Heat Wave Read Free Page A

pregnant. It was almost impossible to believe. She wasn’t frightened or sad or happy or anything at all. Just confused.
    “I don’t want you to worry,” she told Gus. “I—I can deal with this.” Actually, she hadn’t thought how she would deal with it. It still didn’t seem real; it seemed as if, once she left the island, this fantasy land, and set foot on the mainland, the real world, her pregnancy would vanish.
    “Maybe you shouldn’t deal with it,” Gus said. “Maybe we should get married.”
    “
Married
? My gosh, Gus, we hardly know each other.”
    “Yeah, but I like what I know,” he told her. “We seem to get along awfully well. And the idea of having a family appeals to me. I’m ready for it. It will give me
gravitas.
”
    Well, she thought, I never thought I’d marry a man who said
gravitas
. The entire situation seemed dreamlike, as if she were trying on a life like a dress she might decide to buy, or not. She was not passionatelyswept off her feet by Gus. She liked him a lot. She thought she could come to love him. She thought his immediate response to her announcement of pregnancy indicated that he loved her, even though he hadn’t said as much.
    “What will your parents say?” she asked.
    Gus winced. “It’s not going to be easy. But we’ll do it together, Carley. We won’t back down.”
    Later in their marriage, Carley would wonder if Gus married her as proof that he was not controlled by his powerful, charismatic parents. Was she his rebellion? His glorious revolution? Certainly, until Cisco’s birth, there was dissension in the family.
    Gus invited his parents out to dinner. This was unusual. Annabel loved to cook, and Nantucket restaurants were crowded and expensive in the summer. Also, Gus was a partner specializing in real estate in his father’s legal firm, along with Gus’s best friend Wyatt Anderson, so his father knew exactly how much money Gus made. His parents would be just as likely to chastise him for wasting money as to praise him for taking them out.
    Carley thought Gus’s intention was to break the news to his parents in public, where they wouldn’t cause a scene, although Annabel and Russell were never the sort to make a scene.
    They went to The Languedoc. They were dressed conservatively, the men in blazers and ties, the women in summer dresses. Annabel wore pearls. Carley wore fake pearls. Carley pulled her long brown hair to the back of her neck in a puritanical bun.
    Gus waited until the waiter had taken their dinner orders and brought them more wine before dropping the bomb. “Mom. Dad. Carley and I are going to get married. We’re going to have a baby.”
    Annabel responded by turning her head to one side, as if she’d been slapped. She cast a meaningful look at her husband.
    Russell remained jovial, as if this were a trivial matter. “Well, well. Gus, this is a surprise. You and Carley haven’t known each other very long—”
    Annabel interrupted. “And Carley doesn’t know the island
at all
. Do you, dear? I mean, you’ve never been here in the winter. Perhaps you think it’s all pleasure and parties on the beach, but believe me, we have long, lonely, isolated winter months. Even people who’ve grown up here, who
love
the island, find it difficult.”
    Smoothly, Russell took up the argument. “Even though it seems we’re wealthy, we’re not, really. I suppose you could say we’re house poor. I mean, what I’m trying to say, what I’m sure Gus has told you, is that we’re not like a lot of people who fly off to some Caribbean island for a month or so in the winter to get some sunlight. We’re stuck here on this windy stretch of sand all during the coldest months—”
    Gus interrupted. “Carley knows that. I’ve told her all that. She’s not a dunce and she’s not a fortune hunter or whatever you want to call it. We love each other, and we love the idea of raising a family on the island. She’s met my friends. They love her. I’ve