What I Thought Was True

Chapter Twenty-six

“‘Her body was like that undiscovered country that he had long yearned for and never found. And so he took her, planting his flag in her uncharted regions, as only a man can take a woman he yearns for, pines for, throbs to possess,’” I read to my rapt audience.

Mrs. E. is not alone in her taste for romance novels.

The reading circle has expanded to include tiny Mrs. Cole and Phelps, Big Mrs. McCloud, and Avis King. I can hardly be accused of corrupting minors, since Mrs. Cole is the youngest at seventy-something, but I feel uncomfortable anyway. Maybe because my mom loaned me the book. Or because during one of the pirate’s more exotic seductions of the pregnant princess, Avis King made me reread a paragraph three times while she and the others tried to decide if the pirate’s feats were physically possible. And really, his flag?

Jump-starting this discussion, Avis King, growling in her pack-a-day voice: “He’d have to be extremely physically fit.”

Mrs. Cole, high-pitched and defensive: “I’m sure pirates were. All that sacking and pillaging.”

Avis King: “Clarissa, you’re all in a muddle, as usual. Vikings sacked and pillaged. Pirates spent a lot of time on the high seas on cramped boats without room to exercise.”

“This pirate certainly gets a lot of exercise,” Mrs. Ellington says approvingly. “I do like these modern romances. None of that foolish cutting away to the next scene just when things are getting good.”

Big Mrs. McCloud, imperious as a queen: “Pirates all had bad teeth too. Scurvy.”

Avis King: “Let’s just move along, girls?”

But we can only continue a short way before there’s more speculation. “The princess must be having a boy if she’s interested in getting up to all that with the pirate in her condition.

“Oh Clarissa, that’s a myth,” says Avis King. “There was no difference at all in how I felt about Malcolm when I was expecting Susanna or William.”

“I don’t know . . .” Mrs. Cole muses. “I barely wanted to eat at the same table as Richard when I was with child with Linda, but with Douglas and Peter . . .” She stops, smiling reminiscently.

Mercifully, the ladies all ask for iced tea at this point. Mrs. Cole follows me into the kitchen. “This is hard,” she says softly, in her whispery little-girl voice. I assume she means the pirate and the princess and concur.

“Well, it is kind of explicit, and that can be unnerving.”

“Oh heavens”—she flaps her hand at me—“not that! Do you think I was born yesterday?”

Well no, which is part of what makes it awkward.

“No, it’s that dear Rose has headed up all our summer traditions. Now she spends so much time sitting about. Doing nothing. Planning less. That’s what I hate the most. The not planning. Like there’s no future there,” she confides, softly. “She’s the oldest of us, but never seemed that way. I don’t know what Henry Ellington’s thinking, leaving her on her own so much. When my Richard broke his hip, our children and grandchildren were there all summer, waiting on him hand and foot. Drove him crazy, if you must know. But far better that than this . . . absence.”

Just then the phone rings. As if summoned, it’s Henry Ellington. “Gwen? How’s my mother doing?”

The problem is, having discussed his mother with him a grand total of once, I don’t know how much truth he wants. I say something about her appetite being good, and how she’s gotten to the beach, and he cuts in with, “What about resting? Has she been getting her naps on schedule? Same time every day?”

Does it really matter about the time? She naps, but yes, we’ve occasionally come back later from the beach or gone for a drive to some farm stand in Maplecrest where they have these elusive white peaches Mrs. Ellington craves. I stammer that I try.

“I’m sure,” he says, his voice softening. “I know Mother’s will of iron. But do your best. I’ll be coming down to see her today, as a matter of fact. But I’ll probably get there while she’s napping. Then I’d like to make dinner. Would you be offended if I sent you out to the market for us? It’s my father’s birthday and she’s always sad. I thought I’d make her his favorite meal—that was their tradition.”

Indeed, Mrs. E. is fretful and out of sorts by early afternoon. She agrees to go up to bed slightly early, then keeps calling me back to open a window, close a shade, bring her a cup of warm milk with nutmeg. She fusses that I put in too much honey, not enough nutmeg, the milk is too hot, there’s a scalded skin on top. Finally, she lets me leave. I sit outside her door sliding my back down the wall, checking my texts from Viv and Nic, waiting for another summons, but all is quiet, so I inch slowly down the stairs, stepping over the fourth one that creaks like the crack of a rifle if you hit it the wrong way.

I’m lying in the front yard, shoulder straps pulled down for tan line elimination, reading the antics of the pirate and the princess, when I see Mom and her current cohorts coming out of the Tucker house across the street. Buckets and mops in hands signals that they’re done. Which means that the Robinsons’ stay on the island is done. So long, Alex. I get up to walk over. Spotting me, Mom gives a cheery wave, and then fans her hands over her face in a gesture of exasperation meant to convey that her existing cleaning team hasn’t gotten any better. Angela Castle, who is Dad’s cousin’s daughter, is hauling the vacuum cleaner down the stairs, wearing a sour expression and a shirt cut down to her navel. According to Mom, Angela only consented to this job in hopes of winning the hand of some Seashell summer guy. “As if,” Mom said, “we haven’t all outgrown Cinderella. Yuh, that’ll happen. Because nothing says sexy like mopping your floor.”

Angela drags the equipment to the back of the Bronco, while Mom reaches into the Igloo cooler stationed there and extracts a Diet Coke.

Then, to me, under her breath, Mom says, “I hope we did okay. Those Robinsons are so particular. They always give it the white glove treatment after I leave and there’s always something we left undone, so ‘in all good conscience we couldn’t pay you the full rate.’ Good riddance, I say.”

I think I hear Mrs. E. calling me, but all is still when I creep up the stairs and press my ear to her door. Just as I get back down, Henry Ellington comes in, wearing a beige cashmere cable-knit sweater tied around his neck, carrying a briefcase, and accompanied by a scholarly-looking man with thinning red hair, whom he introduces as Gavin Gage, “a business partner.” Mr. Gage is one of those people who don’t look at you when they shake your hand, glancing everywhere around the room instead.

Henry fishes a list of out of his pocket, written on the back of a bank deposit envelope, directs me to go to Fillerman’s Fish Market after the grocery store because they have the “freshest salmon.” Grandpa is always ragging on Fillerman’s, saying they soak their fish in milk to get rid of the fishy smell from being sold too old. For a second, treacherously, as if Dad’s words on Sandy Claw let loose a snake in my mind, I look at the one-hundred-dollar bill Henry has handed me and wonder how much of it I could keep if I hit up Grandpa or one of his cohorts for salmon instead. It’d be a service—the salmon would definitely be better.

“I’ll bring you all the receipts,” I say hastily, cutting off that train of thought.

“Of course.” Henry loosens the sweater, draping it over the kitchen chair. “A shot of bourbon, Gavin? Gwen, take Mother’s car.” He slides me the keys, anchored by a carved wooden seagull.

I should not be intimidated by Mrs. Ellington’s car, but even after our market drives and sightseeing tours, I still am.

The interior is cream-colored leather, the outside shiny ivory paint. It’s like it’s just left the showroom. I start to edge uneasily out of the driveway, tires crunching on clamshells. I feel as though I’m driving a gigantic marshmallow on wheels.

Just then the dark green Seashell Services truck wheels up, parking with a squeal. Tony gets out the front and Cass hops out the back, which is already heaped with hedge clippings. Tony shouts some words I can’t hear, jerking his chin to the passenger seat of the truck, and Cass ducks in and emerges with a weed-whacker. Tony leans over, cupping his hand around Cass’s ear to say something, jerking his head toward the Robinson/Tucker house. Probably he’s passing on the same information that Mom did. That they are demanding and high-maintenance. It strikes me how funny it is that Cass is no doubt as rich as the Robinsons, if not more so. But, in just about a month, Tony and Marco have accepted him as an island guy. They didn’t see him last night, though, piling into the Porsche, careless, laughing, comfortable, every inch the aristocrat.

Cass waves the whacker, pumps it in the air, and Tony claps him on the back. Then they both burrow into the boxwood bushes, no doubt looking for electrical outlets. As I start to drive away, I allow my glance to stray to the rearview mirror, linger on Cass’s backside. Tony’s plumber butt is much less appealing.

He wasn’t wearing gloves. Cass!

I hurry through the shopping list, frustrated because Henry has specified on the list that all these things need to be bought in particular places all over town. For God’s sake. In addition to the fish at Fillerman’s, there are rolls that can only be bought at a bakery in White Bay, then all this other stuff from Stop & Shop. Then Garrett’s Hardware for some kind of cedar plank for grilling the salmon. Which takes forever, because I can’t find it, the store is a bit of a mess, and the cute redheaded guy behind the counter gets totally distracted when some chick walks in wearing cut-off shorts. Plus I find myself lingering in front of the work-glove display. Should I? No, that would be weird. Very weird. Then sorbet and meringues at Homelyke, and then the liquor store, where Henry wants Prosecco. I don’t even know what that is, except that I’m not old enough to buy it, and Dom D’Ofrio, who works there, knows that all too well. I tell him it’s for my boss and he just rolls his eyes. “Never heard that one before.”

An hour and a half later, sweating, I loop the Cadillac back into the driveway, where Henry’s Subaru is still blocking the circular drive. I’m hauling the various bags into the kitchen when I hear his distinctive voice from the front hall. “This, obviously, is an Audubon. Great-Grandfather Howard, my mother’s side, invested heavily in art. We have several more at the Park Avenue house.”

“A print,” Gage’s voice says firmly. “Have you had the others authenticated?”

“No, naturally I came to you with this first. How can this not be an original?”

There’s a scraping sound, as though Mr. Gage is taking it off the wall. “Here. See. Henry, I assure you, you aren’t the first generation in any family to find your finances in arrears. Just yesterday I was sent to White Bay to take a look at a Tiffany necklace that had supposedly been handed down in the family since the 1840s. All the stones were paste. Useless. It happens more often than you’d think. By nature, my business is very discreet, so you don’t hear a thing. I have a client in Westwood who had copies painted of all the fine art in the house. His parents had been famous collectors. Told his wife he was nervous about theft and was putting the paintings in storage and displaying the copies. Sold the originals to me.”

“Sounds like a great marriage,” Henry Ellington says drily. “The point is, what do we have here of any value?”

I got paper bags, not plastic, and am setting them down really gently, hoping they won’t rustle and alert Henry to my presence, which I’m pretty sure is not wanted. I’ve had a lifetime of hearing “Other people’s stories, Gwen. All we owe them is a clean house and a closed mouth.” But it’s hard to close your brain. What’s going on?

“Henry, you know I’ll do all I can for you. Some of the furniture is of worth. The Eldred Wheeler Nantucket tea table in the foyer would amount to about eight hundred dollars. So would the Walnut Burr table here in the dining room. The china cabinet Meissen vase on the fireplace mantel would be about three hundred. The most valuable asset I’ve seen is the Beechwood Fauteuil armchair in the sunroom. That would be just under two thousand.”

Henry says, “Gavin,” in a hoarse voice, then clears his throat. “None of that adds up to anything of significance, not to mention the fact that Mother would notice if the dining room table and her favorite chair disappeared. I’m sure you understand my position.”

They’re standing just on the other side of the kitchen door. My heart is jack-hammering in my chest. I feel like I’m about to be caught, fired in disgrace, as though I have stolen all the valuable things in the house. I bend over carefully, pick up the three grocery bags I’ve already carried in and inch back out the kitchen screen door, so grateful it doesn’t squeak like ours at home.

Then I stomp up the stairs, slam it open loudly, walk thunderously into the kitchen and call, “I’m finally back! Sorry, Mr. Ellington! There was—traffic on the bridge and um, Garrett’s was out of the cedar plank, so I had to look around. Mrs. E. isn’t up yet, is she?”

Tops of his cheekbones flushed, Henry swings open the kitchen door. “No, not at all, Gwen. Haven’t heard a peep from her. She usually sleeps over two hours, doesn’t she?”

I’m sure I too am totally red in the face. As I pile up the grocery bags, I knock over the cut glass vase of hydrangeas. It scatters across the table, nearly tumbling off, and the water drips onto the floor. I grab the roll of paper towels and clean up as Henry turns to the wet bar, asking Mr. Gage if he wants a refill. He doesn’t, but Henry sure does. While he’s rattling ice on the counter and breaking it into little pieces with this weird hammer thing, Mr. Gage says, “If I may look around a bit more? The upstairs?”

“The view is lovely from there,” Henry says in a slightly too-loud, overcompensating voice, similar to the one I probably used a second ago. “But Mother is sleeping. Perhaps you can wait until she wakes up.”

I’m stuffing the groceries into the refrigerator like the efficient, upright, honest servant I should be, rather than the shifty, eavesdropping one I’ve apparently become. My hands are shaking.

Then someone else’s hand falls on my shoulder.

“Er. Guinevere.”

I turn to meet Henry Ellington’s eyes.

“Mother’s told me what a hard worker you are. I appreciate your—” He clears his throat. “Tireless efforts on her behalf.”

He reaches into his pocket, pulls something out, then flips it open on the kitchen table, bending over it to write.

A check.

“Rose Ellington is not easy,” he says. “Used to certain standards. You meet them. I think you deserve this . . . a little extra.”

He folds the check, extends it to me.

I’m frozen for a second, staring at it as if he’s handing me something far more deadly than a piece of paper.

After a moment, as though that’s what he had intended all along, Henry sets the check down on the kitchen table, on the dry, clear spot between where I spilled the water and where I put the groceries. As though it belongs there, as much as they do, as natural, as accidental, as those.