Winter Solstice (Winter #4)(26)
This is Rachel’s cue to drift away and either find someone else to foist her business on—Hunter Bloch Sr. would do, he always has a stable of millionaires and billionaires on his client list—or go talk to her husband, although Eddie has always found something vaguely pathetic about husband and wife conversing together at parties. But is it any more pathetic than showing up at a party with your daughter—who ditched him at the first possible opportunity, he notes—instead of your wife?
It hardly matters because Rachel remains in front of Eddie, her face upturned and expectant, as though she’s waiting for Eddie to kiss her. Rachel, too, has a son in college. Calgary. (What kind of name is that? Eddie has always wondered. It would really only be acceptable as a name if one grew up in Alberta or if it was a family name, but Eddie gets the feeling that if he asks Rachel, she’ll confide that she just “liked the sound of it.”) Calgary attends… UC Berkeley, where he’s studying Japanese. Possibly Rachel wants to brag about Calgary or ask about Hope or comment on Allegra’s geisha costume. Eddie can’t predict, but one thing is for certain—he isn’t walking around this party with Rachel McMann stuck to him like a burr on his sweater.
He takes another sustaining sip of his drink. “Was there something else?”
“Sort of?” Rachel says. “I’m not sure if I should mention it? I’m not sure if you care?”
Eddie looks down: Is his fly open?
“What is it, Rachel?” he asks. She’s not sure if she should mention it, which means she damn well better mention it. And immediately.
“Benton Coe is here,” Rachel says. “By ‘here’ I mean at this party—he came as a guest of Edith Allemand, who has that gorgeous property at the top of Main Street—but I also mean ‘here’ as in here on Nantucket. Back on Nantucket. For good. He’s finished in Detroit. He’s moving back here and he’s even spending the winter.”
“Well, you were right to wonder,” Eddie says. “Because I don’t care.”
Rachel shrugs. “Okay.”
But the fact of the matter is: Eddie does care. He cares very much. Benton Coe, Eddie and Grace’s former landscape architect, Grace’s former lover, is back on Nantucket for good. He’s going to spend the winter here, instead of going wherever he used to go.
Eddie quickly throws back the rest of his martini, then returns to the bar for another one. He should eat something. He’s starving and there’s a lavish buffet, but his first order of business now has to be putting his eyes on Benton Coe.
With his second cocktail in hand, Eddie peruses the crowd. A few people see Eddie looking and wave. Eddie waves back, despite not being quite sure whom he’s waving at. It’s a bad habit—but he can’t be expected to curb his indiscriminate waving when he’s so stressed out.
Benton Coe is here. Here at this party. Here on Nantucket. For good. What are the chances that Rachel is mistaken? Eddie wonders. But no sooner does he entertain this soothing notion than he sees Benton Coe two tables over. The reason Eddie didn’t pick him out right away is because he’s wearing a Groucho Marx glasses-nose-and-mustache combo. It’s horrifically ironic that the only other person at the party in a costume of sorts is Benton Coe. Benton is with Edith Allemand, a spry woman of eighty or so. She is fearsomely WASPy, notoriously old-school Nantucket, persnickety about not only her home and gardens but the historical integrity of Main Street in particular and the island in general. Edith Allemand doesn’t know Eddie Pancik, but if she did, she would not approve of him. She would consider him a wash-ashore, even though he’s been here over twenty years. He’s a real estate broker, and therefore, to Mrs. Allemand, he would represent everything that’s wrong with Nantucket—and that’s before finding out about his recent escapades.
Benton removes his nose and mustache and sets it on the table so that he can dig into a pile of mashed potatoes. Benton looks older, Eddie notes with satisfaction. There’s some gray in his red hair and he has wrinkled up a bit, probably thanks to so many hours in the sun. Sun… in Detroit? Isn’t that where Benton Coe has been? Jump-starting gentrification and greening up the most dangerous city in America? Well, Detroit has done Benton Coe no favors.
Eddie approaches the table. He’s not sure what he’s going to say. Maybe he won’t say anything. Maybe he’ll just stand there until Benton Coe notices him, excuses himself from Edith Allemand, and steps with Eddie outside, where they can have words privately.
Eddie steps up. Benton raises his face, sees Eddie, awards him a curt nod, then continues his conversation with Mrs. Allemand.
Eddie throws back the second martini in one long gulp. He will not be dismissed by the man who slept with his wife. He steps right up to Benton’s chair and taps one of his very broad shoulders. He feels brave, but he doesn’t want this to escalate into a physical confrontation, because Eddie will lose. Benton has him by six inches and forty pounds. At least.
And so Eddie tries to manufacture conviviality. “Benton Coe, is that you? I thought that was you, but then I thought, ‘No, my pal Benton lives in Detroit now.’ I figured you’d still be there, hanging out with Justin Verlander and Kid Rock.”
“Eddie,” Benton says. He takes a deep breath, then moves his napkin from his knee to the table and stands up to offer Eddie his hand. They shake. Benton’s grip is firmer than it needs to be, Eddie thinks. Maybe he’s trying to send Eddie a nonverbal warning. “Eddie Pancik, please meet my friend Edith Allemand. Edith, this is Eddie Pancik.”