The Island Read Free

the first dances. Chess dancing with Michael, Chess dancing with you, you dancing with me.”
    “Me dancing with you?”
    Birdie cleared her throat. “Emily Post says that if neither of the divorced spouses is remarried, then… yes, Grant, you’re going to have to dance with me. Sorry about that.”
    “Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money, Bird.”
    It took a phone call from Chess to convince him. God only knows what she said, but Grant wrote the check.
    At the end of April, Birdie went on her first date since the divorce. The date had been set up by Birdie’s sister, India, who was a curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Center City, Philadelphia. India had been married to the sculptor Bill Bishop and had raised three sons while Bill traveled the globe, gaining notoriety. In 1995, Bill shot himself in the head in a hotel in Bangkok, and the suicide had devastated India. For a while there, Birdie had feared India wouldn’t recover. She would end up as a bag lady in Rittenhouse Square, or as a recluse, keeping cats and polishing Bill’s portrait in its frame. But India had somehow risen from the ashes, putting her master’s degree in art history to use and becoming a curator. Unlike Birdie, India was cutting edge and chic. She wore Catherine Malandrino dresses, four-inch heels, and Bill Bishop’s reading glasses on a chain around her neck. India dated all kinds of men—older men, younger men, married men—and the man she set Birdie up with was one of her castoffs. He was too old. How old was too old? Sixty-five, which was Grant’s age.
    His name was Hank Dunlap. Hank was the retired headmaster of an elite private school in Manhattan. His wife, Caroline, was independently wealthy. The wife sat on the board of trustees at the Guggenheim Museum; India had met Hank and Caroline at a Guggenheim benefit years earlier.
    “What happened to Caroline?” Birdie asked. “Did they get divorced? Did she die?”
    “Neither,” India said. “She has Alzheimer’s. She’s in a facility upstate.”
    “So the wife is still alive, they’re still married, and you dated him? And now you want me to date him?”
    “Get over yourself, Bird,” India said. “His wife is in another world and won’t be coming back. He wants companionship. He is exactly your type.”
    “He is?” Birdie said. What was her “type”? Someone like Grant? Grant was the devil’s attorney. He was all about single-malt whiskey and expensive cars with leather interiors. He was not the kindly headmaster type, content with a salary in the low six figures. “Does he golf?”
    “No.”
    “Ah, then he is my type.” Birdie swore she would never again be romantically involved with a golfer.
    “He’s cute,” India said, like they were talking about some sixteen-year-old. “You’ll like him.”
    Surprise! Birdie liked him. She had decided to forgo all of the “I can’t believe I’m dating again at my age” worrywart nonsense and just be a realist. She was dating again at her age, but instead of fretting, she got showered and dressed and made up as she would have if she and Grant were going to the theater or to the country club with the Campbells. She wore a simple wrap dress and heels and some good jewelry, including her diamond engagement ring (it had been her grandmother’s and would someday go to one of her grandchildren). Birdie sat on her garden bench in the mild spring evening with a glass of Sancerre and Mozart playing on the outdoor speakers as she waited for old Hank to show up.
    Her heartbeat seemed regular.
    She heard a car in the driveway and proceeded inside, where she rinsed her wineglass, checked her lipstick in the mirror, and fetched her spring coat. With a deep breath, she opened the door. And there stood old Hank, holding a bouquet of fragrant purple hyacinths. He had salt-and-pepper hair and wore rimless glasses. He was, as India had promised, cute. Very cute. When he saw Birdie, he smiled widely. He grinned.