Monday Morning
Bess must be suffering some off-brand, New England version of island fever, because she’s inexplicably agreed to play accomplice in one of Cissy’s harebrained schemes.
“Sure, Cis,” she idiotically said. “Whatever you need.”
Sometimes Bess forgets that hers is not an ordinary mom.
As she crosses Baxter Road, Bess tries to script an introduction that doesn’t sound batshit insane. Chappy Mayhew is insufferable by nature but she’s about to hand him a blank check for mocking.
Why? Why is it so damned hard to tell Cissy no?
With an inhale, Bess nudges open the gate and walks toward the front door. She is at once charmed by the quaint fishing shack. The place is all Sconset enchantment with its weather-beaten, splintered face, the picket fence, and the roses, which are just beginning to bloom. By summer’s end, the cottage itself will be blanketed in bright pink flowers. It will also have a panoramic ocean view, once Cliff House falls out of sight. Some bastards have all the luck.
Bess knocks, quickly, with a rat-a-tat-tat. It’s feasible that no one is home (oh please, oh please) and she can crawl back into bed. Alas, to her great dismay, clomping footsteps answer Bess’s call. The door opens before she can escape.
“Listen, Chappy, I’m sorry to bother you, but you know how Cissy is. Here’s the thing…”
Bess releases every last molecule of oxygen from her lungs and glances up, face flaming. But it is not Chappy Mayhew standing before her. It’s worse.
“What the hell?” she squawks, with unnecessary volume.
Bess clears her throat and lets it fall to a whisper.
“Do you live here?” She drops the question from the side of her mouth, as if it’s a secret and there are curious ears nearby. “You live with your dad? Still? Or did someone kick you out? Oh, this is sad.”
As the man belts out an all-too-familiar laugh, Bess blushes ever more furiously. Of course. Of course he’d answer the door. Tall and tanned and sandy and perpetually unbothered: Evan f’ing Mayhew, in the radiant, windburned flesh.
“I see you’ve inherited your mother’s social graces,” he says with a grin.
“I didn’t mean to…”
“I’m here to build a bookshelf for my dad. Oh man.” He chuckles again. “I can hear Cissy now. Chappy Mayhew knows how to read? I walked right into that one, didn’t I? It’s great to see you, Bess. Please. Come in.”
Evan steps out of the doorway and makes a sweeping motion with his hand.
“Thanks,” she mumbles.
Bess fiddles with her hair as she skulks through the entryway. She really should’ve done more than whip it back into a ponytail and flat-iron the hell out of her bangs. She also should’ve worn contacts, or at least something other than glasses so old they make Bess seem like she’s going for that hipster, “pre-cool” look typically associated with unicycles and twisty mustaches.
“Well, good to see you and everything,” she says, following Evan into the kitchen.
God bless it, she is wearing sweatpants. Purchased in the late nineties.
“‘Good to see you and everything,’” Evan says, never missing a thing.
He opens the fridge.
“Oh, Codman, I miss that mushy streak of yours. Beer?”
“It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”
“Light beer?”
“Tempting, but no.”
“So…”
Evan rests his back against the counter. He crosses one disturbingly muscled arm over the other and gives Bess a thoroughly invasive visual head-to-toe. Meanwhile, Bess wants to shrink into the corner, or disappear behind her bangs, which is the exact point of them.
“Let me apologize in advance,” she starts.
“No apology necessary, but I am curious as to what errand of mischief brings you to my father’s doorstep. Given your apparent shock in seeing me, I can’t really flatter myself into thinking you’ve come to pay me a visit.”
“Uh, no.”
Bess snorts, eyes glued to the floor. Staring at Evan Mayhew is like looking directly into the sun: awful, beautiful, and damaging at the same time.
“I’m an emissary of my mother’s,” she explains.
“Emissary or adversary. When it comes to Cissy Codman, a person can only be one of the two.”
“Oh, come on, she’s not that bad.”
“Bess, your mother is terrifying.”
“She’s not terrifying.”
Bess looks up and feels the burn of Evan’s dark brown eyes. He surely knows about the divorce. He probably cackles about it behind her back. Then he goes to bed with some sort of wife or girlfriend or a rotation of models.
Then again, the more likely scenario is that he doesn’t think of her at all.
“Cissy is … spunky?” Bess says. “A go-getter.”
“Didn’t she once shoot Michael Kennedy in the kneecap?”
“It was RFK Junior and it was an accident. She said he deserved it.”
As Evan laughs, Bess stiffens. No. Uh-uh. No way. She will not allow herself to relax into that easy, distant sound.
“Yeah, so my mother issued a TRO against your dad,” Bess says, murmuring, letting her voice get lost in the light streaming through the kitchen window.
“Beg pardon?” Evan leans toward her. “She issued a what?”
“Temporary restraining order,” she says, louder this time. “I’m supposed to make sure Chappy received it.”
“Oh yeah.” Evan laughs. Again. Again and again. “He got it all right, as your mother is well aware. She watched the whole thing from the captain’s walk.”
“The captain’s walk?” Bess says with a quack. “It doesn’t even have stairs anymore. How’d she get up there?” She shakes her head. “Forget it. I don’t want to know. Good God, Cliff House is going to be the death of me.”
“Only if you’re not careful. So, why are you here? When your mother already knows about the TRO?”
Bess sighs.
“The thing is … the problem, you see. Chappy violated it this morning. Allegedly.”
Bess holds up air quotes long after the word has been spoken.
“Allegedly.” Evan smirks. “How so?”
“He sneezed or farted near the property or something,” Bess says with another sigh. “Anyway, I’m not here to quibble over the details and I fully recognize the ridiculousness of the situation. But your dad is very obstinate and peevish…”
“He’s peevish?”
“Yes. Very much so. Hear me out. Cissy and Chappy, they have their little repartee, their back-and-forth.”
“That they do.…”
“Their saucy insults and middle fingers.” Bess lifts one, as if to demonstrate.
“Bess Codman, you’re cute as ever.”
“But it’s a dance,” she says, ignoring Evan and speaking as fast as her mouth will carry her. “And the more he antagonizes her, the more she digs in. I’m trying to compel Cissy to leave Cliff House. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s about to fall into the ocean.”
“All of Nantucket has noticed. I heard Vanity Fair is writing an article about it.”
“Fantastic. And my grandmother weeps from the heavens,” Bess says. “Anyway, here’s the problem. I want Cis to leave but the more your father keeps sticking in her craw, the more she’s going to stick around here.”
“Cissy has a lot of craws.”
“Yes, she’s a real craw machine. Swear to God, Evan, if your dad was simply nice to her, if he treated her with a crumb of kindness or respect, she’d get bored and leave. Isn’t that what everyone wants? Cissy would be out of Chappy’s hair and I wouldn’t need to organize a funeral. As much as Cissy torments your dad, he doesn’t want her dead. I don’t think so anyway.”
“No,” Evan says. “He would not want that at all.”
“Can you just convince him to, I don’t know, step away from the fight? At least until I get her out of the house? Please?”
“All right, Bess,” Evan says, eyes softening, the playful spark falling right out of them. “I don’t know that he’ll take advice from me but I can sure as hell try.”
“Thank you.” She exhales. “That’s all I ask.”
As they stand stiff and silent, Bess notices the reflection of her sweatpants in the oven door. A sudden wave of dizziness overtakes her. What must she look like? Evan saw her in that very kitchen, in those very pants, a thousand years ago, back when Bess had the youth to make it seem like a casual outfit choice instead of the very definition of “giving up.”
“So, I’d better—”
“It’s been awhile, Bess,” Evan says, his voice like velvet. “How long?”
“Four years,” she answers with a sharp nod, as if confirming to herself.
“Since your wedding, then? Am I right?”
Bess nods again but won’t catch his eyes.
“Four years,” Evan says. “That’s quite awhile. Guess you didn’t miss this place.”
“Are you kidding?” She looks up. “I’ve missed it with every speck of my being. Sconset is a dream. The ocean. The sand. The wild roses and honeysuckle and bayberries on the dunes. There’s nowhere like it in the world.”
“Wow,” Evan says with a dry laugh. “They say Sconset is a place folks get sentimental about but I didn’t think that’d apply to Dr. Bess Codman.”
“Don’t even start with the ‘doctor’ stuff.”
“I have to say, you weren’t so enamored with the lilacs and bayberries when Cissy dragged you back here to finish up high school with all of us barbaric islanders.”
“Yes, poor me.” Bess rolls her eyes. “Don’t let my teenage surliness fool you. It’s what I wanted.”
“Uh, I thought it wasn’t your choice? If I recall, you were kicked out of boarding school.”
“Was I?” she says with a jokey shrug. “I don’t quite remember it that way. Well, it’s been real, but I’ll let you go.”
Bess pushes off from the counter, as if she needs the extra momentum to get out of that house.
“Thanks, Evan,” she says. “For not being a total jerk about this. Okay. See you later.”
She turns to go.
“We had fun, didn’t we?” Evan calls from where he stands, fixed against the cupboards.
Bess pauses and then peers over her shoulder.
“We did,” she says. “On the other hand, Nantucket can screw with your memories.”
“Listen, do you have anywhere to be?”
“Me?” Bess spins back around to face him. “Right now? This morning?”
“This very minute.”
“Aside from dragging my mother from her home? The answer is no, I have exactly nowhere else to be.”
Well, she has somewhere to be, but it would involve a flight to California.
“Wanna come to my jobsite?” He tilts his head toward the door. “I have a construction gig down the way.”
“You want me to visit your work?” Bess scrunches her forehead. “Doesn’t that seem a little…?”
“Calm down, Danielle Steele. I’m not going to put the moves on you. I may be dense about a lot of things, but I never make the same mistake twice.”
“Gosh thanks,” Bess mumbles. “You’ve made me positively weak-kneed.”
“Do you want to go or not? I think it’s a place you’d like to see.”
“Sure. Like I said, I don’t have anything else to do, other than stare off a cliff and reflect on my own mortality.”
“Perfect.” Evan claps a hand on her shoulder. “Trust me, you’ll get a kick out of this. And it should stir up a few memories.”
“Oh Lord. Memories. Well, make sure they’re only the good ones. The bad ones I plan to leave out on the bluff.”