The Island House, page 5
When Courtney went to Nantucket that Christmas vacation, Henry insisted they all had to dive into the cold Atlantic to welcome the new year. Fewer summer children were there. Iris was still a kid and hadn’t started college or met Pearl yet; she was tucked up in bed with a cold. But James was there, and Robin, Christabel, and Valerie. At eleven-thirty, they began making their way down the steps on the bluff. It was very cold. Snow coated the handrails, steps, and beach. When they reached the bottom, Henry handed around open bottles of champagne to give them all courage. They’d been eating, drinking, and playing foolish games all night, so they were already silly with laughter. At five till midnight, Henry held up his wrist with its gleaming waterproof watch: “Clothes off NOW!” he shouted. They stripped off their coats, hats, gloves, and boots, their dresses or slacks and shirts, until they were all hopping up and down on the icy sand, shivering with cold, wearing only their underwear. “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Henry shouted, and led them racing into the cold foamy waves and plunging into the dark frigid water.
People shrieked. All around Courtney, bodies became blurs of dark movement as they thrashed out into the indescribable, searing, breathtaking cold. Frantically, with numb limbs, she swam to shore and staggered up toward her clothes.
“Here.” James held up her coat and wrapped it around her.
For one ecstatic, surprising moment, Courtney was in James’s arms, feeling the warmth of the coat and the strength of his embrace. He sought me, she thought, as a delirious hope flared inside her.
“James, help me!” Christabel stumbled toward him, arms clutching her thin torso for warmth. “I can’t find my coat.”
And the moment vanished. James found Christabel’s coat. He handed it to Christabel; he did not wrap it around her as he had with Courtney. Courtney noticed that and cherished the image in her heart. But quickly Christabel had shoved herself against James. “Put your arms around me! I’m freezing!”
Henry continued to swim in the glacial water, stroking far away from shore. All the others had returned, gasping, shuddering, and screaming at Henry to come back. When he did swim back and walk up to them, he held his arms out triumphantly.
“I am Henry Vickerey, master of land, air, and water!” he shouted. “The universe is wide and far, and I am its most shining star, I spend my light on all who trust, and conjure magic out of dust!”
This was not the first time Henry had gotten grandiose and poetic, certainly not the first time Courtney had witnessed it. For a few moments, he was gleaming and magic, but Courtney knew how quickly he would become repetitive and boring. She gathered up her clothes and scurried barefoot up the wooden steps to the warmth of the house. She heard Valerie, remaining on the beach, pleading with Henry to put on his coat, cajoling him to calm down, go up to the house, and celebrate the new year there. When she reminded him the rest of the champagne was in the house, Henry finally conceded.
When Henry was good, he was very very good. He organized scavenger hunts that taught them the history of the island as they raced around in pairs searching for the clues. He prepared marvelous clambakes on the beach and dance parties in the house with a live island band. When he took the time to focus on Courtney, he got her, telling her about the vices of the authors she was studying, quoting Coleridge or Lamb as if his mind was a computerized encyclopedia. He brought his mother flowers.
But when he was bad, he was horrid.
The times he was depressed weren’t the worst times, at least not for most of the family. Henry would gradually slump into a kind of adolescent contempt with the world, not bothering to answer when spoken to except in monosyllables. He’d refuse to eat, or swim, or play a board game. Courtney could almost see the light inside him dimming, as if his dazzling good humor were set on a sliding switch. Then Henry would subside into his bedroom, not coming out for days. Susanna or Valerie would slip quietly into the room, carrying a glass of iced tea or a plate with a sandwich on it. The house would fall quiet. It was restful. Courtney had blithely assumed it was restful for Henry, as well.
But some days, which Courtney came to recognize were during Henry’s ascent into a manic state, he would buttonhole Courtney as she cleaned up the kitchen or folded laundry, describing to her with wild excitement a new surgical discovery or the historic decision to use ligation or emollients instead of cauterization to mitigate bleeding from wounds on the battlefield. Courtney could scarcely understand one word out of five. That didn’t matter. Any live person became his designated audience, so no matter how she moved around a room, Henry would track her, talking incessantly, trying to make her meet his eyes, shoving his face toward hers. Usually, after a while, Valerie or Susanna would rescue her, and then Henry would monopolize them, ranting exuberantly, waving his arms, shouting.
“Sorry about that,” Robin told Courtney one day. “Henry’s getting manic again.”
“Aren’t there medications for that?” Courtney asked.
“Yeah, but they have side effects. I’ve learned to keep away from him when he’s like this. Just walk away, leave the room, shut a door in his face. You can’t hurt his feelings.”
“You’re very relaxed about this,” Courtney remarked.
“I’ve lived with him all my life, remember? I’m used to him. Don’t look so worried. I’m not manic-depressive. I’m almost tediously normal.”
“I wouldn’t say tedious.” Courtney paused. “How about James?”
“What? You think he’s manic-depressive?”
“He certainly gets involved in all kinds of tomfoolery.”
“Tomfoolery.” Robin smirked. “No one uses that word on the East Coast, darlin’. Why? Are you interested in James?”
“Don’t be silly,” Courtney answered.
—
But of course she had been interested. She had been in love. What was that expression? Madly in love.
For eleven years, Courtney had seen how this inherited knot unraveled itself in the oldest child, Henry, and maybe in James, a year younger than Robin and Courtney. Iris, the youngest daughter and baby of the family, so far appeared unhampered by the gene. Robin, too, seemed to have escaped it, although she was an unusual person. Very secretive, even from Courtney. Number 10 on her list of why she, Courtney, was returning for the summer—numbers one through nine were all about James—was that Courtney wanted to find out what it was that made Robin so determined not to leave the island.
Now she had arrived. Now it could all begin.
The passengers filed down the ramp off the boat, onto shore. The Hy-Line workers rushed back and forth, pulling the heavy blue-curtained luggage racks from the hold and into line in front of the children’s shop, The Toy Boat, tucked away in one of the old fisherman’s shacks next to a couple of T-shirt shops. Courtney picked up her backpack from the blue plastic seat and made her way through the cabin to the stairs down to the lower deck. A man in Nantucket red slacks with a Labradoodle on a leash was ahead of her. The ramp to shore was steep today, because the tide was out.
Then the familiar bliss of arriving—Robin rushing to hug her, crowds milling around looking for their luggage, the sudden internal adjustment to stable land after the rocking boat, the stream of unadulterated sunshine on Courtney’s shoulders, a sense of beginning. The beginning of summer!
“Let’s get your luggage,” Robin said, tugging Courtney’s hand.
Most of the racks were emptied now. Suitcases thump-thump-thumped as passengers pulled them toward taxis and cars. People talked and kissed and laughed. Dogs barked.
Courtney spotted her two big cases on a rack at the end, headed toward them, yanked them onto the ground, and lifted the handles.
“Give me one,” Robin demanded. Charging ahead of Courtney, she led her down the wharf, past the island tour buses, past Straight Wharf Restaurant and the gazebo, and left, past Old South Wharf, down to Commercial Wharf where one of the Vickereys’ old Jeeps was squeezed into a parking spot. Lifting the hatch, she hefted Courtney’s case in. Courtney tossed in her other suitcase and backpack. Robin slammed the hatch shut.
“Okay? Get in. Let’s go!” She hopped in the driver’s seat, fastened her seatbelt, and back-and-forthed the Jeep out of its spot. “The house is a carnival. My fault, I suppose. But it’s Mom’s sixtieth birthday, and she’s taken care of everyone else forever. I want to give her a fabulous weekend she’ll always remember. So lots of people are coming.”
“I’m glad,” Courtney said. “A crowd is the perfect present for Susanna. She wouldn’t be impressed with diamonds or cruises.” Courtney adored Susanna for the way she made everyone feel at home, as if Susanna were a mother hen, sweeping even the most gawky or grumpy chick into her warm, affectionate embrace. Courtney had wanted to be like Susanna even before she met her—she’d always dreamed of having lots of children, and now as an adult she could see that she could have that, she could have both of her dreams come true: a large family and a job teaching English in college. She imagined herself curled up in a fat chair beneath the warm glow of a lamp, reading The Once and Future King and Robert Frost’s poetry to her children.
“You’ll be with me in my room for the weekend, by the way.” Robin broke into Courtney’s reverie as she steered the Jeep into the stream of traffic on Washington Street. “Sorry about that, but Mom’s cousin and her husband are coming, so we have to squeeze in. Iris will have Pearl with her, which will undoubtedly make that spoiled little New York miss shudder, having to actually share a room. James’s got two friends bunking with him—you know he’s home for the summer, right?” Without waiting for an answer, Robin continued, “Henry’s living in the apartment over the garage. Which is a pit, I’ve got to tell you. When he gets home from the hospital, he falls fully dressed on his bed and sleeps a hundred hours, then showers, stumbles down to eat whatever we’ll fix for him, and goes back to work. Two other of Mom’s old friends recently emailed they’re coming. I think Quinn has offered to put them up, but Mom wants them in the house with her, so I don’t know what they’ll do.”
“Is Susanna loving this?” Courtney asked when Robin paused for breath.
“You know her, she loves a party, as long as it’s not for her. She hates being the cause of such a fuss.”
“She’ll be happy when everyone gets here.”
“Maybe. She’s a royal pain right now. When she found out we’ve booked a tent and a band, she totally freaked. She’s insisting on making her own birthday cake!”
“Susanna does make fabulous cakes,” Courtney reminded Robin.
“Yeah, but making her own cake for a grand slam sixtieth birthday? That’s demented. She wanted to cook the dinner, too, a formal dinner for a hundred people, are you kidding me?”
“It’s not like she hasn’t done that a thousand times—”
“But we told her we’d already hired caterers and it was a done deal, shut up. So this is, what, Thursday, and the party’s Saturday night, but guests start arriving tomorrow—”
Courtney smiled to herself. Courtney was not a guest. She was one of Susanna’s summer children. She asked, “Is Henry back with Valerie?”
“No. Breaks my heart. Henry’s got a new girlfriend now, a nurse named Lisa. She’s been dating him for two or three weeks. Poor girl, she’s got a lot to learn.”
“Valerie…?”
“Valerie still refuses to marry him unless he tries the lithium Dr. Olson suggests.”
“That’s really sad. They’ve been together for fifteen years.”
“I know. She’s put up with him through all sorts of meltdowns and medications. But she really wants him to try lithium.”
“Why doesn’t he take it? He must hate these black moods as much as everyone else does.”
“The side effects. Lithium can cause trembling of the hands. Just think what that would mean for a surgeon. Also, impaired memory, unsteady gait, confusion, vomiting, diarrhea—you can understand why he won’t risk it.”
“But those are only possible side effects, right?” Courtney pressed.
“Right. But he’s stubborn.”
“You Vickereys are extremely stubborn.” Courtney knew this from experience, from her conversation—her argument—with James last year.
“Valerie is, too. She won’t take his calls, won’t see him.”
“So he’s started dating Lisa?”
“Lisa’s a very nice girl. She’s a nurse. Pretty, too. My guess is Henry wants to remind Valerie she’s got competition.”
“Henry and Valerie are both working at Nantucket Cottage Hospital?”
“Yeah, but he’s a surgeon in the ER and Valerie’s a general practitioner. Different hours. Crazy hours for Henry, car wrecks, nighttime heart attacks, and with summer coming, there will be moped crashes and surfing accidents and all that. That’s Henry’s reason for living over the garage. He says in the winter he’ll buy himself a house here, but he’s probably hoping by then Valerie will have changed her mind.”
Courtney nodded. “So who are you inviting to the party?”
“Well, duh, you.”
“You know very well what I mean.”
Robin shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She glanced in her rearview mirror, as if checking the traffic, as if she needed to on this seven-mile two-lane road out to ’Sconset and the bluff where the Vickereys’ house overlooked the ocean. The speed limit on this road was forty-five miles per hour, the fastest speed allowed on the island.
Courtney let her question hang in the air.
After a moment, Robin admitted, “I didn’t invite a date. I’ll pair up with Jacob.”
“Jacob Barnes? Henry’s friend? I thought he got married.”
“He did. Then he got divorced.”
Courtney laughed. “I’d love to see your mother’s address book.” Courtney knew she was letting Robin off easy, but this wasn’t the time for a good ol’ heart-to-heart. Courtney would have the whole summer to find out what was up with Robin and this year she was determined to succeed. “How’s Christabel?”
“She’s having an exhibition of her paintings in Boston this August. She’s become very drifty in gauzy gowns and bare feet.”
“She always was very drifty in gauzy gowns and bare feet. When is she going to grow up?”
“Why should she? This medieval maiden persona works well for her.”
Robin waved her hand at the main street of the small picturesque town of ’Sconset. A straight avenue of lush lawns and large houses, with distinguished old elms and maples towering on either side, their green leaves arching toward each other, forming a canopy of shade. “How does it look?”
“Like heaven.” Courtney sighed.
They came to the world’s smallest rotary by the post office and the Sconset Café.
“Robin?” She turned to face her friend. “Could we drive down to the beach first? I want to tell you something, and I don’t want to be interrupted.”
Robin arched an eyebrow. “Well, that’s intriguing.”
She wrenched the steering wheel to the right and headed down the hill. She parked in the small lot by the beach, switched off the engine, and looked at Courtney, squinting her eyes as if she could read Courtney’s mind.
“Ready to hear your confession, babe.”
“It’s not a confession,” Courtney said, quickly adding, “but it is a secret. It just happened, and I’m—disturbed—and I don’t want anyone to know about it except you.”
“Well, tell me!” Robin ordered.
Courtney took a deep breath. “Okay. You know Monty Blackhorse.”
“The man I met last April when I came out to Kansas to visit you? The sexiest man I’ve ever set eyes on? Yes, Courtney, duh. I do know Monty Blackhorse. I’d go to bed with him in a minute if—” Robin gasped. “Oh my god, did you sleep with Monty? Are you pregnant?”
“Stop it,” Courtney said. “It’s nothing like that. Well, it is something like that…”
“You’re torturing me.”
“Monty asked me to marry him this morning!”
Robin’s jaw fell open. “Get out of here.”
“He did, Robin. It was totally unexpected, and no, I haven’t slept with him, he’s always been my friend, my pal.” She undid her seatbelt so she could face Robin. “He phoned me last night and said he’d like to drive into Kansas City from his ranch today. He said he’d pick me up at my apartment and take me to the airport. I said sure, I mean, he often had to come into the airport to pick up shipments for the farm, feed or a tractor part…”
“Never mind the tractor part, what about Monty?”
“All right. He said he’d just broken off with another woman—Jackie Monroe, you should see her, she’s gorgeous—and yesterday he realized he was never going to be happy with any woman because he’s in love with me. He’s been in love with me for years, he said, but we’ve been such good buddies, and we’ve both been so crazy busy in our lives, yet he’s always felt something was missing in every relationship he’s ever had, and what’s missing is me. He loves me. He wants to marry me. He wants to have babies with me. Lots of babies.” Tears filled her eyes. “You know I’ve always wanted to have lots of children.”
“They don’t have to be Monty’s children!” Robin protested.
“I don’t know,” Courtney said sadly. “Maybe they do.”
“I’m stunned,” Robin said. “But, Courtney, for god’s sake, you should have at least thought about it. You should have at least had sex with the man!”
“I had a plane to catch.”
“You should have changed your reservations, you moron! Man, what an opportunity you missed.”
“Robin, I don’t want to have sex with him. We’ve been best buddies for so long. I mean, there are all kinds of love. I just don’t feel that way about him.”
