Elin Hilderbrand - Barefoot - A Novel

“What about my dad?” Blaine screamed.

Porter was official y wailing now. A baby crying was, Josh decided, the world’s worst noise.

“I don’t know anything about your dad,” Josh said.

“He’s supposed to come tonight!” Blaine said. Blaine’s face turned red right to the edge of his scalp, then the color crept through the part of his white-blond hair.

“Okay, wel ,” Josh said. He’d wondered why the Three had left so quickly, why they tiptoed down the walk like cat burglars. Vicki had left something off the list, something crucial. Blaine was expecting his father to show up. “Do you want to eat some toothpaste?”

“No!” Blaine screamed. He ran to the front door, which was closed. He ran to the back door and bul dozed through the screen.

“Whoa!” Josh said. Ouch. Blaine bounced back onto his rear end, but not before leaving a Blaine-shaped-and-sized bulge in the screen. Blaine howled and put his hand to his face, then showed Josh blood. The Three had been gone less than ten minutes and already there was damaged property and blood. The kids cried in stereo. Josh shut the back door. If the neighbors heard, they would cal the police. He set the crying baby down on the floor and went to the bathroom for a wet washcloth. Easiest money ever made? Hardly.

This was more like it, Vicki thought. The cab was approaching town, bouncing over the cobblestone streets, which were crowded with loaded-down SUVs, many of which, Vicki guessed, had just come off the ferry that Ted was supposed to be on. The sidewalks were teeming with activity—

couples headed for dinner or the art gal eries on Old South Wharf, col ege kids aiming for drinks at the Gazebo, crew members coming off yachts, looking to stock up on provisions at the Grand Union—it was Nantucket on a summer night and Vicki loved it. She had been stranded on Planet Cancer for too long.

Muffled strains of Beethoven wafted up from Brenda’s purse.

“That’s probably Ted,” Vicki said. “Cal ing to apologize.”

Brenda pul ed the phone out and checked the display. “Nope.” She shut the phone and tucked it back into her purse. Vicki and Melanie waited a beat.

“Was it John Walsh?” Melanie asked.

“It was not.”

“Was it your lawyer again?” Vicki asked.

“Please shut up,” Brenda said, casting a sideways look at Melanie.

“I promised John Walsh you’d cal him back,” Melanie said. “You did cal him back, I hope. He cal ed, geez, last Sunday.”

“I did not cal him back,” Brenda said. “And you had no right to promise him any such thing.”

“Come on, now,” Vicki said. “We’re trying to have fun.” The cab unloaded them at the restaurant. Melanie paid the driver. “Thank you, Mel,” Vicki said.

“Yes, thank you,” Brenda said, somewhat snidely.

“I’l buy dinner,” Vicki said, as if there had been any doubt.

“This was your idea,” Brenda said.

It was her idea, Vicki thought, and once they were seated in the dining room among the white linen and wineglasses and plates of pecan-crusted swordfish and phyl o-wrapped salmon revealed from under silver domes, it seemed like a grand one. She had ordered a bottle of riotously expensive Château Margaux, because if Vicki was going to drink wine she wanted it to be good wine. Even Melanie accepted a glass; Vicki encouraged her along like a bad teenager who had taken lessons in peer pressure. One glass won’t hurt. But the wine went to Melanie’s head, perhaps because she was out of practice, and she just started talking.

“I cal ed Frances Digitt’s apartment. Peter was there.”

“Oh, Mel,” Vicki said. “You didn’t.”

“I had to.”

“You had to?” Brenda said.

“I asked him if he wanted me to come home.”

“And what did he say?” Vicki asked.

“He didn’t answer.”

Brenda took a breath like she was about to speak, but then she clamped her mouth shut.

“What?” Melanie said.

“Nothing,” Brenda said. “There are just a bunch of things I don’t understand.”

“There are a bunch of things I don’t understand,” Melanie said. “Like first of al , why you need a lawyer, and second of al , why you won’t take his cal s.”

“Mel . . . ,” Vicki said. She had told Melanie about Brenda’s predicament at Champion—fired for her involvement with John Walsh—but she had only al uded to Brenda’s legal trouble, primarily because al Vicki knew about it was what she had been told by their mother: Brenda was under investigation for vandalizing a piece of university-owned art. Brenda herself had said nothing about it to Vicki, probably because she figured Vicki had gotten the story from El en Lyndon. For years, information had been passed between the two girls via their mother, who had no understanding of confidentiality, at least not when it involved family.

“What?” Melanie said, her cheeks flaring red now. “She knows my dirty laundry. What’s fair is fair.”

“The only reason I know your dirty laundry is because you can’t stop talking about it,” Brenda said.

“Enough!” Vicki said. “Let’s change the subject.”

“Yes,” Melanie said.

“Fine,” Brenda said. “What do you think of Josh?”

“He’s gorgeous,” Melanie said. Her cheeks grew even rosier.

“Wel !” Brenda said.

“That’s why you hired him,” Melanie said. “Don’t pretend it isn’t. I’ve heard you have a penchant for younger men.”

Vicki touched Melanie’s arm like a gentle referee. “How was your food?” Vicki asked. “Did you like it?”

Melanie poked at her steak, which she had barely touched. “It was fine. But rich. I don’t want to make myself sick.”

“You stil feel bad?”

“Horrible,” Melanie said. She pushed her wine away. “I don’t want this.”

“I’l drink it,” Vicki said.

Brenda glared at Melanie. “Just so you know, John Walsh, my former student, was not a younger man. He’s a year older than I am.”

“Real y?” Melanie said. “I thought Vicki said . . .”

“You know, Ted is bringing a box of that ginger tea I told you about,” Vicki said. “It wil help settle your stomach.”

“So please, no more references to younger men,” Brenda said. “It’s not only insulting, it’s inaccurate.”

“Okay,” Melanie said. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Vicki said.

“Sure she does,” Brenda said.

Vicki set her fork down. Al around them, people were having lovely dinners, pleasant conversation—was it too much to ask to be one of them, if only for tonight? “I want champagne with dessert,” she said.

“Oh, Vick, are you sure?” Brenda said.

As Vicki flagged their waiter, Brenda’s phone rang.

“You should turn that off,” Vicki said.

Brenda checked the display.

“Ted?” Vicki said.

“John Walsh?” Melanie said. And then in a heartbreakingly earnest voice, “Peter?”

“Nope,” Brenda said. “It’s Mom.”

“Oh, God,” Vicki said. “Turn it off.”

Somehow, Josh got Blaine’s face cleaned up (the scratch was microscopic; Vicki might not even have noticed it had Blaine not insisted on the largest Band-Aid in the box). Blaine, patched up and abashed by his own antics, calmed down. Porter was stil wailing, however, and Josh was at a loss as to how to make him stop.

“Give him a bottle,” Blaine said. “He won’t take it, but Mom says we have to keep trying.”

Josh lifted the bottle out of the pan of hot water, tested the milk against the inside of his wrist like he’d seen it done in that movie where three grown men who don’t know anything about babies are left in charge of one, and then tried, with Porter nestled in the crook of his arm, to feed it to him. No such luck. The baby was too heavy to hold that way and he didn’t want the bottle. He threw it to the ground and shrieked with his lips curled back so that Josh could see al the way down his throat. Blaine looked on with mild interest.