Elin Hilderbrand - Here’s to Us

Envelopes come from Nantucket Bank, but Deacon doesn’t open them. He knows the news isn’t good. Notices come from the management of his building, as he’s behind on the rent. The building’s business manager, Debi, is a huge fan of Deacon’s, and he offers her dinner for two at the Board Room, on the house, if she will give him another month’s leeway. He can’t ignore his kids, however. He writes a check to Hayes’s co-op board and pays the second half of Ellery’s school tuition.

He’s going under. By the time his royalty payments come, he will have spent the check three times over. The notes for his cookbook aren’t anything he’s willing to show anybody. Writing is hard! The world is dying to know about his personal life, but Deacon has serious reservations about discussing it. He’ll need Belinda to sign a disclaimer and she will never agree to it. Writing is really hard! He nearly failed English in high school. The notes sit in a red folder on top of his desk at work, along with the envelopes from Nantucket Bank. They are too awful now for Deacon to even look at, so he puts the envelopes away in a drawer and sends the red folder to Kim Witherspoon. Can she work with this?

Probably not, she says. He’s sent her nothing except a bunch of disjointed notes and the recipe for the clams casino dip, which has been published and reprinted nearly a dozen times over the past decade.

Maybe you should hire a writer, she says. Lots of people do it.

But that costs money he doesn’t have. He should just give the people what they want: the details of his love life, starting way back in the Dobbs Ferry High School cafeteria.

No, he can’t. He’ll stick to food.

Scarlett has been well behaved since the fiasco at dinner. Deacon checks her nightstand table: all the letters, notes, and cards have been removed, and no new ones appear. Scarlett notices him slaving over his cookbook, and she asks, Why the rush? He tells her they’re a little strapped for cash and the cookbook will likely bring in a nice advance.

Scarlett hears “strapped for cash” and comes to him with a proposal for a diet-supplement company called Skinny4Life. The prospectus suggests investors will triple their money in 90 to 120 days.

“Do we want to do this?” Scarlett asks. She sounds as though she’s expecting him to say no, but he is so desperate at this point that he needs a miracle, and who’s to say Skinny4Life isn’t that miracle? Scarlett has been drinking the stuff for weeks, and she is, in fact, very, very skinny. Deacon writes a check for a hundred thousand dollars, the last of his cash. Scarlett is elated! While he’s in a good mood, she asks if she can spend eight thousand dollars to go to the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, for a week of silent retreat in April. Deacon says yes and tells her to put the charge on his American Express.

On the ides of March, Lyle Phelan appears at the front door of the restaurant. Joel Tersigni shows him back to Deacon’s office.

Detective Phelan drops a sheaf of papers on Deacon’s desk. Jack Thorpe was living in Flanders, New York, working as a cook at a Denny’s. He rented a room, kept to himself, drank at a bar called the Alibi, and died in a one-man car crash on October 11, 1997.

“Looks like he had a heart attack behind the wheel,” Detective Phelan says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you better news.”

Deacon nods. Flanders, New York, is on Long Island. He was so close, Deacon thinks. So close all those years. Deacon shows Detective Phelan to the door of the restaurant; then he goes back in his office, locks the door. One perfect day with my son. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Deacon starts to cry.

Scarlett has been on her silent retreat for a day and a half when Deacon gets a funny feeling. Participants are not allowed to use their cell phones, so he can’t call her. He calls the office of the Omega Institute and says, “I’d like to leave a message for my wife, Scarlett Oliver. It’s urgent.”

“Who?” the receptionist says. She tells him there is no Scarlett Oliver registered at the institute for that week.

“How about Scarlett Thorpe?” he asks. He’s grasping at straws: Scarlett rarely uses that name.

“No, I’m sorry,” the receptionist says.

Scarlett has bought herself a week away without a phone. Where has Bo Tanner taken her? To a far-flung Caribbean island? Deacon remembers his time in St. John with Laurel. What goes around, comes around, he thinks. Scarlett isn’t doing anything that Deacon himself hasn’t done.

The next day, Deacon gets a call from a number he doesn’t recognize, and, thinking it’s Scarlett, he answers it.

It’s Julie from Nantucket Bank, whom Deacon has always thought of as Supremely Capable Julie. She’s a fan of Deacon the chef and Deacon the person, and he knows the only reason the house hasn’t been foreclosed on yet is because of her.

She says, “You’re running out of time, Deacon. The wolves are at the door.”

That afternoon, a Tuesday-the restaurant is closed-Deacon starts drinking at his apartment at noon. He leaves his apartment and goes to the only place he feels he can be anonymous: Times Square. He drinks at TGI Friday’s, then at Olive Garden. This, he thinks, is rock bottom. At Olive Garden, his credit card is declined, so he pays cash, then walks over to the Board Room, unlocks the door, and grabs a bottle of Jameson from behind the bar. Dr. Disibio will notice right away-he runs an impeccably tight ship-so Deacon leaves an IOU scribbled on a cocktail napkin. From the restaurant, he walks west and ends up at an establishment called Skirtz. He meets a dancer named Taryn, who recognizes Deacon from his TV show. Deacon asks if she has a car. Yes, she says, in the garage across the street. Deacon asks if he can use it. You can come with me, he says. We’ll go to Nantucket.

Deacon wakes up in Buck’s apartment, on the unforgiving leather sofa. Deacon’s first thought is that Buck’s decorator is a sadist. His second thought is a confused jumble of broken promises and unfulfilled obligations. He has forgotten something-but what?

He has forgotten to pick up Ellery from school. Buck painted a pretty grim picture of how sad and cold Ellery was when he went to fetch her in a taxi, and an even grimmer picture of that bitch Madame Giroux, with her stern French disapproval. Deacon’s imagination, however, is far crueler. He can see Ellery with her heavy, dark hair-hair he has brushed since she was very small-swept back in the required navy headband. He can see her plaid uniform skirt, her crisp, white blouse with the Peter Pan collar underneath her navy cardigan. Ellery hates her uniform because, even at nine years old, she has developed fashion sense, and the sameness with the other girls is an identity crusher. Scarlett adores the uniform and the school; both are reminiscent of Madeline, a book she read as a child.

Ellery would have had her backpack loaded with her assignments and library books. She would have been in the front courtyard playing tag or jacks with the other girls. One by one, the mothers would have arrived-Eleanor Rigby, Proud Mary, Runaround Sue (Deacon has spent the past four years coming up with rock-and-roll nicknames for each one)-and bringing up the rear was the mother Deacon thought of as Layla. Layla was a disheveled mess-depressed for certain and possibly also an addict-but she had a sleepy beauty that Deacon, perhaps alone, appreciated. On occasion, he beat Layla to the courtyard by only a moment or two, half a block.

Yesterday, Ellery would have seen Layla arrive to pick up her daughter, and the realization would have hit her: Deacon wasn’t coming.

The expression Deacon imagines on his daughter’s face-beyond dejection, beyond melancholy-is what vaporizes Deacon’s soul.

There is no excuse for what happened. Scarlett calls in from “the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck” and gives him holy hell. She is home in New York the very next day, packing her things, pulling Ellery out of school, telling Deacon she’s leaving for good.

He could tell her he knows she wasn’t in Rhinebeck. He could tell her he knows all about Bo Tanner. But what would that do, other than further traumatize Ellery?

He will stop drinking, he tells Scarlett. And drugs, all drugs.

I don’t believe you, Scarlett says.

I’m done, Deacon says.

I don’t care, Scarlett says. I’m sorry, Deacon. I simply don’t care.

She only had to last one more day without Mary and Laura, but something about being around Ellery made being without her daughters nearly unbearable, and so Belinda put on Laurel’s flip-flops and made the trek to the end of the driveway. Calling Bob was useless; it was Monday morning, so he would be at his weekly meeting with Dr. Mary Ellen Plume, the large-animal vet. Belinda would have to call the house.

Mrs. Greene answered on the first ring. She was reliable that way, the last person in America who believed in landlines.

“Good morning, Percil residence.”

“Mrs. Greene, good morning,” Belinda said. She wandered down the road toward the beach club, hoping the signal would grow stronger. “I was hoping to talk to the girls.”

“Oh goodness,” Mrs. Greene said. “They’ve been out on the trails since the sun came up.”

“Shoot,” Belinda said. “Are they with Stella?”

“Yes, and Mr. Percil,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Bob went along?” Belinda said. “I’m sorry, are you telling me Bob went on the trail ride this morning with Stella and the girls?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“I see,” Belinda said. “Has Stella been staying at the house since I’ve been gone?”

“That I wouldn’t know of course,” Mrs. Greene said. “All I can say for certain is, she’s here when I leave at eight o’clock in the evening and here when I arrive at seven in the morning.”

Belinda bit her tongue. Is she staying in my room? she wanted to ask. Is she sleeping in my bed?

“Mrs. Greene?” Belinda said. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“If I were you,” Mrs. Greene said, “I would get home.”

“I can’t possibly leave until tomorrow,” Belinda said. “We’re spreading Deacon’s ashes this evening.”

Mrs. Greene was respectfully silent at this, and Belinda harkened back to a time when the girls were little-Mary a toddler and Laura an infant. It had been nap time, which was when Belinda practiced her lines, and she had wandered into the kitchen to get some of Mrs. Greene’s banana pudding, script in hand. Mrs. Greene had been watching TV, and it took only a second for Belinda to recognize Deacon’s voice. Mrs. Greene was rapt with attention, watching Pitchfork. Deacon had been making the clams casino dip; it was the classic episode.

As Belinda opened the fridge, she said, “Have you invited my ex-husband into our kitchen, Mrs. Greene?”

Mrs. Greene had turned to Belinda, and in a softer, more sincere voice than usual, she said, “What is he like?”

“Who, Deacon?” Belinda said.

Mrs. Greene gave a schoolmarm nod.

Belinda could have issued any number of answers. Deacon is sweet, he’s charming, he’s a wonderful father, he’s great in bed. But Mrs. Greene could probably have deduced those things on her own.

“He’s broken,” Belinda said. “He was broken when I met him, but I didn’t help.”

Now, Mrs. Greene said, “I’m sure that will be very difficult for you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Greene,” Belinda said. “For everything.”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Greene said, and she hung up.

Oh, how Belinda wanted to believe that Bob had gone on the trail ride because he wanted to spend quality time with the girls. But Belinda knew better. It was Stella, with the tits and the ass and the accent.

Belinda trudged back to the house; then she slipped upstairs to Clara’s room, where she popped an Ativan. She wasn’t that much better in the controlled-substance department than Hayes.

Would she have to divorce Bob? The notion was sad and exhausting.

The Ativan put Belinda to sleep. There was something nearly hedonistic about napping on a summer afternoon with the windows open, the sea breeze blowing the filmy white curtains, the sound of people coming and going downstairs, Angie’s voice floating up, Buck’s, Laurel’s. Today was their last day. Belinda would miss Angie desperately. And Buck and Laurel, too, she realized, and Hayes and Ellery.

And Deacon, of course.

Belinda awoke at four o’clock, when she heard footsteps on the stairs and a general busy-bee atmosphere pervading the house like an impending storm. Was something happening? Then Belinda heard the word “boat,” and she realized it was time to go out on the harbor and spread Deacon’s ashes.