FOUR 
That Saturday, Heddy found herself helping Jean-Rose organize an elaborate luncheon. Ted smoked a cigar and made notes in a lined yellow notepad on the wraparound porch while Jean-Rose flitted around him in periwinkle satin shorts, preparing the tables set up for three dozen guests. She wanted every napkin folded into an accordion fan and spread across a lattice-patterned salad plate, which was stacked on top of a larger coordinating dinner plate. From inside came the clatter of spoons stirring pots, the refrigerator door opening and closing, the busy swing of the porch door as caterers in pressed black dresses ran items in and out of the kitchen.
“There’s still no sign of Ruth?” Jean-Rose phrased it like a question.
Heddy had just tried her. “No one is picking up.” She returned to setting the table with heavy silverware from a box lined in garnet velvet. She wondered if the children, or the guests for that matter, would be able to lift these forks to their mouths.
“She’ll be here soon.” Ted cleared his throat, and perhaps to distract Jean-Rose, he spoke to Heddy. “Where do you live at school?”
Tickled that he’d asked, she replied, “In that dreadful dormitory with Beryl.” Her classmates often griped about Tower Court, so she never let on she loved that housekeepers vacuumed the couches daily and shined the floors with lemon Lysol (actual housekeepers!) and there was nary a cockroach in sight. Her mother had stared at a photo of the Gothic brick building in awe.
“Living there must feel like a million bucks,” her mother had said, and Heddy nodded, because it did.
“I’ve done business with Beryl’s father, and by business, I mean we both smoke cigars at Cincy’s Supper Club on East Thirty-Second. He’s a bit of a lout, though, I think his wife hikes her skirt for someone else.” He blew his cigar smoke upward, a grin on his face, and Jean-Rose scolded him for being crude.
Heddy forced a smile. She’d overheard him on the phone earlier bellowing about how he didn’t want to look at that inbred monkey anymore, referring to his secretary.
“By the time I get back, have one of those cuties in typing waiting for me,” he’d said. She didn’t like the way he’d said, cuties in typing, like the woman was something for him to enjoy, rather than a professional doing her job. Fathers shouldn’t talk that way; as Heddy saw it, once a man had a child, particularly a daughter, he should tamp down any vulgar aspects of his personality. But boys will be boys, she supposed.
“Beryl and I considered moving off campus together, but living in the dormitory is closer to class.” It was also cheaper.
Jean-Rose came over to them, lovingly smacking Ted in the shoulder with a napkin. “It’s true—Beryl’s mother is a bit wild, just like Beryl—but she can be great fun.” Jean-Rose was refolding every napkin Heddy arranged, making her self-conscious about whether she was placing the silverware to Jean-Rose’s liking.
“We’ve been best friends since freshman year,” Heddy said. At first, they weren’t the obvious match. Beryl had tried to win Heddy over minutes after she twirled into their room, a string of bellhops following behind. She invited Heddy to the movies and on shopping trips for dresses for the mixers, but Heddy had made excuses—she was too proud to admit she had only enough money for books, and even then, she’d had to ask one professor to lend her a science textbook. Soon, Beryl stopped asking her to come out, smuggling gin into their room instead. While studying, they began to commiserate about how greasy the eggs were at the commissary, how hard it was to do their business in the bathroom with so many girls coming in and out. That’s when they promised to guard the door for each other. “Don’t let anyone in until I flush,” Beryl said, and the first time, Heddy had had to chase away pouting Anjelica Smythe with her toothbrush already pasted.
Jean-Rose examined the floral tablecloths, the mauve placemats, the lattice-patterned plates centered on top. “I want it to look like this Good Housekeeping spread, but something’s missing.” She thrust the magazine in front of Ted, his head buried in a newspaper cover story: “Is President Kennedy at Fault For the ‘Flash Crash’?”
Jean-Rose elbowed him, causing Ted to glance up: “Ash Porter’s a salesman, Jeannie, not an ambassador, and I’m not interested in buying the swampland he’s peddling.”
Ash? The handsome bachelor. Coming here.
“Don’t be such a sourpuss.” She pouted. “We have the china, the linen napkins, the peonies.” Jean-Rose’s eyes followed Heddy’s hands placing the silverware. “Let’s put them a bit farther from the plate edges.” Jean-Rose moved a fork and knife a millimeter, if that, and Heddy adjusted each one.
“Do you think Beryl will marry Phillip?” said Jean-Rose.
Rich and handsome. Of course she would. She and Beryl made a pact before they left school that they’d return engaged in the fall. How that would work in Heddy’s favor now! No one would even question why she didn’t come back to school if she were engaged. “She thinks he’s going to ask this summer.”
Jean-Rose cut hydrangea blooms from over the porch railing with a scissor, then arranged them in vases Ruth had left out the night before. “Okay, this is serious now. Where is Ruth? She was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
“I’ll call her again,” Heddy said. Inside, she tried Ruth’s number, but an operator came on, her nasally voice announcing the number was out of service. She sometimes heard a similar refrain when she called home from Wellesley, gripping the lining of her woolen skirt pocket when she heard the operator’s voice, imagining the woman was pock-faced and full of judgment.
“Still no answer,” Heddy said.
“It’s strange… she’s usually very punctual.” Jean-Rose downed a glass of water. “We have the entire club coming to hear about Ash’s plans. I need her.”
“She must be on her way.” Heddy made a mental note to check her makeup before the bachelor was set to arrive.
Jean-Rose disappeared inside, then returned a few minutes later with a glass of champagne, mumbling that she needed to relax. She followed Heddy as she fixed and folded. “What do you want to do after Wellesley? Clearly, you’re not writing a movie.”
Heddy didn’t look up, a little stunned by Jean-Rose’s blatant lack of faith but also because she was probably right. “Maybe something in teaching,” she said. Teaching would make her mother happy, after all.
“Oh, I thought I’d go into education, too. My parents made me go to UPenn—I didn’t want to be one of four girls on campus. But I liked it enough. I was a columnist for the women’s newspaper. We may have been the only paper in the country to publish engagement statistics like batting averages.” She sighed. “But I covered serious topics like the integration of women into the men’s cafeteria and such.”
Ted guffawed. “Sounds serious.”
Jean-Rose smiled. “Anyway, keeping house was more important to me, dear. And it will be for you, too.” Heddy liked that Jean-Rose expected her to follow in her footsteps, like they were equals somehow. “Senior year is all about future setting.”
Jean-Rose checked her wristwatch again, a rush of panic tightening her cheeks. “Guests are set to arrive in forty-five minutes—we need to find Ruth.”
The kids came out on the porch arguing, Teddy holding his sister by the ponytail, his sister gripping a doll.
“Teddy, all you do is terrorize your sister. Go to your room.” Jean-Rose pointed at the front door.
“Yeah,” said Anna. She crossed her skinny arms across her embroidered blouse.
The boy’s voice cracked. “But it’s my doll. She can’t just take my—”
“Now!” Jean-Rose yelled, slamming her champagne glass on the table. “I can’t believe Ruth is doing this to me. Thankfully, I had the good sense to cater, considering my housekeeper is nowhere to be found.”
Ted stood, patting his pocket for his keys, then pulling them out. “Relax, you’d think we were having a wedding. We’ll pick her up. Heddy and I will go.” With the grown-ups ignoring him, Teddy went out to the swing set.
In the car, Ted prattled on about his Yale days while Heddy took in the curvy roads, how they cut a path through the island’s rural center. Here, modest shuttered farmhouses, the paint peeling and chipped, gave way to lawns that looked craggy and dry with sun, the picket fencing in various states of disrepair. He told her of a party where he threw a mattress out a dormitory window, and the story he spun for the campus cop to get out of it, and while he made her laugh recounting the shenanigans, she considered that he wasn’t too different from the men she’d met at mixers at school. One of those silver-platter boys, entitled and aimless in conversation, purposeful only in getting to the part where he stuck his tongue in her mouth. She was glad to know him now, as the responsible family man, rather than the drunken frat boy.
They pulled into Ruth’s dirt driveway, parking outside the small ranch, the screen door unhinged at the top, hanging sideways, like it had been blown about in a storm. Ted parked a few car lengths away from the house, nodding her on. Heddy opened the screen door, which squeaked on its rusted hinge, and knocked.
A squat, flushed man who smelled like liquor and cigars opened the door, leering at her from the other side of the screen: “Well, Ruthie never told me her new friend was so pretty.” Inside, a couch with a gaping tear in the cushion was piled with laundry. A red-haired woman was sleeping in an armchair, snuggled under a crochet blanket, an oxygen tube in her nostrils.
“I’m Heddy.” She reached out her hand for a proper shake, but Ruth shoved the man aside, stepping outside and slamming the door behind her.
“Sorry about that.” Ruth picked a beer bottle off the step, tossed it in a can by the front bush.
Heddy forced a smile. “Is that your father?”
Ruth rolled her eyes, red and puffy from crying. “He’s pleasant, I know.” She crossed her arms, becoming interested in her cuticles. “Mom got sick last year.” She said it like it explained everything, but Heddy wasn’t sure what it explained at all.
“I’m sorry.”
Ruth shrugged. “It is what it is.” She noticed the car idling in the unpaved drive then, her cheeks turning ashen. “Jesus. I didn’t know Ted drove you.”
Heddy turned her back to the car and whispered. “He means well, that’s all. She’s freaking out. The luncheon is today, and she doesn’t trust me to mix the drinks. You need to come.”
“It’s my bike. I couldn’t fish it out of Sengekontacket Pond. The damn fool.” Ruth kicked the concrete steps. “Then my ride didn’t show up.”
Through the screened window, Heddy could hear the TV blaring, a laugh track bellowing out every time the actor delivered a punch line. The Honeymooners.
“You could ask Jean-Rose to borrow a bike.”
Ruth exhaled with force, like she was blowing birthday candles. “I’ll be right back.” From the steps, Heddy heard Ruth’s father yelling about “her fancy friends,” so Heddy got in the car, wanting to avoid any more unpleasantness. Ruth emerged in her apron.
“Sorry, Ted,” Ruth said, her childlike frame sinking deep in the back seat.
“A phone call next time, miss.” He emphasized “miss,” causing Ruth to look out the window, where a junked car bumper and loose tires were tangled in a garden hose. Ruth couldn’t fault him for worrying. The family had been expecting her, and she didn’t show; of course, they deserved a call. Heddy wondered if Ruth’s own father would notice if Ruth didn’t return home one night and whether that meant the Williams kept closer tabs on her than her own family.
“The operator said the lines are down,” Heddy said. “Half the island.”
Ted spat out the window. “That’s curious. We haven’t had a storm in weeks.” They drove on in silence, Ted puffing his cigar until they pulled into the drive, the neatly trimmed hedges calming her nerves. Perhaps it did the same for Ruth. The tidiness of the house, the gardens, the way their roles were so defined. Working in service made it easy at times to forget your own problems.
As he put the car in park, Ted said, “God dammit, girls. If she’s unhappy, I’m unhappy.”
At the sight of the car, Jean-Rose stopped pacing the porch, placing her hand to her forehead like she might faint. “Ruth, everyone is arriving in fifteen minutes.”
Ted eased back onto his porch seat. “Why do we care so much what everyone thinks?”
“Don’t razz me. Ruth needs to know how to serve the drinks.” She’d applied her makeup while they were gone, her cheeks thick with foundation and blush.
Ruth stepped behind the bar, threading her fine strawberry hair into a tight ponytail. “I’m sorry, really. Lime rickeys. I got it. A shot of gin in each highball. Go upstairs and change.”
Jean-Rose admired her, like she was her eldest-born child, and Heddy hoped Jean-Rose would come to see her as indispensable, too. “Oh, Ruth. You’re such a doll.”
Ruth squeezed the limes into a glass, a smile spreading across her face. “You want them passed?”
“On the silver platters. Maybe Heddy can help.” Jean-Rose pranced inside.
The day was overcast, and it was cooler than the heat wave of the previous week. Still, Heddy planned to take the children to Vineyard Sound after lunch. Jean-Rose wanted them seated at the luncheon with the adults, which Heddy thought ludicrous but didn’t question. As her grandmother always said, “When it comes to work, put your head down and nod.” Anna and Teddy, now dressed in coordinating sailing suits, sat on the lush grass below the porch, their crayons and scrap paper spread around them.
At crunching footsteps in the driveway, Heddy looked up to find Ash Porter holding a shiny black briefcase. His tan sports jacket was cut short and slim in the latest fashion, and his navy tie, freshly brushed saddle shoes, and crisp white button-down shirt made him look like an advertisement. His hair rippled like a wave to his right temple.
“Ash Porter is here,” Heddy announced, hoping Ted didn’t notice the teenage pitch of her voice. Gun or not—the sight of him did something to her.
Ted folded his newspaper and handed it to her; she dashed upstairs to reapply her blush. On her way back out, she took a platter from Ruth holding two drinks with lime wedges. Ruth, noticing her lipstick, glared: “Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
Anna was already in Ash’s arms, Teddy pulling on his pants leg in that annoying way kids did when they wanted attention.
“Lime rickey, Mr. Porter.” Heddy handed him a tumbler.
“Please, it’s Ash.” He smiled, sipping the cocktail. It did feel strange to call him a formal name, since they were nearly the same age.
Ted signaled to the other glass. “That one for me? So useful, these college girls, aren’t they?” He winked.
Heddy logged his patronizing tone, looking pointedly at the children. “Let’s give Ash some space.” Only Anna followed her to the bar, where she stole a handful of orange slices. “Get Teddy and finish your pictures in the grass,” she told her. “I’ll be right down.”
“Not sure how it’s going to go with these two,” Ruth whispered, gesturing toward Ash and Ted.
“I thought they were friends.”
Ruth put four more glasses on the silver tray; another couple had arrived. “No, Ted and Jean-Rose are. I think she’s sweet on Ash.”
“But she’s so much older… and she and Ted are in love.”
“Are they?” Ruth said.
The porch grew crowded, a steady hum of chatter all around, while Heddy roved about serving lime rickeys. Edison, who they’d seen on his bike the day Heddy arrived, reached for a drink, introducing himself, “You must be Ted’s summer girl.”
It wasn’t how she’d characterize herself, but she smiled. “Nice to meet you,” she said, noting how physically fit he looked in his pressed white shorts, how fashionable his round white sunglasses.
Edison spun on his heels, looking back at her. “Don’t worry: Ted will take good care of you.” Heddy thought it an odd thing to say, but she nodded and moved about with her drink platter.
Standing at the center of a few women, Ash held up his finger to signal he wanted another, and she slowed, handing him a cocktail with the flourish, she imagined, of a Pan Am girl.
He softly elbowed her middle. “We were just talking about last night’s full moon. Did you see it?”
The expectant looks of strangers, their faces awash in polite smiles. She realized he wanted her to answer.
“I read by it longer than I should have,” Heddy said.
A disgruntled sigh. “It kept me up half the night—I hate the full moon,” said a squat coed whose pug nose gave her the look of those stubby dogs that waddled down uptown sidewalks.
“Thank God for blackout curtains,” joked a wispy middle-aged woman, tight curls crowding her head.
“I find it rather mysterious, actually.” Heddy looked to Ash to make sure disagreeing was okay, and he moved aside, allowing her to step into the circle. “I like to stare at it, the ridges and craters,” she continued. “It makes me wonder what I look like from up there. What John Glenn saw when he looked down at us.”
“What Glenn saw was a wonder.” Ash smiled.
“He’s lucky that thing didn’t explode. I would never do such a ridiculous thing as shoot myself up over the earth.” It was the woman with the nose.
Heddy longed to sip one of the drinks on her platter, like she was a guest, but she didn’t think Jean-Rose would like that. She straightened as Ted came over. “To circle the earth like that, to see us all as we’ve never seen ourselves…,” she said.
Ted threw an arm around Ash, his eyebrows in sharp angles at Heddy. He peeked over the side of the porch, where the children, on a picnic blanket in the grass, colored. “We’re all set here, Heddy.”
She snapped her mouth shut, curtsied awkwardly, and nodded vigorously, like an actress told she no longer had a part. “Excuse me,” Heddy managed, still holding the platter. She longed for him to act fatherly to her—take an interest in what she was saying or introduce her to someone he thought she’d liked to know. But to him, she was the help.
“Sorry about that,” Ted told the guests.
Had he apologized for her presence? She’d assumed she should be quiet unless spoken to, but Ash had engaged with her. She didn’t want to be rude. Maybe she hadn’t had to go on quite so much about the moon, but still.
At the bar, Ruth mouthed “I told you,” sending a ping of shame through Heddy. She wanted to explain, but then Anna started to scream. Teddy was trying to write on her with black crayon, forcing Heddy to snatch it away.
“Let’s have a drawing contest.” Heddy rushed to redirect them, dabbing Anna’s eyes with the corner of her dress. They were sitting close enough to the porch she could hear the guests talking, and everyone could hear Jean-Rose, with the way her voice carried out over the crowd.
“Ash, we’re so happy you agreed to do your presentation here,” said Jean-Rose, dressed in a blush-colored, collared sheath and matching wide-brimmed hat.
Ash kissed her on the cheek, her lipstick leaving a pretty smear of red on his cheek in return. “You shouldn’t have worked so hard. You set a beautiful table.”
She shot Ted a look, batting her false eyelashes, and he shrugged.
“You’re making me look bad. She was in a tizzy all morning I didn’t remark on it.”
The trio laughed heartily, and Jean-Rose slipped off to welcome someone else.
Ted led Ash to the front of the porch, where a long rectangular table sat twelve. “You take the head, sir.”
They seemed quite chummy; apparently, Ruth was wrong.
A plume of Chanel Nº5 enveloping her, Jean-Rose leaned over the railing where Heddy was sitting in the grass. “Heddy, will you be a dear and help Ruth serve the drinks?”
“Ted sent me away.” Although, he hadn’t told her to go to the children. She did that on her own.
Jean-Rose’s lips drew a tight line of red. “Don’t listen to Ted. Our guests need drinks.”
“Of course, I’m coming.” Heddy raced up the porch steps, hoping Teddy stayed immersed in his drawing of the ugliest monster he could think of.
Ruth mixed drinks into several glasses, arranging them on platters. She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. “Didn’t you see me waving you over? I can’t mix and serve.”
“I’m sorry. Ted said—”
“Ted doesn’t know his ass from his elbow when it comes to entertaining. Here.” Ruth placed the platter in Heddy’s arms.
The women stood in tight groups making small talk, while the men sat at the table smoking cigars with Ted. She wondered who Emily Post would serve first: the men or the women? Heddy stepped in the direction of the cigar smoke.
Ted patted a friend on the back. “Ernie, we need you at the Big Top. Things are a bit hairy right now, but don’t believe the papers. It’s temporary.”
The conversation turned serious; men huddled over their collective anxiety about the markets. Heddy’s tray empty, Ruth handed her a fresh set to deliver. Jean-Rose tapped her on the back, pressing Anna’s hand into Heddy’s. Anna was bawling, the front of her dress soaked. She’d had an accident.
“I thought you could do both.” Jean-Rose’s smile was all Miss America, but Heddy felt how hard she pressed Anna’s hand into hers.
Despite her wet bottom, Heddy picked her up, pee staining her waist. “I’m sorry, I was serving, like you said.”
Jean-Rose smoothed the front of her dress. “Change her, please. Lunch service is about to begin.”
One of Jean-Rose’s friends sidled up to her, and Heddy heard her say: “Oh, Lila, sometimes I feel like I have two more children. These girls, they’re…”
Out came a snort. “Service isn’t what it used to be. But you get what you pay for. They’re hourly girls, right?”
Heddy’s jaw tightened. Is this what she was to these women peacocking in their pastel-colored cocktail dresses—nothing but a punch line in a joke about the help. An “hourly girl”? The thought cut like a razor, and for the first time, it made her resent these women in updos and strappy sandals. If Heddy ever had money, she’d never make anyone feel like less because they worked in service. Her mother taught her to be thankful for any kindness the world showed her, and the two of them often listed three things they were grateful for over breakfast each morning, no matter how hard times were. She wondered what Jean-Rose was more grateful for—having two beautiful children, or having two servants, even “hourly” ones? Sadly, she guessed the answer was the latter.
Encouraging the kids to the house, she passed Ruth. “Can you cover me? I have to change Anna’s clothes.”
Pinching her cheeks for color, Ruth emerged from behind the bar, the corners of her eyes damp. “You can’t tell I was crying, right?”
“No. You look great.” She couldn’t tell Ruth the rims of her eyes were still red.
Ruth arranged the drinks on the tray and was off while Heddy carried Anna up into her bedroom, Teddy running ahead up the stairs.
“Why was Ruth crying?” Anna asked. Heddy pulled her dress overhead and slipped a new striped frock on her.
“She wasn’t.”
Teddy dove onto Anna’s bed. “Ruth has runs in her stockings.”
Heddy eyed him. “Maybe she needs a new pair.”
“Can’t she afford any? I mean, we pay her enough.” Heddy had noticed the run, too, a subtle pull up the back of her leg. He was just mimicking his mother, but still, she thought, that she’d raise children to have empathy for others.
Anna wrapped her arms around Heddy’s neck while she straightened the hem of her dress. “The sooner we eat lunch, the faster we can get to the beach,” Heddy said, eager to escape the luncheon herself.
“We can see if we trapped any lobsters.” Teddy pushed his belly into Anna, knocking her over, and Anna pushed right back.
Outside, Heddy could see the guests were still milling about.
Heddy held a single finger in front of the boy’s face. “I need better behavior or no beach. You understand?” She ran upstairs to swap her dress, too—the pee smelled acrid in the heat—immediately regretting snapping at Teddy. Someday he’d grow up and understand what kind of money he had, how that separated him from the other children and defined every last bit of him. But right now, he was a child, and she needed to be more patient.
She had the kids walk in single file onto the porch, where guests were taking seats at tables, husbands and wives placed more formally next to each other. Ash was in between Jean-Rose and her best friend, Susanne, who leaned into him, blowing smoke into the air and crinkling her nose, like she knew how adorable her pixie cut was. Heddy immediately hated her.
Jean-Rose stood to get everyone’s attention, using her largest fork to make a chiming sound against her glass. “Ted and I would like to thank you for coming today,” she told the crowd. She glanced at Ash. “As I’ve told many of you already, we met Ash at the beach.”
Ash piped in. “I nearly beached a whaler I’d borrowed from a friend. That would have been an expensive ride home.” Everyone laughed.
Then Ted: “Next time, take the surfboard.” The crowd chuckled, Ash grinning.
Jean-Rose, hands clasped at her chest, waited for everyone to quiet. “After he ditched the boat and swam in, we realized we were neighbors. And what a neighbor! To imagine that the great-grandson of Florida’s original developer is in our midst. Harrison Porter is responsible for Palm Beach, and now his great-grandson has a dream of his own.”
Heddy saw a few couples whisper and point in the direction of Ash’s house, even though they couldn’t see it through the trees.
“Ash is working on a new luxury community in Florida that we’re so excited about. So, without further ado, I present to you the man bringing surfing to the Vineyard, Ash Porter.”
To light applause, Ash stood in front of a poster featuring photographs of a spectacular pool surrounded by palm trees and Corinthian columns, a woman lying on a beach blanket on powder-white sand, the water so clear people could see to the bottom. “Welcome to the Coconut Coast” read the caption.
He slid one of his hands in his pocket. “When the weather turns cold, Palm Beach is my paradise. My friends are there. My favorite restaurants are there. And when I swim in the water, there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.” He moved to the other end of the porch, and everyone followed him with their eyes. He was a natural public speaker, unlike Heddy, who could agonize for weeks over giving any kind of presentation.
“I could look at him all day,” an elfin woman with studious glasses whispered to a friend.
“Don’t get any ideas—he’s taken,” the friend said back.
“No, he’s a bachelor!”
“That’s not what I heard.”
Ash put his foot up on a chair, leaning toward the crowd.
“On the shores of West Florida, the sand is as powdery as the snow of Aspen. The water, as turquoise as this beautiful woman’s bracelet.” Ash was behind the woman with the glasses, and he gently asked her—“May I?”—and after a nod, he held up her arm to show everyone her turquoise-stone bracelet.
“I got this in Santa Fe,” she told people at her table.
“The Coconut Coast is what Palm Beach was ten years ago, the next big resort town, the most spectacular development of our time. Your children will thank you for buying here, so will their children’s children.” There were murmurs, nods. Ash began handing out a stack of folders, each one decorated with the same photographs as the poster on the easel behind him.
“Here, houses aren’t just houses. They’re sprawling estates painted in a rainbow of pastels, each one surrounded by their own piece of the West Florida jungle, the smell of hibiscus drifting by as you sit next to the pool and wonder if it’s snowing back in New England.” Ash sipped his cocktail as everyone opened their folders, sifting through the color brochures inside.
“As kids, we spent some winters in the Berkshires, skiing a cold day away. But air travel has put paradise within everyone’s reach. Why not jet off to the next big thing? A resort created with the distinguished young family in mind.”
Heddy looked at the brochure’s sprawling Mediterranean-style estates, a golf cart parked in front of each one. The woman in glasses raised her hand. “Can you tell us about the community? Palm Beach has theater, fine restaurants.”
“If you’re asking who bought in”—he smiled, with mischief—“well, let’s just say we have six founding members: two work in film, one is a jazz singer, and the others are in finance.”
A rush of excited murmurs, whispers about who the film stars were.
Ted’s voice rang out over the hush of the crowd. “When will the houses be complete?”
Ash toasted his glass to Ted’s. “We’ll be toasting again when we open our community center at Christmas, 1964. We’re on the hunt for people with refinement and taste who can help us build this area into a world-class community.” Ash paused for emphasis, staring into the horizon, where storm clouds hovered. “Have you ever looked around a club or a resort and thought, I could have done this better? Why didn’t they think to do this or that? This is your chance.” His eyes were full of magic now. “Don’t be a part of someone else’s paradise. Build your own.”
Ted tipped his chair back, his legs spread open, his feet anchored to the floor. “But why would I buy a house in the swampiest part of Florida? All the bugs. It’s making me itch just thinking about it.” Ted itched his forearms for comic relief; the crowd laughed.
Ash took in the faces around him, like he was charmed. “You’re not going to let a few bugs scare you away, are you, Ted? All of Florida is swampland, but we clear-cut, plant palm trees, make sure there’s no standing water. To keep away those pesky bugs.” Ash turned to the other side of the porch. “Any other questions?”
Ted’s voice broke the quiet again. “Let’s talk dollars and cents. How much for one of these beauties?” Ted pointed to a large manor house, yellow stucco with white shutters.
Jean-Rose pressed her hands into a prayer. “What Ted’s saying is: Should we or shouldn’t we?”
Ash’s face was unruffled. “I’m glad you asked. To get started, we need a significant contribution. But remember, it’s the first step in building your dream house.”
Ted, on his feet now, patted Ash’s back, letting his voice carry out over the din. “So what is the buy-in? Specifically?”
Jean-Rose took in a sharp breath. “Ted, perhaps he wants to discuss it privately.”
Ted put his arm around Ash’s back, feigning innocence. “It’s sales, darling. Everything has a price. So tell me, dapper fellow. What do you want for this piece of paradise?”
“Seven thousand dollars.” Ash’s voice was clear and unapologetic. “To reserve your land.”
The crowd erupted into chatter. Ted, a smirk of satisfaction on his face, raised an eyebrow, looking around at the others at the table.
Jean-Rose clasped her hands together. “Well, I want in. That yellow house with the shutters—I can’t shake it.”
Everyone clapped, and Jean-Rose broke into a grin, holding her clasped hands at her heart.
“A quick reminder: Everyone save the date for our annual clambake on August eleventh. Now let’s all thank Ash Porter for dropping by today.”
Heddy looked at Ash then, taking a bow. When he came up, his eyes scanned the crowd, and when he locked on Heddy, he smiled—a dashing smile.
She felt the earth under her shift.
Later that evening, Jean-Rose and Ted hardly noticed when Heddy slipped down the emerald-green stair runner to meet Ruth outside for a smoke. With the stink of a cigar wafting through the house, Ted watched Walter Cronkite, while Jean-Rose chatted away on the telephone. After worrying all afternoon that Jean-Rose would fire her for messing up at the party, her boss had been in good spirits when she and the children returned from the beach.
“I can’t exactly let her go,” Jean-Rose gossiped into the receiver. “From what I gather, her mother doesn’t have much time, and her father is always laying into somebody at Rooney’s. It’s a mess.”
Ruth sat on a small boulder by the garage, and Heddy could hear Jean-Rose’s voice there, too, but Ruth was unfazed.
“They finally asleep?” Ruth picked a bouquet of hydrangea and held them in a wet paper towel.
“They were exhausted from swimming all afternoon.”
The two women walked together down the driveway. At the end, Ruth crouched her spindly legs onto the grass near the mailboxes—she had the look of a person who was ill as a child, whose body never quite caught up.
“I thought this day would never end,” Ruth said, lighting a cigarette.
“Do you think these people ever see themselves through our eyes?” Heddy took a long drag, grateful for the buzz. Her hair was wet from her shower, her skin smelling of Ivory soap. “If only they could hear themselves, a recording played back on the radio. ‘They’re hourly girls, right?’ ” She mimicked the woman from the luncheon.
“Someone said that?” Ruth ashed in between her knees. “Jean-Rose was going to kill you! Her eyes were so narrow, they nearly touched.”
“You were the one that had to be fetched.”
Ruth looked down, exhaled. “I know.” Heddy remembered Ruth’s mother sleeping in the chair, the crooked screen door, the beer bottles on the stoop.
“Weren’t you worried she’d fire you on the spot?”
Ruth shook her head. “We have an understanding.”
That Ruth and Jean-Rose knew anything about each other beyond their formal relationship at the house made Heddy uneasy. “I wasn’t aware you were such good friends.”
Ruth took another drag of her cigarette. “Friends? I’m her charity case. Do you know she sent me to the bank to make a deposit yesterday? I looked at her balance: $107,000.”
“One hundred thousand dollars!” Heddy had yelled it. It was enough to buy a mansion, a couple of cars, too.
Ruth nodded. “One hundred and seven. It wasn’t even a joint account.”
Heddy didn’t know what she’d do if she had that kind of money. Perhaps she’d buy a steamer trunk, board one of those fancy ships that left out of New York Harbor. No, she’d buy her mother a house in one of those pretty Westchester suburbs. After she paid for school, that is.
“Ruth, are you in a bad way?”
The girl darted her eyes. She knew what Heddy was asking. “I’m fine.”
Heddy reached her hand out to rub Ruth’s back, pulling it away before it touched. “It’s just. Well, you were so upset today.”
Ruth laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s stupid.”
Heddy exhaled, trying to blow smoke rings, her tongue getting in the way and making a mess of them. They smoked in silence, night overtaking the clouds.
“You realize Jean-Rose needs you more than you need her,” Heddy said.
“Well, I need that envelope of cash every week, but this isn’t about her anyway.” Ruth loosened her bun, letting her hair fall around her shoulders. It softened her long nose, making her pretty. “To think, I was all set to go to cosmetology school.” Ruth stubbed out her cigarette. “Did I tell you I was going to be a stylist?”
“That’s amazing, Ruth.” Heddy pressed her heel to her cigarette. A firefly flickered.
“Well, it’s not happening now.” Ruth sighed. “I just wonder how different my life would be if I hadn’t been born on this island.”
“Less simple, I suppose. The city is harried.” Heddy was drawing in the gravel with a twig.
Ruth hunched, her back curving into a C. “That’s what people think, sure. They come here, and they see a wonderland. You know what I see when I look at all this water? A fence, one tall fence. Everyone gets to leave. You’ll leave. But I’m not sure I ever will.”
Heddy stopped drawing. She didn’t realize this was the conversation they were going to have.
“I could give up, too, Ruth. But I know what I need to do, and I do it.”
“Easy for you to say, college girl. You’ll have a degree.”
Heddy shifted positions, moving onto her knees. How could she explain? Where would she begin? “There’s a letter—”
Ruth cut her off. “He just makes it so hard.” She leaned back against the mailbox post. “He takes all of it.…”
Heddy put her arm around her friend, squeezing her. “You’ll make more.”
“But not enough,” she said, resting her head on Heddy’s shoulder. “There will never be enough.”
“Sleep over tonight, will you? You can stay in my room.” Don’t go home to that sad place, Heddy wanted to say.
Ruth shook her head. “I can’t. Mother.”
“Please, Ruth. I won’t sleep tonight knowing you’re upset.” She sensed a nod, and while Ruth didn’t say yes, they both knew one night wouldn’t hurt anyone.
“C’mon,” Heddy begged. “It will be like when we were little and had sleepover parties.”
“You’re a goofball.” But Ruth was smiling, and Heddy knew she’d done good.
That night, after they practiced applying blue eye shadow to each other’s lids, Heddy and Ruth climbed into bed, Ruth falling asleep while Heddy wrote in her journal.
June 30, 1962
Jean-Rose told me today that someday my social cache will be built upon how few wrinkles I have on my face. She gave me a bar of Pears glycerin soap to wash my face with, prescribed ice-water plunges to keep my skin firm, and handed me a jar of Pond’s Cold Cream to apply before bed each night. She’s even gone and set me up on a date, although I’m terrified that I won’t like the guy but I’ll have to pretend to, just to please her.
I am under pressure to please her always, or I get the sense that she’ll turn on me. It sounds harsh, but I know it’s true. While Jean-Rose is exceedingly friendly and quite likable, she’s also studied. She’s extra aware of what her words and behaviors reveal about her, and she acts as though shaping the family’s public face is of highest priority. Even if she’s friendly, I must remind myself that we are not friends.…
Closing her journal after midnight, Heddy went downstairs to warm some milk since she was having trouble sleeping. Ted sat at the kitchen table hunched over a sheet of notepaper and holding a pen, several crumpled papers gathering like snowballs at his elbow. She saw he was wearing a ribbed tank top and chambray boxer shorts, which meant she was standing there with Ted in his underwear.
“Sorry, I thought I was the only one awake,” she whispered, wrapping her robe tighter, wishing now she’d never come down.
He jumped at the sound of her voice, grabbing at the papers, even the ones he’d balled up. With an irritated grunt, he disappeared into the darkness of the living room. A light in his study went on, and the door clicked shut.
She didn’t bother heating the milk, and as she trudged up the stairs to her room, she wondered: What kind of letter needed to be written in the dead of night?