“What did you think?” Sully asked.
“I wish she was mine,” Adrienne said.
As autumn approached, Sully began to talk about “the next round.” He received a job offer in Vero Beach, and then, a coup: a job offer in Morocco at a course built for the king. Sully wanted Adrienne to come with him to Morocco, and he wanted to get engaged.
“Engaged?” Adrienne said. They were lying in bed, watching Sunday night football on ESPN. How had “the next round,” which Adrienne tolerated as yet another innocuous golf term, become engaged?
“I want to marry you,” Sully said.
“You do?” Adrienne said. This was the moment every girl waited for-wasn’t it?-the perfect guy proposing marriage. And yet, what struck Adrienne most forcefully was her shock followed by her ambivalence. She thought of life married to Michael Sullivan-and she had to admit, she could think of worse lives. They could travel, he could golf, she could work hotels until they had a child. Adrienne could call Irene Mom, and the two of them could enjoy a lifetime of chats at the kitchen table.
Adrienne was twenty-six. She understood that what Sully was suggesting-getting married, having children-was what people did. It was how life progressed. Adrienne didn’t say anything further to Sully on the topic of marriage, but in his chirpy, good-natured way, he played through as though a decision had been made. In the following twenty-four hours, he called Irene and told her that a big announcement was coming, but first he wanted to ask for Adrienne’s hand. He pestered Adrienne for Dr. Don’s phone number, then with a shy smile, he said, “I have stuff to talk over with him.”
Adrienne felt like someone was wrapping a wool scarf over her nose and mouth. She was hot and prickly; she couldn’t breathe properly. She was terrified and, in a mindless panic, she ran: packed her stuff while Sully was at work, wrote him a letter, and had a short, teary conversation with her front desk manager. She cried through the cab ride to Logan, and through the flight from Boston to Honolulu. She was afraid to call her father. She knew he would assault her with the obvious question: What is wrong with you?
Within a week, Adrienne had a job on the front desk at the Princeville Resort on Kauai. She had photocopied the letter she wrote to Sully and every time she considered dating a man that winter, she read it. To keep herself from doing any more damage.
Before Thatcher there had been three and a half men, and the half a man was Doug Riedel. But that was just Adrienne being mean. It was more accurate to say that Doug and Adrienne had only had half a relationship, or a half-hearted relationship. Doug Riedel was a mistake, an accident; he was a one-night stand that lasted an entire winter. Adrienne met him right before Christmas while she was skiing on her day off. They skied together, they après-skied together, they après-après-skied together. The next thing Adrienne knew, Doug Riedel was showing up at the front desk of the Little Nell on Christmas morning with a gift-wrapped box from Gorsuch. Adrienne, who had been feeling sorry for herself for working on Christmas (she always worked on Christmas because she had no kids), opened the box that held a pair of shearling gloves and thought: What luck! Doug was darkly handsome, he had a great dog, he worked as one of the ski school managers at Buttermilk. He was a catch. She started meeting him after work to walk Jax, he took her out for a day of cross-country, he was calling her before he went to the gym, after he got home, before he went out to the Red Onion, after he got home. He was, somehow, becoming her boyfriend.
Right around the busy February holidays, Doug lost his job at Buttermilk Mountain and, subsequently, his housing. You’re probably going to break up with me now, he’d said. If Adrienne had been half paying attention, then this was exactly what she would have done, but instead she found herself fibbing to management so that he could move in with her and bring Jax. Then, his unevenness began to register. Sometimes he was funny and charming, but sometimes he was disparaging and negative. He hated Kyra (what a slut), he hated the Little Nell (a bastion of phony luxury), he hated Aspen in general. He spent more and more time in Carbondale with a mysterious friend. Adrienne thought he was sleeping with someone else, but she didn’t care. He was a houseguest who had overstayed his welcome-he was grouchy, he had a constant head cold, he stayed up all night watching Junkyard Wars, and every morning he went to the Ajax Diner for scrambled eggs with ketchup. He did nothing about finding a new job, and yet he never seemed to be short on money.
Well, yeah! Adrienne shuddered with anger every time she thought of her empty Future box, her money gone, her prospects stolen, her master key card swiped. Doug Riedel was the devil himself. But if it hadn’t been for Doug and his felonious ways, Adrienne reminded herself, she wouldn’t be here on Nantucket, working at the Blue Bistro, with Thatcher.
Adrienne and Thatcher had been dating for less than three weeks and already this relationship was different. Exercise good judgment about men! her napkin screamed. Talk about your feelings, but give nothing away. Be careful, but don’t act scared. Nothing she told herself helped. With Thatcher, she felt like a person afraid of flying: Was it safe to board the aircraft? Would the plane crash? Would she be left on the open sea with a broken leg and a flimsy flotation device? Would she die? Already her emotional investment was so great that complete devastation of the life she had worked so hard to cultivate seemed possible. This was all brand-new.
On July second, there were two hundred and fifty covers on the book, their first sellout of the year. It was eighty degrees at four o’clock and when Adrienne sat down for family meal at five, she was uncomfortably warm. Thatcher was at an AA meeting; it was his second meeting that day. He had gone to one at ten that morning while Adrienne covered the phone. Now, as she ate, she worried about Thatcher. Was it normal to go to two AA meetings in one day, or was there something wrong? Then she worried about Mrs. Yannick.
Mrs. Yannick had called that morning with a trick question. “Is your restaurant child-friendly?”
“How old is your child?” Adrienne asked.
“Two.”
Adrienne faltered. Thatcher, no doubt, had a smooth answer that would perfectly convey to Mrs. Yannick that while they did have one high chair in the back of the utility closet, it was covered with cobwebs, and seemed to be there only in case of emergency. Would it be grossly inappropriate to suggest Mrs. Yannick get a babysitter?
“We don’t have a children’s menu,” Adrienne said. “And we don’t have any crayons. This is fine dining.”
“So you’re not child-friendly.”
“Well…”
“You allow children but don’t encourage them.”
“We do allow children.” Adrienne thought of Shaughnessy-and Wolfie. “And I myself am not a parent. But it seems like you’d be asking an awful lot of a two-year-old to have her sit through a meal with wine and so forth. And the other guests… I think you might be more comfortable if…”
“We tried to get a babysitter,” Mrs. Yannick said. “We tried and tried. But we’re away from home and I don’t want a stranger. I’m afraid I’m out of options.”
“Maybe another night?” Adrienne said.
“Not possible,” Mrs. Yannick said. There was a long pause. “We’re bringing William with us.” There was another long pause. “I’m really sorry about this in advance. I’d just cancel the reservation but the number-one reason why we come to Nantucket is to eat at your restaurant.”
Ah, flattery! Adrienne still wasn’t immune to it. “We’ll see you at six,” she said.
Adrienne had been too cowardly to mention the Yannicks’ reservation at the menu meeting. She tried to tell herself it was no big deal. After family meal, Adrienne pulled the high chair out of the closet and wiped it down with a wet rag. She set it at table four, the least desirable table in the restaurant-the farthest away from the beach, the piano, and the glitz of table twenty. The waitstaff worked on a rotating schedule; Adrienne hoped table four would go to Elliott or Christo, who were too new to complain. But no such luck. Tonight, it was Caren’s table.