Elin Hilderbrand - Here’s to Us

Laurel nodded, although this came as news to her.

“I wish Scarlett were here,” Buck said.

“I don’t,” Belinda said.

“Well, like it or not, she was Deacon’s wife, so this concerns her, too,” Buck said.

“She’s unstable,” Belinda said. “And impulsive. If Deacon was having financial troubles, it was because Scarlett is a spendthrift.”

Laurel felt her grip on her civility slipping. “Scarlett isn’t here to defend herself. And how would you know about Scarlett’s spending habits?”

“Have you forgotten?” Belinda said. “She was my nanny. I used to send her to Gristedes with a hundred-dollar bill to buy milk, and she would come home with pennies.”

At that second, Angie walked into the kitchen. She tapped Belinda on the shoulder. “I heard you from upstairs,” she said. “You think I’m making up the fact that I have a boyfriend?”

“Darling,” Belinda said.

“You think I’m, what… a child with an imaginary friend?” Angie said.

“Well, you did have January,” Belinda said. “January was around for years.”

January, Laurel thought. She had forgotten all about it, but now she vividly recalled that Angie had invented a friend named January.

“January lasted for years because I was young!” Angie said. “And I was lonely! And you were never around!”

“Darling, please calm down,” Belinda said.

“His name is Joel Tersigni!” Angie said. “He’s the dining room manager at the restaurant.”

“Good God,” Buck said. “Please don’t tell me you’re involved with Joel. He’s married to that battle-ax who works for Wilson and Oskam.”

“Angie!” Belinda said.

“What, Mother?” Angie said. “You’ve never slept with a married man before?”

“I’m going to light the grill,” Laurel said. She raised her eyebrows at Buck. “Maybe you can fill us in on the other stuff during dinner.”

Don’t shoot the messenger.

Buck sat tight in his chair on the back deck, beer at the ready. Under the guise of helping Laurel “pull dinner together,” he had opened every cabinet in the kitchen until he found the liquor, to the bottom right of the stove: Jameson, Tanqueray Ten, Mount Gay, Jack Daniel’s, and a clear mason jar-Deacon’s moonshine, which, he knew, would take the enamel off his teeth.

He waited until everyone was settled in their chairs and Laurel had set out the platter of steaks and asparagus, the bowl of salad, the basket of bread.

“I’m sorry this is so simple,” Laurel said.

“Mom,” Hayes said; then, at an apparent loss for words, he shook his head.

Hayes was not looking good, Buck thought. And he seemed to have misplaced his razor.

Buck raised his beer. He wasn’t sure what to say. He had been raised Catholic, and he was pretty sure he alone felt a prayer was in order. They were, after all, sitting at the table where Deacon had been when his soul departed the earth. Should Buck acknowledge this? He considered himself a master of social graces-his career demanded it-but some situations had too many emotional potholes to be negotiated smoothly. He would speak as a friend first, he decided, then he would slide into agent mode.

“To Deacon,” he said. “Husband, father, friend, chef, and a man like no other. I know I speak for all of us when I say a bright light has gone out.”

“To Deacon,” Laurel said. She touched her glass to Buck’s beer.

Belinda heaped her plate with salad. Hayes took a roll, then stared at it on his plate as if it were a pterodactyl egg. Angie helped herself to steak and asparagus but didn’t pick up her utensils. Only Laurel dug in. Deacon used to say Laurel ate like a three-hundred-pound long-distance trucker.

Food is like sex for her, man, Deacon had told Buck decades earlier. She can’t get enough.

Buck blushed, remembering this. But he had to stay on point.

“So,” Buck said.

Laurel turned to him, as did Angie. Belinda stabbed some greens. Hayes stared at the roll.

“Deacon ran into some financial trouble at the end of last year that snowballed quite a bit.”

Hayes upended the contents of his wineglass into his mouth. Laurel let a soft breath escape as she watched him.

Buck said, “Let me start over.”

“The suspense is killing me,” Belinda said.

“Deacon left this house to Scarlett. And to you, Laurel. And to you, Belinda. Technically, each of you inherits a third.”

Laurel gasped. “You’re kidding!”

Even Belinda seemed taken aback. “That was very nice of him,” she said. “He certainly didn’t have to leave me anything.”

“The idea was that the three of you would then pass your share on to your child,” Buck said. “And the three of you would split time in a way that’s deemed reasonable by the executor.”

“Meaning you?” Belinda said.

“Me,” Buck confirmed.

“So, let me guess… Laurel will get the summer, Scarlett will get the spring and fall, and I’ll get February.”

“Mother, stop,” Angie said.

“Stop what, darling? I think we all know Buck is sweet on Laurel.”

“Belinda!” Laurel said.

“There’s a problem,” Buck said. “The house is buried in debt. It’s due to be repossessed by Nantucket Bank on July first if the estate doesn’t come up with the arrears.”

“How much is that?” Angie asked.

“Four hundred thirty-six thousand-”

“Good God,” Laurel said.

“Two hundred ninety-two dollars and nineteen cents.”

“I’ve got the nineteen cents,” Hayes said. He gave the table a big grin.

“That’s too bad,” Belinda said. “It really is.”

“Mother,” Angie said.

“What?”

“You can afford it,” Angie said.

“I can afford my third of the arrears,” Belinda said. “A hundred and fifty grand, give or take. But I’m not going to pay Laurel’s or Scarlett’s portion.”

“No one is asking you to!” Laurel said.

“Well, there is a sense of urgency,” Buck said. “We have less than two weeks.”

“Bob warned me that the only reason you invited me here was to ask me for something,” Belinda said. “I’m dismayed to find out he was right.”

“No one is asking you for anything,” Laurel said.

“But if we’re going to lose the house…,” Angie said.

“People lose houses all the time,” Belinda said. “Every day, all across America, people default on their mortgages.”

“You’re going to lose the house unless the arrears are paid in full,” Buck said. “Guaranteed. And there’s also a fourteen-thousand-dollar-per-month mortgage.”

“Whoa,” Hayes said.

“No one is asking you for anything,” Laurel said to Belinda. “But how typical of you to think so.” She scowled at Buck. “I can’t believe you brought this up over dinner.”

“You…” Buck nearly said, You told me to! But he sensed that any words out of his mouth would only serve to make things worse. He cut a piece of steak. “This is delicious.”

The rest of the table was silent.

He felt like a dragonfly on a pond, skimming along the surface, hovering in one spot for a second or two to drink in reality, then alighting again. Hayes stared at his roll. He had a pretty good idea of how it would taste, but he was so high, he had a difficult time focusing on what to do with it. Break it in half? Ask for the butter?

The conversation quickly became a burning building that Hayes needed to escape. Deacon had money problems, and they were going to lose the house. The Nantucket house! That had to be wrong. Hayes had always been under the impression that Deacon had plenty of money. He was on TV! He got royalties and residuals. He was mentioned in New York magazine every month, practically-and he was always being quoted in Bon Appétit and Saveur. The Board Room was the hottest restaurant in America.

But Buck wasn’t exaggerating, Hayes could tell. Deacon had died flat broke-worse, in debt. Hayes thought guiltily of all the money Deacon had given him over the course of the past few years. Probably close to forty grand. Deacon had allowed Hayes to live beyond his means, keeping an apartment in Soho where he stayed only four or five nights a month. Hayes felt monstrously selfish. He never thought to ask Deacon if the payments to Hayes’s co-op board were a stretch. Deacon had offered! He was the dad. Was Deacon one of those people who gave and gave and gave, even when he was having a hard time? Apparently so.

Laurel asked about Deacon’s cookbook. Was there any potential there? Angie laughed, saying the “cookbook” was a folder filled with disjointed notes and untested recipes.

Hayes decided to take a stab at the conversation.

“But Dad wanted to write a cookbook?” Hayes said. “There’s something to work with?”

Angie shrugged. “I guess so, yeah.”

Hayes wondered why his father hadn’t asked him for help with the cookbook; he was the writer in the family. It could have been a father-son collaboration, with both of their names on the cover, both of their photographs on the cover. It would have made Deacon some money, and it might have been the thing Hayes needed to top the masthead at Fine Travel or make the leap, finally, to Condé Nast Traveler. Hayes loved his job, make no mistake, but there were a few rungs on the ladder above him, and every once in a while, ambition swirled in him like smoke in a bong and he thought about climbing up higher, higher, higher.

“He knew he was never going to get it done,” Angie said. “It was killing him.”

Everyone was silent after that. “Killing him” was no longer an appropriate euphemism. But the idea of the cookbook stayed with Hayes. What if he and Angie took Deacon’s notes and wrote it together? She had the food knowledge, and Hayes the writing chops. It could be a posthumous tribute to their father, with both of their photos on the cover, a son and daughter, one white, one black, one biological, one adopted-it would be a public relations bonanza! But they probably couldn’t get it done in time to save the house. Nope, definitely not.

Angie threw her napkin on top of her untouched food. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t talk about this any more tonight.”

Laurel reached over and rubbed Angie’s back. “This too shall pass away,” she said.

Hayes stared at his roll. Laurel had been saying that phrase since time immemorial, and, although it was meant to be encouraging in this instant-what felt bad today would be less painful tomorrow and even less so next month or next year-in general Hayes found the sentiment depressing. Everything would pass, the next thing would happen, we were alive now for an inconsequential thirty-four or fifty-four years of all of human history-then we died. It was going to happen to everyone; there would be no avoiding it.

He was no longer hungry. He stood up.

“May I please be excused?” he said. It was being in the presence of his mother, perhaps, that caused him to act like a nine-year-old.

“Honey, you haven’t eaten any-” Laurel said, but Hayes didn’t stick around to hear the rest. He carried his plate into the house and headed up to his room.

Later, when it was dark and the rest of the house seemed to have settled into some semblance of peace, Hayes called Pirate, the taxi driver. Could Pirate come pick him up? Could Pirate help him score some drugs?

There was a pause. Hayes panicked: had he called in over some dispatch line?

Pirate said, “Yeah, man, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Pirate showed up, as promised, in the ’65 Lincoln, wearing his velvet coat and eye patch, his hair looking as though a raven had died on his head. “You ready to party?” He asked Hayes. He shouted the question with the enthusiasm of a meathead frat boy-John Belushi, perhaps, minutes before he overdid it.

“Yeah, man,” Hayes said. He was, essentially, sneaking out of the house like a teenager. He had considered leaving Laurel a note saying he’d gone out, but then he figured she wouldn’t know any better, and if he left her a note, she might worry. She had been giving him some suspicious looks, so if she knew he was out, she might search his room. She wasn’t naive; she had made a career out of dealing with liars and thieves, drug addicts and miscreants.

Pirate took the Polpis Road-where streetlights were few and far between-at breakneck speed. Hayes looked over at him. His uncovered eye was focused with a maniacal intensity on the road.

“Are you already high, man?” Hayes asked.

“Yeah, man,” Pirate said. “We’ve been partying down. I hope you’re ready for a slammin’ time.” He took the next curve so fast, the Lincoln’s tires screeched and Hayes feared he might get carsick. He should ask Pirate to turn around and take him home. He needed sleep and water and a string of clean hours. But then, that thought evaporated. What Hayes needed was to get high, higher, higher. Sad fact.