The Island Read Free Page B

desire.
    God, desire. She had forgotten all about it.
    She undressed and climbed into bed with her steaming mug of tea. She picked up the novel her book club was reading, then set it down. She was levitating like a magician’s assistant. She closed her eyes.
    The phone rang in the middle of the night. Three twenty, the clock said. Birdie sat straight up in bed. Her bedside light was still on. The tea was cold on the nightstand. The phone? Who called at such an hour? Then Birdie remembered her date and she filled with warm, syrupy joy. It might be India calling to find out how the date had gone. India kept ridiculous hours. Ever since Bill died, she had suffered from mind-blowing insomnia; she occasionally went seventy-two hours without sleeping.
    Or the call was from Hank, who had, perhaps, not been able to sleep.
    Birdie grabbed the phone.
    A woman, crying. Birdie knew immediately that it was Chess; a mother always knew the sound of her child crying, even when her child was thirty-two years old. Birdie intuited the rest of it right away, without having to hear one lurid word. It crushed her, but she knew.
    “It’s over, Birdie.”
    “Over?” Birdie said.
    “Over.”
    Birdie drew the covers up to her chin. This was one of her defining moments as a mother and she was determined to shine.
    “Tell me what happened,” she said.
    Michael Morgan was six foot six, clean cut, and handsome. He had sandy hair, green eyes, and a smile that made others smile. He had played lacrosse at Princeton, where he had graduated summa cum laude with a degree in sociology; he was a whiz at crossword puzzles and loved black-and-white movies, which endeared him to people of Birdie’s generation. Instead of taking a job at J.P. Morgan, where his father was managing partner, or going to Madison Avenue, where his mother oversaw the advertising accounts for every smash hit on Broadway, Michael had taken out a staggering business loan and bought a failing head-hunting company. In five years, he had turned a profit; he had placed 25 percent of the graduating class of Columbia Business School.
    Chess had met Michael Morgan at a rock club downtown; Birdie couldn’t remember the name of the place. Chess had been at the bar with a girlfriend, and Michael had been there to see his brother, Nick, who was the lead singer in a band called Diplomatic Immunity. This was how young people met each other; Birdie understood that. But unlike the other young men that Chess met socially, she and Michael Morgan got serious right away.
    The beginning of Chess’s relationship with Michael Morgan coincided with the end of Birdie and Grant’s marriage. When Birdie and Grant met Michael Morgan for the first time, they were, technically, separated. (Grant was staying in a room at the Hyatt in Stamford. This was before he rented and then purchased the loft in South Norwalk.) Chess knew her parents were separated, but Chess wanted Birdie and Grant to meet Michael together as a unit. Birdie balked at this. It would be awkward; it would be what amounted to a date with Grant, whom she had so recently and unequivocally asked to leave her life. But Chess insisted. She believed that her parents could be civil and congenial to each other for one night on her behalf. Grant was open to the idea; he made a reservation for four at La Grenouille, their former favorite restaurant. Grant and Birdie drove to the city together; it wouldn’t make sense not to. Grant smelled the same; he was wearing his khaki suit and one of the Paul Stuart shirts that Birdie had bought for him, and the pink tie with the frogs that he always wore when they went to La Grenouille. Birdie remembered having the reassuring yet sinking feeling that nothing had changed. The maître d’ at La Grenouille, Donovan, greeted them as a married couple—he had no idea they’d split—and showed them to the table they preferred. On the way to the restaurant from the parking garage, Birdie had filled Grant in on