Chapter 28
Hannah sat on the steps of the Barefooter house, soaking in the mild October sunshine and staring at the photo she had taken out of one of the photo albums of a tall dark-haired boy who was standing in the center of the four girlfriends, two girls on each side. They were all wearing bathing suits and they were standing barefoot on the boardwalk. The edge of a bright blue sail peeked into the picture and it looked like late summer, everyone’s tan too brown to be early summer.
Her mother, beautiful and leggy in a pink bikini, leaned her blond head against the boy’s bare chest. He was so tall, her head ended below his shoulders. Next to her, Zooey leaned in, her skinny legs twisted awkwardly, her smile hesitant. She still looked like her old bird nickname in the photo, spindly and strange and sexless, nothing like the glamorous woman she would become. Pam was on the boy’s other side, beaming up at him with utter worship and wearing a one-piece bathing suit with a high neck that only accentuated her chest rather than hiding it, as was its most likely intention. Amy was the only one not pressed into the group, standing a little apart and bent a little to scratch at her leg. She looked irritable and impatient, already stepping away from this forced pose of togetherness.
Was the boy her father, Michael? He was dark and tall, just like her. But his expression as unfamiliar – one of openness and amusement, of someone completely at ease. Even when her mother was sparkling away in a crowd of admirers she was never peaceful; instead, she was “on”, doing a little verbal soft-shoe routine. With the Barefooters and Hannah, she only relaxed halfway, a part of her guard remaining rigidly up. It was that ever-present guard that both separated Hannah from the mother and made her feel like her mother’s daughter, recognizing the wall that stood between her and others.
The plummeting feeling of dread that came in waves for the last few days, hit her in the chest again and then fell through her stomach. Her book, once a source of joy and elation, was now a pile of ashes in Pam’s fireplace, but nothing could be done about all the other copies in bookstores, ticking time bombs waiting on bedside tables. Even now, her mother or one of her aunts could be reading it. Too soon, Hannah’s cell would ring and her mother would have one last cold message for her. Or maybe she’d call after she’d been swimming upstream through a river of wine and the words would be wilder and more violent. Or maybe there wouldn’t be any communication at all. Would the Barefooters step in then? Or would they, too, turn away? But they loved her - they wouldn’t do that. Would they?
Then she heard it. Someone was honking a car horn across the lead. It sounded like her family’s code.
There it was again. Yes, it was the O’Brien code.
Maybe it was one of the Barefooters. Or her mother! If they were here, that was a good sign. Wasn’t it?
She shoved the picture randomly back in the album, leaving it loose between the pages. Then she scrambled up the stairs, dropped the album on the coffee table, and spun around so fast she nearly fell. The car horn sounded again across the lead. Hannah pounded back down the stairs, running for Pam’s house and the boat.
At first, as the boat approached the community dock across the slapping waves, she was confused to see that it was empty. She had imagined them all waiting for her there. Then she remembered the locked gate to the parking lot. Did she have the only key? That didn’t make sense. She shut off the engine, tied up the boat as securely as she could considering her lack of skills with knots, and ran up the dock and then the path to the lot. The car wasn’t her stepfather’s dark green Jag, Pam’s silver BMW, Amy’s red SUV, or Zo’s black Lexus. It was a boxy white car she didn’t recognize. She stumbled to a stop. She could only see the shadowy outline of the person in the driver’s seat. Who-
Then the car door opened and Daniel unfolded himself from the driver’s side.
She blinked. What was he doing here? “Daniel!”
He smiled and waved at her and then at the car. “Rental. Ugly, isn’t it? So, are you going to let me in?”
“I…” She wavered and then ran to unlock the wooden gate, grateful that the keys for the boat’s ignition and the key for the parking lot gate were on the same ring. She pushed the gate, swinging it wide, and watched as Daniel drove through. Daniel. Here now. But, she’d said she needed time alone. Why did she feel so relieved? She should be mad. Hell, she should be furious. Why was she so happy to see his ever-tousled hair, his dancing dark brown eyes, his dimpled grin?
Digging up brown dust, he drove across the lot and parked next to her car. She closed the gate behind him and walked slowly over to meet him, quickly running her hands through her tangled hair and patting it down. She hadn’t even thought of her appearance when she’d leapt in the boat to go and greet her visitors, had assumed it was her aunts and possibly her mother. She looked down at the soft ragged cargo pants and gray sweatshirt she’d taken to wearing every day and saw how dirty they were for the first time. She wiped at a reddish stain, possibly jam, on her right breast. It didn’t budge.
“Hey, you,” he said, already out of the car and holding his arms open wide. She hesitantly went into his arms and let herself be enfolded. Oh, it felt so good.
“Hey,” she said into the warm fabric of his navy cotton thermal shirt.
Then she lifted her face and they were kissing. Suddenly she was pierced with longing, ambushed by her buried love and desire for him. Why hadn’t she known she needed him, now more than ever?
Daniel pulled away and smiled. “Wow! Somebody’s missed me. Are those erasers in your bra, or are you just happy to see me?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
She felt her face flood with heat. “I…, I have missed you.”
“Good. I’ve got the next few days off and this hermit-routine of yours is getting old. You and your mom are going to work things out, but meanwhile, I need to see you. So, here I am, bag in hand, willing to take a chance that you’d turn me away. But, before you say anything, you’ve got to see what I’ve brought you.”
He released her, went to the rear of the rental car and opened the trunk. “You’ve been moping around here too long. And I was thinking…what you need is…” Daniel lifted out a large brown cardboard box with writing on its side. In red magic marker, he’d written “FUN”. “Fun in a box! Everything you need for a great time, in one box! That’s right, folks, good times, good times. So where…” He looked around and saw the picnic table set in the middle of the lawn between the parking lot and the dock. He jerked his head at her. “Come, my sweet, and see what I brought you.”
Hannah felt the familiar delight blossom in her. He was so wonderful, always surprising her like this. This man, this caring good fun-loving man, wanted to marry her. It was amazing.
Then she felt it: her bare ring finger, breeze tickling on it. Her engagement ring was tucked safely away in her suitcase, put there the first day she arrived. Every time she saw it on her finger since June, she felt a thrum of panic and fear, and feeling safely alone on the island, she had taken it off. And forgotten it.
Daniel was already leading the way to the picnic table carrying the box. Hannah stuck her hands in the back pockets of her pants and followed him, trying to look casual. He put the box down and turned to her. “Come on. Open it!”
“No, you. Show me. I can’t believe you did this.” She smiled at him and cocked her head. Make it look normal. As soon as they were at Aunt Pam’s she’d get her ring. Just had to hide her hand until then.
“All right. Get ready.” He opened the box, looked inside and then turned to her. “You know the Barefooter’s super-secret Mean Greens recipe?”
“Yeah, it’s famous. Everyone wants it.”
“Well…I called your Aunt Pam. She seemed like the softie of the group. I begged. I told her I wanted to surprise you and it had to be something good, something ultimate. I swore an oath of secrecy. And…” he said, reaching into the box. He lifted up a plastic grocery bag filled with items, placed it on the table, and then pulled out a golden bottle of Patron tequila and another brown squat bottle of Grand Marnier and placed them on the table as well. The remaining ingredients were hidden in the bag. He splayed out his hand with a flourish. “At your service, fixings for Mean Greens that will kick you in the pants and make you want to dance,” he said, quoting the Barefooters.
“No!”
“Yes. Your Aunt Pam’s a pushover. All I had to do was butter her up. I’m surprised more people haven’t gotten the recipe out of her.”
“No one can. I can’t believe it!” Aunt Pam gave Daniel the recipe? She really couldn’t believe it. None of the Barefooters would part with it, no matter how abject the pleading or lavish the offers of gifts or money.
“But wait, there’s more!” He pulled out the familiar yellow bag from a local cheese shop in Greenwich and opened it slightly to show its contents. Inside were her favorite gourmet cheddar cheese straws, made fresh at the shop. She’d been dreaming about them lately, memories of the buttery crumbly texture and the rich cheesy flavor making her mouth water.
“Oh, no! I’ve been craving those so bad! How did you know?” She wanted to hug him. Her hands felt awkward in her pockets. She smiled at him extra hard in appreciation. He had traveled out to Greenwich just to get her favorite snack for her.
“And more…” he said, reaching into the box again and pulling out a small pile of magazines. Her favorite gardening magazines that she bought herself occasionally as a treat, he had gotten all of the latest issues.
“Oooo! Honey!” She restrained herself from reaching for them. Her cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling.
“And for the grand finale…drum roll please….” Daniel pounded his fingers lightly on the table, smiling at her wickedly, and then reached into the box again. This time he pulled out a gift, which was wrapped so poorly she knew he had been the one to wrap it. He presented it to her with a little nodding bow. “Something in your honor.”
Now she would have to take her hands out of her pockets. What was she going to do? She couldn’t let him see.
She reached for the package quickly with her palms up. “Oh, I can’t believe this.” She used her right hand to do all the work, holding the package in such a way that it obscured her left hand. It made unwrapping much more awkward and difficult, and she felt his eyes upon her the whole time. The package was rectangular, and feeling the edge, she could tell it was a frame. Tearing at it, she saw what looked like the cover of her book. He framed the cover? She tore off the rest of the paper. It was the cover, and just below it, a clipping of the bestseller list showing her novel at the very bottom. It clearly had been professionally framed and matted.
“We’ll have to redo it when it hits number one.”
She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight and painful. “Oh, Daniel. How…it’s…”
“When I called your Aunt Pam to beg for the Mean Greens recipe, she told me your book hit. She wanted to give me a copy, she’d cleaned out the local Barnes and Noble, but, of course, I told her I’ve got one, already read it. Loved it. She asked all kinds of questions about it. She was so excited.”
Tears popped out Hannah’s eyes and fell on her cheeks, rolling down. “I-“
“Oh, don’t cry! You’re supposed to be happy. You should be jumping around! Or have you already heard? Damn, I wanted to be the one-“
Hannah cleared her throat. “My editor told me, on the phone the other day. Oh,” she said and paused. “This is so sweet of you. I can’t believe this! You always think of the best things. You’re right, I should be happy, it’s just…”
“Just what?”
She sighed, her breath hitching. “Oh, Daniel. It’s a mess. I was reading it again, and I’ve done a really horrible thing. It’s all about my mother. Somehow, some part of me was trying to get back at her. Hurt her. And now that it’s a bestseller, everyone’s going to read it: the Barefooters, all our friends, definitely my mom. When she reads it, it’s going to kill her. I’ve been trying to figure out how to stop this, but-“
She started sobbing and then swallowed hard, trying to stop, not wanting him to see her like this. She convulsed, looking down at the patchy brown and green grass in the picnic area. When were they going to learn? Lawns were hopeless out here.
Daniel reached for the frame and took it gently out of her hands, placing it on the table. Then he wrapped his arms around her shaking form. “I know what needs to stop. You and your over-active imagination. It may be great thing when you’re writing fiction, but it’s not so great in real life. I’ve read it, remember? And I’ve met your mother. That creature-feature in your book is not your mother. You’ve been spending way too much time alone, that’s what it is. I know, I’ve done it, too.”
“You?” She found herself laughing through the tears. Daniel was the most social man she’d ever met. It was one of the things that attracted her to him: his joy in a riotous melee, his ability to socialize endlessly. When he was willing to stay in for the night with her rather than go to a party or out on the town again, she knew he was in love with her.
“Yes, me. Don’t sound so shocked. Even I like a little time alone. Mostly when I’m into a good book. But there have been a few times I went into hibernation, pissed off at the world, and ended up regretting it. Felt a little crazy after a few days. And how long have you been here? Two whole weeks by yourself: no wonder you’re starting to imagine things. “
She pulled away from him a little to look up at him, her breath hitching. “But I’m not imagining it.”
He took her chin between his fingers. “Yes, you are. Trust me.”
She stared into his dark brown eyes. Was he right? Maybe he was. Other than a few phone calls and that brief unpleasant interaction with Mr. McGrath, she’d been completely alone. Maybe it was wrong to spend so much time by herself, no matter how much she loved it. Maybe her beloved solitude was driving her crazy.
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I am. So, are we going to get this party started? Am I allowed into your sacred hermitage?”
She laughed. It was silly, wasn’t it? “Of course! I can’t wait to see if you can make a real Mean Green.”
“I got all the secret ingredients…, but you’ll have to cover your eyes.”
“What? Don’t I get to find out? But I’m their daughter!”
Daniel smiled and shook his head. “Sorry. Sworn to secrecy. And I’m supposed to burn the recipe and forget what I know after today. I’m not even supposed to tell your mother or other aunts.”
“Pam told you without their permission? Ooooh!”
“Yup. But she didn’t do it for me, she did it for you. She’s really worried about you. And about your mom.”
“What? What about my mother?”
He shrugged and released her, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I guess you’re not the only one out of the loop. Pam said she hadn’t been able to reach your mom for over a week. Usually, she calls right back. Pam’s worried.”
“What about the others? Haven’t they talked to her?”
“Pam called them, but neither had tried to reach her yet. They said they’d call. I guess, like you said, fall is usually when each of them is off doing their own thing.”
“Yeah,” Hannah said, nodding slowly. “That’s true, but I didn’t realize they really don’t talk after their annual vacation. Things must be different now that I’m grown up. When I was little they were always together – usually pitching in to baby-sit.”
“Well, maybe now that they’re all trying to get a hold of your mom, she’ll call back. She’s probably busy, too.”
Hannah nodded a doubtful side-to-side nod. No, her mother was probably bored and lonely. In Fairfield, she knew everyone and everyone knew her. She was Miss Popularity and Social Butterfly Extraordinaire. But her mother had hinted that things were different in New York, that her dreams of bon-bon eating and lounging around all day hadn’t lived up to her expectations. She hadn’t mentioned her new neighbors or any friends in the city. Now that she thought about it, her mother, who was usually bursting with the latest gossip about various friends and neighbors in Fairfield, was strangely mum in the last year, ever since she and Ben moved into that huge fancy apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking the park.
“Enough about your mom. She’s fine. You’ll be fine. You two are going to patch things up. I saw the two of you when we were here for that weekend, and let me tell you, your mom is crazy about you. Just the way she looks at you, so proud. And you missed it, but she grilled me one morning.”
“What?”
“You were sleeping in and I stumbled downstairs looking for coffee. She was awake already, probably had a couple cups before I showed up. She was wide awake. As soon as I filled my mug, she dragged me out on the back stoop to sit and “chat” as she said. Let me tell you, that was no chat. It was an interrogation. She got all the goods on me. She looked really serious, kinda scared me. But at the end, she smiled at me and said, ‘Good. You pass.’”
“No! Seriously? She said that?”
“Seriously. She was being really protective. It was scary, especially after I’d been around the fun-loving joke-telling version of your mom.”
Hannah sighed and said, “There are lots of versions of my mom.”
Daniel clapped his hands together and clasped them in front of him. “Okay, time to get cracking. We’ve got some Mean Greens to drink. Let the good times roll.” He put the items back in the box quickly and lifted it up, looking at her expectantly.
They grabbed his bag out of his rental’s trunk and were in the process of loading everything into the boat, when she spotted Mr. McGrath in his small motorboat with a dark-haired woman at his side approaching the community dock where they stood. As she covered her eyes with her tented hand in order to get a better look at the woman, the boat suddenly changed course, heading back toward the island. She could hear the woman’s raised shrill voice above his boat’s motor and it sounded like she was angry. What was going on? Was Mr. McGrath avoiding her? Was that his wife?
“Who was that? There are other people out here?” Daniel, also tenting his hand above his eyes, peered at the swiftly retreating boat.
“Yeah, a couple. I met the man the first day, when I arrived. He wasn’t very welcoming. Practically told me to go away.”
Daniel turned to look at her. “Really? That doesn’t sound right. I thought everyone was buddy-buddy around here?”
The boat was a miniature now in the distance. She turned back to him, shaking her head. “No, not really, not everyone. The down-islanders are like that, super social, but the up-islanders tend to keep to themselves. They’re up-islanders and I’m pretty certain they wanted to be alone this month. He said as much.”
“Huh,” he said. She looked at him and saw his eyes on her left hand, where it had been exposed thoughtlessly tenting her eyes, following it as it dropped to her side.