Page 22 of Under the Stars

I sit up on my knees and turn to face him. “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to help. I know I sound like a jerk. There’s just—there’s a lot going on, you know? In my life. In my mother’s life. I don’t need this kind of drama right now.”

He snags a nearby stick and pushes some sand around. “Are you talking about why you were so upset? On the boat?”

“Look, no offense. But I barely know you. I know you think you know me, that you owe me some kind of loyalty or friendship or whatever because you know the Fishers, or you knew the Fishers once, and you know Mike. But I’m not part of your world, Peabody.

I’m just staying here to dry out Meredith for a few months—”

“Wait, you call her Meredith ? Not Mom ?”

“She’s never been what you might call a traditional mother.”

“No, I bet not.”

“Don’t even ask me what it was like, okay?”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Anyway,” I say, looking out to sea, “on the ferry, right? I wasn’t crying because of Meredith. I was crying because my dog died, and I’ve been sitting here right now thinking how much she would have loved this beach, and it’s just…it just sucks …everything, it’s just a shit show…”

“Whoa.” He tosses the stick aside and dives forward. “Whoa. It’s okay. Sorry.”

“Just go away, okay? I don’t even know you.”

But he keeps on holding me against his shoulder, whoa-ing me like a runaway horse, apologizing for intruding while he continues to intrude, intrude, intrude on my personal space, my own personal beach.

Now the waves gallop up to meet us both.

I want to be alone. But for some reason, I can’t lift my head away from this fucking shoulder, covered in velvety warm Vineyard Vines fleece.

—

After her disastrous attempt at a conciliatory roast chicken last night, I have shooed Meredith out of the kitchen.

She’s pouting in the sunroom right now with a glass of ginger beer and lime—a mule without the Moscow—while I whip up a shepherd’s pie.

Because I think comfort food is in order, don’t you?

And food doesn’t get more comforting than shepherd’s pie.

I turn off the heat under the potatoes and stick on a pair of stained floral mitts to lift the pot. When I turn toward the sink, the sight of Meredith leaning against the doorway sends a curl of scalding water over the side. In the opposite direction, luckily.

“Sorry,” she says. “Just watching you at work. Also, my glass is empty.”

“For God’s sake, Meredith. I nearly burned myself.”

She heads to the fridge. “A good chef should expect the unexpected.”

“What do you know? You can’t even burn toast properly.”

“I spent a whole day inside the kitchen at Spago once, researching a role.”

I pour the potatoes into the colander. “Oh, well, in that case, I defer to your knowledge.”

Meredith opens a bottle of Fever-Tree and pours it carefully into her glass. “Is something wrong, honeybee? I mean more than usual.”

“Wait. What do you mean, more than usual ?”

“Something’s always rotten in the state of Audrey, isn’t it?”

“A little unfair, Meredith. Given your role in my upbringing. But since you asked. There was a kitchen fire at the Mo today and Mike blamed me.”

“My God, that’s a lot of butter.”

“They’re mashed potatoes, Meredith. You don’t eat them for your health. Everyone’s fine, by the way. In case you were worried.”

“ Were you to blame?”

“Of course not. His fry cook quit and threw a joint on this pile of old boxes near the Civil War–era electrical outlet. Which shouldn’t have been there to begin with. The boxes, I mean.”

“And why exactly did the fry cook quit, honeybee? Was it possibly because you were bossing him around in his own kitchen?”

I turn around and point the masher at her. “You and Mike! You’re just determined to find a way to put me in the wrong, aren’t you?”

“Just trying to investigate.” She whacks a lime in half and squeezes it over her glass.

“For the record, I think you’re a wonderful cook.

I remember that Mediterranean kick you were on.

With the chickpeas and the fish and olive oil?

I lost five pounds without even trying. My director was delighted. ”

“I’ll bet. I didn’t even know you had five pounds to lose.”

“In my business, honeybee, you could always stand to lose five pounds. As I’ve been told many times.”

“Well, have some shepherd’s pie and fuck ’em.” I turn back to the potatoes. “You’re beautiful, anyway.”

“What was that? I can’t hear you when you mumble like that.”

“I said, you’re always the most beautiful woman in the room, okay? So don’t let them tell you shit about yourself.”

I hear her jiggling ice behind me. “Too late for that, honeybee. The voices are in my own head now, and they’re not shutting up. Especially now that I’m drinking this ginger beer with no vodka.”

“For what it’s worth, I like you better without the vodka.”

Meredith lets out a crack of laughter. “And how much is that, exactly?”

“Enough to babysit you for an entire summer on this island in the center of nowhere. Half a mile away from the most awkward father-daughter relationship in the history of the world.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine. You’re much better at these human relationship things than I am. God knows how, with me as your mother. Just give it some time. Cook him something wonderful, like you do to sweeten me up.”

“Honestly? I don’t think food’s going to fix it. He’s mad at you, so he’s mad at me, and he’s so fucking stubborn he’ll never admit it. Here, could you hold the casserole dish steady while I pour in the meat?”

Meredith sets down her glass and comes to stand at the counter with me. The dish is made of ancient porcelain, glazed avocado green on the outside. A sheaf of dainty wheat decorates one side. She frowns at the fragrant meat sliding inside. “That smells good.”

“I had to use Worcestershire sauce instead of red wine.”

“I appreciate your sacrifice.”

She retreats to the other side of the kitchen and her virgin mule. I feel her gaze spearing me as I spoon the mashed potatoes over the top.

“I remember when you were a baby,” she says.

“I was out in the pool, teaching you how to swim. I figured it was the best time to learn, when you were a baby. Mike came storming over one afternoon. I guess my mother told him what we were up to. Came storming over, like I said, and jumped right into the water and snatched you away from me. He thought I was trying to drown you, I guess.”

“Weren’t you?”

“My point,” she says, “is that Mike loves you very much. And maybe he’s an asshole sometimes—”

“Sometimes?”

“Maybe a lot of the time. But he’ll also drop everything and come to your rescue. Whether you think you need saving or not.”

From somewhere in the distance comes the chime of bells.

“What the hell is that?” I ask.

She turns her head. “I think it’s the doorbell. Are you expecting anyone?”

“Seriously? Like who? Go find out what’s up.”

“Me?”

“It’s what normal people do, Meredith. Answer the doorbell when it rings. Sometimes even without any makeup on.”

“Then you do it, honeybee. You’re a normal person.”

“I’ve got to put this pie in the oven.”

The doorbell chimes again, then again, like it’s annoyed.

“It sounds like some paparazzo,” says Meredith.

“Please. Like they care enough to follow you here. It’s probably just Sedge.”

“Who’s Sedge?”

“Sedge Peabody. This guy I saw on the ferry. He’s trying to convince me to help turn the Mo into a decent restaurant.”

Meredith cracks out a laugh. “You mean he’s trying to get you into bed.”

“Please. Not everything’s about sex, Meredith.”

“Then why are you turning all red, honeybee? I think you should do it. Back in the saddle. Nothing helps you get over one jerk like climbing into bed with another one, trust me.”

The doorbell lets off a series of angry chimes.

“Meredith. For God’s sake. Just answer the damn door.”

She heaves a long-suffering sigh and heads into the hallway. When she’s gone, I look at my reflection in the window and smooth down the little strands of hair curling in the damp. I will not put on lip gloss, I tell myself. Sedge Peabody is not my type. Not enough rough edge.

Too nice . Too decent.

Meredith appears in the doorway, holding a few sticks of what looks like forsythia. “In the sunroom,” she says.

“Are those for me?”

“He didn’t say.”

I throw my hands in the air and start into the hallway. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Hell, no.”

“Then put those in water for me, will you?”

I follow the hallway past the breakfast room (that’s what Meredith calls it, anyway) to the sunroom, flooded with sunset from the French doors on the western side. But the man staring out the glass at the magnificent view, hands stuck in his pockets, is not Sedge Peabody.

“Mike? What the hell are you doing here?”

He turns around. “Audrey?”

“No wonder Meredith looked like she was hit by a truck. What did you say to her?”

“Nothing. I just handed her the flowers and walked in here.”

“So you brought her flowers but you didn’t come up with anything to say to her?”

“Audrey, I didn’t expect her to answer the fucking door ! Where the hell were you?”

“I was busy making dinner.”

“Well, shit.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, the flowers were for you.”

“For me? Why?”

Mike looks at his shoes and heels the floorboards. “To apologize.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “Accepted. Now leave.”

“I said I was sorry. I brought flowers. What do you want?”

“Mike,” I say, “who told you to come over here and apologize?”

“Nobody.”

“Was it Sedge Peabody?”

“No. Yes. What the fuck difference does it make? I’m here, right? Apologizing. I did not…” He sucks in a deep breath and looks to the ceiling for inspiration. “I did not mean to imply that you personally burned down my kitchen, all right?”

“Then what did you mean?”

He opens his mouth, closes it, and walks back to the window. Shoves his hands back in his pockets. The setting sun lights his hair on fire. “Apparently,” he mumbles, “I have a habit of pushing people away.”

“Apparently?”

“And sometimes I’m standing there, Audrey, and you remind me so much of your mother. And I freak out a little, I guess. I say shit I don’t mean. That’s all.”

“You’re saying I’m triggering you?”

“To use your fucking woke millennial slang, sure.”

“Well, grow the hell up, okay? Because I was a kid once, a kid whose dad didn’t give enough of a shit to visit her even once —”

“Because your mom —”

“Don’t even blame Meredith, okay? You’re my father. You had the legal right to visit me. You chose not to do that. So that’s on you.”

He stares at me, rocking a little to the balls of his feet and back. Because the sun lights him from behind, it’s hard to see his expression. Only the shock of that fiery hair like a corona.

“I just want you to know,” he says, “it wasn’t because I didn’t love you, okay? I loved you like crazy. I missed you like crazy. And I guess what’s happening now is I’m starting to feel that again, and—and, you know, it’s scary. It scares the hell out of me, all right?”

“Well, that’s the shitty fact, Mike. You only get hurt if you love someone in the first place. Grief is the price we pay for love.”

“No shit, Hallmark,” he says.

“Actually, I think it was the queen of England who said that.”

He rubs the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “Well, she wasn’t wrong.”

I stick my thumbs in the back pockets of my jeans and study the floor. It could use refinishing. The whole house could use refinishing, but what do I care? I’ll be gone in three months. The first of August. On the first day of August, I’m done, I’m free. Start fresh in a whole new life.

I look back up. “So I take it Sedge made you an offer you couldn’t refuse?”

“He’s a good guy, I guess. Plus, I had no choice, did I? My kitchen’s torched. I need the dough. And I need—you know, a chef. Or the deal’s off.”

“Are you saying my participation is a nonnegotiable clause to this contract?”

“I’m saying he’s got me by the balls, the smug little fucker.”

A snicker escapes me. Mike smiles back. Next thing, we’re laughing from our bellies—the kind of laughing that’s almost like crying, an unleashing of anguish you didn’t know you had inside you.

Mike’s laugh sounds like a hyena. I grab the back of a sofa for support.

Mike bends down to brace his hands on his knees, like he’s going to throw up from laughing.

Meredith walks in and stands in the middle of the floor, hands on hips, looking back and forth between us.

Her bemused eyebrows point each other out.

Mike quits laughing and straightens his shirt.

“ Audrey, ” Meredith says, the way she used to scold me when I was a teenager, “you’ve got food in the oven, you know.”

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and look at Mike.

“So what do you say to some shepherd’s pie?”

Mike looks at Meredith, who shrugs and turns back for the kitchen.

“It’s up to you, Mike,” she calls over her shoulder. “But I promise I won’t bite.”