The Love Season Part 10

The girl's boyfriend was trying to rip the phone out of her hand. "She is not dead," he said. "Will you please shut up?"

The hairy beast, Montrose, said, "I called nine-one-one. The EMTs will be here in ten minutes, they said. Ten minutes."

Miles started CPR, pumping Sallie's chest, then blowing into her mouth. He was mumbling to himself, counting. Sallie's skin was the color of putty, grayish and goose pimpled. Her hair was plastered to her head; the mirror in her navel was dull.

Queen Bee, Renata thought, Sallie. A person I've known for an hour. A complete stranger who accompanied me to my mother's cross, who kissed me on the wound she inflicted with her surfboard. The surfboard-Renata looked down the beach and saw it floating just offsh.o.r.e. She dashed into the water to get it, a gesture that other people might have found very beside the point, but Renata knew Sallie only well enough to know that she would want her surfboard back. This, then, became Renata's rescue mission. She waded out, savoring the cool water on her legs. The waves were as unforgiving as they looked. Twice Renata nearly toppled over as she waded out, farther and farther, in pursuit of the surfboard. The ocean seemed to be teasing her-the surfboard would be inches from her grasp and then the waves would s.n.a.t.c.h it back. The undertow was fierce; Renata fought to keep her legs planted. If she tried to swim, she would be pulled out to sea. But she wanted the surfboard. She had known Sallie for only an hour or two, maybe, by now. Renata liked her. Don't go getting married while I'm gone. Renata's stomach churned on her beer and her guilt. Will you keep an eye on me? Since when do you need a spotter? Since today. I'll keep an eye out.

Renata turned back to sh.o.r.e. The other people on the beach were looking at Renata with strange, fearful expressions, but n.o.body spoke to her. The girls were all crying and the men tried to look both strong and sympathetic; everyone on the beach was touching someone. Renata heard Miles say, "I can't get a pulse. Where are the d.a.m.ned EMTs?"

Renata let a huge wave break over her head. She was knocked down and her face was filled with cold, salty water-in her mouth and her ears, up her nose, stinging her. Miles sounded panicked-and worse, he sounded guilty. If he was guilty, she was guiltier still. She asked me. And I was up in the dunes. Renata got to her feet and lunged for the surfboard. She got her fingers on it and a swell brought the a.s.s end into her arms. She clung on tight, thinking she would turn it around, point it toward sh.o.r.e, but it was impossibly heavy; it seemed to want to go the other way-out, to open ocean. Renata was about to let it go when she noticed blood at the top of the board. That was all it took: Renata vomited beer in one gross, powerful stream. It sullied the water. Renata spit. Dear G.o.d, no.

Renata heard shouting. She turned to see a force of men and women in black uniforms come charging down the steps to the beach. She pulled the surfboard against her hips as another wave surged, and she managed somehow, to pull herself on top of it. Then she paddled the way she'd seen Sallie do. She got the surfboard pointed toward the beach and propelled herself forward. She rode the next wave all the way in, and then she stood on wobbly legs and dragged the surfboard over to where the EMTs were gathered around Sallie, shouting numbers. They had covered her with a blanket; Renata heard a tall man with a crew cut say, "She's in shock. But she's breathing now. Slap a mask on her and let's get her in. Who is she here with?"

Renata hurried over, lugging the b.l.o.o.d.y surfboard. Miles was sitting on his towel, yards away from the action, with his head in his hands.

"Me!" Renata said. "She's here with me!"

The paramedic didn't hear her. "Let's take her in." He spoke into his walkie-talkie and surveyed the beach. Renata grabbed his arm.

"She's here with me," Renata said. "Me and Miles, that guy over there."

"We're taking her to the hospital," the paramedic said. "She received quite a blow to the head. And nearly drowned. Will you gather her personal effects, please, and bring them to the hospital? We'll need you to give us some information."

"Okay," Renata said. Sallie's personal effects consisted of the surfboard and the sungla.s.ses. Renata s.n.a.t.c.hed up her bag and nudged Miles with her foot. "Come on," she said. She ran toward the sound of the sirens.

3:32 P.M.

Check, check, check.

Marguerite's list was dwindling. The tenderloin had been roasted and was resting on the stove top. The tart had been filled with goat cheese and topped with roasted red peppers. The smoked mussels, the aioli, the chocolate pots de creme, all in the fridge, waiting. Marguerite had slipped two champagne flutes and her copper bowl into the freezer. She softened the b.u.t.ter she had gotten at the Herb Farm. The asparagus still needed attention, and the baguettes and the bearnaise. Marguerite debated setting up coffee and decided against it, then changed her mind; if they didn't drink it tonight, she'd have it in the morning. The morning: It would come, despite the fact that the day already seemed as stretched out as a piece of taffy, filled with as much activity as Marguerite engaged in in a whole year. She ferreted a wine cooler out from underneath the kitchen sink. The cooler was filled with cobwebs and mouse droppings. Marguerite washed it, then washed it again. The wine cooler was silver, st.u.r.dy, and unadorned, a leftover from the restaurant. There had been twenty such buckets and twenty iron stands, enough to post at every table, plus two spares. It was curious, Marguerite thought, the way some things survived and some did not.

The clock struck the half hour. Marguerite added items to her list, tasks that would come naturally to another person but that she, in her excitement, might forget. Shower. Hair, face, outfit. What to wear? The kimono stuck sorely in her mind like a porcupine quill. The d.a.m.ned kimono. Still, if she had a spare minute, she might try to find it. She tidied the kitchen, wiped down the countertops, rinsed the sink, cleaned the smoker, and returned it to its Styrofoam braces, closed it up in the box. This was all busywork, but Marguerite found it soothing. It allowed her to think of other things.

Since the day of Dan and Candace's wedding, there had been talk of going to Africa. The wedding was held at the Catholic church, St. Mary's, on Federal Street. Candace wore a strapless white satin gown with a tulle skirt and ballet slippers that laced up her calves. She was more Grace Kelly than Grace Kelly. She was captivating. Marguerite had been coaxed into preceding Candace down the aisle in a periwinkle dress with matching bolero jacket, despite her ardent pleas to sit with everyone else.

"I'm more matron than maid," Marguerite had said. "But I'm not married, so I can't be called matron. And no one thirty-nine years of age should be called maid. I don't belong in this wedding, Candace."

"I'm not willing to have anyone else."

"I need to be at the restaurant anyway, supervising before the reception."

"I will not have anyone else."

Marguerite had stood at the altar, opposite Dan's roommate from college, holding a cl.u.s.ter of calla lilies while Dan and Candace pledged their eternal love, while they promised to pa.s.s this love on to any children they might have, while they swore in front of a hundred-plus people to strive through good and bad, through windfall and famine. Porter had given Candace away, and he sat in the front row next to his brother Andre, in from California. On Andre's other side was Chase, Candace's full brother, whom Marguerite had just met that morning. Porter reveled in the role of patriarch, leaning against the back of the pew with his arm stretched out behind his brother and half brother, his eyes dewy, a proud and resigned smile on his face. Marguerite could picture him like it was yesterday. He'd winked at her and she blushed. In the end, she had felt proud to be standing up there next to Candace, despite the dress that most closely resembled a tablecloth from a Holiday Inn banquet hall; she had felt proud that Candace would not consider asking anyone else to wear the dress, to hold the flowers and Dan's ring, to stand by her side as she wed. Marguerite did not, however, stay for the receiving line. Instead, she negotiated the cobblestones in her inane dyed-to-match heels back to Les Parapluies, where she supervised the prep of the crab and mango canapes and the prosciutto-wrapped Gorgonzola-stuffed figs that would be offered to the wedding guests along with flutes of La grande Dame.

Marguerite had few memories of the reception. (Had she even sat to eat? Had she changed into her regular clothes? She had no recollection.) The after-reception, however, Marguerite recalled vividly. Everyone had gone home except for Marguerite and Porter, Andre, Chase, the college roommate (whose name was Gregory and who expressed, in no uncertain terms, his wanton desire for Francesca, the headwaiter), and, to Marguerite's surprise, Dan and Candace. They were all gathered around the west banquette with cigarettes and a 1955 bottle of Taylor Fladgate. Marguerite had set a plate of chocolate caramel truffles on the table to a smattering of applause, and then finally she relaxed, amazed that Dan and Candace hadn't beelined to the Roberts House, where they had a suite. They both seemed content to sit and drink and eat and talk, holding hands under the table.

They're married, Marguerite thought. There was nothing left to do but accept it. Daniel Knox would be a permanent part of their lives. He continued to irritate Marguerite-he was forever challenging her within her area of expertise, arguing with her about the quality of American beef or a certain vintage of Chablis, as though he believed he could do a better job of running the restaurant than she did. He had tried his best to sabotage the friends.h.i.+p between Marguerite and Candace. He disliked it when they spent time alone; he teased Marguerite about how often she and Candace touched each other, their kisses, their hugs; he pointed out how Marguerite never failed to choose the seat closest to Candace; he badgered Candace about what the two of them talked about when they were alone-were they talking about him? A hundred times Marguerite could have murdered the man-sardonically she thought all it would have taken was a little rat poison in his polenta-but Candace worked to keep the peace. She gave one hand to Daniel and one to Marguerite. "I love you both," she said. "I want you to love each other." While up at the altar, Marguerite vowed to herself to try her best to get along with Daniel. It was either that or tear Candace in half.

Across the table, Dan was proselytizing to Candace's brothers about how, if he hadn't come along to save the Beach Club, that waterfront would be a chain of garish trophy homes by now.

Candace grabbed Marguerite's hand. "Come with me to the loo," she said. "I need help with my dress."

Thus it was in the cramped, slanted-ceilinged women's bathroom at Les Parapluies, with Marguerite holding seventeen layers of tulle and averting her eyes as Candace peed, that Africa was first mentioned.

"I want to go to Africa."

Marguerite thought she was talking about her honeymoon. As it was, Candace and Dan had decided to wait until winter to take a trip and Marguerite believed discussion was hovering around Hawaii, Tahiti, Bora-Bora. She'd had too much to drink to make the leap across the globe.

"I'm sorry?"

"Dan asked me what I wanted to do," Candace said. "With my life. If I could go anywhere or do anything. And I want to go to Africa."

Marguerite narrowed her eyes. Above the sink, a peach-colored index card was taped to the wall: Employees must wash hands before returning to work.

"You mean, like, on safari?" Marguerite said.

"No, no, no. Not on safari."

Marguerite didn't get it. She was uncomfortable thinking of Candace starting a new, married life in Africa.

"It's awfully far away," Marguerite said. "I'd miss you."

"You're coming with me, silly," Candace said.

In the weeks and months that followed, Candace's vision of them all in Africa crystallized. She wasn't thinking of Isak Dinesen in Kenya, or trekking the Ugandan jungles in search of gorillas, or righting the evils of apartheid in South Africa-she was thinking of deserts, siroccos, sandstorms, of souks and mint tea and the casbah. She was thinking of Bedouins on camels, date palms, nomads in tents, thieves in the medinas. She had been reading The Sheltering Sky and begged Marguerite to make tagines and couscous.

Night after night after night, so many summer nights strung together like j.a.panese lanterns through the trees, Candace and Dan and Marguerite and Porter sat at the west banquette and talked and talked and talked until they were too drunk or too tired to form coherent sentences. They talked about Carter and Reagan, Iran, Woody Allen and Pink Floyd, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and the new Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Porter talked about a colleague accused of making a pa.s.s at a female student, who turned around and pressed charges. Marguerite talked about the bluefin tuna Dusty had caught and how he'd sliced it paper thin and eaten it raw right there on the dock of the Straight Wharf. And always, at the end of the night, like a punch line, like a broken record, Candace talked about Africa. She wanted the four of them to open a French restaurant somewhere in her make-believe North Africa.

"I can see it now," Porter had said, the first time she mentioned it. "A culinary Peace Corps."

"A restaurant in the middle of the desert," Candace said. "I've always dreamed of running barefoot through the Sahara. What would the restaurant be like, Daisy, if it were up to you?"

"If it were up to Reagan, it would be a McDonald's," Dan said. "Talk about cultural imperialism."

"I asked Daisy," Candace said. "So hush. She's the only one of us who would know what she was doing."

Marguerite gazed around Les Parapluies. This was how she loved it best-empty except for the four of them, lit only by candles. The staff had cleaned up and gone home for the evening, but there was still the lingering smell of garlic and rosemary and freshly baked bread. There was still plenty of wine.

"Just like this," Marguerite said. "I would want it to be just like this."

"Except it wouldn't be like this at all, would it?" Candace said. "Because it wouldn't be Nantucket. It wouldn't be thirty miles out to sea; there wouldn't be fog. We'd be surrounded by sand instead of water. It wouldn't be the same at all."

"Spoken like a true Chamber of Commerce employee," Porter said, raising his gla.s.s.

"I'm serious," Candace said. She turned to Marguerite with her cheeks flushed and her hair falling into her face. One of her pearl earrings was about to pop out. Marguerite reached for Candace's ear-all she had meant was to gently hold the earlobe and secure the earring in place before it fell and got lost in Candace's blouse or bounced across the wormy chestnut floors and got caught in a crack somewhere-but Candace swatted Marguerite's hand away. Smacked it in anger. Marguerite recoiled, and the energy at the table changed in an instant.

Candace's mouth was set in an ugly line; her eyes were gla.s.sy and wild. Marguerite was confused, then frightened. Had Candace had too much to drink?

"No one takes me seriously," Candace said. "n.o.body listens when I talk. You treat me like a child. Like a china doll. Like an imbecile!"

Dan and Marguerite reached out for Candace simultaneously, but Candace locked her arms across her chest. Porter chuckled.

"It's not funny!" Candace said. She glared at them all. "You are all so smart and accomplished and that's fine, that's great. I support all of you in your work. But now it's my turn. I want to go to Africa. I mean it about this restaurant. It's a dream I have. You may think it's stupid, but I don't." She turned to Marguerite. "Now reimagine. What will the restaurant look like?"

Marguerite was stunned into silence. She couldn't bring herself to imagine a restaurant different from the one she had, especially one on a continent she had never visited.

"I can't reimagine," Marguerite said. "I want to stay here, where I am. I want everything to stay just as it is."

Yes, it was true: If she could have kept the four of them seated at the west banquette for all eternity-with meals appearing like Sisyphus's boulder-she would have. But then autumn came and Porter returned to Manhattan-to Corsage Woman, Overbite Woman, the blond, unmarried tennis coach. One unfortunate night that fall, Marguerite found herself standing in the restaurant's dark pantry with her lawyer, Damian Vix. Ostensibly, he had been in search of dried porcini for a risotto he wanted to make at home, but they had both had too much to drink and the foray into the dark kitchen and darker pantry was followed by kissing and some l.u.s.tful groping. Kid stuff, Marguerite thought afterward. It gave her none of the satisfaction she'd been hoping for.

In the new year, Nantucket suffered one of the worst winters on record-snowstorms, ice storms, thirty-two hours without power, a record three hundred homes with burst pipes according to the claims man at Congdon & Coleman Insurance. Marguerite tested out new recipes in her kitchen on Quince Street, Candace was still working at the Chamber of Commerce, as a.s.sistant director now, and Dan monitored the weather-the wind gusts, the inches of snow-and he checked on things two or three times a day at the shuttered-up Beach Club. The three of them gathered occasionally, but mostly it was Candace and Marguerite meeting for lunch at the Brotherhood, or hunkering down in front of the fire at Marguerite's house on Quince Street with cheese fondue or pot-au-feu. It was during one of these fireside dinners that Candace proposed the trip: seven nights and eight days in Morocco. They would scout a location for their restaurant.

"Just the two of us," Candace said. "Me and you."

"I couldn't possibly," Marguerite said.

"I already have the tickets," Candace said. "We're going."

"Go with Dan."

"You'd send me to scout a location for a restaurant with Dan? You trust him to find the right place?"

Well, no, Marguerite didn't trust him. But Marguerite thought she had made her feelings more than clear: The restaurant idea was delusional.

"Anyway, I don't want to go with Dan," Candace said. "I want to go with you. Girl trip. Best friends and all that. We've never taken a trip together."

"I can't go," Marguerite said.

"Why not?"

"Porter promised me Paris," Marguerite said. "After his trip to j.a.pan last year. He swore on a stack of Bibles."

"A stack of Bibles?" Candace said.

Well, a stack of Marguerite's bibles: Larousse Gastronomique, her first-edition M. F. K. Fisher, her Julia Child. At the end of August, before he returned to the city, Porter had laid his right hand on the cookbooks and said in a solemn voice, "In the spring, Paris."

"It's not going to happen," Candace said. "He'll back out. He'll find some reason."

Marguerite flinched. She stared at the dying embers of the fire and nearly asked Candace to leave. How dare she say such a thing! But perhaps it was t.i.t-for-tat. She thought Marguerite was delusional.

"I'm sorry," Candace said, though her voice couldn't have been less apologetic. "I just can't stand to see you get hurt again. He's my brother. I know him. He promised you Paris to get himself out of a tight spot. But he won't follow through. You should just come to Morocco with me."

"I know him, too," Marguerite said. "He promised me Paris. There's no reason to doubt him."

Candace stared. "No reason to doubt him?"

Marguerite stood up and poked at the fire; it had gone cold.

"Porter is taking me to Paris."

"Okay," Candace said kindly. "Okay." Her tone of voice infuriated Marguerite; it was patronizing. Marguerite had never fought with her friend, though she was ready to now. The only thing that kept her from doing battle was the fear that Candace may be right.

And so, the following week, when Porter phoned, Marguerite pressed him on it.

"Your sister wants me to go with her to Morocco."

"For her restaurant idea?"

"Mmmhmm."

"She's crazy," Porter said. "G.o.d love her. Are you going?"

"No," Marguerite said. "I told her we were going to Paris."

Porter laughed.

Marguerite steeled her resolve. She could picture Porter's face when he laughed-his eyes crunching, his head thrown back-but she couldn't tell what this laugh meant.

"Have you checked your schedule?" she asked. "Decided on a week? If we want the Plaza Athenee, we have to book soon."

There was a pause. "Daisy..."

She only half-heard the rest of what he said. Something about a paper he was presenting, a week as a guest curator at the Met, a conference they were hosting at Columbia. Marguerite took the phone from her ear and poised it over the cradle, ready to slam it down. She thought of begging, of laying her heart out on the chopping block. It didn't have to be Paris. It could be the Radisson on Route 128 for all she cared. She wanted something from him, something that proved she was more than just his summertime. But in the end, all she could bring herself to do was cut him off in midsentence.

"Never mind; never mind," she said. "Candace will be thrilled. The casbah it is."

As Marguerite formed the bread dough into loaves, laid them down in her oiled baguette pan, as she snipped the tops of the loaves with kitchen shears and rinsed the loaves with water so they would have a sheen to them when they came out of the oven, she could say that the eight days in Morocco with Candace had been the best eight days of her life. It was when everything changed.

They had started out in a town on the coast, seven hours by car from Casablanca. The town was called Essaouira. It had a long, wide, magnificent crescent of silver sand beach where men in flowing robes offered camel rides for ten dirhams. Candace, who was in for every "authentic" experience she could find, insisted they try it. Marguerite protested, and yet she ended up eight feet off the ground crushed with Candace against the hump of a dromedary named Charlie. Riding a camel, Marguerite soon realized, was like sitting on a rocking chair without any back. Marguerite held on to Candace for dear life as they ricocheted forward and careened back with each of Charlie's steps down the coastline. Candace was shaking with laughter; Marguerite felt her gasping for air. The camel smelled bad, and so, for that matter, did the soft mud-sand at the waterline. Marguerite buried her nose in Candace's hair.

When they dismounted, Candace made the man in the flowing robe take their picture. Marguerite smiled perfunctorily, then said, "I need a drink."

They sat outside at a little cafe and drank a bottle of very cold Sancerre. They touched gla.s.ses.

"To Morocco," Candace said. "To the two of us in Morocco."

Marguerite tried to smile. She tried not to wish she were in Paris.

"Do you wish you were in Paris?" Candace said.

Marguerite looked at her friend. Candace's blue eyes were round with worry.

"You were right," Marguerite said. It was a relief to admit it. "About Porter, about Paris. You couldn't have been more right."

"I didn't want to be right," Candace said. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yes."