“You know,” Blair says, “I went into labor with the two of you on this very street.”
“We know,” they say in unison.
Of course they know, it’s part of Foley-Levin-Whalen family lore. In the summer of 1969, while Angus was in Houston working on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, Blair went into labor right in the middle of Buttner’s department store. She had taken Jessie in to be fitted for her first bra when her water broke. Blair had waddled up Main Street, leaking amniotic fluid all over the brick sidewalk, while Jessie ran ahead to get Kate, who appeared moments later in the Scout. Because Blair couldn’t possibly endure a trip over the cobblestones, Kate had driven down one-way Fair Street in reverse. The twins had been born the next morning, a scant hour before the moon launch.
Blair climbs out of the car and has to snap her fingers through the open back window to get the twins to move.
“Let’s go,” she says. “Hot fudge.”
“Blair?” a voice says. “Blair Foley?”
Blair has been inside the Sweet Shoppe for ten seconds, just long enough to shepherd the twins to the end of the line. The Sweet Shoppe never changes. It’s still deliciously cool and smells like vanilla waffle cones.
Blair turns. A man is standing at the cash register holding a double scoop of rocky road in a sugar cone. He accepts a quarter in change, grabs a napkin from the dispenser, and heads right for Blair with a sly smile on his face.
Blair tries to prepare herself. Who is this? The man is her age. He’s wearing a powder blue leisure suit and blue gradient-lens glasses; his reddish hair is long and feathered. Surely this isn’t someone she knows?
“It’s Larry,” he says. “Larry Winter.”
Larry Winter! Blair dated Larry Winter for three consecutive summers when she was a teenager. In those days, Blair, Kirby, and Tiger lived in the guest cottage of Exalta’s house, called Little Fair. Larry Winter would ride over from Walsh Street on his Schwinn, throw a pebble at Blair’s bedroom window, and the two of them would neck—Larry perched on the top rail of the fence, Blair tucked between his legs. To this day, it was some of the loveliest kissing Blair can remember, and some of the purest desire. They had been caught once by Mr. Crimmins, the caretaker, who had passed down the side street, Plumb Lane, late at night on his way home from somewhere, probably Bosun’s Locker. He’d stepped out of the darkness, startling them both, and said, “Time to call it a night, kids.” Then he carried on his way in the direction of Pine Street, where he lived in an efficiency. Blair remembers wanting to chase after him to beg him not to tell her mother or—horrors!—her grandmother. But Blair needn’t have worried; Mr. Crimmins kept her secret.
“Larry!” Blair says. “What a surprise! I thought you were a Floridian these days.”
She hopes she has this right. Larry Winter went to Georgetown to study political science but somehow he’d ended up as the food and beverage manager at a private club in Vero Beach. He’d risen to general manager and then had started a venture of his own somewhere else in Florida. The Everglades, maybe?
“I’m up for a couple of weeks,” Larry says. “The heat in Florida this time of year, even in the Keys…”
Key Largo, Blair thinks with a mental snap of the fingers. He owns a nightclub in Key Largo.
“…plus, Grandma isn’t getting any younger…” Larry stops himself. “Which reminds me. I heard about Exalta passing. I’m so sorry.”
Blair feels tears burn her eyes. The Sweet Shoppe is only a few blocks away from Exalta’s house on Fair Street and it’s inconceivable that, should Blair and the twins venture up there after their sundaes, the only person they would find would be Mr. Crimmins, who had become Exalta’s devoted companion.
Unlike Blair, Exalta hadn’t given one whit what people thought about her shacking up with the caretaker. She and Bill Crimmins had fallen in love. For the past ten years, Exalta had been a different woman. Gone was the stern, judgmental blue blood and in her place they’d enjoyed a fun-loving old lady who listened and laughed.
When Blair last visited Exalta, she had meant to tell her grandmother that she and Angus had divorced. But Exalta was so sick and frail at that time, swimming in and out of lucidity, that Blair couldn’t bear to deliver the news. Exalta had adored Angus. Why burden her with news that would only make her sad and disappointed?
At that point, Exalta had still been living in her house in Boston, on Mount Vernon Street in Beacon Hill, but a few days after Blair’s visit, Exalta sat bolt upright in bed and clearly announced that she wanted to spend her final days in the house on Nantucket. And so Bill Crimmins arranged for a door-to-door ambulance transfer—the ambulance even went over on the ferry—and they installed Exalta comfortably in the house on Fair Street, where she died two days ago none the wiser about Blair and Angus.
Blair leaves the twins in line and steps away a bit so she can talk to Larry more privately. “As I’m sure you’ve heard,” she says, “I got divorced.”
Larry turns his head so he’s looking at her with only one eye; this, she recalls, is a gesture of his. “I had not heard that, actually.”
Ah, right. Larry lives in Florida. The only person who would have told him is his grandmother, Mrs. Winter, and she would only have heard from Exalta. Even so, Blair is glad she came out with it before Larry had a chance to ask about Angus.
Blair shrugs. “Didn’t work out, but the kids and I are fine. We live outside of Boston. Everyone’s happy.” She flashes Larry a smile that she hopes indicates “happy,” or appropriately happy, considering they’re on island to attend a funeral. “How about you? Married? Kids?”
Larry stares at the ice cream cone that is slowly melting in his hand. “Not married, no kids,” he says. “Haven’t met the right woman.”
Blair feels herself flush. “Oh. Well, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”
Larry stares at his cone for a second; he must be finding this run-in as surreal as she is. “So, listen, I’m planning on coming to the funeral and the reception. Escorting my grandmother.”
“Of course,” Blair says. “You belong there. And Kirby has planned a bonfire tomorrow night at Ram Pasture. Young people only.”
Larry laughs. “That leaves me out.”
“And me,” Blair says. “I’m thirty-four. Twice as old as the summer we last dated.”
“I’ve got you by a year, don’t forget. And you, Blair Foley, are far more gorgeous now than you were at seventeen.”
Flush turns to blush. He’s lying, though Blair has lost a lot of weight since the divorce and now might be nearly as slender as she was in high school. “Thank you, Larry. I needed to hear that.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Larry says. “Enjoy your ice cream.”
Blair is as preoccupied as the twins as they sit and eat their sundaes. Blair made George and Gennie leave their projects in the car and so they’ve moved on to their second favorite pastime—dissecting a special trilogy episode of The Brady Bunch. The Bradys go to Hawaii, they find a tiki that appears to be cursed—Greg Brady has a surfing accident, a tarantula crawls on one of the other brothers—and then Blair loses the plot when they start talking about a cave and someone (or something?) named Oliver. Doesn’t matter. Blair is doing her own dissecting. Larry Winter, of all people! Single and without children, telling Blair she looked “more gorgeous” than she had at seventeen. And she’ll see him tomorrow—at the funeral, the reception, and the bonfire.