Nell (33 page)

After dinner, she put clothes in the dryer and more clothes in the washing machine. Then, wanting to be cheerful, wanting everyone to be happy, she suggested that they all walk down to Main Street to buy ice cream cones at the Sweet Shop and hear the street musicians play. But Andy said he’d prefer to stay home and read. He hated the crowds of people who gathered on Main Street in the evenings, and he thought the musicians were inferior and tacky—the whole thing degraded Nantucket, in his opinion, and made him angry. So Nell set off alone with her children.

In her mind, she knew that she should not be upset with Andy for not joining them. The local Nantucket paper, the
Inquirer and Mirror
, was full of letters about the musicians who played on the streets at night. The old Nantucketers thought the musicians were trashy and that the hats or violin cases they left open for passersby to throw money into labeled them beggars. They thought the crowds who gathered on the street to listen to the musicians were loitering and obstructing those who wanted to simply walk down the street or into the shops. They were afraid that a crowd mentality might grow and violence might break out. They thought the street musicians made Main Street seem like some street in New York City; it destroyed the sense of peace and serenity that had been Nantucket’s ambience for hundreds of years. Nell knew all this. She knew Andy was not alone or wrong in his thinking … still, it hurt her that he had not wanted to join her and the children in this, their first walk around town.

But the children loved the Sweet Shop and thought the black musician who sang “Banana Boat Song” was cool, and for a while they, at least, were happy. They sat on a bench, licking their cones and wiping their hands on their shirts. Nell looked up and down the street, which seemed very European tonight, bright with light, flowing with laughter and chatter. She felt that she was the only single adult around. Everyone else was in pairs. Everyone else, it seemed, was in love. She had seen postcards in shops that said, N
ANTUCKET
I
S FOR
L
OVERS
, and now she had to agree. The street was full of lovers who strolled along, arms wrapped around each other, smiling into each other’s eyes. Nell felt bereft. She knew she and Andy would never stroll down a street looking at each other that way. He hated public displays of affection and did not even hold her hand in public.
Furthermore, he seemed physically incapable of
strolling;
he always strode along, his slowest walk a sort of lunging gait that Nell nearly had to trot to keep up with. Nell watched the lovers passing by and she yearned after them, wishing that someone loved her as much as those men loved those women—so much that it appeared they could not keep from touching them, pulling them close.

Nell got the children home and made them brush their teeth, then tucked them in bed. She talked to them, or rather listened to them, for a long time, because she knew they needed this sense of closeness, needed to know she was accessible to them in this strange new place. Finally, they went to sleep. She went back downstairs. Andy had spent the evening reading. Nell did some more laundry. She noticed that the dinner dishes still sat on the table. As she carried the laundry back up the stairs, she thought to herself: Now cool down, Nell. For she never did the dishes at Andy’s house. There was no reason for him to do the dishes here. But tonight they irked her. Tonight she felt like everyone’s maid. Tonight, she thought, giving herself a mental kick, tonight you’re just looking for trouble.

Finally, she showered and slipped into her pretty black nightgown and went downstairs. The shower had helped. Andy’s face when she entered the room helped, too. He pulled her to him, kissed her, got her a glass of wine, told her about his book. They talked awhile, and Nell relaxed. He had had a difficult day, too, it turned out; complications with his writing, one of his word processors had broken down and had to be shipped off-island, a tax hassle that Andy discussed in detail, incensed. Nell’s irritation was soon replaced by the sort of sweet exhaustion that seeps into one’s bones after hard work. It was pleasurable to sit grousing companionably with him, knowing that soon they would make each other forget the troubles of the day. It made her almost glad of the troubles. When they went upstairs, Nell checked the children’s room to be sure they were soundly sleeping. Then she went to bed with Andy, knowing that soon she would get used to this new routine. It was sweet falling asleep with those she loved all gathered under the same roof.

Elizabeth had warned Nell that the month of August would be very busy in the boutique, but Nell was still surprised by the crowds of people who came into the store each day. It
got so that Nell nearly burst into tears if she awoke to find that it was raining, because on rainy days the tourists passed their time in the shops. It was true that business improved. More clothes were sold. But many of the people who came in were only browsing. They would unfold sweaters, hold them up in front of them, then drop them in a pile on the counter and wander aimlessly over to the dresses. They’d take a size 12 dress out, study it a bit, then thoughtlessly shove it back somewhere among size 6’s or 8’s. The dressing rooms began to look like the space beneath Jeremy’s bed from unwanted clothing that had been tried on, then dropped, inside out, onto the floor. Usually the customers were polite, but each day there was at least one person, and often more, who felt insulted by the lack of personal patient attention or by Nell’s not having their size in stock. Then the man or woman would take out whatever frustration he or she was feeling at that moment on Nell or Mindy or Kelly, the new part-time girl.

* * *

“What kind of shop are you running here?” someone would say.

“Oh well, what can you expect when you’ve got teenagers running the place,” another person said in front of Mindy. “These kids don’t care about helping people, they’re only passing the time until college starts again.” Mindy had been talking to one customer on the phone and writing up a receipt for another when this was said.

More often than not, Nell found she had to spend a few minutes at the end of each day soothing and complimenting Mindy or Kelly so that they wouldn’t quit. She told Elizabeth this during one of their long-distance phone conversations, and the second week in August Elizabeth flew over to check out the situation. She spent two days in the boutique with Nell and took Nell out to lunch the second day at the Water Club. To Nell’s surprise, Elizabeth showered Nell with praise: The boutique had never done so well, had never done such a volume of business, had never looked so good so consistently.

“But do you realize,” Elizabeth said to Nell, “that you’re working yourself to death in there?”

Nell looked at Elizabeth, amazed. She did not think she was working herself to
death, but she was working awfully hard. In the past ten days she had invited Andy over to the house only twice, claiming complete exhaustion the other evenings. Then she had fixed some easy dinner for herself and the children and sat around with them, eating with her fingers and watching old TV reruns. On her days off, she had taken the children to the beach. Andy had not joined them, because he didn’t like the beaches in August, when they were crowded with tourists. She missed being with Andy, and yet she was just too tired to make the effort that having him around required when the children were there. He was always polite to Hannah and Jeremy, but not charmed or even very interested, and in spite of all her rationality, Nell couldn’t help but feel hurt by this.

Now as she sat looking at Elizabeth, she realized how convenient it was for her that the shop was so busy, that she was overworked. Exhaustion from overwork was much easier to deal with than exhaustion from failed hopes. She did not know exactly what it was she had hoped would happen between Andy and her children—but certainly more than this. And she could not help but think of Stellios, who had genuinely liked the children and had enjoyed talking about all sorts of things with them—trucks, cement mixers, astronauts, television shows,
E.T
., horrible gory accidents, space aliens—sometimes Nell had secretly scorned him for his boyish enthusiasms, but now she saw how his näiveté had permitted him a truer, closer access to the children than Andy’s intellectual brilliance would ever permit.

Still, she thought,
she
was having the affair with Andy, not her children. And the two nights during the past ten days that he had been with her had been lovely. He had insisted on bringing dinner both times, and if he had not tried to charm the children or to get to know them, neither had he snubbed them. He had listened to them chatter at the dinner table. He had brought a book to read while Nell played cards with them or let them watch the TV shows they wanted. He had cleaned up the kitchen while Nell put the children to bed. And when he and Nell went to bed—it had been wonderful. Then it seemed to be worth everything. He had turned her onto her stomach and massaged her neck and shoulders and back, her buttocks and legs and arms. “My poor darling,” he said. “You’re working so hard. I miss you,” he said. “It’s no fun being without you in the evenings, and it’s terrible without you at night.” Then he had kissed all the places he had massaged and finally turned her over to kiss her face and shoulders and breasts and belly.
Nell had been weak with happiness and love.

Now Elizabeth was saying, “You look awful, you look peaked, Nell. Listen, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll hire Kelly full time. That should allow you to take a little more time off. Set your own hours. Take the afternoon off now and then and get out to the beach, get some sun. Or leave the shop early some evenings and go out to dinner. Go to parties. Have some fun. If you feel guilty, remember that when you’re meeting people at parties, you’re advertising the boutique, in a way. People will drop in to see you.” She leaned back and scrutinized Nell. “I’m surprised you haven’t met any men here.”

“Oh but I have, Elizabeth,” Nell said. “In fact I met a man in your shop, and I’ve been sort of going with him ever since. I had seen him on the beach, and he came into the shop to buy a present for his daughter. The next morning I met him on the beach again and had coffee with him, and I’ve been—seeing—him ever since.”

“Well,” Elizabeth said. “Good for you, Nell. Who is this character?”

“Character is the right word for him,” Nell laughed. The excellent lunch and Elizabeth’s kindness and the enormous strawberry daiquiri she was drinking were having a warming effect on her. And now she was having the chance to talk about her lover, which was such a pleasurable thing to do. She wondered how to describe him to Elizabeth, how to capture in words all his intriguing qualities. Smugly, she leaned her arms on the table, leaned forward, and began, “His name is Andy Martindale—”

“Andy Martindale!” Elizabeth said. “Oh, Nell. Jesus Christ.”

“Do you know him?” Nell asked.

Elizabeth laughed. “You sold a sweater to Andy Martindale?”

“For his sixteen-year-old daughter,” Nell said, defensive.

“Listen, darling,” Elizabeth said. “Andy Martindale could buy the whole shop for his daughter if he wanted to. Didn’t you know that? No, I can see you didn’t. Oh, Nell, you child. Of all the men on the island, you get involved with Andy Martindale. He’s wealthy, Nell, and he’s also very much
not
for you.”

Nell stared at Elizabeth. “Wealthy? I don’t understand,” she said. “He doesn’t act wealthy. He said he used to invent things, things for private planes, and now he’s writing a book on twentieth-century technology.”

Elizabeth sighed and lit a cigarette. She leaned back in her chair and looked at
Nell. “Andy’s father,” she said, “is dead now. But he invented some damn nut or bolt or screw—I can’t remember exactly—that is essential to airplanes. He patented it. It’s even called a Martindale. Andy will be wealthy forever on the royalties from that little piece of metal. I suppose he did tinker around with stuff for private planes; Lord knows his family owns enough factories for him to tinker around in. But all that doesn’t matter. The money doesn’t matter, Nell, I mean. What does matter is that he is a womanizer. No, that’s the wrong word. He doesn’t chase after women or keep strings of them around. He’s really more of a recluse than a cad, I guess. I mean, he is charming and all that, and women fall in love with him, but he is incapable of making any kind of commitment. He’ll let a woman make all kinds of concessions in her life, but he’ll never make any. Don’t look that way, Nell. I know what I’m talking about. One of my closest friends, Rachel Woods, was in love with him about four years ago. She met him in the summer and moved from New York to be near him, because he won’t leave this island. She wanted to marry him and she thought he loved her and would eventually marry her. But of course he didn’t. Good heavens, the man is a—an
island
. He’s content to be by himself. If you want to be with him, you can, if you can make the arrangements. But he’s not moving. He’ll never chase you. He’ll never change his habits for you. Believe me, if he wouldn’t change for Rachel, who is one of the most truly beautiful women on this earth and also a terribly classy woman, well, Nell, he’ll never change for you. Oh, Nell, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put it that way. Rachel’s one of my oldest friends and it was just terrible when she got hurt. As a matter of fact, I don’t think she’ll ever get over him. She moved back to New York after a few months here—the winter here is grim—and she’s going on with her life. But he broke her heart. And he’ll break yours if you get involved with him. Oh God, Nell, please don’t cry. Shit. Don’t tell me you’re
in love
with him. Well, now I feel just awful.”

“Elizabeth,” Nell said, blowing her nose. “Tell me one thing, please. Maybe you don’t know the answer. But did Andy ever tell Rachel that he loved her? Did he ever say ‘I love you’ to Rachel?”

Elizabeth laughed and stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. “You are a chump,” she said. “Jesus Christ, Nell, you are a natural born sucker. Of course he said ‘I love you’ to Rachel. Sweetheart, don’t be such a little dummy. Do you think saying ‘I
love you’ means anything to men? Oh, honey, any man will say ‘I love you’ if he thinks it’ll get a woman to lie down and spread her legs.”