Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

Alison said, “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to your hair? Are you undergoing treatment?”

Chess flushed. “No,” she said. “I cut it off. It was a decision made at a time of extreme mental instability.”

Alison seemed unfazed by this blunt declaration of the truth. She was a professional. “Ah,” she said, as though she had seen it many times before.

There was silence except for the sticky whispering of Alison applying the ointment. Chess thought, New subject!

She said, “How do you know Barrett?”

“I worked with his wife,” Alison said. “Stephanie. She was a nurse in labor and delivery. She was one of the coolest people I have ever known. How do you know Barrett?”

“We’re staying on Tuckernuck,” Chess said. “He’s our caretaker.”

“Aha!” Alison said. “Well, he’s a great guy. And a wonderful father.”

“Yes,” Chess said. She raised her chin so Alison could apply the ointment to her neck. The ointment was making her skin tingle and buzz, and she felt the prednisone coursing through her veins like rocket fuel. She was lulled and comforted. Alison applied the ointment to her forearms.

“I thought maybe you were his girlfriend,” Alison said.

“Oh,” Chess said. Her eyes twitched, but they were heavy and gummed with ointment. “No.”

Alison walked Chess back out to the waiting room and presented her to Barrett. She had a tube of ointment in a white paper bag, as well as a prescription for more.

“She’s going to live,” Alison said.

“That’s good,” Barrett said. “How’s everything going with you?”

“Oh, you know,” Alison said. “It’s summer. I’ve seen my share of moped accidents and acute sunburn. And poison ivy.”

“I’m sorry,” Chess murmured. She felt like a garden-variety tourist. She was grotesque in her nightgown, shorts, and ridiculous hat. Her skin was not only diseased but now slick and greasy. She wanted to get out of there.

“There’s no reason to be sorry,” Alison said. “It’s my job.” To Barrett, she said, “So how are you? How are the kids?”

“I’m fine,” Barrett said unconvincingly. “The kids are fine. Swimming lessons, the dentist. Cameron will be old enough to go to the Boys and Girls Club in the fall.”

“I think about Steph all the time,” Alison said.

Barrett nodded. Chess had an incredible urge to drag her nails through the ointment.

Alison patted Barrett on the shoulder. To Chess she said, “You should be feeling better soon.”

Barrett drove to Dan’s Pharmacy and filled Chess’s prescription. When he got back into the car, his phone rang. He checked the display and said, “I’m going to ignore that for a little while longer.” He smiled at Chess. “Would you like to go to lunch?”

“ Lunch? ” she said.

“Yes, I think we determined that you owe me a lunch.”

“Oh, God, Barrett. I can’t be seen in public.”

“Sure, you can.”

“No, I can’t. People will look at me and lose their appetite.”

“Okay,” Barrett said. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll get sandwiches from Something Natural and eat them at the beach.”

“I probably shouldn’t be in the sun,” Chess said.

“I have an umbrella,” Barrett said. “Any other excuse you want to try out?”

“No,” Chess said. It was nearly one o’clock and she hadn’t eaten anything. And all of a sudden, what Alison the nurse had said about prednisone causing an increase in appetite became crystal clear. Chess was suddenly starving!

“Okay, then,” Barrett said.

She ordered a turkey BLT with avocado and swiss and extra mayo on pumpernickel bread. It was a sandwich the size of a dictionary, and still, Chess judged, it wouldn’t be enough. Barrett had also bought her a bag of potato chips, an iced tea, and a chocolate chip cookie. Chess held her lunch in her lap, fighting the urge to dig in, as Barrett drove them out Eel Point Road. It was nice to be out in the wider world; it was voyeuristic-watching other cars and the summer homes pass. Once they pulled onto the beach, there were other people-mothers and their children, and a gang of college kids with a hibachi and a boom box. So many people! Barrett shifted his truck into four-wheel drive and drove to a deserted part of the beach. He put up the umbrella and set two chairs under it; then he came around and opened Chess’s door.

“I feel like such an ass,” she said.

“Please don’t.”

“I’m in my nightgown.”

“Nobody knows that,” he said. “And nobody cares.”

He was right. Chess hopped out of the truck and landed in the hot sand. Her legs and feet were fine-smooth and clean, untouched by the scourge. She was eager for her lunch. She settled into the chair. Her upper lip was swollen and her face felt numb, like she’d been shot up with Novocain.

Barrett sat in the chair next to her. He pointed out across the water. “You see that land out there? You know what that is?”

There was, of course, only one answer, but it took Chess by surprise. “Tuckernuck?”

“Yep.”

Chess stared at the distant green coastline. It was surreal. For the past three weeks, and for years and years before that, Chess had gazed out at Nantucket without any thought that people on Nantucket were, in turn, gazing at her. She could envision Tate lying on the beach, and Birdie and India in their upright chairs, eating their gourmet sandwiches on slender baguettes, reading, swimming, throwing the Frisbee, maybe walking the beach and finding a sand dollar or a whelk shell. Chess longed for them, much the way she longed for everyone else. She had the funny feeling she would never see them again.

“I feel like I’m on vacation from my vacation,” she said.

Barrett unwrapped his sandwich, and Chess took this as the starting gun. She very carefully peeled away the layers of Saran Wrap around her BLT, trembling with anticipation. She took a bite-smoky, crunchy, juicy, tangy, crispy. God! She couldn’t remember the last time eating had given her such pleasure. Before “all that had happened,” eating had been Chess’s passion. As Michael used to tease her, food had meant more to her than sex. There was truth in this; Chess took a very sensual pleasure in everything from salty chips and cold, creamy dip, to the velvety texture of foie gras, to the sparkling crispness of French champagne. She was partial to tomatoes, raspberries, corn on the cob, good cheese, fruity olive oil, rosemary, smoked paprika, and onions sautéing in butter. Her goal at Glamorous Home had been to create recipes that were both trustworthy and surprising: a really good pasta dish that could become a signature, a certain kind of birthday cake that became a tradition.

She took another bite of her sandwich, savoring it. After “all that had happened,” Chess had lost interest in food. Food became gray, just like everything else. It was sad, but Chess couldn’t bring herself to care. The return of her sense of taste, today, right now, was something not to herald with excitement but rather to coax gently along.

The prednisone, though, was kicking in. Chess ripped open her bag of chips and had to keep herself from inhaling them. She guzzled her iced tea.

She said, “Is everything okay with Tate?”

“Do we want to talk about Tate?” Barrett asked.

“Should we not?” Chess said. There was something about her face-under the shiny force field of the ointment-that made her feel safe. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

They were quiet. Chess ate carefully. Because her upper lip was swollen, she couldn’t chew normally. Bits of food fell out of her mouth onto her nightgown.

“Things were so good there for a while,” Barrett said. “Now they’ve gotten weird.”