“Please give Roxanne my best wishes,” Ava says.
“I will,” Scott says. “How was your day?”
“My day?” Ava asks. The only thing out of the ordinary-other than the drama with Santa and Mrs. Claus-was that Ava received flowers from Nathaniel. Thinking of the flowers from Nathaniel only serves to make Ava even angrier-because the flowers should have been from Scott! But Scott didn’t think to send Ava flowers because he was too busy trying to entice Mz. Ohhhhhh to eat her pudding.
For a second, Ava considers telling Scott that Nathaniel sent her flowers.
Should she?
Should she?
She really needed to have that conversation with her mother today. Maybe she could ask Jennifer? But there isn’t time; they’re almost to the Whaling Museum.
“My day is about to hit its highlight,” Ava says. “We’re pulling up to the Whaling Museum now. Shall I call you after the party? It might be pretty late. Maybe I’ll just see you tomorrow morning?” Ava will have to move the flowers from her room tonight. She’ll put them on the coffee table in the living room. She’ll bury Nathaniel’s card deep in her “Things That Might Have Been” file.
“About tomorrow morning…,” Scott says.
Don’t say it! Ava thinks.
“… I can’t get back tonight. Roxanne is being released tomorrow morning at nine, and she has no way to get back to the island, so I told her I’d drive her back. She’ll be on crutches, obviously, and she’s never used them before, and…” Here, he lowers his voice. “… I just can’t leave her here, Ava. She is completely helpless.”
“You’re going to miss the baptism?” Ava says.
“Yes,” Scott says. “I might make it to part of the lunch, depending on how late it goes.”
It’s on the tip of Ava’s tongue to say, Don’t bother coming to the lunch, and don’t bother calling me ever again! This debacle is entirely Scott’s fault! It was his idea to invite Roxanne Oliveria to the Ugly Sweater Caroling party when he saw her at the pool! The party tonight is one thing; it’s just a party. They can go together next year, and the year after that. But the baptism is a once-in-a-lifetime Quinn family milestone. The first granddaughter. And Ava is the baby’s godmother! They are already short two men with Patrick and Bart gone. Ava can’t believe Scott doesn’t realize how important his presence is.
However, she knows he’s doing the right thing. He can’t leave Roxanne to get home to Nantucket on crutches by herself. He just can’t. Ava would be disappointed in him if he did.
Deep breath. She needs to be supercool here.
“You’re such a hero,” Ava says. “Don’t worry about me. I have my whole family here to support me. You just get Roxanne home to Nantucket, and if you make it to lunch, so much the better.”
She hears Scott breathe a sigh of relief. “What did I do to deserve you?” he asks. “I am missing the whole weekend of fun with you. I know you need me there, and yet you’re being so understanding. I feel so lucky to have you, Ava. All I’ve talked to Roxanne about is how much I love you.”
“Well, good,” Ava says. Scott’s words actually do the trick in setting things right between them. “I love you.”
“I’ll get home as early as I can tomorrow,” Scott says, “and I’ll come right to you.”
“You do that,” Ava says.
Kevin drops Ava, Isabelle, and Jennifer off at the entrance of the Whaling Museum. It’s a perfect winter night-crisp and cold, with just a few fat snowflakes starting to drift down. There’s a line but it’s moving. Everyone is in tuxes and overcoats, gowns and furs. Ava lifts the hem of her green gown, and in a few seconds she’s hanging her wrap in the Discovery Room.
The Whaling Museum is all decked out for the holidays. There are greens and velvet bows and white fairy lights-and eighty-two Christmas trees, each decorated in a theme by island businesses and organizations. The fun in the party is to stroll the museum ogling the trees, hitting the bar, and picking up the bite-size offerings from thirty-five Nantucket restaurants. There will be incessant chatting with fellow year-rounders and the summer residents who come back to Nantucket for Stroll weekend. Everyone who is anyone is at the Whaling Museum tonight. The Festival of Trees party is the ultimate see-and-be-seen scene.
But there isn’t anyone at this party who will be as sought after as Margaret Quinn. She is, of course, a national icon, one of the most recognizable faces in America. Ava knows her mother can handle any crowd with aplomb and that the initial feeding frenzy for Margaret’s attention will die down. Ava decides not to wait for her mother, but when she leaves the Discovery Room after hanging her wrap, she realizes she’s lost Jennifer and Isabelle.
She’ll catch up with everyone later. She knows plenty of people and can make her own way.
She glides over to the bar, minding the hem of her dress. She feels elegant, but that will come to an end if she trips and face-plants.
At the bar, she sees Delta Martin, a woman about ten years older and a hundred million dollars wealthier than Ava.
“Ava,” Delta says, “you look just like a Sargent painting. Those shoulders! That bosom! I would kill for peaches-and-cream skin like yours. And that dress is divine.”
“Thank you,” Ava says. Delta Martin has always gone heavy on the ingratiating comments, but Ava has never quite cottoned to the woman-probably because the year before last, Nathaniel was renovating Delta Martin’s house and she was forever flirting with him.
“You’re not going to believe who I brought tonight as my guest,” Delta says. “An old friend of yours!”
“Hey, Ava,” a voice at her elbow says. “You look exactly like this girl I dreamt about last night.”
Ava turns. Standing behind her, looking way too handsome in a tuxedo with a paisley silk vest, is Nathaniel.
“Me?” she says.
“You,” he says.
KEVIN
If he can keep Isabelle happy and occupied for an hour or ninety minutes, he’ll consider this night a success. It’s going to be challenging, however, because Isabelle isn’t drinking and she doesn’t know many people here. When she meets strangers, her English flies from her head, and she clams up.
However, Kevin has Jennifer to help. Jennifer suggests that she and Isabelle go sample something from every restaurant and rate them best to worst. Isabelle is especially fond of foie gras and Jennifer of Nantucket bay scallops. The two women lock arms and off they go on their culinary quest. They’ll easily be gone an hour. Kevin can get a drink and do some schmoozing. It’s been so long since he’s been out, his schmoozing muscles are flabby.
Some days he really misses working at the bar. He misses his customers, he misses his domain-grungy though it was-he misses camaraderie. There’s nothing like taking care of an infant to isolate a person.
Not that he would change a thing. His phone is in the breast pocket of his tux jacket and he’s ready to show anyone who asks his six zillion photos of Genevieve.
He decides to get a Jameson, neat, then call and check in with Shelby. Once he knows for sure that the baby is fed, burped, changed, dressed in her snuggle pj’s and read to, he can start to party.
“Hey, Shelby,” he says. “How goes it?”
“She’s asleep,” Shelby says.
“She’s asleep,” Scott repeats. BINGO! Two hours, maybe three! “Thanks, Shelby, you are a champion.”
“That I am,” she says.
Kevin takes a swig of his drink, and spins around to see… his… his… worst nightmare standing right in front of him. He makes a noise-something between a bark and a bleat. The nightmare has bare white arms that reach out to straighten his bow tie.