Elin Hilderbrand - The Love Season

Marguerite blushed and made a playful attempt at a curtsy. Dusty watched her, she knew, even as she turned and walked out of his shop, setting the little bell tinkling.

“Have a nice dinner!” he called out.

Thank you , she thought.

Marguerite had been in the fish store all of ten minutes, but those ten minutes were the difference between a sleepy summer morning and a fullblown August day on Nantucket. One of the ferries had arrived, disgorging two hundred day-trippers onto the Straight Wharf; families who were renting houses in town flooded the street in search of coffee and breakfast; couples staying at B and Bs had finished breakfast and wanted to rent bikes to go to the beach. Was this the real Nantucket now? People everywhere, spending money? Maybe it was, and who was Marguerite to judge? She felt privileged to be out on the street with the masses; it was her own private holiday, the day of her dinner party.

There was a twinge in Marguerite’s heart, like someone tugging on the corner of a blanket, threatening to throw back the covers and expose it all.

Dusty had let her off easy, she thought. But the girl might not. She would want to hear the story. And Marguerite would tell her. The girl deserved more than five thousand dollars. She deserved to hear the truth.

8:37 A.M.

The sheets were white and crisp, and the pillows were so soft it was like sinking her head into whipped cream. The guest room had its own deck with views of Nantucket Sound. Last night, she and Cade had stood on the deck kissing, fondling, and finally making love-standing up, and very quietly, so that his parents, who were having after-dinner drinks in the living room with their absurdly wealthy friends, wouldn’t hear.

Once you marry me , Cade had whispered when they were finished, all this will be yours .

Renata had eased her skirt and her underwear back into place and waited for the blinking red beacon of Brant Point Lighthouse to appear. She would have laughed or rolled her eyes, but he was serious. Cade Driscoll wanted to marry her. He had presented her with a diamond ring last week at Lespinasse. (The maître d’ was in on the plan in advance: drop the ring in a glass of vintage Dom Pérignon-he didn’t realize Renata wasn’t old enough to drink.) They set out, cautiously, to inform their families. This meant Cade’s parents first-and then, at some point later, Renata’s father.

The announcement to the Driscolls had taken place the previous morning, shortly after Cade and Renata arrived on the island. Miles, a drop-dead gorgeous hunk of a man who was spending his summer as the Driscolls’ houseboy, had picked up Cade and Renata at the airport, then delivered them to the house on Hulbert Avenue, where the cook, Nicole, a light-skinned black girl with a mole on her neck, had prepared a breakfast buffet on the deck: mimosas, a towering pyramid of fresh fruit, smoked salmon, muffins, and scones (which Mrs. Driscoll wouldn’t even look at, being on Atkins), eggs, sausage, grilled tomatoes, coffee with hot frothy milk.

“Welcome to Nantucket!” Suzanne Driscoll said, opening her arms to Renata.

Renata had bristled. She was nervous about announcing the engagement; she was afraid that the Driscolls, Suzanne and Joe (who had early-stage Parkinson’s), would notice the ring before Cade was able to tap his silver spoon against his juice glass, and she had to abide another display of the Driscolls’ wealth in the form of the house, Vitamin Sea.

Renata tried to view the circumstances through the eyes of her best friend, Action Colpeter, who was cynical about the things that other people found impressive. Houseboy? Cook? Action would say. The Driscolls have servants! Action had traced her ancestors back to slaves in Manassas, Virginia; she was touchy about hired help, including her own retarded brother’s personal aide and her parents’ cleaning lady. She was touchy about a lot of other things, too. She would be horrified to learn of Renata’s engagement; she would pretend to vomit or, because she tended to get carried away with her little dramatizations, she would vomit for real. Faint for real. Die for real. Renata was spared her dearest friend’s reaction for three more weeks-Action was working for the summer as a camp counselor in the mountains of West Virginia, where there were no cell phones, no fax, no computers. More crucially for the inner-city kids who attended the camp, there were no TVs, no video games, no Game Boys. In her most recent letter, Action had written: We are completely cut off from the trappings of modern culture. We might as well be in the Congo jungle. Or on the moon . She had signed this letter, and every other letter she sent Renata, Love you like rocks , which Renata understood to mean a great and rarefied love. Ah, Action. Good thing she wasn’t here to see.

Miles had whisked Renata’s luggage to her guest quarters; she was presented with a mimosa and encouraged to eat, eat, eat! If either of the Driscolls noticed the whopper of a diamond on Renata’s left hand, it was not mentioned until Cade pulled Renata into the sun, placed his arm tightly around her shoulders, and said in his resonant lacrosse-team-captain voice, I have an announcement to make .

Suzanne Driscoll had shrieked with delight; Mr. Driscoll, his left hand trembling, made his way over to clap Cade on the back. It was for Mr. Driscoll’s sake that Cade had proposed to Renata after only ten months of dating. No one knew how quickly the Parkinson’s would progress. Cade was an only child; he was older than Renata, a senior to her freshman when they’d met, and now, with his degree from Columbia in hand, he would start a job with J. P. Morgan the Tuesday after Labor Day. His parents had bought him an apartment on East Seventy-third Street; “a little place,” they called it, though compared to Renata’s dorm room on West 121st, it was a castle.

Once you marry me, all this will be yours . The castle on Seventy-third Street, the house on Nantucket, the servants, a life of grace and ease. Action would accuse Renata of wanting all this, of finding it impossible to refuse-but what Renata had found impossible to refuse was Cade himself. He was the kindest, fairest person she had ever known; he was principled; he did the right thing; he thought of others; he was a leader in the best sense; he was princely, presidential. A real, true good egg. He adored Renata; he loved her so earnestly and had proposed with such old-fashioned good intentions that Renata overlooked the obvious objections: It was too soon. She was too young.

I’m only nineteen years old , Renata had said when the ring appeared in her drink. She wasn’t sure how she wanted her life to unfold, though she and Action had spent many nights talking about it in the minutes before they drifted off to sleep. Renata wanted to finish college, travel, visit museums, drink coffee, forge friendships, make connections, select a career path, a city (maybe New York but maybe not)-and then, once the person of Renata Knox was sufficiently cultivated, she would consider a husband and children.

Renata felt strangely cheated by Cade’s proposal. She’d had the misfortune to meet the perfect man at eighteen years of age, and they were to be married. As Renata languished in the guest room bed, she felt surprised that no one in the Driscoll family had seen the shame in this. No one said (as Renata had hoped), You two should wait a few years. Let your love steep, like tea; let it grow stronger . However, Renata was certain her father would put his foot down and that all the current celebrating would be for naught.

Renata wandered downstairs in her bathrobe. It was not quite nine, but already everyone in the house was awake and showered and fed. Renata found Nicole in the kitchen doing the breakfast dishes and Suzanne Driscoll in her tennis clothes leaning against the marble countertop, telling Nicole everything that needed to get done that day. There were lobsters being delivered, but Nicole would have to run up to the farm for corn and tomatoes and salad greens.