year I left for Memphis was the year Maribeth enrolled at U of M, and she and Archie started a secret relationship.”
Vivi instantly perks up. “Oh my.”
“I had no idea,” Martha says. “It went on for four years, but it couldn’t have been too serious because when Archie finished medical school, he took a residency at St. Jude’s in Memphis. He was in pediatric oncology and St. Jude’s is, of course, one of the top hospitals in the country for treating and researching childhood cancers. Archie proposed to me; we were married. Maribeth graduated with a degree in theater and moved to New York to become an actress, but she ended up marrying Richard Schumacher, a man who was much, much older than her and very rich. He owned a brownstone on East Seventy-Eighth Street, a house on Nantucket, and a sailboat named Wind Castle.”
“Right,” Vivi says. She remembers Maribeth talking about her home in Shawkemo Hills and her boat.
“Archie and I met Richard for the first time at their wedding,” Martha says. “They got married at city hall and Archie and I flew in to be witnesses. We went to lunch afterward at Le Cirque—it was very chic, exorbitantly expensive—and it became clear at that lunch that Richard didn’t care for Archie one bit. He was rude to Archie throughout the meal.” Martha clears her throat. “I have my suspicions now that Richard knew, as I did not, that Maribeth and Archie had had a love affair.”
It’s interesting, Vivi thinks, that Martha calls it a love affair and not a fling.
“Just wait, I’m getting there,” Martha says. “Archie and I barely saw Maribeth after that. We were never invited to New York or Nantucket—though of course, Maribeth would send me your books, so I felt like I’d been there.”
Vivi decides to take this as a compliment.
“And then one winter, Richard slipped on the ice on the sidewalk in New York, broke his hip, and died shortly thereafter. The following summer, Maribeth invited us to Nantucket.” Martha rests her head back against the chaise and Vivi follows her gaze up to the lacy pattern of light on the ceiling. “We had a magical week. We drove onto the beach at Great Point with magnums of Veuve Clicquot—Maribeth made a joke about the merry widow—and we grilled lobster tails and littleneck clams on the hibachi. We walked through the moors, visited Bartlett’s Farm, rode bikes out to Sconset during the first bloom of the cottage roses. We ate at the Boarding House and the Company of the Cauldron; we sang at the piano bar of the Club Car. We did all the things the people in your books do.”
“Wow,” Vivi says. All this time she had no idea that Martha was a…fan. She feels honored.
“We went for an all-day sail on Wind Castle. That boat had a captain and a mate and a chef who prepared lunch, but Maribeth liked to play bartender. She was making her signature cocktail, which she called the Bad Decision: vodka, St. Germain, and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice with a champagne floater. Well, I had five or maybe six Bad Decisions over the course of the afternoon. As the boat rounded Abrams Point and we could see Maribeth’s house in the distance, Maribeth said she was going to swim the rest of the way in, not to worry, she did it all the time, her captain would take care of the boat.” Martha pauses. “I made my own bad decision to join her, and Archie wasn’t about to be shown up by the two of us—we had all grown up together on Lake Michigan, don’t forget. Those two dived in ahead of me and off they went. I almost didn’t go after them, but in the end, I didn’t want to be bested by Maribeth. I was much drunker than I realized and the water was choppy and I hadn’t swum in open water in decades and it was much farther than I anticipated. I became exhausted and started swallowing water and I was dragged under for periods. I tried calling out and waving to Wind Castle but it was so far away that it was useless.” Martha stops. Vivi is holding her breath. “Those two made it to shore and I drowned.”
Vivi whispers, “I remember hearing that story as gossip, but it was never in the paper. And I had no idea it happened to Maribeth’s sister. Though, come to think of it, I hadn’t seen