flip-flops.
If you didn’t know better, if you didn’t hear me speak, you would look at me and think that I belong here. You would think that I had been here all my life. And indeed, within a few short days, I feel as at home as if I had been born here.
* * *
The days pass, sleepy when everyone is out at work or at the beach, doing what they normally do, and riotous when they are all here at the house, crammed in, everyone jumping in to lend a hand with cooking, cleaning up, setting tables.
I fit right in. I fit as if I have always belonged here. The only person who hasn’t accepted me is Ellie. I have tried and tried, but at best she is coldly polite. Julia’s warmth, Aidan’s kindness, and my own father’s attention, however, more than make up for it.
Early morning walks with Brooks have become part of the daily routine. We wander to the beach, then finish up at the Hub for coffee and the papers, Brooks stopping every few feet on Main Street to greet people he knows. And to introduce me, his daughter, to everyone’s surprise and delight. A third daughter they never knew about, but look at me! So clearly a Mayhew if ever there was one! And with an accent! Welcome to Nantucket, they say. You will never want to leave.
They may be right, all these strangers. The longer I stay here, the more I think I don’t want to leave. I know it’s a holiday, I know people don’t really live like this the entire year, except … I think that maybe they do here. They work really hard, but they play hard.
Which is the hardest part for me. How can I possibly stay sober when everyone around me drinks as if it were nothing? And maybe it is nothing. Sobriety suddenly seems like a really bad idea. I’m on holiday, for God’s sake. On Nantucket, where I am supposed to be having fun.
* * *
“Look at you!” Aidan lets out a long whistle as I walk into the kitchen in one of my new outfits, bought the other day. White capri pants and a turquoise tunic top, beaded prettily around the neckline. “Is that outfit new? You look like you’ve done some serious damage in town.”
“Does it still count as new if it’s five days old?” I grin, hiding my slight worry at the amount I have been spending, although given the exchange rate it really isn’t that bad at all. At least that is what I will continue to tell myself. “What do you think?”
“You finally look like an islander!” he says, walking over to the fridge and pulling out two beers, cracking them open and handing me one.
“Isn’t it a bit early?” I take the beer, for it would have been rude not to, but I have always tried not to drink before lunchtime.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he says with a shrug and a grin, clinking his bottle with mine and a hearty “Slainte,” so what else am I supposed to do other than drink up?
* * *
Everyone is out, Brooks at his studio, Ellie with her children and nanny at the beach, Julia visiting a friend. It is just Aidan and I, and the more beer we both drink, the better time I find myself having.
He, like Brooks, is a storyteller, but this time the drink loosens my tongue, and we try to outdo each other with stories of our outrageous drinking behavior.
“Well, I once woke up on a ferry on the way to Ios in Greece, with absolutely no idea how I got there,” Aidan says. “The last I remember I was in a nightclub in London. The next I was in my underwear on the deck of a bloody great boat.”
“You win!” I shout, as we both collapse in giggles.
“No more bloody beer.” Aidan peers into the fridge. “Shall we make a start on the vodka?”
“Yes!” I stumble ever so slightly on my way to get glasses as Aidan goes to get the vodka, and for a second, just a second, the disappointed, disapproving face of Jason flits into my mind. And for a second, just a second, the church hall flits into my mind, the chairs pulled into a circle, the eager, earnest faces of the people who all talk of the hell of their former lives, and how they have found happiness, and peace, in these rooms.
But I push those