Ryder smiled. “Theo, it would be great with me if you both lived there. I travel so much, I’m seldom at home. My real home base is in Marblehead, about forty-five minutes from Boston. It would be helpful to have you two there keeping an eye on things. I certainly wouldn’t charge you rent. I have a caretaker for the main house, but it would be good to have you two living there, too.”
“Cool,” Theo said. “Beth’s committed to her job at Ocean Matters, and I—” Theo looked at Mack, handing the decision to him.
“I asked you to work for me this summer,” Mack began, and stopped.
Theo’s heart froze.
“And I’ve had it in the back of my mind to ask you to join my crew permanently. But you know, Theo, if you move in with Beth, I won’t favor you over the others. I won’t pay you more or give you the easy work.”
“Well, that’s too bad, Dad.” Beth laced her words with sarcasm. “Because that is the only reason Theo has for wanting to marry me.”
Mack cocked an eyebrow at his daughter. “I suppose that’s true,” he agreed in a terribly serious tone of voice.
“Oh, Dad,” Beth said, smiling back.
“Hang on a minute,” Juliet said, in her most professional voice. “Let me get this straight, Mom. You are going to marry Mack in January. In the meantime, you’ll live all alone in this house and Mack will live all alone in his house and Beth and Theo will live all squeezed up in a tiny little one-bedroom apartment.”
“It’s so not tiny,” Theo said.
“It isn’t,” Beth agreed. “It’s a beautiful space, with an incredible view of the water.”
“Still,” Juliet said.
Theo met his sister’s challenge. “So where are you going to live while you start your new business? I mean, obviously, you’ve got your apartment in Cambridge. But also obviously, you’re all charged up about Ocean Matters, so I assume you’ll be coming down to Nantucket now and then. Where are you going to stay?”
Juliet, always one step ahead of Theo, ignored his question and threw her own at him. “What if you and Beth have a baby? Will the garage apartment be big enough then?”
“Oh, a baby!” Lisa cried. “How wonderful! We could—”
“Mom, chill! We’re not pregnant,” Theo said.
“And we won’t be for a long time,” Beth added.
Mack turned to Lisa. Somehow they communicated without words, because Mack turned to the others. “We all need to sit down and think about this. I have no problem moving into this house with Lisa, and then you and Theo could have our house, my house.”
“Yeah,” Theo said, “but hang on. If Beth and I get your house and you and Mom live in this house, what does Juliet get?”
“Theo, you sweet thing, looking out for me,” Juliet said as tears sprung to her eyes.
Theo started to say Don’t get used to it, which was the sort of thing he said to his sister, but Beth had made the slightest little kitten whimper of adoration at Theo’s concern for his sister, and he could feel her eyes all warm and admiring on him.
Then Beth spoke up. “The crazy thing about life on Nantucket is that it’s always about houses, finding a house you can afford to buy if you’re only a normal person, or finding a year-round place to rent. I think we’re going about this the wrong way. Somehow we have four places of residence on the island. Lisa’s, my father’s, Ryder’s house, and Ryder’s garage. We don’t have to settle all the real estate talk now. Can’t we just celebrate? I mean, look at us! We’ve got so many things going on!”
“And some of us are starting our own business,” Juliet said.
“And some of us are making wedding plans,” Lisa said.
“And some of us might get married someday, too,” Ryder said.
“Let’s go out to dinner,” Mack said. “Let’s go somewhere nice. The water didn’t get as high at Le Languedoc or Dune or American Seasons.”
“Right,” Lisa seconded. “And let’s drink champagne.”
“But not too much,” Juliet said. “Some of us have to work tomorrow.”
“Stop it,” Theo said to his sister.
In a small mob, they rose and the women went to various bathrooms to put on their lipstick, and the men stood in the front hall talking about the storm. When the women joined them, they had a slightly confusing discussion about which cars to take because no one had a car that would hold six people, so they decided that each couple would take a car. Then they decided they’d go to a restaurant in town, so no one needed to take a car. They could all walk.
So they walked, Lisa and Mack, Juliet and Ryder, Beth and Theo. The storm had blown itself out, leaving leaves and flowers torn from trees and bushes, and small pools of water everywhere. As they reached Main Street, they looked down toward the wharves. The water was receding, but puddles remained in low spots, reflecting the light of the early evening sun peeking out from the disappearing clouds.
thirty-five
The first Saturday after the Labor Day weekend, Ocean Matters threw a fundraising party at the yacht club. The theme was, of course, The Sea, and people were invited to come in underwater attire—a prize would be given for the best costume. The town’s self-declared matriarch Prudence Starbuck appointed a decorations committee tasked with transforming the ballroom into an underwater palace. The committee went overboard.
All the overhead lights were veiled with blue, green streamers undulated from the ceiling like seaweed, and treasure chests spilling with glittering dime-store jewelry were the centerpieces of every table. A local band performed dance music interspersed with ocean-themed songs—“Beyond the Sea,” “Octopus’s Garden,” “How Deep is the Ocean,” “Under the Sea.” The partygoers, celebrating the end of another prosperous and overwhelming summer, came in the dozens, their costumes more Vegas than starchy New England. Mermaids in a rainbow of colors danced with pirates and ship captains. The winner of the best costume was Prudence Starbuck, who came as Queen of the Sea, complete with scepter and crown and necklaces of diamonds and other gems, some of them undoubtedly real. Her date for the evening was a handsome young man, Dylan Fernandes, congressman for Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Cape Cod. There were several bars set around the room, as well as Spanky’s Raw Bar in one corner, where people lined up to choose from mussels, clams, and oysters on the half-shell.
Because it was for Ocean Matters, Ryder insisted on buying a table for all six of them. No one argued with him. No one wanted to argue with anyone that night. The weather was perfect, warm but not humid, and the sky was clear and bright, freckled with stars. The doors were open to the porch, patio, and long green velvet lawn and people wandered outside to cool off after dancing or to fall back on the deep cushioned wicker chairs and stare up at the stars.