A Summer Affair (45 page)

Bruce sighed. “How about two tickets to your London concert on Christmas Eve with two backstage passes?”

“That’s a start. But it has to be bigger than that. Think big, Bruce!”

“How about we add first-class airfare, seven nights in a suite at the Connaught, and Christmas Eve dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s place with you, Elton John, and Paul McCartney?”

“I’m having Christmas Eve dinner with Elton John and Paul McCartney?”

“You are.”

“Genius,” Matthew said. “Thank you, Bruce. That should do it.”

G
avin hurried down the grassy strip on the edge of Old South Road with only the tip of his cigarette for illumination. He was running, but because he was pitifully out of shape, he would lose his breath, hack out a cough, and be forced to stop and walk. He had called the airline from his cell phone and booked himself, under an assumed name, on the last flight off the island.

He was leaving Nantucket. He had dumped all the money—minus five hundred dollars to get him wherever he was going—into the backseat of Ben Franklin’s Lincoln Continental. He told himself it wasn’t stealing, since he had given the money back—it was just some awful game he’d had fun with for a while. It killed him to leave Isabelle, but she deserved better than him; she deserved someone powerful and clever, not some two-bit criminal. Leaving now, he was doing Isabelle a favor. And Lock and Claire, too. He could ruin their lives, rip apart both their families—but what would that accomplish? Nothing but heartbreak.

He sneaked out while Isabelle was in the bathroom. He stood on the far side of the parking lot for a few minutes; he couldn’t tear himself away until he learned what would happen to the auction. What happened was this: Pietro da Silva and Max West got up onstage and offered the most outrageous auction package the island had ever seen—concert tickets, backstage passes, airfare, hotel, Christmas Eve dinner with Max, Sir Elton John, and Sir Paul McCartney, or, as Max West self-deprecatingly joked, “two knights and a knave.” It went for a hundred thousand dollars, and Max West offered it again for another hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand dollars! Gavin found his heart soaring. So much money for the charity! So much more than they’d expected! It was weird, the elation that Gavin experienced at the gala’s success. It was backward. He ran.

He was almost to the turnoff for the airport when the lights came up behind him. He threw down his cigarette, squashed it in the grass, then felt ashamed of himself for littering. The lights were not the lights he’d been fearing. Or were they? He debated between turning around to check and simply bolting. How much speed did he have left? Enough to make it to the airport? The airport wouldn’t be safe now, anyway. He would have to hide, but where?

The lights were spinning and flashing. Yes, definitely police lights, but possibly not for him. He turned. A cruiser pulled up right alongside him. There were two cops in the front seat and an old man in the back. Ben Franklin.

“Gavin Andrews?” the driver said.

It was over, then. Gavin sunk his hands deep into the pockets of his madras pants and looked back toward the tent. He was half a mile away, but he could still hear the strains of Max West’s singing. The tune, whatever it was, was catchy.

“Put your hands where we can see them!” the second police officer barked.

Gavin raised his hands over his head, the way he’d seen it done in the movies. Everyone Gavin knew was committing crimes large and small, engaging in scandals, acts of corruption, delinquency, and plain old bad faith—but he was the one who had gotten caught.

It figured.

H
e had never sounded better. Although Claire was shrouded with sadness and rage, she could still tell how good he sounded. Matthew—Max West—was putting on a terrific show; he was playing all his hits, and the guests were all dancing and singing along at the top of their lungs. Claire was dancing with Jason, Ted and Amie Trimble, and Adams and Heidi Fiske. They were surrounding her in a circle, buffering her, as though she were the one who might break.

The chandelier was gone. Every time Claire thought this, it sickened her. It was Hemingway’s novel, left on a train. It was Degas’ ballerinas, gone up in smoke. The worst thought was that other people might not view her loss that way; they might see it as nothing more than broken glass, easily swept up, easily replaced by concert tickets and dinner with celebrities, which had in fact brought in four times as much money as the chandelier might have. Max West, everyone said, had swung in on a vine. He had saved the day. But that didn’t begin to mend the gash in Claire’s spirit. She had dedicated the better part of a year to the chandelier, it was the finest work she’d ever done, and it would fall into oblivion. There was no consolation for that.

She felt a tap on her shoulder: Lock. Everyone was dancing, but Lock was just standing there, staring at her with an expression that threatened to give it all away.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

“Now?”

“Yes,” he said.

She didn’t want to miss even one second of the concert, but then Max segued into a cover of “Dancing Queen,” and since it wasn’t actually his song, Claire felt okay stepping out.

As they strolled through the tent, Lock tried to take her hand. Claire glared at him.

“What are you doing?” she said. “Are you drunk? Where’s your wife? Your daughter?”

“Daphne left because she thought I was paying too much attention to Isabelle,” he said. “And Heather went downtown to meet her friends.”

“Where are we going?”

“I want to show you something,” he said. “In the concession stand.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Claire said.

“Please? five minutes.”

She followed him across the shadowy field to the dark concession stand. He pointed to the box. “I packed it up for you,” he said. “The remains. What was left.”

“This is what you wanted to show me?”

“I knew it would be important to you,” he said. “Important that it not get thrown away.”

She peered into the box. It was too dark to see clearly, but she could make out the lopsided form of the broken chandelier and a pile of shards. The box was a casket now.

“You didn’t have to keep the shards,” she said. “They’re dangerous.”

“I didn’t have the heart to throw them away.”

This was a gesture on his part, an effort he’d made to say he understood her loss, but he didn’t.

He put his arms around her. “I love you, Claire. All this year, what we’ve been through—it was for that reason. I love you.”

She rested her hands on his jacket lapels. She thought back over the past year—the times she met him secretly, the moments right before they parted when she was sure she would die from longing, the confusing time she spent with Father Dominic, asking herself, over and over again,
How can a good person do something so bad?
She would have liked to believe that what she was acting on now was the strength she’d prayed for. But the truth was, her feelings for Lock were weakened and confused. She thought about the afternoon he came to the house to talk about the catering; he had been so foreign to her on that day, so distinct from the man she loved, the man she wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower with, reincarnate Frank Sinatra for, even stand next to in line at the post office. On that pleasant, sunny afternoon, Claire couldn’t wait for Lock to leave. She thought about the morning when Lock helped her transport the chandelier. They had sat side by side in the car—Lock driving, Claire riding—as they might have if they were a real couple, but those minutes had been silent and awkward because what was meaningful between them was lost, at least to Claire. And then, last night, when Matthew made his plea—
I want you to come with me. Marry me
—Claire had thought,
I could never leave Jason. I could never leave the kids.
But Lock she could leave with ease. It was Lock she had wanted to run away from.

“We are so lucky that the only thing that broke was the chandelier,” she said. She raised her head and looked at him. For much of the past year, he had seemed wonderful and mysterious; he had seemed all-knowing, a repository of wisdom and right answers and sound judgment. He had served as her savior. She had been needy in ways she didn’t even know about, and he had filled her up. But he was wrong about there being no hell; there was a hell, and they had narrowly avoided it. “We could have ruined our lives. My marriage could have broken up, or yours could have. Our kids, your job, our friends, our lives—they all could have ended up in the trash.” Claire thought of herself living with Lock in a rental house with Claire’s children in strange rooms, displaced and resentful. After six months, Lock would be going to work at night to escape
her;
she, in turn, would be making secret phone calls to Jason. Claire shook the image from her head and filled up with an emotion that was as thick as syrup, an emotion she could only describe as bittersweet. God, she had loved Lock Dixon so completely, with such bright intensity that it had blinded her. But now, finally, it had burned itself out.

“Claire . . .”

She smoothed his tie. The worst thing about adultery, in the end, was that it had shaken her belief in the things she had always held sacred—love, marriage, friendship. “I need something from you,” she said.

“Yes, of course,” Lock said. “God, anything.”

He was earnest, supplicant, hurting. He had been hurting since she’d met him; he was the injured bird on the side of the road, the one no one would stop to save but her. He was the tar in her hair, on her hands, weighing one side of her head down, impossible to get out. He was the one person she had been unable to say no to. Until now.

“I need you to let me go.”

Lock nodded. He was stunned, maybe, or maybe in his infinite wisdom he was saying,
Yes, you’re right. Go now, while you can.
Claire didn’t ask. She hurried back toward the bright tent, toward the music.

S
iobhan knew what her childhood priest, Father Kennedy, would say: They were all, every last one of them, sinners. That included Carter, her gambling husband, and Claire, her adulterous best friend. That included Siobhan herself.

The whole thing had happened so fast, the way it had when Liam broke his arm: one second he was handling the puck, and the next second he was up against the boards, then down on the ice, his arm dangling off him.

Siobhan had been setting out dessert samplers and listening to Lock Dixon up onstage, giving his sappy “save the children” speech. To Siobhan, the whole idea that this evening, with its cocktails and canapés and women in their summer diamonds, had anything to do with the actual children and working families of Nantucket was fucking nonsense. This evening was about the guests celebrating their own wealth and good fortune; it was about seeing a famous rock star up close. It wasn’t about doing the right thing so much as being
seen
doing the right thing. Some people under the tent probably had no idea which charity their money was even benefiting! The whole world of charity benefits, Siobhan decided, was shallow and obnoxious. But perhaps that was
too
cynical: Siobhan was just tired, bone-weary, and suffering from a foul, foul mood caused by visions of Carter at the roulette wheel.

She had just stepped out of the tent when the security guard—a doughy guy from the UK—rushed past her. There were people, crashers, Max West fanatics, trying to jump the fence. For most of the evening, there had been people lingering outside the tent, getting fresh drinks, sneaking a cigarette, going to the bathroom. But now, everyone was packed inside, listening to the speeches, waiting for Max West to hit the stage. The only people behind the tent were her bartender, Hunter, and, at the bar, Mr. Ben Franklin, who appeared to be talking to himself. Siobhan felt a stab of empathy; she had been talking to herself all night long, and nothing she’d said had been very nice.

Siobhan looked to her right and saw Isabelle French pick up Claire’s chandelier. It was dangling from Isabelle’s left hand. Isabelle was saying something to Gavin that Siobhan couldn’t hear. Siobhan thought back to the night of the
soirée intime
and how awful Isabelle had been, harassing Claire about taking a $25,000 table. It had been no better than sorority hazing.

Siobhan did not like the sight of Isabelle holding Claire’s chandelier so carelessly. Siobhan did not think before she spoke. She barked at Isabelle in the meanest shanty Irish voice she could muster.

“Put that
down!
”

Her voice was too loud and too sudden; it was a gunshot in the dark. It caused Ben Franklin to spill his drink all over the bar. And Isabelle—naturally skittish, drunk, holding carelessly onto the cord—swung around, and the chandelier swung with her.

Siobhan cried out. Gavin cried out. The chandelier narrowly missed hitting the edge of the table.

Isabelle turned on Siobhan accusingly. “What?”

“Put it down,” Siobhan said.

Gavin took the chandelier from Isabelle and set it safely back on the table.

Isabelle looked like she was about to burst into tears. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

Gavin said, “I’ll wait for you right here.” Siobhan glared at him, thinking of his coming out to spy on her and Edward that night. He was creepy. He would not look at Siobhan now, would not offer an apologetic word on behalf of his “date.” In so many ways, the two of them deserved each other. Gavin lit up a cigarette, flipped open his cell phone, and disappeared into the shadows.

Siobhan touched the chandelier gingerly; it was as delicate as spun sugar. To think that Isabelle had nearly cracked it. Inside the tent, the slide show was playing. Adams would be next with the thank-yous, and Claire would be last, the biggie. Siobhan knew she should not begrudge Claire her moment of recognition, but begrudge it she did. It wasn’t fair that Claire got everything. She was the artist, she was the gala cochair; she was the nice to Siobhan’s naughty. She had received the first-child pearls from their father-in-law, Malcolm; every time Claire wore them, like tonight, it was a slap in the face to Siobhan. Siobhan loved Claire better than any other woman in the world, but along with that love came resentment. You want naughty? Siobhan indulged in a mean little fantasy where she trashed the chandelier. She had not dropped or spilled anything in more than two years, since the full sherry glasses went over in Martin Scorsese’s lap during the film festival. Siobhan was due for an unfortunate accident.