The Identicals(33)

Tabitha knew right then what she should do: ask this guy to give his roommate Tabitha’s number. But Wyatt is cute, and Tabitha doesn’t want to offend him.

Wyatt smiles. “You live next door, right? I’ve noticed you walking your dog. If you’re not busy later, the Radiators are playing at the Muse. I have an extra ticket.”

“I’d love to go,” Tabitha says.

That’s the thing about relationships, Tabitha thinks. They start innocently, based on shared interests, hormones, and the prospect of fun. She and Wyatt go to see the Radiators at the Muse. They dance and drink cheap draft beer; they kiss in the front seat of Wyatt’s Jeep in front of Steamboat Pizza. They have sex for the first time three days later on the tiny harborfront beach in front of Sayle’s Seafood—on top of an overturned kayak. Wyatt doesn’t have an Ivy League education or a college education of any kind. Painting houses, smoking weed, and seeing bands are the ways he spends his time. He has no ambitions, but Tabitha convinces herself it doesn’t matter. No matter where this relationship goes, it will end on Labor Day.

They become boyfriend and girlfriend and drive out to see the sun set in Madaket and go to bonfires with the guys Wyatt paints with and go to the Dreamland theater to see Armageddon on the one day that it rains. When Tabitha leaves for Boston to start working for her mother, she stands at the railing of the ferry waving a fond adieu to Wyatt, and she marvels at what a storybook summer romance she has just enjoyed.

A week later she will discover that she is pregnant. When Tabitha tells Eleanor, she expects her mother will insist she and Wyatt get married, but Eleanor does just the opposite. She doesn’t think Wyatt is good enough for Tabitha to marry. She says, “Don’t make…” But then she trails off, leaving Tabitha to finish the thought. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Tabitha is incensed by this; she is sick of Eleanor’s innate sense of superiority just because Eleanor’s father was a bank president and her mother a miserable matron of Beacon Hill. Tabitha nearly marries Wyatt out of spite. But in her heart, Tabitha knows she doesn’t love him enough to stay married forever, and she will not get divorced, as Eleanor and Billy did. Not ever.

“Is it Ainsley?” Wyatt asks. “Is she in jail? Did she run off and elope? Did she OD?”

Tabitha laughs, though, sadly, none of those guesses is out of the question. “Ainsley is fine. Or sort of. So… I should have told you this earlier: my father died.”

“And I should have called you earlier,” Wyatt says. “Because I saw your sister’s post on Facebook.”

“You’re friends with my sister on Facebook?” Tabitha says. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Tabitha, stop.”

Tabitha has a lot of old hurt inside her, and this man knows how to tap into it.

“You’re right,” she says. “You should have called. He’s your daughter’s grandfather.”

“You should have told me,” Wyatt says. “I shouldn’t have had to find out on social media.” He huffs. “Listen: I’m sorry about Billy. He was a great guy. Whenever I had jobs on the Vineyard, I met him for lunch.”

“You met my father for lunch?” she says. “I’m sure you saw Harper while you were at it.”

“Tabitha, stop.”

Stop, she thinks. Pursuing this particular strain of conversation will lead to no good. Tabitha takes a sustaining breath. “I can’t begin to explain what happened at the memorial reception, so all I’ll say is that my mother drank too much, and when we got home to Nantucket, she fell down the front steps of her house and broke her hip.”

“Oh, jeez,” Wyatt says.

“And so now I’m in Boston and she’s having surgery tomorrow and I won’t be able to get home until Wednesday night at the earliest and I’m wondering if you might be able to go over to the island and keep an eye on Ainsley.”

“Wow,” Wyatt says, and Tabitha immediately knows what’s coming.

I wish I could, she mouths.

“I wish I could,” he says. “But I have a project in Orleans that’s on deadline, and Carpenter has pinkeye, so our house is kind of on lockdown.”

“I wasn’t suggesting Ainsley go there,” Tabitha says. “I know Becky doesn’t like her.”

“Becky likes her just fine,” Wyatt says in a combative tone. “But I have three kids, Tabitha.”

“You have four kids,” Tabitha says. You had five kids, she thinks. She wonders how often Wyatt thinks about Julian. “And one of them needs you.”

“Don’t be this way, Tabitha, please.”

“You’re her father,” Tabitha says. “Act like it for once.”

“Good-bye, Tabitha,” Wyatt says, and he hangs up, leaving Tabitha to watch his name vanish from her cell-phone screen. She supposes that asking Wyatt to take Ainsley for the summer is out of the question.



Whom else can Tabitha call? The next person who comes to mind is Stephanie Beasley. Candace had been at that party, which is both good news and bad news. It’s good news because apparently Ainsley and Candace are friends again, and it’s bad news because if Stephanie has found out about the details of the party, she will never let Ainsley stay there. Tabitha has to ask. She will not have Ainsley staying with Emma Marlowe and her father. Tabitha imagines more Snapchat photos: Ainsley and Emma and Dutch all doing shots of Jack Daniel’s and snorting lines of cocaine off the granite countertops in the kitchen, Ainsley in lingerie, sitting on Dutch’s lap. No!