“Me either,” she said.
On her way to the front desk, Love peeked into Bill’s office. He sat at his desk with his eyes closed, his hands folded in front of him. The volume of Robert Frost was nowhere to be seen. We are at the two ends of parenthood, she thought. I have just started to hold on, and Bill is letting go. She wondered what that kind of pain must feel like. She couldn’t imagine.
When Mack heard Cecily was gone, his hand itched to call How-Baby and turn down his brand-new job. Bill was bereft, a man lost at sea, his heart floating on a refugee raft somewhere between Nantucket and Rio de Janeiro. Bill, his almost-father. Mack admired Cecily’s courage for leaving. He’d run away once, twelve years before, but then Mack had run from emptiness. Cecily ran from a home where people loved her. When his turn came, Mack wondered, would he be brave enough to go?
Jem called Maribel at the library.
“If you don’t want to go to Southeast Asia, how about Brazil?”
The funny thing was, Maribel had just scoured the shelves for novels about Brazil, and finally found one by Jorge Amado called Gabriela, Cinnamon and Cloves. She hid in the stacks and read several passages, thinking, This doesn’t sound bad. This doesn’t sound bad at all.
“It’s hotter in Brazil than it is here!” Lacey exclaimed, when Mack told her of Cecily’s escape. “What was the dear girl thinking?”
Secretly, Lacey was elated. She was all for chasing a dream; she was all for chasing love.
Bill put his volume of Robert Frost back on the shelf in his bedroom; it had done him no good. His daughter was gone, Mack was leaving, Bill’s health was slipping away, and what did his wife want more than anything else? Rain. In the end, Bill decided, it was very Frost-like of Therese. To stare in the face of all this emotional anguish and want nothing more than a simple rain.
9 September
September 4
Dear Bill,
I am not one to say ‘I told you so,’ however, I do believe the abrupt departure of your daughter should send you a clear message. She isn’t interested in the hotel, as I suspected. She has deserted it, and you. Your manager, Mack, is in line to leave next if you don’t do something about it. The time has never been better for you to sell. What are you waiting for? A sign from God?
S.B.T .
September: It used to be Bill’s favorite month of the year. After Labor Day weekend, the Beach Club closed and the property quieted down; it gained serenity. But Bill couldn’t enjoy September without Cecily. He couldn’t stomach listening to one more back-to-school-sale commercial on the radio, knowing that Cecily wasn’t matriculating at the University of Virginia that fall. Bill didn’t know where Cecily was or what she was doing. He had a horrible, recurring image: Cecily wandering through the streets of Rio, trailed by a gang of brown-skinned Brazilian boys wearing gray camouflage, carrying switchblades and razors, intent on raping and killing her.
He read and reread his latest letter from S.B.T. Who the hell was this guy, some kind of spy? That ass Comatis who had hired away Mack? Bill ran through the list of Beach Club members, but he came up empty. One thing was for sure: the letters from S.B.T. were eating at him. What are you waiting for? A sign from God? Yes, he thought. Exactly.
Bill had lost all his energy, and worse, his chest pain returned, a dull ache around his heart. He missed his daughter and he feared for the future of his hotel. The only thing he could do with ease was lie in bed with the remote control, flipping between channels to make sure there were no news stories about young American girls raped and killed abroad. It was far easier to watch TV than it was to read poetry. TV was colorful, silly, full of laughter and melodrama. TV made Robert Frost seem as exciting as a pile of dry twigs. Mornings after Cecily had left, Bill let himself get sucked into the TV.
That was how he first heard about Freida.
September 8, the Tuesday after Labor Day, Frieda was born in the West Indies. The National Hurricane Center in Miami posted a bulletin: She was a mean storm. The newscasters on the weather channel showed fancy graphics-Freida, a swirling, multicolored eye, 210 miles wide with sustained winds of 93 miles an hour, moving up the eastern seaboard. They expected her to make landfall around Cape Hatteras, but the following areas could expect trouble from Freida as welclass="underline" the Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, Nantucket. Nantucket. The newscaster said the name of the island and Bill felt a surge of recognition, as though his own name were being spoken aloud on national TV. He wondered if Cecily was listening.
“Nantucket?” Bill said.
“Of course the storm may miss Nantucket altogether and head northeast out to sea,” the newscaster said.
By the time Bill made it down to the lobby, everyone was abuzz about Freida’s arrival. Love talked to a couple about where the experts tracked Freida, and how she might move along, or might lose energy and scatter, dissipate. They discussed Freida as though she were a person. Was she organized? Did she have weak spots?
Mack waited in Bill’s office, tensed, pumped up, ready to pounce. “Did you hear?” he said. “We’re going to get creamed.”
Out the window, it was the perfect September day, though still hot at eighty-five degrees. The sky was blue, the water flat. No clouds.
“We’ll see. They said it might veer off into the North Atlantic. That’s what they usually do. This island hasn’t seen a bona fide hurricane since 1954.”
“What’s our plan of attack?” Mack asked.
A wave of exhaustion swept over Bill. It was ten-thirty and he wanted to put his head on the desk and sleep. “We’re not going to do anything.”
“What do you mean?” Mack said. “We have to board up. We have to bring everything inside. It’s a hurricane, Bill.”
Bill took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The Brazilian boys were gaining ground on Cecily, getting closer. They were after his daughter. Somehow, Bill had to flush that image.
“Bill?” Mack said. “Freida is going to hit the island from the west. She’s two hundred miles wide. Do you realize how big that is?”
“It sounds like you want this hurricane to come,” Bill said. “It sounds like maybe you want to watch the place get flooded. That would be fun for you, wouldn’t it? Watch the place wash away and then take off for Fenway Park.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mack said. “I don’t want the hurricane to come. But I’d like to be ready. There are people sitting in the rooms, facing the water.”
“What do you care if the hotel gets wrecked? You’re leaving at the end of the season.” Bill was short of breath. “Tell me,” he said. “I’d really like to know. What do you care?”
“I care,” Mack said. “I’ve worked here for twelve years. Believe me, I care.”
“Obviously not enough,” Bill said. His chest was on fire. “Get out.” He pointed to the door. “I don’t want to talk about the storm. Now get out!”
Mack’s eyes widened. He pressed his lips together and left the office.
Bill leaned back in his swivel chair and tried to take several deep breaths. In, out. In, out. His heart thrummed in his ears. He picked up the picture of Cecily that he kept on his desk. Cecily at fifteen, wearing her Middlesex Field Hockey T-shirt over her bathing suit, sitting in an Adirondack chair, on the pavilion, her bare legs tucked underneath her (scab on one knee), her red hair crazy and curly around her face. An heiress sitting on her throne. Where was she?