“Time to go,” Blair says, though she has barely touched her sundae at all.
Blair drives back to her mother and David’s sprawling beachfront compound on Red Barn Road, listing Larry Winter’s pros and cons. The only con she can come up with is that he lives in Florida and owns a nightclub, which might explain why he looks like one of the Bee Gees. Well, another con is that Blair felt no particular emotion when she saw him, other than a fondness when remembering the kissing. And she’d liked being complimented, of course, because who didn’t? But there was definitely something missing—a zing, a ping, a tingle. They had broken up so long ago, Blair remembers, because she had grown tired of him.
The pros are that he’s single and without children. But surely she’s entitled to ask for more than just that?
Blair wonders if the divorce has turned her heart to ice. Look at how she spoke to poor Jefe. Maybe she’ll feel differently about Larry tomorrow night at the bonfire, once she’s had a few drinks. Maybe her run-in with Larry was meant to be, orchestrated by Exalta, who is watching out for Blair from above.
The driveway of Kate and David’s compound is crowded with cars. Blair sees the Trans Am that Tiger drives; he’ll have to give that thing up once he and Magee finally have children. She sees Kirby’s LTD and Mr. Crimmins’s pickup truck. And she sees a turquoise Porsche 911 with the top down.
Blair freezes. Only one person she knows would drive a car like that.
“Looks like we have company,” Blair says.
Kate and David bought the sprawling old house on Red Barn Road ten years earlier, right after the twins were born, back when Tiger was still over in Vietnam. They lived in it for five years without making a single change. Then, once Jessie left for Mount Holyoke and Kate no longer had children at home, she and David sold the big house in Brookline, rented an apartment in Charles River Park, and poured their time, energy, and resources into the Nantucket property. The main house got a complete facelift—a new roof; new doors and windows; new wood floors throughout, except for the family room, which they carpeted; paint for all the bedrooms; an updated kitchen with avocado green appliances and bright pink and orange wallpaper so that when you were at the counter making a sandwich, you felt like you were standing in the middle of fruit ambrosia. (Only Exalta was brave enough to say to Kate, “You might have chosen something more classic, darling.”) But Kate wanted a happy, modern house as a counterpoint to the staid, history-laden confines of All’s Fair. She and David built a guest cottage on the back edge of the property—two bedrooms, one bath. (This was where Blair and Angus had always stayed with the children, now just Blair and the children.) Between the guest cottage and the main house, they built a clay tennis court and a turquoise lozenge of an in-ground pool that had a curved fiberglass slide at one end. There was a concrete patio for barbecuing and even a portable tiki bar that David hauled out of the shed every Memorial Day for the summer. Kate had newly discovered frozen blender drinks—strawberry daiquiris and margaritas—which she served in obscenely large glasses that she got on sale at Kmart.
If the whole thing sounded out of character for Kate, well, it was a bit—but Kate made no secret that she wanted the compound filled with grandchildren someday.
On that front, Blair had done her part. The onus now fell to her other three siblings.
Kirby, Tiger, and Jessie are all out on the back patio, sitting under the awning by the pool. Mr. Crimmins and Kate and David are there as well, and Magee, Tiger’s wife, who quit her dental hygienist’s job to care for Exalta when she first fell sick. (Kate had been relieved, Blair knows. She was certain the reason Tiger and Magee didn’t have children was because Magee worked too hard.)
The blender isn’t purring, the grill isn’t smoking; there isn’t a drink in sight, not even iced tea. Kate is holding tight to her principles. They are a family in mourning; no one will enjoy himself. Blair’s not sure how she’ll explain that she and the children have just been to the Sweet Shoppe, though perhaps Kate has already announced this. Perhaps everyone has been discussing Blair’s blasphemy, her loosened morals since getting divorced.
Tiger moves to the edge of the patio to light a cigarette and he’s joined by a dark-haired gentleman wearing a white polo, madras shorts, and Wayfarer sunglasses.
Blair’s heart isn’t frozen after all because suddenly, it revs like a race car engine. She will be taking a ride in that Porsche later, her face raised to the night sky, her hair streaming out behind her.
It’s Joey Whalen, Angus’s little brother, who was Blair’s boyfriend before (and after) she met Angus.
“How about that, my darlings,” Blair says. “Your uncle is here.”
3. Sad Eyes
Magee hasn’t stopped crying since Exalta died and finally, on the morning of the funeral, Tiger realizes he can’t ignore it any longer. This isn’t normal, run-of-the-mill grief. Something else is going on with his wife.
They’re in their summer bedroom, getting dressed. Kate has okayed navy blazers instead of suits for men. Tiger is still in just khaki pants and an undershirt. Magee is in her slip, her hair in the pink spongy rollers she sleeps in when she wants waves. She’s sobbing into Tiger’s pajama top, presumably so no one else in the house will hear her.
“Mags,” he says, sitting next to her on the end of the bed. “What’s wrong?”
She raises her face and her sweet, soft pink bottom lip quivers. “I can’t believe you have to ask that. Your. Grandmother. Is. Dead.”
Tiger is careful how he proceeds. Yes, Exalta is dead. Exalta was sick for months, her internal organs shutting down one after another, like someone shutting the lights off in a house before bed. It wasn’t a violent death or even gruesome and it wasn’t a surprise. Exalta was eighty-four years old. Tiger watched men die nearly every day in Vietnam, some of those “men” only eighteen years old, some still virgins. Exalta had lived a full and privileged life. She had known love not only with Tiger’s grandfather, Pennington Nichols, but also with Mr. Crimmins. She had one child, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren—with more, presumably, on the way.
This, Tiger knows, is the real reason Magee is crying. She and Tiger will have been married for nine years next month and although they’ve been trying since day one, they haven’t been able to conceive a child.
At first, they were too busy to notice. When Tiger got home from his tour, he was eligible to inherit his trust from Exalta. The first thing he did was to buy a house in Holliston, thirty miles southwest of Boston. The house had been built in the 1840s. It was three stories and had plenty of charm—five bedrooms and a finished playroom in the attic. (In retrospect, Tiger wonders if buying such a big house wasn’t what jinxed them.)
The second thing Tiger did was to open a bowling alley on the Holliston-Sherborn line called Tiger Lanes. Tiger had spent countless hours in-country dreaming about the perfect bowling alley. He would have twelve state-of-the-art lanes on one side of the building and a pinball arcade on the other, with a soda fountain and snack bar in the middle. There would be music and party lights. It would be a hangout for teenagers and adults alike, a place to bridge the widening generation gap. He would start a Tiger Lanes bowling league for veterans.