Scott had said, “I dream of it every day.”
The shopwindows are all lit up, and decorated with snowmen and candy canes, antique toys and working train sets. Ava inhales a big breath of cool air and gets a whiff of evergreen. She loves nothing more than Christmas on Nantucket. She believes in the magic.
“Scott!” Roxanne yells. She teeters over the cobblestones in her high-heeled white leather boots topped with snowy white fur. “I can’t walk in these shoes. You’re going to have to help me.”
Ava rolls her eyes. She can’t believe Roxanne is so obviously pursuing Scott’s attention when she knows Ava and Scott are a couple. But Scott, ever the gentleman and constitutionally unable to turn down anyone in need, no matter how ludicrous that need may be, offers Roxanne one arm, and Ava his other arm, and the three of them pick their way over the cobblestones to the brick sidewalk.
Ava is relieved to reach the bar at the Boarding House, which is warm, cozy, and filled with convivial chatter. Ava is very ready for a drink, but they have all agreed that they will sing two songs before they order.
Ava scours her songbook for short carols. But Barry, the groundskeeper of the high school fields, who has an impressive baritone, suggests “Rudolph.”
Ugh! Ava thinks. She is a classicist and considers “Rudolph” a complete abomination. However, she can’t deny that it’s a crowd pleaser. While they’re doing songs Ava truly loathes, she figures they might as well segue into “Winter Wonderland.”
The assembled crowd applauds, and there is a sharp wolf whistle that comes from the far right corner. The hair on the back of Ava’s neck stands up. She knows that whistle.
She looks over. Nathaniel is sitting alone at the bar with a bottle of Whales Tale ale in front of him. He waves.
KELLEY
Kelley has heard from thousands of people offering their positive thoughts, prayers, and healing energy in regard to Bart. He has received emails from his old friends in Perrysburg, Ohio, from guests of the Winter Street Inn whom he hasn’t seen in over a decade, and from guys who worked on the commodities desk with him at J.P. Morgan in New York a lifetime earlier.
What can we do to help?
The answer: Nothing.
Pray.
Don’t use Bart’s disappearance as a springboard to air your personal views about Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS, or to disparage either the Bush administration or the Obama administration.
Don’t generalize about Arab countries or Muslims.
Pray.
Nothing.
Nothing isn’t quite accurate in Margaret’s case. She, alone among the people Kelley knows, has offered practical action. As the anchor of the CBS Evening News, she is one of the most influential people in America, and has a direct line to everyone-including the president of the United States. The Oval Office assured Margaret that “every possible step” was being taken to find the missing soldiers. Margaret also has a press contact in Afghanistan named Neville Grey, who first turned up the information about the Bely, whom no one in America had ever heard of.
When Margaret asked Neville for his gut feeling on the missing convoy, Neville responded: Most likely Bely. They’re an unknown quantity. All anyone here knows is that they’re kids who have been ripped from their families and trained in a culture of extreme brutality. The DoD has sent three recon missions into the surrounding region that turned up nothing. It’s like these kids vanished off the face of the earth. The vehicle was unharmed, the fuel siphoned, all rucksacks and supplies taken. This kind of kidnapping is highly unusual-why not just blow them sky-high with an IED? My gut is that the troops are alive, and being held somewhere to be used as bargaining chips later. The Pentagon will get to the bottom of this. You just don’t lose forty-five marines.
Margaret shared this with Kelley. But not knowing for sure is like living in purgatory-it’s hell but not quite as bad as actual hell because there is still hope.
Hope.
In response to everyone’s queries, Kelley decides, on the Friday afternoon of Stroll weekend, to compose a letter he will send out in lieu of the usual Winter Street Inn Christmas card. The card-which in years past has featured a collage of happy inn-related photos taken over the course of the year-would be inappropriate. A letter is a better idea. Kelley’s mother, Frances Quinn, used to write a letter and include it with the cards she sent each Christmas-a practice that, quite frankly, Kelley found mortifying. In present-day terms, Frances Quinn might have been described as having no filter. In her own words, she was an Irish-American matriarch “telling it like it is,” and “speaking from the heart.” Frances had her predilections and prejudices and made them known in this letter, the most glaring of which was her favoritism of Kelley’s brother, Avery. Every year in the Christmas letter, Avery got the first paragraph (even though he was younger than Kelley by eighteen months) and he received longer, more glowing praise. Avery is a straight-A student. Avery is a starting guard on the freshman basketball team. Avery is president of the National Honor Society, bestowing pride on the family name.
Kelley’s paragraph always tended toward the negative. For example, one year, Frances wrote: Kelley got a B-minus in biology this past term. It has been a challenge for Richard and me to see someone so talented not living up to his full potential. Kelley is often sullen and has become quite proficient at stomping up stairs and slamming bedroom doors. At least once a week, Richard and I consider putting him up for adoption, or encouraging him to become an exchange student in Timbuktu.
Kelley can remember being outraged by this. Adoption? He’d said. Timbuktu?
Don’t be sensitive, Frances said. I was only kidding.
Frances would never make such a joke about Avery, however. She was so proud of him when he announced he was gay during his senior year at Oberlin, and when he decided to move in with his boyfriend, Marcus, after graduating. Avery and Marcus are cohabitating in a gorgeous brownstone on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village, and they enjoy socializing on the weekends. Richard and I don’t judge; we simply want Avery to be happy-although I do worry about the hours he keeps!
Kelley and Avery had joked about Frances’s annual Christmas letter even as Avery lay dying of AIDS in his gorgeous brownstone on West Fourth Street. It was the last thing they had laughed about together.
Mom loved me more, Avery said.
No question, Kelley said.
The Christmas letter, Avery said.
The Christmas letter, Kelley concurred. I couldn’t even get top billing when I got accepted to Columbia Business School because that was the same year you were nominated for a Tony.
Tough luck, Avery said.
Kelley vows he will give all four of his children equal billing and he will go in order of age, which puts Bart last.
Dear Family and Friends,