Lacey and Max were married by a justice of the peace on Madaket Beach, in November 1941, a month before the bomb fell on Pearl Harbor, a week before Max left for basic training. When he came home from the war three years later, they had a church wedding, but by then Lacey was thirty-four, and too old to start having children.
Lacey and Maximilian became permanent fixtures in Nantucket in the summer. They joined the Beach Club-and the Yacht Club and Sankaty Golf Club-and Lacey opened a hat shop on Main Street, called simply Lacey’s. She and Max bought a house on Cliff Road, and they split time between this house and their town house on Beacon Hill. They were married for forty-five years, and they held hands every night as they fell asleep. Lacey was holding Max’s hand on February 14, 1986, the night he died. She had never been a sentimental woman, and yet heart was broken on Valentine’s Day.
This was how her life on Nantucket seemed like a life divided: her life before Max, her life with Max, her life after Max. After Max, she sold the house on the Cliff and the town house in Boston. She rented an apartment in Boston, and asked Big Bill Elliott for a permanent room at the hotel.
“Don’t forget,” she told him, “I’ve been here longer than you have.”
Big Bill didn’t forget. He gave Lacey her own cottage, behind the lobby of the hotel. The view wasn’t great-it looked out at the laundry room and the back of the parking lot-but it had three bedrooms and most importantly, it was her own place-Lacey Gardner’s-bought and paid for with pure longevity. In Big Bill’s last will and testament, he left the cottage to Lacey; it was hers to pass on when she died.
Well, she wasn’t dead yet. She was alive enough to drive her new Buick off the ferry. Always, this thrilled her. She loved shooting down the ramp and feeling her tires hit Steamship Wharf. From the wharf, it was one mile exactly to the Beach Club.
When she pulled into the parking lot, she saw Mack standing on the tiny deck of her cottage, waiting for her with the same smile he wore in the photograph she kept on her refrigerator all winter. The first summer Mack worked at the Beach Club he had knocked on Lacey’s door to introduce himself. This was the summer after Maximilian had passed away, a mere four months later. When the boy said his name, “Hi, I’m Mack,” Lacey nearly tumbled out of her chair. Because of course, what she heard was “Hi, I’m Max,” as though her husband had returned to her in the form of this boy. Now she knew better, but she believed in divine intervention; she believed that somehow, Maximilian had sent her Mack.
Lacey beeped the horn with abandon. She reached for the power window switch and suddenly Lacey and Mack were face to face. He kissed her through the open window before she could even pull into her parking space.
“Hey, Gardner,” he said. “Welcome home.”
Tears rose and she shooed Mack’s face away. Pulled the car into her spot and put up the window and took a deep breath. Mack opened the door, gave her his gentleman’s hand.
“You look wonderful, Lacey. I swear you’re getting younger.”
“Nonsense,” she said. But she took Mack’s face in her hands and gave him a kiss for saying so. Truth was she felt as alive and vital as ever. “Eighty-eight and still kicking.”
“New car?” Mack asked, as he lifted her suitcases out of the trunk.
Lacey nodded. “They were hesitant to give me a loan down at the bank. I told them I’d pay it off in two years. That did the trick. So I’ll be out of debt by age ninety.”
Mack laughed and walked with Lacey toward the cottage. “Everyone’s back. We have a new woman at the front desk and a new bellman. The bellman is very handsome, Lacey, so watch out. He’s on his way to California.”
“Don’t tell me there’s been another Gold Rush? See there, if you live long enough, everything will start to repeat itself.”
“Vance is back. He went to Thailand and shaved his head. I’m warning you in advance so you don’t make some kind of comment. You know Vance is sensitive.”
“Goodness, yes,” Lacey said.
“Bill and Therese are fine,” Mack said. “Cecily got into the University of Virginia, but she has a Brazilian boyfriend, so who knows.” Mack swung the door to her cottage open.
“Here we are,” Lacey said. The place had a familiar smell, a mingling of Pine Sol and her scented talcum powder. She put down her pocketbook and looked around-her Spode on the kitchen shelves, her Maggie Meredith prints. The original sign from her hat shop hanging jauntily over the leather sofa seemed to announce her arrivaclass="underline" Lacey’s. “Pour us a drink. Oh, wait, I forgot-there’s a case of Dewar’s in the trunk of the car.”
“Be right back,” Mack said.
Lacey wobbled down the hall to her bedroom. She touched her pillowcase, crisp and white. It was disturbing to look at the bed, however. She couldn’t look at it without thinking, This could be the bed I die in. She supposed this was true for everyone; her odds were just greater.
Mack mixed a Dewar’s and water and poured himself a Coke while Lacey took a seat in her armchair.
“The cottage looks marvelous, dear,” Lacey said.
“The new chambermaids tried to clean the place, but they didn’t know that in Therese’s vocabulary, clean is an absolute-like truth, or peace. I had to go in behind them and finish the job myself.”
“That makes me feel all the better,” Lacey said. She tried to straighten her dress hem around her knees. That was the darnedest thing about sitting down as an old woman-getting comfortable and looking good were nearly impossible. “You’ve given me an earful about everybody else, but I haven’t heard about you. How, Mack Petersen, are you doing?”
Mack handed her the drink and settled himself on the sofa. There was something he wanted to tell her, she could tell right away. Lacey was a confidante to Mack, and to practically everybody else on the property for that matter. She joked about hanging a shingle, but secretly she liked imparting her wisdom. What good was she if she couldn’t share with people what she’d learned? She had eighty-eight years of experience stored inside her like volumes of an encyclopedia.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, but he didn’t meet her eyes. He wasn’t ready to tell her what it was just yet, but she could wait. They had all summer.
The day before the first guests arrived, Mack took some time off and went for a drive in his Jeep with the top down. He bumped along the cobblestone streets of town, looking at the historic homes: red geraniums in the window boxes, antique onion lamps, flags snapping in the wind. Painters hung off the sides of houses, and landscapers planted hydrangeas. The air was rich with the almost-Iowa smell of freshly cut grass, and Mack’s Jeep with the top off was an almost-tractor. Growing up in Iowa, he’d learned to appreciate the seasons, and spring on Nantucket was the equivalent of planting time. Getting the land ready, laying seed, and waiting for growth.
He twisted through the narrow streets until he reached the top of Main Street, then he headed west toward Madaket. He hit the gas and sped up, enjoying the wind and sun on his face. He thought about what Maribel said about profit sharing. Asking Bill to profit-share made Mack anxious. What if Bill thought Mack was anticipating his death? What if Bill died thinking Mack wasn’t grateful for all Bill had done for him already? Worse still, what if Bill said no? Bill, his almost-father. But not his father. Mack was thirty years old and he supposed the time had come to expect more from himself. If he weren’t brave enough to ask Bill to profit share, if he weren’t brave enough to make Nantucket his own, then he should return to his five hundred and thirty acres in Iowa.