Elin Hilderbrand - Here’s to Us

Deacon walks into the beach club through the swinging front doors, and he feels an old, familiar sense of not quite belonging. He has no idea if this part of his plan is going to be successful, but what the hell, he’ll give it a shot.

The blond, round-faced teenager at the check-in window is too young to be a fan, and she turns a skeptical glower on Deacon when he admits that he’s not a member but rather a person on a nostalgic mission, and that he’d love to have lunch. He says he’s an old friend of the former manager, Ray Jay Jr.

“I don’t know who that is,” the teenage girl says. “I’ll get my boss.”

The boss is a young man-about Hayes’s age-with a trim beard and rectangular glasses. Deacon nearly laughs. Now he has seen it all-hipsters have infiltrated the Sankaty Head Beach Club! But from ten yards away, Deacon notices a look of recognition cross this fellow’s face.

“Hi there, I’m Claude,” he says, offering a hand. “What can we do for you, Chef Thorpe?”

Deacon shakes Claude’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Claude. I came here for lunch forty years ago with my father, and I’d love to do it again today.”

Claude nods. “The pool just opened for the season on Monday. It would be our honor to have you as a guest of the house for lunch.”

The Sankaty Head Beach Club has changed very little in forty years, although there are now new chaises and new canvas umbrellas and new towels-yellow and white striped. Deacon sits at a table overlooking the pool, which is smaller and paler than he remembers. He orders a double cheeseburger, fries, and a frosty Coke.

“Are you sure I can’t get you a beer?” Claude says.

“I’m sure,” Deacon says. As soon as Claude leaves to put in Deacon’s order, Deacon takes off his shirt and walks to the edge of the pool. At the far end is a woman with twin girls a few years younger than Ellery, both of them wearing water wings. The lifeguard is a strapping college kid wearing red trunks and a gray hooded sweatshirt, spinning his whistle. The sun goes behind a cloud, and Deacon shivers, but he tells himself to toughen up. He has bigger worries than cold water.

He dives in.

After lunch, he thanks Claude profusely and signs autographs for the two line cooks in the back-and then he’s back on his bike, and it’s off to the beach in Sconset.

The weather is still fine and sunny, but it’s spring, not summer, and Deacon isn’t sure how long he’ll last at the beach. He sets his towel in the sand and charges into the water. It makes the pool at Sankaty feel like a bathtub, but Deacon isn’t deterred. He swims out, letting the waves crest over his head. This is it, he thinks. His last day on Nantucket for the foreseeable future. Of course, one never knows what will happen. Maybe a big investor will pop up, maybe Deacon will finally finish his cookbook, maybe, bit by bit, the Board Room will become more profitable and Deacon will be able to buy another house on Nantucket.

But it won’t be the same; this he knows. American Paradise was where he raised Hayes and Angie and Ellery. That was the house where he lived with his three wives, the most beautiful, complicated women he has ever known.

Deacon swims until his limbs are numb with the cold. He’s having some stomach pains; possibly he swam too soon after eating. He climbs out and collapses on his towel in the mellow late-afternoon sun.

It’s the golden hour. Deacon can remember watching his father walk toward him from down the beach; he can still picture the inscrutable expression on his father’s face. It was sadness and regret, Deacon supposes. His father might have wished he’d lived his life another way or been a more noble man-a better husband, a better father.

Deacon is overcome with emotion. Everything comes to an end-the day ends, the summer ends, an era ends. In a minute or two, Deacon will get on his bike and pedal back to American Paradise, where he will sit on the back deck, smoke a cigarette, drink a cold Diet Coke, and watch the sun go down.

But before he does that, he will stay and enjoy the last of the day’s warmth and the sound of the waves hitting the shore.

He thinks of the words he wanted to say to his father so many years earlier.

Let’s stay here, Dad. Please, let’s just find a way to stay.

As most of my longtime readers know, I love to write about food. This novel, Here’s to Us, features four actual recipes that were developed specifically to fit my plot. They are real recipes that we can all make at home.

The first two recipes, Deacon’s Clams Casino Dip with Herb-Butter Baguettes and the Fluffy White Champagne Cake, come from the person who is currently my culinary obsession, Jessica Merchant. Jessica is the author of the cookbook Seriously Delish, in which every recipe is… seriously delish. And she is the founder of the website How Sweet Eats. When you check out her website, you will thank me because it is gorgeous and brilliant, and all of her recipes feel like they’ve been plucked out of the pages of one of my novels (and now, that’s true). She is also the mother of the cutest baby of all time, who I like to pretend is my baby.

The second two recipes, Deacon’s Shellfish Chowder and the Tri-Berry Crumble, were developed by my friend of over twenty years, the doyenne of the Nantucket food world, Sarah Leah Chase. Sarah’s culinary career began on Nantucket in the early 1980s when she opened Que Sera Sarah, a specialty food shop and catering business. She has written seven cookbooks, including the bestsellers Nantucket Open-House Cookbook (this, the cookbook that has shaped my food sensibilities for the past twenty-three years) and Cold-Weather Cooking. Sarah’s most recent work of genius is New England Open-House Cookbook, published in the summer of 2015. Sarah posts scheduled events and epicurean undertakings on her Facebook fan page: facebook.com/sarahleahchase.

I want to start by thanking the two people to whom this novel is dedicated. Anne and Whitney Gifford have been friends since I moved to Nantucket. Not only did they hunt for a baby swing for my son Maxx (now sixteen) in the middle of a fondue party, but they also allowed me to use their second home as my own personal writing studio through five chilly winters. In the red library on Barnabas, I wrote A Summer Affair, The Castaways, The Island, Silver Girl, and Summerland. More recently, Anne and Whitney were instrumental in helping me purchase my new house. They are as close to me as family, and I treasure our friendship and value their unconditional love.

Joe Gamberoni taught me everything I needed to know about hunting on Nantucket. Let the record show that (unlike Angie) I was not strong enough to draw back the string of a bow (it’s a lot harder than it looks). Joe’s knowledge of hunting and deer is comprehensive, and he patiently answered all my questions.

Thank you to Mark Goldweitz for “lending” his boat, the Lena Marie, to my characters so they could spread Deacon’s ashes in style.

Michael May, executive director of the Nantucket Preservation Trust, was a hero at the last minute and sent me Betsy Tyler’s comprehensive and elegant house history of 141 Main Street, allowing me to write what is my favorite scene in this book.

Reagan Arthur did it again. She is, quite simply, the most talented editor in the business. She is the true superstar here, consistently making the magic happen by encouraging my best writing and teasing out the most engaging storyline. Every Elin Hilderbrand fan should also be a Reagan Arthur fan.

I am the luckiest novelist in America to have Michael Carlisle and David Forrer of Inkwell Management as my agents-and even luckier to have them as my friends.

Anyone who has ever read any of my novels can probably tell that Nantucket is a special place. Nothing makes it so more than the people who live there. Thank you to all of my friends, my children’s friends, and my friends’ children. I can’t possibly name everyone who touches my life and makes the island home for me, but this year, I’ll say Here’s to you: Rebecca Bartlett; Wendy Rouillard; Wendy Hudson; Debbie Briggs; Beau and Elizabeth Almodobar; Heidi Holdgate; Shelly Weedon; Matthew and Evelyn MacEachern; Marty and Holly McGowan; Mark and Gwenn Snider and everyone on staff at the Nantucket Hotel; Angus and Melissa MacVicar; Mark and Eithne Yelle; Helaina Jones; Kevin, Sheila, Liam, and Paddy Carroll; Jeff, Liza, Kai, and Dylan Ottani (Pura Vida!); Manda Riggs; David Rattner and Andrew Law; Norm and Jen Frazee; Jen and Steve Laredo; Martha and John Sargent; Jessica Hicks; the incomparable Erin Frawley; and last but not in any way least: Chuck and Margie Marino.

Thank you to my sister, Heather Osteen Thorpe, for everything, always.

Finally, thank you to three of the coolest human beings I know-whom, it so happens, I have also had the privilege to raise: Maxwell, Dawson, and Shelby. I love you more than I love breathing.

Elin Hilderbrand first discovered the magic of Nantucket in July 1993. Her recipe for a happy island life includes running, writing at the beach, picnics at Eel Point with her three children, and singing “Home, Sweet Home” at the Club Car piano bar. Here’s to Us is her seventeenth novel.