My heart swelled with affection. Dabney was one of the only people who pronounced my name correctly, with four syllables. Ge-ne-vie-eve.
I said, “What’s this? Is the baby…yours and Clen’s?”
She looked at me with flat eyes. “No,” she said. And then she walked away.
Well, one can’t work as a receptionist at a doctor’s office and not hear all the gossip: yes, it was Clendenin’s baby, no, it wasn’t Clendenin’s baby, it was someone else’s, a summer kid’s, then no, it wasn’t the summer kid’s, it was Clendenin’s after all. Probably, maybe Clendenin’s, nobody was sure, and Clendenin himself was gone, off to be a reporter in the Sudan.
When the baby was born, I knew her name and weight within the hour: Agnes Bernadette, seven pounds fourteen ounces, eighteen and a half inches long. But there was no announcement in the paper.
And I thought, How did the sweetest, smartest, most together young woman I had ever met end up like this?
For a baby gift, I special-ordered a tiny pink T-shirt that said NANTUCKET NATIVE in navy letters across the front. An inspired gift, I thought. Dabney sent a card on her monogrammed stationery: Love the T-shirt…so many good memories…thank you for thinking of us. But that was the last I saw or heard from her for a while. At that time, Ted Field was not her doctor.
Then, a few years later, I received an invitation to Dabney’s wedding. She was getting married to an economics professor from Harvard! I was thrilled for her, if a little jealous. I was dying to meet someone suitable-someone single-and get married.
Dabney and Box wed at the Catholic church and held the reception in the backyard of Dabney’s grandmother’s house on North Liberty. It was a wedding exactly like one would expect for Dabney-there were lots of roses and champagne cocktails and tasty hors d’oeuvres and a string quartet played Vivaldi, and Dabney looked beautiful in an ivory lace dress. She was in photographs with everyone, including the caterers and the valet parkers. Agnes wore a little pink dress that matched the color of the roses and I thought, This is a more fitting ending for someone as magnificent as Dabney.
Just before we were to be seated for dinner, Dabney grabbed my arm.
“I’m moving you,” she said.
“What?” I said. I held a place card that said Indigo Table, which Dabney snatched out of my hands.
She said, “I haven’t been a very good or attentive friend the past few years, I know that. But I am going to make up for it now. Follow me. I want you at the Pink Table.”
The Pink Table was up front, at the edge of the dance floor, where the orchestra would soon be playing. I felt like I was on an airplane, getting bumped to first class, or at a hotel being upgraded to an oceanfront suite. I hoped Dabney wasn’t moving me solely because she felt guilty about neglecting our friendship. We had had a great time laughing in the shop about “the Man from Nantucket,” but we had also bonded on serious topics-her mother leaving, her all-consuming romance with Clendenin, my unwanted role as the “other woman.” I loved Dabney, I was always going to love Dabney, no matter where I was seated at her wedding.
Then I saw Brian. Blond guy with nice broad shoulders and little glasses.
“Genevieve,” Dabney said. “This is Box’s second cousin once removed, Brian Lefebvre. He just graduated from Harvard Law School and he’s setting up a practice on the island.”
Lefebvre, I thought. He’s French. Harvard Law School. Moving to Nantucket.
I took a seat next to him and smiled. It all sounded good, but I was wary.
“Nice to meet you, Brian,” I said. “I’m Genevieve Martine.” We shook hands. He seemed very nervous, which I found charming.
Dabney said, “I’ll let you two get acquainted. I have to go smile for the camera.”
I saw Brian reach out and touch Dabney’s arm. I saw him mouth the words thank you, and I busied myself with unfolding the pink linen swan on my plate and placing it neatly in my lap.
He said, “So, Genevieve…” Off to a good start because he pronounced my name perfectly. “What do you do on the island?”
“I’m the office manager for Dr. Ted Field’s family medical practice,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “And are you…single?”
“Yes,” I said. “Are you?”
He nodded his head emphatically. “Yes,” he said.
He wasn’t wearing a ring, but as I had learned, this meant nothing.
“Really?” I said.
“Well,” he said.
And I thought, Yep, here it comes. He’s separated, but divorce is pending. He’s married, but his wife lives overseas. He just said he was single because he was stunned by my beauty; what he really meant was that he is married.
“I was married,” he said. “A long time ago. Five years ago. It lasted seven months, no kids. I like to think of it as taking a mulligan.”
“A mulligan,” I said. “Like in golf.”
“Right,” he said. “Where you get to start over without being penalized.”
I narrowed my eyes, still skeptical. “But you are divorced, right? Legally divorced?”
“Not only divorced,” he said. “Annulled.” He leaned closer to me and whispered, “I’m Catholic. The annulment was very important to my mother.”
I couldn’t believe it. I said, “You’re telling me the truth, right?”
He said, “Dabney told me to bring my divorce papers along to show you. She told me to bring my annulment signed by the bishop. But I thought she was kidding.”
I laughed mightily at that. “She told you to bring your divorce papers?”
He smiled and blushed and in that moment was just about the most adorable man I had ever laid eyes on.
And then I realized what was happening. We were at the Pink Table. Pink-of course!
Box
He received an e-mail from the Department of the Treasury: the president and the secretary needed him in Washington. He let the e-mail sit unanswered for nearly twelve hours while he decided what to do. Then, somehow, an aide tracked him down at the Connaught, and left a message with the front desk. A girl just out of university handed the message to Box with wide-eyed awe. It probably seemed to her like something from a movie, but to Box the news was merely tiresome. He threw the message away.
But when he awoke in the morning, there was a voice mail on his cell phone from the secretary himself. The president badly needed his consult; he was getting a lot of pressure from Wall Street about interest rates and trade sanctions in North Korea. Things were a mess now, but they might be looking at an even bigger mess, and “we all know how the president feels about his legacy vis-à-vis the deficit.” And, “Please, Box, as a favor to me personally, as a service to your country…”
Box sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled. First-term presidents were worried about reelection; second-term presidents, their legacies.
Dabney hadn’t wanted him to come to London at all. He couldn’t imagine her reaction when he called and asked if he could extend his trip for a week in Washington.
But it was the President of the United States, and the Secretary of the Treasury, and, more important, it was work. As at least one of his students pointed out each semester, most economic theory had no actual bearing on people’s lives. But this would. If Box didn’t go and put his hands on it, someone else would, and he or she would muck it up.
He called Dabney.
“Darling,” he said. He then launched into his careful argument: the Secretary of the Treasury, the nation’s economic policy, another week away, he was sorry. But even with a side trip to Washington, he would be back on Nantucket by the Fourth of July.
Dabney surprised him by saying, “Of course, darling, by all means, if the secretary needs you-go! I’m so proud and thrilled for you. What an honor!”