The Winters(41)

I was reeling. In twenty-four hours we’d gone from the disastrous boathouse interruption to the greenhouse confrontation to my near abandonment to a quickie wedding. Dani had not flung herself onto the carpet in paroxysms. She had not lit herself on fire.

We both collapsed onto the couch.

“Maybe she didn’t want to make a scene in front of Claire,” I whispered.

“I don’t care why. Let’s just be grateful.”

He took my hand and kissed it, closing his eyes. Perhaps Max was willing to see any progress through rosy lenses, but nothing in me trusted her yet. Arm’s length was as close as I wanted Dani Winter to get to me or my wedding plans.





SIXTEEN


I suppose it shouldn’t have been surprising that wedding planning came easily to me. I had always been organized and frugal, but I became uncharacteristically decisive by employing one simple rule: anything that Rebekah had done for her wedding, I would not. Louisa became my best resource, because there were, to my disappointment, no pictures of Max and Rebekah’s wedding to reference. Louisa told me Rebekah hadn’t allowed cameras that day. She had thoroughly documented their courtship (and subsequent honeymoon in Venice), but had wanted her wedding to pay homage to Asherley’s bygone era. She even asked guests to drop their phones in a basket when they entered the house. I envied that directive, privacy being my natural inclination. Louisa told me when Rebekah had caught Jonah furtively monitoring the score of a baseball game on Max’s laptop in the den, she poured her drink on the keyboard.

“They didn’t speak for weeks, which killed him. He was in love with Rebekah, though to this day he’ll never admit it,” Louisa said, rolling her eyes.

As for the menu, Louisa told me they had only served food sourced on or around the island: venison and pheasant stuffed with ramps, wild garlic, and mushrooms, and strawberries and cream for dessert. No wedding cake. Rebekah found cake gauche.

What would we serve? For such a small affair, and it being informal, I decided we’d have a catered barbecue: corn on the cob, potato salad, a roasted pig, lobster rolls, cake, and ice cream.

Max gave me his guest list over breakfast one day, family, friends, neighbors, and a few close political associates from Albany, fewer than forty people in all. I insisted we invite Katya—I didn’t want her to work—but Max drew the line at Gus. He was strictly an employee.

“Besides,” he said, “I think Dani’s got a little crush on him, and I don’t like it.”

This took me aback. She certainly ordered him around and gave him odd directives, like keeping an eye on me. But if anything, he often seemed reluctant to be around her. When she crossed the lawn to visit Isabel, he’d often leave the barn. Same if I found him in the kitchen eating something. The minute Dani came in, especially if she was in pajamas, he’d bolt.

When I didn’t reply, Max asked outright. “You’ve never noticed any flirtation between them?”

“No. Never. Not on his part anyway,” I said, remembering the trouble Laureen told me she’d once gotten up to in the Caymans.

“Anyway, she needs more friends her age,” he said, and looked down at the list. “Is there anyone you’d like to invite?”

This was a gentle question, a necessary one, too, though Max already seemed to know the answer.

“I don’t think so,” I said, trying to keep the sadness from leaching into my voice.

He took my hand and kissed it, then pressed it to his heart. “You are very much loved here. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

The most significant person in my life, other than Max, had been Laureen, and I couldn’t imagine her wide, sunburned face among the intimate crowd. Still, after he left for work, I wrote her an email, to let her know that a wedding was in the offing, counting on her prediction that there was still time for my affair with Max to blow up in my face.

Her reply was terse.


Honestly, I didn’t think I’d hear from you again. But you’ve always been a surprising person. Am just back from St. Barts. Found someone to run the marina, and two new captains for the smaller boats I’m still running from there. Sadly, I have to ground the Singularis until the lawsuit is settled. Sucks because she was my big moneymaker. God I hate the British more than the Americans if you can believe it. Well, congratulations then. I’m glad it wasn’t a total disaster and I do hope you’ll be happy in America. John-John will soon retire due to his heart. My health is mostly good.

I could hear her Australian twang in those blunt sentences and see her stomping through the streets of Gustavia trying to rustle up marina help, decent boat captains, and fishing guides. That would have been one of my jobs, had I gotten on the plane that day. My alternative life haunted me sometimes. I saw myself jotting down the day’s tasks while sitting on the balcony of my small company condo, the outside painted lemon yellow probably, the inside decorated with a tacky shell motif. I’d check the time, then race to the airport, waiting in the overly air-conditioned arrivals lounge for the next clients to deplane. But that was not my life. Instead, after a breakfast that someone else prepared for me, and seeing my fiancé off to work, I entered Asherley’s formal dining room to plan my wedding, parting the heavy damask curtains so the sun could hit my shoulders. If Laureen could see me holding court at the end of this polished table, so shiny the whites of my eyes reflected on its surface, what would she say? Would she note how comfortable I looked, surrounded by clippings from bridal magazines, a cup of coffee cooling on a place mat? Or would she say I looked like a fraudulent wannabe, a sorry substitute for the stylish Rebekah? She’s nothing but a scrubby beach urchin, she’d say. Not one person of her own to invite to her wedding. That says something about a person, doesn’t it? That she has nobody but Max. When a woman only has a man to count on, she’s taken a very wrong turn in her life.