“I’m going to buy a ring this afternoon,” Kevin says.
“Yes,” Margaret says. “If you’re going to propose, it’s good to have a ring. Now… would it be undermining your manhood if I offered you an early Christmas present in the form of cash to help you pay for it?”
Kevin laughs and fills with an unexpected relief. It’s not just the money, although that certainly helps, and it’s a surprise, because Margaret doesn’t like to give handouts. I’m your mother, not an ATM. Kevin is strengthened by Margaret’s confidence in him, and her appreciation of Isabelle.
“My manhood can handle it,” Kevin says. “Thank you.” He exhales the remainder of his anxiety. “I’m going to be a father.”
“Darling, I’m over the moon. It’s the best Christmas present ever. I’ll have Darcy wire you the money as soon as I get to the studio.”
His love and respect for his mother combine to form a surge of golden energy, and Kevin jumps out of bed.
“Thanks, Mom!” he says.
“Is it horrible of me to say I hope it’s a little girl?” Margaret says. “I adore Patty’s boys-you know I do-but, oh, how I long for a granddaughter.”
“Mom,” Kevin says, “absolutely nobody knows about this. Nobody even knows that Isabelle and I are seeing each other. It’s going to come as kind of a shock, especially to Dad and Ava, and so I have to beg you to please not say anything.”
Margaret laughs. She says, “Of course not, honey. What do you think I’m going to do? Announce it on the evening news?”
Oh boy, Kevin thinks. “I love you, Mom,” he says.
“Merry Christmas, sweetie,” Margaret says. “Good luck!”
AVA
She can’t remember ever being this stressed out.
It’s two o’clock. People are coming in five hours, and Ava has fires to put out everywhere she turns.
Including an actual fire in her father’s bathtub. He set Mitzi’s roller disco outfit ablaze, complete with headband and wristbands. He was in his bedroom, drinking Wild Turkey and smoking Camels and posting ungenerous things about Mitzi on Facebook. He is probably experiencing some kind of temporary insanity. Once Ava doused the fire and cleared the smoke, she confiscated the whiskey and the cigarettes-and then she yelled at Kelley as if she were his mother, or her own mother, at which point Kelley collapsed on the bed, blubbering about Mitzi and George, and then about Bart. Bart was going to die, Mitzi had seen it in her crystals, Mitzi had told Kelley, but he hadn’t listened, he hadn’t believed in the crystal reading, but now, he saw she was right: Bart was going to die. Four soldiers had been killed the day before.
Ava still hadn’t heard back from Bart, and her breath caught for a second. She didn’t mention this to her father; the last thing she wanted to do was upset him further. But she also didn’t have time to act as Kelley’s therapist. The best she could do was to pull the shades, bring him a glass of ice water, and tuck him into bed for a nap.
He moaned. “Mitzi’s gone! Her Mrs. Claus dress is hanging in the closet. Take it away, please. We have no Mrs. Claus and no Santa! How can you think about throwing the party without a Santa?”
“I’ll find someone,” Ava said. She grabbed Mitzi’s red dress out of the closet; it was cruel of her to leave it behind. “You know what I’m going to do, Daddy? I’m going to cook a standing rib roast for dinner tomorrow night. And use the pan drippings for Yorkshire pudding.”
Kelley’s expression perked up a little. “You are?”
“I am,” she said, and they shared a moment of glee, thinking about how beef would be cooked at the Winter Street Inn for the first time since they’ve owned it.
Mitzi’s leaving isn’t all bad.
Ava took the computer with her when she left the room. Her first order of business was to remedy the Facebook page. The party is on.
Now, she has forty dozen appetizers to prepare-not including dips, not including the cheese board, complete with the salted-almond pinecone. A photograph of the salted-almond pinecone was once featured on the cover of Nantucket magazine, and it instantly became a holiday icon. Now, everyone has come to expect it.
Isabelle is helping Ava, but every twenty or thirty minutes, she excuses herself for the bathroom, and once she is gone for so long that Ava goes to check on her, fearing she has walked out (could Ava blame her?), and she hears Isabelle puking in the bathroom. When Isabelle emerges, Ava says, “Are you sick?”
“No, no, no,” Isabelle says. But her normally rosy cheeks are ashen, and she’s perspiring.
“You were vomiting,” Ava says.
“Something I eat,” Isabelle says. “Sushi. From the supermarket.”
“Ew,” Ava says. She has to say, she will be relieved if it’s food poisoning. The last thing they need is a stomach bug that would systematically mow down the household. That happened once, on Easter a few years back, and since then, Ava hasn’t been able to look at a leg of lamb without wincing…
“Do you want to lie down?” Ava asks worriedly. “If you’re not feeling well?”
“No, no!” Isabelle says. “I’m fine!”
But she doesn’t look fine, and her insistence that she is fine makes Ava think there might be something else going on.
Pregnant? she wonders.
But despite the fact that Isabelle is pretty and sweet and has an indescribable allure common to many Frenchwomen, she has no boyfriend. She doesn’t ever date-probably because she has no time. She spends every waking hour at the inn.
Then, Ava gets an idea.
The list of things they must accomplish by seven o’clock is long. Hurry hurry hurry. There’s the Christmas Eve party for 150 guests tonight, and Christmas dinner tomorrow. Ava calls to order a standing rib roast. Yes, they have one left, which they can reserve for her. She can come pick it up anytime. That’s good!
But Patrick is mysteriously not coming home, Mitzi has left with George, her father is losing his mind, and now Isabelle is under the weather due to supermarket sushi. How does Ava possibly have a second to think about Nathaniel? She doesn’t. And yet she thinks about him nonstop, like a stuck note on a piano, E-flat, her least-favorite note.
He called her twice from the road yesterday. But no messages and no text saying he arrived safely, which is a rule they’ve established whenever one of them travels. She must have pissed him off by not answering? Possibly lost him forever, when all she was trying to do was seem elusive? It’s nearly impossible for Ava to seem elusive when her life is so prescribed-school day from eight a.m. to three p.m., and then, over the Christmas holidays, she is chained to the inn.
She doesn’t break down and call him until three o’clock, when she hides in her bedroom. Outside, the sun is getting ready to set.
Nathaniel doesn’t answer his phone, and Ava knows this is exactly what she deserves. She has never been good at playing hard to get-it always backfires-and yet playing easy to get, which has been her strategy from the start, hasn’t worked either. She and Nathaniel have been dating for nearly two years, and there has been no mention of getting married or cohabitating, or even of taking a vacation together, although this is primarily because Nathaniel has no money, and, really, neither does Ava. Their level of commitment is stuck at a six out of ten-this is how Ava thinks of it-with occasional jumps to seven or eight (her birthday in July, when he took her to Topper’s at the Wauwinet and gave her a card that said, I love you, Ava Quinn) and occasional setbacks to five or four (like right now-no communication for twenty-two hours, no text saying, Got here safely, missing you!)