Winter Solstice (Winter #4)(30)

“Chickens?” Bart says. His stomach lurches. He can’t talk about chickens.

“My mother was annoying at times, and my father used to complain about how much money we were costing him. But then, over the course of one summer, my mother started having an affair with our landscaper, and my father ran a prostitution ring out in Sconset. He went to jail. He just got out in July. We lost the house in Wauwinet, and now we all live in this tiny cottage in town.”

Bart nods. Affair. Prostitution ring. Jail. He knows he should be shocked, but if anyone has a family with weirder stories than Allegra, it’s Bart Quinn.

“But your parents are still together?” Bart asks. “They survived?”

“They are,” Allegra says. “They did. My mom didn’t come tonight because she’s volunteering at Academy Hill. Handing out candy.”

“My parents are still together too,” Bart says. “And my mother had an affair.” Here he shakes his head. He eyes the bottle of tequila but drinks his beer instead. “With this guy named George who came to our inn every year to play Santa Claus.”

This makes Allegra laugh. As it should. Because it’s absurd. Apparently, while Bart was away, Kelley and Mitzi separated. Mitzi moved with George to Lenox, Massachusetts. And Kelley entertained thoughts of getting back together with Margaret, his first wife. But love won out in the end—that’s what Mitzi said when she explained it all to Bart. She said she wanted to tell Bart everything so that there were no secrets in the family. But honestly, Bart feels like he wouldn’t have minded if Kelley and Mitzi had kept all of that a secret forever. Mitzi and George—ick! And it had been going on all the years that Bart was growing up, even back when Bart believed that George was Santa Claus.

“My siblings are fine,” Bart concedes. “They’re my half siblings, the children of my father and Margaret Quinn, the news anchor.”

Allegra nods like she gets it, but she may be too young to know who Margaret Quinn is. Only old people watch the news on TV.

“Patrick and Kevin are married with kids,” Bart says. He thinks about informing Allegra that Patrick has also been to jail recently, but why not save some surprises for the second date? “Ava teaches music in New York City. She’s still single, but she’s dating some guy. A professor.”

“Your sister was my music teacher in fifth grade,” Allegra says.

Bart laughs. “She was?” he says. “Too bad for you.”


Tequila shot #3:

He’s trying to decide if Allegra might be a person to whom he can confide everything. She has good listening skills, and she seems to have a fair amount of emotional depth, more than one would expect from a beautiful nineteen—year-old. Girls who look like Allegra have life unfold easily. They get what they want. They don’t hit roadblocks. Allegra seems to have a few demons of her own, although they are nothing compared with Bart’s. She’s never been out of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is, in essence, him before he joined the Marines.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Bart asks. Here he is, all but proposing to the girl, and he hasn’t even checked if she’s available. Girls as pretty as Allegra always have boyfriends, he reasons. But then again, if she had a boyfriend, would she have agreed to come outside with him?

“Had,” she says. “Until recently. Hunter Bloch. You know him?”

“Ugh,” Bart says. “Yes.” Hunter Bloch was two years ahead of Bart in high school. He was a hockey player and his father had money, two factors that made Bart steer clear of the guy. “Until how recently?”

“We dated for four months,” Allegra says. “I found out a couple of days ago that he was cheating on me.”

Bart whistles. “Idiot.”

Allegra executes her cute little bow again.

“Maybe his stupid mistake is my good fortune?” Bart says.

Allegra tilts her head. “Maybe.”

Is it the tequila taking control of his brain, or is she actually the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on? “I haven’t dated anyone since high school,” he says. “I mean, before I deployed, there were girls… one-night stands.”

Allegra says, “I would expect nothing less.”

“Then I was held prisoner for two years,” Bart says. “I watched half of my buddies…”

“Bart,” she says. She steps closer to him and takes his hand.

Kiss her, he thinks. Does he remember how? He leans in. His lips meet hers, softly, so softly.

Yes, he remembers how.





KELLEY


Mitzi is a social butterfly. A papillon. Kelley watches her from his wheelchair. He and Lara are stationed at one of the central tables, where he can feel like part of the action without having to do much. Mitzi gave up her fanciful notion of wearing the gold roller-disco jumpsuit—thank heavens, as it no longer exists—and instead chose a flowing purple gown with diaphanous sleeves that look like wings. Her wild, curly hair frames her face. Her cheeks are pink with excitement. She flits from group to group, grasping hands, leaning in to ask questions about this person’s new job, that person’s aging mother. How does she keep track of it all? Kelley wonders. One of the things that has come to him with age is a narrowing of the periscope; he cares, now, only about his family. But Mitzi, of course, is young and healthy, she thrives on interaction, and since they closed the inn, her world has shrunken considerably.