The High Season

  “So between the time I called and today, it’s…over a month? And you let me think it was missing?” Carole’s tone was icy.

  “I kept thinking I’d find it. I was a little crazy. I’d lost my job, I was going to lose my house…”

  “Lose your house? Why?”

  “Because I’d lost my job,” she said.

  Carole looked confused. “But why would you lose your house?”

  “Because that’s what happens, sometimes. I just sold it to Adeline Clay.”

  “Adeline Clay is going to live in Orient?”

  “I’m just here to give you the watch and profoundly apologize for all the worry I caused you.”

  Carole pushed the plate away with its stripes of red pepper. “Ruthie, I don’t know what to say. It’s an all’s well that ends well situation, I guess.” She put the watch back in the box and tucked it in her purse. “So where do you think you’ll move? Back to the city?”

  The seconds ticked on while Ruthie stared at Carole. The bright, birdlike interest, the frown at the continuing presence of a roasted pepper in her salad, the mask of affability.

  “Can we go back to the question?” Ruthie asked. “About why you didn’t stop Mindy? About why you didn’t warn me that Catha was after my job?”

  “I told you she wasn’t your friend!”

  “That was a little vague, don’t you think? Do you think if I’d known that she was actively trashing my reputation behind my back to everyone who held my future in their hands, I might have done something differently?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Isn’t it a moot point?”

  “And then why reward her for lying? The committee then handed her my job. She’d still have it, if Lark hadn’t come along.”

  Carole smiled, a tight, patronizing smile Ruthie had never seen before. “This is turning from an apology into an interrogation.”

  “Imagine this, though,” Ruthie said. “Imagine if everybody who was distressed at what Mindy was doing said it out loud, instead of behind her back.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t change her.”

  “I’m not talking about changing her. I’m talking about the right thing to do.”

  “I was in the Hebrides! I did everything I could!”

  “You didn’t answer my emails for weeks.”

  “They told me I shouldn’t contact you until the paper was signed. Listen, I’m all about transparency. It was hard for me.”

  “All along, you could have done one thing. One thing simpler than all the rest. You could have told the truth about how you felt. Publicly. You could have stood up and said This is happening and it’s wrong.”

  “I don’t know why I’m getting the brunt of your anger, Ruthie,” Carole said. “All this rehashing is so pointless. And I wasn’t even going to mention that Baccarat wineglass that’s missing at the house. Margarita told me about it.”

  “I’m not angry anymore,” Ruthie said. “Truly I’m not. I’m just trying to understand how it all happened. Now the Belfry is being run by someone who will change it utterly. I don’t think Lark Mantis cares about schoolchildren and family day.” Ruthie folded her napkin. “But that’s not my concern. My concern is finding another job and a place to live.” She pushed back her chair.

  “I’m truly sorry about the watch,” she said. “But now I’m going to do what you did back in July. I’m going to leave you sitting alone. And stick you with the bill.”

  67

  JEM’S PHONE

  From: Jemma Dutton

  To: Olivia Freeman

  Subject: prepare yourself

  Hi it’s me.

  This is an apology. The biggest sorry in the world.

  I was awful to you. I sucked. I ruined it.

  All this summer I’ve been writing to you. Because bff. Best friend forever means forever. You were the one who always listened, all those years of my “you knows” and my “I can’t explain it buts.”

  I don’t know if you’ll read all of them. The emails I’ll send after this one. If you want to write back that would be so great. If you don’t, if you don’t even feel like reading them, that’s ok. I mean, I get it. Writing them was worse than social studies essays. Reading them won’t be any better.

  First day of school. I was kind of famous because of what happened. Everybody coming up and asking me, Whoa, what was it like? So only a few kids wore #mayflower shirts. (if you read the emails, you’ll get all this.) I sat with Annie at lunch, and kids kept coming over and sitting with us and dragging chairs over until we were so crowded we started throwing pretzels at each other and that’s when they made us stop. It was cool.

  Mom and Dad will be moving. Not together, no. No chance of that! Which means I will be moving, too. Yeah, that’s the big news and if you want to know why you’ll have to read the emails.

  I fell in love this summer. Or thought I did. He was too old for me and he lied to me and treated me like shit and even stole a watch I think—I mean, it disappeared and he was there when it did and now that I know him better I think it was him—and I had to lie about it and in the end he was the biggest coward you ever saw.

  I almost blew away this summer, Ollie. There’s something about almost blowing away that makes you see everything different. Like, I’m not scared of moving to the city or whatever we have to do. I kind of want to. You did it. Let me know how it was, and this time really tell me.

  I ran out of friends this summer. I got a few back today. I’m hoping maybe I have another one and that’s you.

  So. Start with Memorial Day. Labor Day requires a conversation. I’m pressing Send on the summer. Here I go.

  xojem

  68

  THE DUSK WAS softer than soft. A wisp of color in the sky. Lamps lit. The light was blue. Bluer than blue. Across the dark water was a tiny spray of lights.

  She left the Jitney and turned down Village Lane. At the wharf she stopped and looked back. Lamps were lit in half the houses. Once they had been owned by farmers and sea captains. Orient had been a prosperous town with a busy harbor. Now it was a town that was often half full.

  It was too warm for fall, but it was fall. The summer renters were gone. The summer people would be back to sail on weekends, to enjoy summer’s last gasp, but this night the breeze smelled like dry leaves.

  Since the castle flew in the air the calls and texts had come in. How is Jem. How are you. What can I do. Can I drop off dinner for you. We are making halibut on the grill come on over. And from Penny: We would like to see you both.

  They were having dinner tonight.

  Landscapes spoke to people. Something that went past the heart and lodged deeper. This place spoke to her. It would hurt her to leave it. But people left places all the time if they had to. Then you opened a drawer and found a key to a lock to a door that was no longer yours.

  She turned down the road to her house and wondered how many more times she would turn this way, her feet on a familiar road. It would be a number, fifty or one hundred, or more, but one of the times she turned it would be the last.

  69

  JEM’S PHONE

  To: Jemma Dutton

  From: Olivia Freeman

  Re: madsummer

  Too much to absorb in one binge-reading episode sitting at work (meet Iowa City’s premier ice cream scooper!) and will reply in detail but just to say for now: Are you insane? Bffs. That last f means forever, bitch.

  70

  IT HAD BEEN a winter of crazy weather, sudden spells of warmth, swift and violent storms. Ruthie and Jem had been insulated in the city, where even big snows melted in days and in a blizzard you could still find takeout. There was none of the cabin fever of Orient, because city streets were made for walking.

  They’d moved over Thanksgiving break. Ruthie had packed alone, throwing away as much a
s she could, whittling down clothes, boots, coats, books, vases, casseroles, candles. Her goal was fifteen boxes. Adeline had bought the furniture, too, the dishes and the pots and the blankets, and she would use Ruthie’s things until her designer descended and it was all given away.

  The things you find! Pine needles under the bookcase from some ancient Christmas. Christmas! Jem in footies and braids, snow on the gray bay, kisses and carols, smoked salmon and champagne on Christmas Eve. A slow waltz in the kitchen to “Silver Bells” while they ignored the dishes. Oh, the things that hit the heart so hard. Jem’s height markings inside the closet. A peridot earring lost, a surprise birthday present from Mike in a lean year. In Jem’s room she found a cheap best friend necklace, one half of a jagged heart. Ruthie sat down and cried, not knowing for what.

  In the city at first they’d covered their ears for jackhammers, lost their MetroCards, took the express when they should have taken the local. The Upper West Side was a new land.

  The first month she brought Jem to school, riding the subway together, holding hands underneath the flaps of their coats. She’d leave her three blocks away, exchange a silent you’ll be okay gaze, and then sit with her coffee until she could move again. It was worse than dropping a three-year-old Jem at preschool.

  Ruthie had found a sublet, a Columbia professor who was going on sabbatical who had one bedroom and an office. The apartment was light-filled, and he didn’t mind if she brought in a bed for Jem. It was tight for both of them—one bathroom!—but it was all she could afford.

  The Whitney had committed to a retrospective for Gus Romany, and that meant Gus mattered again. It turned out that Gus had been right, the new work was the best of his career. Ruthie had indeed picked up the fucking phone and gone over to his studio and told him so. He didn’t need her to tell him; the Whitney was already sniffing around. Apparently Joe had seen the work earlier in the summer and passed on his thoughts. Gus had stopped by Ruthie’s house the day before Thanksgiving and in the middle of the boxes and the bubble wrap had told her the news, cackling with happiness, and said by fucking God she was going to help curate the show.

  He insisted to the Whitney that she was the right person, and surprisingly, they’d agreed. He needed her eye, he’d said. The money wasn’t much, but it was almost enough, and she no longer had to worry about being able to afford things like the dentist for Jem. Those things were now taken care of.

  Jem had slid into the best high school in District Three, the one parents pull every string to get their kid into, and now, thanks to Adeline, Jem had as many strings as she needed. Within a few weeks she came home with news of electives and clubs and this cool girl who sat with her at lunch. She’d become a self-importantly busy person, slothful in the mornings and energized at night, needing Ruthie desperately and condescending to her, yelling about bathroom time and finishing all the sesame noodles without asking. Things were back to normal.

  Ruthie found her new routines. Takeout on Friday nights, researching and writing, taking Sundays off for solitary walks while Jem did her crushing load of homework. There were friends she could call, for a dinner, a drink, and she would do it someday soon. What surprised her the most about her quiet winter and spring was how often she thought of her mother. It was like discovering a new vein of grief. Maybe it was because mourning a marriage was like mourning a parent—you miss the person you wished you had, as well as the one you did.

  Jem would spend the summer in Orient. Ruthie had rented a car for the drive, and the backseat was crammed with Jem’s bags and boxes, plus supplies for the pantry she didn’t think she could get out on the North Fork, spices, Iberian ham, and a selection of cheeses from Murray’s. In less than a year, Jem had become a New Yorker.

  As soon as they turned off onto the two-lane road, they were officially back on the North Fork. The road went up and down, the wooden signs announcing pies and tomatoes and cherries. When at Southold the road narrowed and they saw the Sound, just a flat gray on this overcast day, Jem grabbed her arm. They hadn’t been out to the North Fork since they’d moved to the city.

  The Orient house had been renovated, Adeline pushing an architect to complete a two-phase plan so the first phase—the kitchen, Mike’s new studio, the home gym—would be ready for the summer. Next year the whole house would be jacked up in case of another hurricane storm surge, and the deck expanded. The house, Ruthie knew, would no longer look the same.

  “When we get to Orient, can we stop at the store for a salted oatmeal cookie?” Jem asked. She lowered the window and stuck her head out like a dog, sniffing. She’d cut off her long hair and wore it cropped very short.

  “Of course.” Ruthie knew she would cry when she dropped off Jem for the summer, but like any mother, she would do it after driving away. She would head to Penny and Elena’s for coffee, and she would leave after lunch, against the traffic. She could not spend a night in Orient.

  Mike and Adeline had married in the spring, a quiet wedding after Roberta’s funeral. It was strange not to have to worry about the big things now, about college expenses and launching Jem into the world. Vacations were now taken care of—there were already plans to take Jem to Italy next year. Ruthie would be left behind, but that was okay, that was fine, all her pleasure now was watching her daughter explore the world. Penny had called her Mildred Pierce without the melodrama.

  They passed the Belfry, now a construction site. The old sign was gone. Instead a new sign had been erected: THE MANTIS FOUNDATION.

  It had taken almost a year, but Daniel had dismantled the board, Lark had fired the staff, and she was at work on the renovation for the private museum that would bear his name. Access would be limited to “scholars,” which meant no family days, no after-school art classes, no local artists’ organization, no school outreach. The historical collection had been donated to the Southold Historical Society.

  Mindy, having facilitated the changeover, had clearly done it for a seat on a more prestigious board, but Daniel had squeezed her out. Her house in Southold was on the market. Ruthie heard that she and Carl were looking in Quogue. Catha was now selling real estate in Mattituck.

  New executive director Lark Mantis had been profiled in the current issue of Vogue, along with her partner, Doe Callender, for the article “They Call It New Hampton: A Power Art Couple Defines Cool on the North Fork.”

  They stopped for the best salted oatmeal cookie in the world. That was the same. Ruthie paused on the porch of the market, just to inhale. Orient smelled like nowhere else in the world in the summer: salt, sea, lavender, pine, rugosa, lilies.

  Jem jumped back in the car and they drove to the house. Ruthie pulled up, took a breath, and told herself she could do this.

  The hydrangeas were gone. She had expected that, Penny had warned her. “I heard Adeline hired Anna Wintour’s garden designer, so don’t freak the fuck out.” The scraggly bushes had been replaced with boxwood. The lawn was now a meadow with clover and clouds of Russian sage. The white stones were gone; a pathway of trimmed grass made a desire path to the front porch. Pink roses tumbled in profusion with small fireworks of white allium.

  Mike stood outside, waiting. He’d taken to wearing tortoiseshell glasses, and they made him look younger. Or maybe that was because Adeline had introduced him to her dermatologist.

  “How was the drive?” he asked her as he helped Jem lift her duffel from the trunk.

  “Not too bad. We left before the birds.”

  “Let me.” He hauled a tote bag out and put it on the grass. “Come in for a coffee?”

  “No, thanks, Penny and Elena are cooking a second breakfast.”

  “Then come by for a drink later?”

  With the invitation was a plea—please make this easier.

  “Not today,” she said. “I’m heading back this afternoon. But sometime.”

  “Mom!” Jem hurled herself into Ruthie’s ar
ms. Soft cheek, resounding kiss, a squeeze that left her without breath. “I’ll miss you! And I’m coming to the city for lots of weekends.”

  Ruthie knew she wouldn’t. The rhythm of summer would overtake her.

  Adeline emerged and came toward them. She leaned in to kiss Ruthie on the cheek. “We’ll take good care of her,” Adeline said.

  “Can Annie come over for dinner?” Jem asked.

  “Of course!” Adeline said. “We’re making all your favorite things.”

  This had been what she’d feared, just this. And what was it, anyway? Just three people, one of whom was trying too hard.

  Watch as the three start toward the house, Jem’s arm around Mike’s waist. Watch as you see through the (new, larger) front window as Jem moves through the house, exclaiming. Watch as Mike points at something, no doubt the expanded kitchen. A better stove for Jem to cook on, a bigger fridge, new counters. Everything new and better.

  You get back in the car.

  You drive away. You cry.

  Your enemies are not your enemies forever. Time passes. Things change. They suffer losses deeper than yours. And you realize they are as befuddled as you at the way life goes. Once, they acted badly, they took what they wanted without care. They are just like you, though. At three in the morning, they wander to a window. They stand watching the night sky, and they are afraid.

  * * *

  —

  RUTHIE PULLED INTO Penny and Elena’s driveway. They were outside on the porch, and with them was Joe Bloom.

  Okay. She could do this, too.

  She took her time gathering her bag, her sunglasses, her phone, the cheese she’d brought from the city, the wine. She slammed the car door shut with her hip, and they looked up. They were waiting for her, smiling, rising. She climbed the few steps onto the porch and just dropped everything, except the wine, thank God. She hugged Penny and Elena and then, impulsively, stretched to kiss Joe, who had been stooping to pick up her sunglasses. They knocked heads, then laughed a little.