Elin Hilderbrand - The Love Season

When Suzanne saw Renata, she stopped. “And here comes Little Miss Sleepyhead!” This was said with enormous affection, the same tone of voice, Renata noted, that Suzanne used with the family’s Siamese cat, Mr. Rogers. Renata heard Action’s voice in her head: There you go, girl. You’re the new pet .

On their third date, Cade had taken Renata to meet his parents. The Driscolls lived on the ninth floor of a building on Park Avenue-the entire ninth floor. Renata had tried to talk herself out of being intimidated-she was smart, her high school’s valedictorian; she was worthy of anyone, including Cade-and yet she trembled with inadequacy the whole evening. She had knocked over her glass of wine, staining the tablecloth. Suzanne and Joe had laughed musically, as though nothing could be more charming. Renata got the feeling that it didn’t matter who she was or what she was like; if Cade liked her, loved her, married her, the elder Driscolls liked her, loved her, and would overlook her obvious shortcomings. Renata, who had grown up without a mother, had hoped for a real connection with Suzanne; however, her exchanges with the woman were pleasant but artificial, like a bouquet of silk flowers.

“Good morning,” Renata said. She felt a stab of guilt as Nicole peeled off her rubber gloves in order to fetch Renata a cup of coffee. “Where’s Cade?”

“Sailing with his father,” Suzanne said.

Renata’s heart sank. “When will he be back? We were supposed to go to the beach.”

“Well, you know Joe,” Suzanne said, though, of course, Renata didn’t know Joe Driscolls, not really. She did know that if Cade had abandoned her, it would only have been to please his father. “They were out the door at seven. We’re having lunch at the yacht club at noon. The Robinsons are coming at six for cocktails followed by lobsters on the deck. You do like lobster, don’t you?”

“I like lobster,” Renata said.

Suzanne sighed as if her day had hung in the balance. “Oh, good .”

“But I won’t be here for dinner.”

Suzanne stared, nonplussed. Was it a bad sign that already Renata enjoyed stymieing her future mother-in-law?

“I’m having dinner with my godmother,” Renata said. “Marguerite Beale.”

“Of course,” Suzanne said. “Marguerite Beale.” She said this in a quasi-patronizing way, as if Marguerite Beale were an imaginary friend Renata had invented. “You’ve spoken to her, then?”

“Last night,” Renata said. “After you and Joe left the restaurant, I called her.”

“And you’re having dinner?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you going out? Or… you’ll eat at her house?”

“Her house.” Renata sipped her coffee.

“Is she cooking?” Suzanne said. “I hate to sound nosy, but I’ve heard…from friends who have friends who live here year-round, that…”

“That what?”

“That she doesn’t cook anymore.”

Renata set down her coffee cup more forcefully than she meant to and tugged at the sash of her robe. There was a way in which the Driscolls family could not get over themselves. They believed, for example, that they held exclusive rights to the island of Nantucket. And yet how many times had Renata mentioned her own family’s history here? Her uncle Porter had been coming since the fifties; he had been Marguerite’s lover for seventeen years. Renata’s mother, Candace, had worked at the Chamber of Commerce; she and Marguerite had been best friends. Renata’s father, Daniel Knox, had owned the Beach Club down the street; he sold it a few months after Candace died, right around the time that Marguerite closed Les Parapluies. Renata herself had been born here and christened here, but the most important fact about Nantucket within the Knox family history was that Candace had died here. Hit by a car, on the road that led to Madequecham Beach. Somehow, Renata felt this gave her the strongest connection to the island; it trumped everyone else. And yet the only tie Renata could claim anymore was Marguerite. Marguerite, her godmother, whom she had been forbidden from seeing her whole life. There had been letters, checks, a distant paper presence. Renata had studied photographs of Marguerite; she had overheard snatches of the old stories. She had only one memory of the woman-a cold day, snow, a grandfather clock, a cup of tea with honey. The tea had burned Renata’s tongue. She cried, and arms wrapped around her. She sat on a soft, flowered couch.

“She’s cooking,” Renata said, though she had no idea if this were true or not, and quite frankly, she didn’t care. Pizza was fine, or peanut butter toast. Renata just wanted to talk.

Suzanne sniffed, smoothed her tennis skirt. Her face was at once unbelieving and envious.

“Well,” she said. “Aren’t you lucky?”

9:14 A.M.

Marguerite smoked the mussels herself. She debearded them and placed them in a smoker that a fellow chef had sent her for Christmas several years ago. She had never used the smoker and remembered thinking when she unwrapped it that she would never use it. But now she had grown old enough to prove herself wrong.

The smoker required a pan of water and wood chips. Marguerite set the contraption up, got it smoking like a wet campfire, and left it on the patio to do its thing. The clock chimed quarter past the hour. Marguerite looked longingly at her sofa, where a collection of Alice Munro stories beckoned to her like a middle-aged siren. Not today. Marguerite checked her list.

Call for the meat

Herb Farm

Tart crust

Bread!!!

Pots de crème

Aioli

Polish silver

Champagne!!!

Back in the day, Marguerite had worked from lists all the time. She had made daily pilgrimages to Dusty’s fish shop, and to the Herb Farm for produce; the meat had been delivered. She had prepared stocks, roasted peppers, baked bread, cultivated yogurt, rolled out crusts, whipped up custards, crushed spices. Les Parapluies was unique in that Marguerite had served one four-course menu-starter, salad, entrée, dessert-that changed each day. Porter was driven mad by the simplicity of it. People want choices , he’d said. They want to come in when they’re hungry. You’re telling the customer what they will eat and when they will eat. You can’t run a business that way, Daisy!

Marguerite triaged her list. Bread . If she started it now, the dough would have ten hours to rise. She took a jar of yeast from the fridge and found sugar, salt, and flour in the pantry. The acquaintances Marguerite happened across at the A &P never failed to inspect the contents of her shopping cart-she noticed they did this ever so subtly, skimming their eyes over her groceries the way one ran a white glove over a shelf to check for dust. On any given week, they would find cans of corn, packaged soups, occasionally a hunk of expensive French cheese because the texture pleased her, and basic staples: sugar, salt, flour. But nothing fresh, nothing exotic. There was no pleasure in food for Marguerite anymore. She could taste nothing. She ate only to stay alive.

She missed cooking as profoundly as an amputated limb. It felt odd, sinful, to be back at it; it felt like she was breaking some kind of vow. Only for her , she thought. And it was just the one meal. Marguerite bumbled around at first; she moved too fast, wanting to do everything at once. She took three stainless-steel bowls from the cabinet; they clanged together like a primitive musical instrument. The bowls were dusty and needed a rinse, but first, Marguerite thought, she would get warm water for the bread (a hundred degrees, as she’d advised in the column she’d written about bread baking for the Calgary paper). There used to be a rhythm to her process, one step at a time. Slow down , she thought. Think about what you’re doing! She proofed her yeast in the largest of the bowls; then she mixed in sugar, salt, and a cup of flour until she had something the consistency of pancake batter. She started adding flour, working it in, adding flour, working it in, until a baby-soft batch of dough formed under her hands. Marguerite added more flour-the dough was still sticky-and she kneaded, thinking, This feels wonderful; this is like medicine, I am happy . She thought, I want music . She pushed the play button of her stereo, leaving behind a white, floury smudge. When she dusted the smudge away in three or four days, would she remember this happiness? It would have evaporated, of course, transmogrified into another emotion, depending on how the dinner party went. What Marguerite was thriving on this second was the energy of anticipation. She had always loved it-the preparation, getting ready, every night a big night because at Les Parapluies the evenings when the numbers were the smallest had been the best evenings, the most eventful. The locals came, and the regulars; there was gossip flying from table to table; everyone drank too much.