Nantucket Read Free Page B

reason they’d hired Sally was basically that Cathy was afraid of being lonely. Cathy had turned thirty-nine that April. Andrew was forty-two. Their daughters had grown up, or were trying to. Florence had finished her first year of college and had met a boy who looked like a “keeper” – as she and her friends called potential husbands – so she’d found a summer job in San Francisco that allowed her to be near him, with the result that she wouldn’t be in Nantucket.
    â€œAnd Eleanor?” Andrew had asked.
    â€œWe’ve been through all that,” Cathy had said.
    â€œShe’s decided to hate us.”
    â€œShe needs to become her own person.”
    â€œIt’s fine if she hates us, you know, so long as she gets over it. Which she will – probably by September but certainly within a year. What was it she said at that very dramatic family lunch we had on your birthday? I’m a blood-sucking investment banker and you’re a what?”
    â€œA trivial woman who never finished college,” Cathy said evenly.
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œBut even if she finishes hating us early,” said Cathy, “she’s in Munich…”
    â€œIn a job I got her…”
    â€œWhich she hates you for – with me as collateral damage.” At this point Cathy had wiped away a genuine tear. “Oh, sweetie, I am just trying to say that I will not do well in that big empty house.”
    â€œWell, we have to be in Nantucket,” Andrew had said, less softly than he meant to.
    â€œYes, I know. There are people coming to stay. You’ve invited them already. We entertain well. You always do bring interesting people, and only a few of them have made passes at me…”
    â€œWhich ones?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter.”
    â€œIt does to me.”
    â€œThey were easy enough to fend off.”
    â€œMen or women?”
    â€œ Men , sweetie. What are you thinking?” And then, in a teasing voice: “There was one woman, actually. She was going through a bad patch in her marriage. I found her whimpering in the living room when I came downstairs for a glass of milk at three in the morning. She needed to be kissed, she said.”
    â€œAnd you accommodated her?”
    â€œMostly it was a hug. I’m a good hostess. I’m making this all up, you realise. I know it turns you on. But, Andrew, that’s not the point. The point is what the fuck will I do from Monday morning or even Sunday evening when I put you and our invariably interesting house guests on the plane back to New York, until seven-whatever on Friday evening, when Ishow up with the gin and tonic?”
    â€œIf there’s too much work, hire a maid,” he’d responded. “Or hire an au pair.” Not actually a sensible suggestion. One of Andrew’s bad habits was shooting from the hip, but it was a bad habit he shared with most members of his profession.
    â€œAu pairs are for children, Andrew, which as you may recall I am going to be without.”
    â€œYou always said the au pairs we hired were children themselves.”
    â€œThat’s not what I want, Andrew.”
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œSomeone to talk to. A local to help clean the house isn’t enough. More of a companion than a servant.”
    â€œDo it,” Andrew had said. “Pay over the odds if you need to. It’s got to be an attractive gig. Cooking and light housekeeping. Room with your own bath. But she has to be willing to take her days off in the middle of the week and work when our guests are here.”
    â€œSo I can sit on the porch and be glamorous?” said Cathy, recovering slightly. It was a joke between them. Cathy had been a pretty girl, and she’d kept her figure, but there was always a stain on her tee shirt or a bath towel on the floor to remind them both she hadn’t stepped off the pages of Vogue . Or perhaps it was some sort of