Summer of '69(48)

Blair bursts into tears.



Kate makes two fresh screwdrivers and leads Blair up to her own bedroom, where she turns the air-conditioning unit on high. Exalta doesn’t like anyone to use the air-conditioning until July but it’s already sweltering. Not only is poor Blair hysterical, she’s shining with perspiration. She needs a cool room where they can talk privately; the noise of the air conditioner will mask their words should Exalta and Jessie come home.

Kate worries about Blair making it up the stairs. She is so big.

Blair flops on the bed and kicks her sandals off her swollen feet. Kate hands her a screwdriver.

“Take a sip,” she says. “The vodka will calm you, and the juice is filled with vitamin C, good for the babies.”

Blair accepts the glass and sucks the entire thing down. Kate takes a handkerchief from her lingerie drawer. If Blair is here, there must be very bad news indeed, but Kate welcomes the distraction from worrying about Tiger.

“What happened?” Kate asked.

Blair shakes her head. “It’s over with Angus.”

“Now, Blair,” Kate says. “I told you—”

“It wasn’t my decision,” she says. “It was Angus’s decision. He asked me to leave.”

“What?” Kate says. She considers Angus a little strange, a bit socially awkward, possibly due to his unusually high IQ, but she never imagined him to be the kind of man who would put his pregnant wife out on the street. It’s…barbaric, is what it is. And she’s pregnant with twins. “Is this because of that woman?” Kate closes her eyes and bats away thoughts of Wilder and all the heartbreak she endured with him.

“He admitted he was seeing her,” Blair says. “And then he asked me to leave.”

“I’m…I’m speechless,” Kate says. “I can’t fathom Angus being so cruel.”

Blair casts her eyes down at her prodigious midsection. “It wasn’t entirely Angus’s fault. Joey Whalen came for a visit, and…”

Dear God, Kate thinks, what is Blair going to say?

“…and I kissed him, Mother. Really kissed him. And Angus walked in on us!” Blair starts weeping again. “Angus surprised me at home with flowers to celebrate the news about the twins and I was necking with his brother!”

Oh dear, Kate thinks. She has long suspected that Blair still carries a torch for Joey and vice versa.

“Surely Angus understands that you were upset about his relationship with the other woman? And surely you explained that you aren’t yourself because of your condition?”

“He wouldn’t hear any of that,” Blair says. “Joey made it worse by proclaiming his love for me. They had a fistfight right in front of me and then Angus told me he thought I would be happier with Joey anyway.”

“What?” Kate says. “Nonsense!”

“Joey drove me to the ferry,” Blair says. “I think he still has feelings for me. In fact, I know he does.”

“How Joey Whalen feels is not our concern,” Kate says. “Our concern is how you feel, and you love Angus. Right?”

Blair hesitates, but her answer to this question doesn’t matter. She married Angus for better or for worse. Angus is the father of those babies, not Joey. Fatherhood isn’t something you can just pass off to another man. Although Kate did just that; David raised her three children like they were his own.

“Joey is thoughtful and dotes on me,” Blair says. “I’m sure he would encourage me to work after the babies are born if I wanted to.”

“Work after the babies are born?” Kate says. “You’re having twins, sweet pea. They’ll provide plenty of work.”

“I wanted whipped cream on my cake and Joey ran and bought some from the ice cream man,” Blair says.

Kate puts an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “You need to stop talking nonsense. You’re married to Angus, you’ll remain married to Angus, and you will stay home and raise those children just like I stayed home to raise you. Motherhood is a sacrifice. That’s what makes it so rewarding.”

“But—”

“Angus will come around in a few days,” Kate says. “A week at the most. And then we’ll ship you home.”

While Blair sobs into the handkerchief, Kate considers the logistics of having Blair here for even a week. They’ll need to call the cottage hospital that very afternoon to make certain there’s a doctor who can deliver the babies in case of emergency. And where will Blair sleep? Kate can’t put her in Little Fair with the Crimminses; she’ll have to take Jessie’s room, and Jessie can go over to Little Fair. That’s not optimal, but it’s only a week. Jessie will survive.

Poor Jessie. Kate promised her a beach day, and that’s now out the window, plus she’s being kicked out of her bedroom. Kate downs her screwdriver, and despite the chaos, a calm spreads through her. She’ll take Jessie out to dinner Thursday night while Exalta is at bridge. And she’ll start to give Jessie a little more freedom. That’s what all kids want these days, Kate thinks. Freedom.





Magic Carpet Ride (Reprise)



Kirby spends her first days off being a third wheel with Patty and Luke, who have very quickly become a couple. Luke Winslow is a rising senior at Columbia University; he’s majoring in business and when he graduates, he will head straight to Wall Street, he says, to work for his father’s investment firm, Drexel Harriman Ripley. In fact, Luke’s parents own the house on the Vineyard where Patty’s brother Tommy and his roommate, Eugene, live. Kirby expects something halfway between a flophouse and a fraternity house, but when they pull into the driveway, after a beautiful, hilly, bucolic ride up-island to Chilmark, Kirby sees a compound that overlooks Nashaquitsa Pond. There are two ranch houses sided with cedar shingles like most of the homes on Nantucket. The slightly smaller one is where the boys live. Luke’s parents live in the other, though they come to the Vineyard only on the weekends.