.

He said, “Where do you want to go?”

“Central Park,” I said.

He said, “It’s not safe at night, Chess.”

I said, “Walk with me.”

We walked all the way uptown, nearly seventy blocks. I sobered up and we talked. What were we doing? Was it real? What would it be like? He was recording an album. He had already gotten a check and he was looking at new places to live. He would have to travel and he wanted me to go with him. Would I go with him? Would I quit my job? I said I would. He said, “You will not.” But I would. I liked being the food editor of Glamorous Home but there was something more for me out there, something bigger, deeper, wider. I wanted to leave Michael that very night. I would break the engagement-not for him, but for myself. I wanted Nick. Did he want me?

He stopped me at the corner of Broadway and Thirty-third Street. Not a romantic corner in any respect. He took my face in his hands and said, “I want nothing but you. I will quit the band, quit music altogether, I will give up poker and rock climbing. I will give up red meat, beer, cigarettes, all of it, just to be with you. I will hold your hand and we will walk across this world, and I will sing to you and our babies, and that will be enough for me.”

“Enough?”

“It’s all I want.”

We kissed. The world spun.

That night when I got home, I called Michael and broke the engagement. I broke it like a fistful of linguine over a pot of boiling water. Snap, in half. No putting it back together. I didn’t waver; I didn’t leave room for doubt.

Chess cooked dinner. This was a huge step; only a month earlier she had sworn she would never cook again. But look: chili-lime swordfish with avocado sauce, corn salad, heirloom tomatoes with blue cheese and bacon. It was a feast. Tate wasn’t there, but Chess felt sorry for Tate rather than sorry for herself. Chess and Birdie and India lit the citronella candles and sat at the picnic table and drank and ate and talked over the sound of the waves. The sun set. Chess thought about the night at Bungalow 8 and walking all that way with Nick as though they were the only two people in Manhattan and the world was filled with brand-new possibility. Had it only been three months earlier? So much had changed. Chess cursed the way things had changed; she cursed the fact that Michael was dead, but cursing it, feeling angry about it, was a step in the right direction. Throw those rocks. Get rid of the heavy stuff.

Suddenly, Chess was crying. India and Birdie stopped talking about what a ghastly cook their mother had been (they had arrived at this topic after praising Chess’s talents as a chef: the swordfish melted in your mouth), and Birdie reached out first, and then India moved so that the two of them were on either side of Chess, bracing her, and she was able to just cry. It had taken her nearly three weeks, but she was on her way toward something else-another state of mind, another way to be.

“Let it out, darling,” Birdie said.

India said, “We’ve been waiting for this. We’ve been waiting for this exact thing.”

Life was sad and difficult. We hurt the ones we love the most. Michael was dead. Nick was gone. Chess wanted to feel it all-the pain, the grief, the guilt. Bring it on.

She started walking. Tate was a morning person, but Chess liked to exercise in the late afternoon, right before cocktail hour. This was when she used to run in the city-after work, during the sacred hour that separated her daytime from her nighttime. She left the house at four thirty with a bottle of cold water, a hat, sunglasses, and her running shoes, which felt constrictive to her feet after three weeks in flip-flops. She would walk across Tuckernuck to the west coast and back. She would have liked to jog it, but she would have been out of breath in a few minutes, disheartened and discouraged. She used to run with Michael in Central Park; those were the times she had felt closest to him. He always matched her pace, despite the fact that he could have gone much faster. He didn’t like to talk while running and neither did she. They communicated when necessary by pointing. It was both energizing and comforting to have Michael beside her, his stride in sync with hers, his heart beating at the same pace.

Tuckernuck was beautiful. It was, Chess decided, the most beautiful place on earth. The ocean, the blue sky, the simple dirt-and-gravel paths that cut across the acres of former farmland, which were now open space for rabbits and field mice and red-tailed hawks. There were houses here and there, family compounds; her mother and her aunt knew exactly who owned each one and when they had bought it. Those other people-some rich, some famous-had learned the secret of life, and for a flash, Chess felt like she knew it, too.

A blond girl with a ponytail rode toward Chess on her bicycle. Chess was walking up a short but steep dirt hill and the girl was coming down. The bike gained speed, the front tire wobbled. The girl said, “This bike doesn’t have any brakes!” Her legs went akimbo, the expression on her face was comical, and in fact, Chess laughed, but she quickly realized that the girl was going to crash-and worse still, hit Chess. Chess jumped out of the way, but her foot caught on an exposed root and she fell into the brush. The girl and the bike went over with a clatter. The girl shrieked, then started to cry.

Chess stood up and brushed herself off. She went over to the girl, who must have been thirteen or fourteen.

“Are you okay?”

The girl had a scrape on her knee the size of a quarter that was dusty and bleeding, and her palms were skinned. She tried to get up, and Chess helped her lift her bicycle. The girl sniffed up her tears. “I’m okay,” she said. She inspected her knee, wiped her hands on her jeans shorts, and gave Chess a weak smile. “Life is good,” she said. She mounted her bicycle.

“Life is good,” Chess said.

The next morning, Chess felt Tate rise from bed for her run, but Chess couldn’t open her eyes. Tate had spent the night before last with Barrett on Nantucket and had come home in a fractious state of mind-something was going on. Last night, Chess had asked Tate if she was going to Nantucket overnight, and Tate had said no. She said, “Barrett has a big decision to make and I’m going to let him make it in peace.” Chess was tempted to ask what the big decision was, but it was unfair of her to ask when she still hadn’t disclosed anything about her own life, and so she didn’t ask and Tate didn’t tell. Chess murmured something like, Have a good run, but her mouth wouldn’t move to form the words properly. She was covered in a blanket of sleep.

She woke at some point later. She was awake, she was fully conscious, but she couldn’t open her eyes. She raised her hands to her face. Something was wrong with her face. It was rough and bumpy. She pried her eyes open and the dark room was visible through a milky film. Chess started to panic. What was going on here? She scratched the back of her hand, and at that instant, her whole body exploded in itch. Itch! Chess scratched at her arms, her neck, her face. She slid out of bed and stumbled for the door. She scrambled down the stairs and burst into the bathroom. What was wrong with her? She looked in the tarnished mirror and saw her monstrous face-covered with a landscape of rash. Her eyes were swollen to slits, but she could see well enough to know things were bad.