As the party drew near, Nick seemed to get lost in the minutiae of Japanese lanterns and silver polish and white hydrangea. Hughes would find his wife awake in the middle of the night, her little reading lamp on, revising the menu for the one hundredth time.
His role was to stay calm and batten down the hatches. But the night before the party, he needed a little relief from the storm.
Nick was in the dining room, repolishing the silver setting for the early supper. She had just finished scolding Daisy about the state of her room and Hughes took the opportunity to raid the kitchen and bar before heading down to the boathouse to get drunk on whiskey sours. When he got there, he found Helena, also hiding out.
“What have you got there?” she whispered, gesturing to the bottle of whiskey and bowl of sugar he was carrying.
Hughes laughed. “You don’t have to whisper, Helena. She can’t hear us down here.”
“I love Nick, but I can’t stand all this … scurrying,” Helena said. “Anyway, what is that?”
“Whiskey sours.”
“I love whiskey sours,” Helena said, almost wistfully.
“Me too,” Hughes said, and pulled two lemons out of his back pocket. “Damn,” he said, looking around, “I forgot the ice.”
“And a shaker.” Helena held her palms up, eyebrows lifted, the picture of disaster.
“No,” Hughes said, winking at her. “I keep one here, behind the old anchor, for emergencies. But the ice is a problem.”
“I could go on a mission.” Helena smiled at him.
“Should we risk it?”
“You wait here.” She rose and made a production of tiptoeing off, her patterned dress swirling behind her.
Hughes blew on the inside of the shaker to remove the dust and then put the sugar, whiskey and lemon in and waited.
Helena finally returned with the small silver ice bucket that Nick had planned to use for the supper. Hughes had seen her polishing it earlier.
“I know, I know,” she said. “But I had to; the other one was too big.”
Hughes dropped a few ice cubes into the shaker and then joggled it briskly. He poured the sours off into the two plastic picnic cups.
“Madame,” he said, handing one to Helena.
Helena took a sip. “Hughes, you really are a marvel with a shaker.”
They sat quietly for a minute, enjoying the peace and the sharp cocktails.
“So, Helena,” he said finally, “how’s life?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Everything. Nothing.”
“Everything and nothing,” she repeated. “I suppose I’m happy everything turned out all right with the maid. With Ed, I mean. I know it didn’t really turn out all right for her.”
“I know what you meant.”
“I worry about him sometimes.” Helena drained her glass and Hughes refilled the shaker. “Well, I’m sure the Scouts will do him some good.” Hughes wanted to get away from this subject. “Straighten him out a little bit.”
Helena looked up sharply. “I don’t think he needs straightening out.”
“No, well.”
“He might not be like everyone else his age, but why should that matter? He’s free.”
“Free from what?” Jesus, she could be a kook sometimes.
“Free from … I don’t know, what other people want him to be. Avery says …” But she tapered off. “Never mind.” She held out her empty glass. “Anyway, that’s not the real problem.”
“Oh,” Hughes said, studiously squeezing more lemon juice.
“Hughes.” Helena’s voice softened. “We really need money. Do you think you could talk to Nick for me?”
“I’ll talk to her,” Hughes said, patting her hand, an idea forming in his head. “Now, give me that empty glass.”
The next morning was painful. Nick was up early, ordering the children out of bed, and Hughes went downstairs to help with breakfast. He had wanted to talk to her about his idea, but when she came into the kitchen, he realized she was in no mood.
Instead, he drove to Vineyard Haven to pick up the musicians. They were a ragtime band Dolly had recommended, the Top Liners or something. He waited at the curb and watched the Islander pull into dock, the dockhands rushing to the ferry slip to crank down the apron.
He watched several cars disembark, and then the foot passengers. Hughes could easily pick out the musicians from the small crowd: they were wearing dungarees and lugging their instruments in beat-up old cases. They looked as hungover as he was. Hughes walked over.
They squinted at him, almost in unison. “You Mr. Derringer?” This from the one carrying the banjo case.
“That’s right. The car’s over here.”
They put their instruments in the trunk and piled in, three in the back, two in the front with him, and he started the engine.
“Man …” One of the boys in the back let the word slide into one long breath.
“Hot, hot, hot.” The banjo player banged out a little rhythm on his knee.
They were all pretty young. Midtwenties, Hughes guessed. One of the boys next to him looked like he was asleep, his scruffy head laid all the way back against the seat. The other one, all dark hair and brooding eyes, ran his hand across the door upholstery.
“Where are you all from?” Hughes eyed the boys in the back through the rearview mirror.
“Around,” the dark one said, still running his hand over the fabric on the door.
“Yeah,” said the banjo player. “Here and there, and everywhere.” Another tap, tap, tap on the knee.
The whole band laughed. Hughes kept his eyes on the road. Jesus, Nick was going to kill him if they turned up like this.
“You boys want to stop for some Cokes?”
“Some Cokes?” The dark one laughed. “No, thanks.”
When he pulled into the back drive at Tiger House, Hughes saw Nick standing at the screen door, as if she had been waiting for them.
The banjo player whistled. “Nice house.”
“Hello,” Nick said, crossing the lawn to greet them as they staggered out of the car.
The musicians stared at her, bug-eyed. Hughes covered his face with his hand.
“I’m Nick Derringer. Which one of you is Tom?”
“That’s me,” the banjo player said, not moving.
“Hello,” the dark one said, rocking back on his heels, his trumpet case swaying in his hand.
Nick looked at them and then back at Hughes. “You all stay here,” she ordered. “Darling, can I speak with you for a minute?”
When they got inside the house, she turned on him and put her hands on her hips. “They’re stoned,” she said hotly, as if he was the one responsible.
“I wish I was stoned,” Hughes said. “You didn’t have to suffer through that car ride.”
“Goddamn it, it’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing,” he said, trying to repress a smile.
“Well, go find yourself a gin bottle and get to it, if it’ll keep you out of the way,” Nick said tartly.
“Are those the musicians?” Daisy’s little head appeared in the hallway.
“Daisy Derringer, go sweep the front walk, like I asked you to,” Nick said. She walked into the kitchen, where the Portuguese girls were preparing the food. “Can you girls make sure the boys out there get some iced tea? And some sandwiches, I suppose. But not the tea sandwiches, there’s some deviled ham in the pantry. They can have that. And for god’s sakes, don’t let them in the house.”
Hughes stood in the hallway, pressing his fingers to his temples. His head was still pounding. “What can I do to help?” he asked, hoping it would include an ice pack and a dark room.
Nick turned in the kitchen doorway. “You could help the men with the bandstand. Make sure they don’t put it in all crooked, like last year.”
Hughes nodded. He found an ice chest of beer on the front porch; the delivery boy must have just left it there without bothering to alert anyone. He pushed his hand inside, lifted a bottle and popped the cap with his Swiss Army knife. Then he sat down on the porch and started mulling over his plan for Ed. Something Helena had said the night before about being free had started him thinking.
Ed needed to go to boarding school and Hughes needed to pay for it, that was all there was to it. It was the only way he could gain some modicum of control over the boy. If Ed had anything to do with the murder of that girl, had been involved in any way, things couldn’t go on as they’d been going. It was too dangerous. But with Ed at school, Hughes could get reports and keep an eye on him. If the kid was just a snot-nosed jerk, he wouldn’t get away with it for very long there. And if it was worse than that, if it was something more than just bad behavior, the truth would come out. The plan made him feel good. Life was always better when you had a plan.
He saw Daisy lollygagging along the fence. The fact that she obviously wasn’t sweeping the walk made him smile.
“Hello there, sweetheart,” he called out from the porch. “Where’s your cousin?”
“I don’t know,” Daisy said, peering up at him. “He’s disappeared. He said he was going to check the mousetraps.”
Hughes blotted the image out of his head. Enough was enough: He would teach the boy a lesson about freedom. He hid his empty beer bottle in the rosebush and made his way down to check on the bandstand.
When the afternoon drew to a close, and the house had gone from hustle and bustle to total silence, Hughes headed upstairs to bathe and change for dinner. He was in the bedroom combing his damp hair when Nick returned from her own bath.
“Wait until you see my dress,” she said shimmying into her slip. “It’s divine.”
“Can you help me with these?” Hughes brought his cuff links over and dropped them into her hand.
She pulled his shirtsleeve straight, bringing the edges of his cuffs together.
“I’ve been thinking,” Hughes said. “About Ed. About how you said he probably needed more structure.”
“Did I? I think I meant he needed a father, a real one.”
“Well, there’s not much we can do about that. But I was thinking: Ed could go to boarding school. It would get him out of that house, away from Avery.”
“Oh, Hughes, they can’t afford it.” Nick fixed the second cuff link in.
“No, but we can.” He took her hand in his and Nick looked at him. “It would be something we could do for Helena, to make her life easier, without having to give Avery any money.”
“Can we really afford it?”
“We can manage.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “I’m not sure how Helena would feel about it.”
“She said herself that she’s been worrying about him.” Hughes let go of her hand and began adjusting his bow tie.
“She has been, that’s true.”
“She’s family, Nicky. It’s the least we can do. And with Ed gone, it might bring the situation with Avery into, I don’t know, starker relief?”
“Do you think so?”
“It’s possible.” Hughes watched her.
“It’s very generous of you, darling. And very dear.”
“I know how much you love her.”
“Yes,” Nick said. “Yes, I do. Oh, Hughes, imagine if she had a real chance at being happy.”
“First things first.”
“Yes. You’re right, it really is a very good plan. You’re very clever sometimes.”
“I’ll talk to her this evening. Before the supper.”
Hughes went to find the musicians and tell them they could change into their clothes in the boathouse. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find them running around the back lawn in their skivvies. They would be leaving by the last ferry and he had arranged for a man in town to take them.
“When you’re done you can bring your things back up here and he’ll load them,” Hughes instructed.
“Sure thing, Mr. Derringer,” the dark one said, not looking up from his trumpet.
Hughes would have liked to give the kid a good backhand, but he set his expression to neutral and waited until they’d cleared out. Then he picked up the scattered beer bottles and cigarette ends and brought them into the kitchen to dispose of them.
One of the Portuguese girls watched him, shaking her head.
“I agree,” Hughes said. “Not a good bunch.”
The girl just smiled at him.
They had a few minutes before their dinner guests would start arriving and Hughes made his way toward the blue sitting room to fix himself a drink.
“Hello.” He strode over to where his wife and her cousin were seated, bending down to kiss their cheeks. “Don’t you both look lovely.”
Nick was wearing a dress the color of the evening sky, with gold stitching running through it. She glowed.
“Hello, darling.”
“You were right,” Hughes said, “that dress is something.”
Helena got up and went over to the bar.
“I’ll do that,” Hughes said, but she waved him away, so he seated himself next to Nick, who smiled at him.
“You look …,” he whispered into her ear.
“I don’t know … Heartbreaking.”
She tilted her head back slightly and her red lips parted. He wanted Helena to go away and the party to go away and to just sit there with her and breathe in her sweetness until the clocks stopped.
When the Pritchards showed up, and then the Smith-Thompsons, Hughes could barely concentrate on the conversation. But after a while, he found his happiness wasn’t exclusive; it began to expand to include Helena, and his friends and the hot summer evening and the anticipation of the party. Nick had put on Count Basie and the ebb and flow of the jazz filled the sitting room, along with the cheerful sound of ice cubes hitting glass.
He watched his wife move among their guests, her hand resting here on Dolly’s arm, and there at Caro’s waist, bending her head in to listen intently to something Arthur Smith-Thompson said and then laugh at Rory spilling his drink on the Oriental rug. Everything felt good and right. Like it would last forever.
It lasted only until dinner, when the conversation turned to Frank Wilcox and the damn murder. Dolly had brought it up, and Caro had said something silly about the girl wanting to catch herself a big fish and Nick had gone off to some dark place, practically accusing their guests of being complicit in the crime.
Hughes had tried to set the tone right, pouring more wine and joking around, but he could tell they’d lost Nick for the evening. It made him angry. Caro was a nice woman, but she was a ninny and there was no reason for Nick to go spoiling everything over some foolish, offhand comment.
When they had finished eating, and their guests had moved out to the lawn to join the gathering crowd and listen to the first tune from the band, Hughes cornered Nick on the porch.
“Nicky, what’s the matter?”
“What do you mean?” She wouldn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, twisting the fabric of the dress between her fingers. “I can’t help it. Every time I think about that poor girl, I just can’t … breathe.”
Hughes could see she was close to tears. “All right, all right. Jesus. It’s OK. Don’t get upset.”
“Well, I am upset, goddamn it.” She turned on him. “Why can’t you understand what’s happened? Can’t you feel it? Like everything good is … Like it means something else. Like everything is becoming infected. Why don’t you see that?”
“Nick, you can’t, I don’t know, obsess about this. Wilcox is just a shit and what happened to the girl is a tragedy. But that’s it. It’s not any bigger or smaller than that.”
Nick looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language and then slowly nodded her head. “Of course, you’re right, darling. I’m being silly.”
He felt her slipping farther away from him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“We should see to our guests,” she said, crisply, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in her dress. “It’s not a very good party when the hostess has a crying jag on the porch, is it?”
“The hostess is perfect,” he said. “Maybe she just needs a glass of champagne.”
Hughes offered Nick his arm and guided her down to the front lawn. He went to the bar to get two glasses of champagne, but when he returned to the spot where he had left her, Nick had disappeared.
Searching for her in the sea of people, Hughes spotted Arthur heading straight for him.
“Hello, hello.”
“Found the bar, did you?” Hughes clapped him on the back.
“Sure did.” They both surveyed the party for a moment, and then Arthur said: “I knew that girl. The maid.”
Hughes turned toward him and Arthur looked away.
“She worked for us last summer.”
“Did she?” Hughes said. “I didn’t know that.”
Arthur was nodding his head. “Yes. Elena. She was …” Arthur stopped, and then said softly, “The kind of girl you couldn’t help but look at.”
Music drifted over them.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Frank. Who did it, I mean.” Arthur swallowed the rest of his drink.
Hughes stared at him.
“She was like that. Seductive, I guess you could call it. Pull you in and then push you away.”
There was a bitterness in his tone that made Hughes feel slightly sick.
“You know?” Arthur said.
“I’m not sure I do.”
“I just hope Frank didn’t fall for it. Would be a damn shame for him. I mean, Caro’s got a point. It was only a matter of time before there was some kind of trouble, with that girl chasing after married men. That’s what burns me. People running around, making a mess out of everything. First wanting this and then wanting that. Never stopping to realize there’s somebody else in the room, if you see what I mean.”
“Well, I hardly think we can blame the poor girl for getting murdered,” Hughes said.
“But it is girls like that,” Arthur said violently. “Never realizing what they have. Always wanting something else.”
Hughes looked at his friend. Arthur’s face had turned ugly. He thought about Eva, and then about Nick. And all at once he understood what his wife had meant. He had to find her.
“Excuse me, Arthur,” Hughes said. “I should probably go see if Nick needs any help.”
“Of course,” Arthur said, but he wasn’t listening.
The party was in full swing and it took Hughes ages to cross from one side of the lawn to the other, stopping every few seconds to glad-hand their guests. The band was playing a Noël Coward song, and Hughes wondered, belatedly, how they planned to do ragtime without a piano. He laughed. They’d been had. It didn’t seem to matter, though; their guests’ voices were a dull roar, the line for the bar was long but not too long, and couples had begun to dance happily to whatever the Top Liners saw fit to play.
He looked for Nick’s dark hair and blue dress among the white dinner jackets and pastel silks, to no avail. When he reached the bar, he found Daisy and her little friend with the dark bangs. They were mooning around, probably trying to figure a way to sneak some champagne.
“Hello, girls.”
Daisy’s friend had a funny way about her, dramatic and charming, answering all his questions like she was in a play. It made Hughes smile, but Daisy seemed embarrassed.
He took pity on the girls and asked the bartender to put a few drops of wine in some water for them, and then shooed them off to go listen to the band.
He continued to shake hands and kiss cheeks, but he was feeling increasingly desperate to find Nick. At one point he saw her down by the bandstand, talking to his daughter and that boy, the one who had a crush on her. But by the time he got down there, they had all wandered off somewhere else. It was like being in a dream, where you try to run, but can only move in slow motion.
He was scanning the lawn for what seemed like the hundredth time when Dolly Pritchard found him.
“Hello,” Hughes said. “I’ve been on a hunt for my wife, but she keeps eluding me.”
“Oh dear,” Dolly said. “That doesn’t sound satisfactory at all.”
“No,” Hughes said. “It isn’t.”
“You know, I think she said she was going down to the boathouse to cool off.”
The band had gone on a break and now only laughter and the buzz of conversation filled the night. Hughes squinted toward the dock, and the small strip of beach, looking to see if Nick was dipping her toes in the water. She did that sometimes when she’d had too much to drink; she said it had a sobering effect.
“Toes are very sensitive, you know,” she’d say. “Most people ignore them, but they’re our first contact with the ground every day. Like antennae.”
Hughes thought about all the little things, her small fancies, hundreds, thousands, enough to fill days. How had he missed all that? He thought again about what she’d said about the murder ruining everything. He did know what she meant, but she was wrong. Nothing had changed, not really; it was just with a thing like that, you had to choose sides. And when it came to your friends, you all had to smile while you did it, pretending you were in happy agreement. That’s what made it hard, all the tension of pretense and false understanding. Hughes was beginning to realize that he was better at not choosing a side. He’d worn Eva like armor, against Nick, against the possibility he wasn’t who he wanted to be. And the whole time, she’d been there, waiting, like something frozen in amber.
He felt an urgent tug at his sleeve and turned. Daisy was standing there, wild-eyed.
“Where’s Mummy?” Her voice sounded squeaky, desperate.
“Daisy.” He took her by the shoulder, a feeling of panic rising in him. “What’s wrong?”
“Where’s Mummy? I need Mummy.”
“I don’t know, sweet pea.” Hughes looked down the lawn again. “I think she said she was going down to the boathouse to cool off.”
His daughter wrenched herself out of his grasp and tore down toward the harbor. He called after her, but she didn’t turn around. For some reason, his mind went back to the phone ringing in the house on Traill Street, the feel of the cold receiver pressed against his ear. He hesitated for a moment and then followed quickly, pushing past groups of guests who called out to him.
He made for the far side of the boathouse. From there, he could see the outdoor shower silhouetted against the sky. He heard water running through the pipes: Nick must be in the shower, which also meant she must be drunk.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw someone else, Ed, pressed up against the wooden slats, looking in. Hughes froze. He could feel the chemicals making their way through his bloodstream, cramping his limbs and constricting his lungs. Then, all at once, Daisy appeared from the dock end and Hughes watched her stop in her tracks. She started mumbling something that sounded like Sunday school lessons and Hughes saw Ed turn at the sound of her voice. He knew he should move, do something, but his legs were made of lead.
The two children were staring at each other now, like they were communicating in some kind of secret, silent language. He could hear Nick start to sing in the shower, a sweet tune from earlier in the evening.
And then Daisy called out for her mother.
Hughes heard Ed say, “Curiosity killed the cat.”
He felt his muscles tightening, coiling inside him.
“But satisfaction brought it back,” Daisy said softly.
Hughes saw Ed cock his head, the same way he had after Hughes had hit him.
“What are you doing looking at my mother, Ed Lewis? Are you a sex maniac? Like Mr. Wilcox?”
“Don’t talk about Mr. Wilcox.” The boy’s voice was hard and flat, but it lacked the mockery he had directed at Hughes. It was more … what? Defensive? Hurt? He couldn’t put his finger on it, exactly.
“Those matches,” Daisy said, “the ones from the Hideaway …”
The Hideaway, the matches, the sheriff. Like a latch being sprung, Hughes felt his muscles release and he was running.
“Daisy, get away from him. Now.”
He watched his daughter step back quickly at the sound of his voice. Ed turned and faced him, almost like he was glad, like he’d been waiting for him. Hughes grabbed the boy’s arm, his own momentum pulling Ed along with him toward the beach. He twisted the arm, hard, feeling the young muscle and sinew and bone resisting the pressure, and thought momentarily about breaking it. He could imagine the satisfying snap, the surprise on Ed’s face. He could feel the sense of triumph. But Hughes could hear his guests in the distance, so he released his grip slightly and put his face as close to Ed’s as he could. He could smell his own breath, boozy, in the small space between them.
“Now, you listen to me.” Hughes was panting. His scalp itched with sweat. “I know you. I know what you are.” He tried to control his breathing. “Yes, I do.” He wrenched the boy’s arm again, cruelly. “So here’s what’s going to happen. If you ever come near my wife again, if you ever look at my daughter the way you did tonight, if you so much as breathe in their direction in a way I don’t like, I will wait until you are asleep one night and I will come into your room and I will break your neck. I will break it, and then I will tell them you fell down the stairs sleepwalking.” Hughes thought he saw a flicker of doubt in the boy’s eyes, a sliding to the side as if he was considering the threat. “Do we understand each other?”
He watched the boy wince slightly, just a small movement between the corner of his lip and the crook of his eye. He must be hurting him. Hughes began to straighten up, prepared to let him go, his message delivered, but Ed leaned in closer, putting his lips to Hughes’s ear.
“It was research,” the boy whispered. “Frank Wilcox and the girl. My mother and Mr. Fox. Aunt Nick and that trumpet player. I saw them.”
Hughes felt all the energy drain from him, and his skin prickled. He could hear the boy’s breathing while he paused.
“I told you,” he continued, “no one says anything they really mean. None of it’s real.” Ed pulled back and looked at Hughes, as if he really wanted him to understand something. “I think—I don’t know yet—but I think they’re going about it all the wrong way.”
Hughes could feel his brain shutting down; he let go of the boy’s arm. Ed straightened up, rubbing the place where Hughes had held him. He searched his face for something, then nodded slightly, and walked slowly off, back toward the party. Hughes stood rooted to the spot. He could hear people laughing. He saw the lights of the boats in the harbor winking at him, and heard the masts pinging in the distance. The trumpet wailed out into the night. He closed his eyes.
He didn’t know how long he stood like that, thinking of nothing, his mind smooth and empty. Finally, he turned away from the water. A lantern was lit in the boathouse, and he walked toward it. He saw Daisy sitting on the floor, her head on Nick’s lap. His wife’s hair was still damp from the shower, but she was wearing her evening dress, the gold thread leaping in the lamplight.
Out of sight, he leaned against the wall and listened.
“I don’t care,” Daisy was saying. “I hate all of them.”
“Darling.” Nick’s voice was kinder, gentler than it usually was when she was speaking to their daughter. “I want you to listen to me. I’m going to tell you this because someday it may be very important for you to remember. If there’s one thing you can be sure about in this life, it’s that you won’t always be kissing the right person.”
Hughes looked up at the sky and a noise escaped him, a strange, sorrowful sound he didn’t know he was capable of making. He ran his hands over his eyes and then, stiffening his spine, he levered himself away from the boathouse, the rough surface of the clapboard pushing back against his palms.
He walked toward the door, and entered the lit interior, feeling the glow of the lantern on his clammy skin. Daisy’s little tearstained face looked up at him from her mother’s lap, and Nick smiled at him, softly, conspiratorially.
“Here you are,” Hughes said. “Just where I thought you’d be. My two best girls. I’m so glad.”