Page 59 of Under the Stars

Audrey

Winthrop Island, New York

The detective calls just before two, as I’m headed out the door to start the dinner prep.

Meredith is at the pool, swimming off her frustration.

It’s been a week since Mr. Walker died, and each day, Meredith’s agent calls up to ask what the fuck is going on, the studio’s going to drop her, she needs to get her ass on a plane, pronto.

There’s this police matter, I keep telling Adrienne Drucker. Should be resolved any day.

Now the police are finally on the phone, and for once the news is good.

Well, depending on how you look at it.

“Thank you,” I tell the detective.

I tuck the phone in the back pocket of my jeans and head to find Meredith.

—

“For God’s sake,” I tell Meredith, as I stand on the edge of the paving stones. Quincy reclines alertly at his usual post at the deep end, watching her every stroke. “Could you put on a swimsuit like a normal person? What if some pap decides to fly a drone over us?”

“Oh, lighten up. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” She finishes her lap and grabs the edge. “I thought you were supposed to be working.”

“I am. I just got a call from that detective.”

She looks away. Toward the pool house. “Terrific. Are we off the hook for murder?”

“Yes. Harlan Walker died of an acute overdose of opioids, which was determined to be self-inflicted.”

“Good,” she says. “Now I can get out of this dump and start filming.”

“Hold on a second, though. She said something else.”

Meredith sets her palms on the stones and hoists herself upright. She keeps her face turned away from me as she says, “Well? I’ve got calls to make.”

“He had cancer. His pancreas. He was terminal.”

She lifts her hands to her hair and wrings out the water in her methodical way. Meredith will not be rushed when it comes to self-care. Her body is her livelihood.

“Then I guess he was smart to call it a day,” she says. “Nobody wants to go through that shit.”

“Meredith. Come on. I know you’re crying. I can hear it in your voice.”

“You’re such an asshole, Audrey. You know that?”

“ You raised me.”

“I never claimed to be a good mother.”

I sit down on a sun lounger. Quincy rises and extends his front paws in a luxurious good-boy stretch before padding his way toward me, lifeguard duties executed.

“He knew he was dying, Meredith. He came here to die. Where the Atlantic wrecked. And once he passed on that memoir, he knew it was time to go.”

“I get that, honeybee. Obviously.”

“Aren’t you grateful? Don’t you care?”

Along Meredith’s graceful back, there is not one dimple of fat. She reaches for a towel. “I’ll be grateful when I roll onboard that damn ferry and leave this godforsaken rock behind me.”

I fondle Quincy’s velvet head. “No regrets for those left behind?”

“My private life is my own business, honeybee,” she says, “so fuck off, please.”

“All right, then.” I rise from the lounger. “I guess I’ll pack up when I get back from the dinner service. Break the news to Mike.”

“Pack up?” she says. “ You? Why?”

“I can’t stay here, Meredith. This isn’t my home .”

“You look pretty well settled from where I’m standing. Turning that kitchen around. Taming Winthrop’s Most Eligible Bachelor into taking a bullet for you.”

Quincy lays his muzzle on my cupped palms and gazes at me.

“I came here to do a job, Meredith,” I say.

“To clean up my mother and clean up my life. And look at us. Mission accomplished. You stuck with the program. My soon-to-be ex-husband is currently in jail, divorce proceedings under way. So, yay team. We did it. And I think it’s time we both head back into the wide world, don’t you? ”

Meredith reaches for her water bottle. “If that’s what you want, honeybee. I’ll support whatever you decide.”

“Oh my God. Who are you and what have you done with my mother?”

“You could join me on set, if you want. Run lines with me. Be my personal chef.”

“I would rather drink snake venom.”

She shrugs. “Don’t say I never asked.”

I give Quincy a last pat and rise to my feet. “It’s sad about Mr. Walker. I mean, how lucky are we that he gave you that manuscript in time? It might have been lost forever. And now I’m free instead of stuck in legal hell. It was—you know, it was good of him.”

“Yes. It was very good of him.” She looks away, toward the cove and the derelict boathouse that sits on the shore. “One more thing, honeybee. Before you go making any big decisions. He left us some money.”

“What? Who did?”

“Mr. Walker. Letter arrived from his lawyer yesterday, while you were at work.” She takes a swig from her water bottle. “He named us his heirs. You and me. Split down the middle.”

I sit back down on the chair. “He did not.”

“I suppose that explains why that detective was so suspicious.” She turns her head and smiles at me. “It’s a lot of money.”

“How much?”

“Enough that you could buy your own restaurant, honeybee. If that’s what you want.”

My head swirls. Quincy looks up at me and whines. I rise from the chair and stand there in a wash of morning sun, watching the fishing boats scratch the surface of the sea.

“I need to get to work,” I say.

“Give it some thought, anyway. There’s no rush.”

I start toward the grass. Meredith’s voice floats after me.

“It’s yours, you know. If you want it.”

“What’s mine?”

“Greyfriars,” she says. “I sort of think it suits you.”

Over my shoulder, I call back to her. “You’re just looking for an excuse to come back and visit.”

—

Without a doubt, something’s going on between Mike and Meredith, although I have no idea what it is.

The other day, he took her out on a bike ride.

A bike ride! Just swung by at eight in the morning with a backpack and an ancient ten-speed—legitimate cobwebs dangling from the wheel spokes—and asked, not quite meeting my eyes, if he could speak to Meredith.

Next thing I knew, they were cycling down the driveway together.

They came back at one, damp and flushed—okay, it was a hot day—but I couldn’t help noticing the sand in Meredith’s hair.

When I asked her what was going on, she gave me her icy look and said I wouldn’t understand.

I shook a finger at her. Don’t you dare screw with my dad, okay? Your love-’em-and-leave-’em bullshit. He’s just a regular guy. He’s got no defense against you.

Meredith told me to fuck off and mind my own business.

Another round of thunderstorms swept over the island last night, and the air is fresher than usual as I coast down West Cliff Road on my bicycle.

The draft courses through my hair, smelling of ocean.

By now I know every bend in the road, every rock, every glimpse of the sea.

When the houses start popping up, I angle right down the hill, past the green, the sandwich shop, the library and historical society, and brake to a careful stop outside the back kitchen door, where Taylor is already at work simmering broth, by the smell that wafts through the crack of space propped open by a brick.

For some reason, the sight of that brick knocks the breath from my lungs.

Why the brick? I don’t know. I never do know when that sense of loss will hollow out my chest. What will trigger this flood of unbearable loss.

My head throbs. The scar itches. I close my eyes and think, You just inherited a fortune.

You can do whatever you want. Go wherever you want. A fresh start, anywhere in the world.

For God’s sake, be happy.

When I open my eyes, I spot a vintage Aston Martin convertible parked in the corner of the lot, the color of Douglas fir.

—

As I completed the discharge papers in the hospital room, noon sunshine heating the window glass, Mike handed me his phone. There was a text from Mallory.

Sedge was awake. He was aware. He was going to be okay.

I sat down hard on the chair, unable to stand beneath the weight of so much relief.

In the days and weeks that followed, Mallory diligently fed me updates. He was out of the hospital, he was headed home to Boston. Laura was looking after him.

I thought about sending flowers. But what was I supposed to write on the card? Thanks for saving my life, sorry about being a jerk ? Or simple and classy and generic— With best wishes for a speedy recovery ? Or some kind of sentimental goop— You will remain forever in my heart ?

I didn’t send any flowers. I didn’t send a note, either—I didn’t even know his address in Boston, come to think of it. I tapped out about a hundred texts and deleted them all.

He was better off without me, anyway. Better off married to some long-limbed New Englander with conventional good looks and a conventional career and a presentable set of in-laws who didn’t say fuck all the time, with whom he could raise a bunch of smart, attractive kids inside an exquisite, clutter-free home.

If he wanted to hear from me, he would let me know.

The days passed, one by one, pulling me like a rope toward the end of July, when Meredith and I were due to leave. The week’s reprieve when Harlan Walker died. Not one word from Sedge.

Now the Aston Martin, parked right in front of me.

—

In the zippered inside pocket of my duffel bag, there is a square of linen embroidered with the monogram sPw .

The W stands for Winthrop, Sedge’s middle name, because his grandmother descended from the first colonists on the island—burdening Sedgewick Winthrop Peabody with a name like an old steamer trunk, stuck with labels to advertise where the owner had arrived from.

I used to joke that it was never going to work with us, because I planned to name my kids like a slate wiped clean.