Elin Hilderbrand - The Rumor

Hope shrugged. “It’s just a house.”

Allegra said, “I’d rather live in town, anyway.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. He couldn’t understand why they were being so nice.

“Eddie!” Grace called from the porch. “We have to go!”

The girls stood to give Eddie a hug. “We love you, Daddy,” Allegra said.

“We really love you,” Hope said.

“And I love you both,” Eddie said. “So much.” He was overcome with emotion. “Take care of your mother. Please.”

“We will,” Hope said.

The ride from Polpis Road to the courthouse took twenty minutes, the last free minutes of Eddie’s old life.

He said to Grace, “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“You slept with Nadia?” she said. She kept her eyes straight ahead, but her mouth was a grim, unattractive line. “I know it hardly matters in the scheme of things, but if you did, I want you to admit it.”

“I did not sleep with Nadia,” Eddie said. “What I want to tell you isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

“You’re going to tell me something about myself?” she said.

“It’s about Benton,” Eddie said.

Grace swerved the car at the mention of his name. It was probably the last thing she’d expected to talk about today, and yet Eddie had to get it off his chest before he left.

“What is it?” she said.

“I called him the other night,” Eddie said. “Before I drove out to Low Beach Road, I called him, and I asked him to stop by the office so we could have a man-to-man talk.”

Grace gasped. “Did he show?”

“Yes,” Eddie said. “I asked him what had been going on, and he told me he loved you. I honestly think he was asking me to step aside gracefully so you two could have a life together.” Eddie cleared his throat. “But he was confused, too, maybe not as sure of himself as he thought. He was worried about the effect of such a scandal on his business. Nobody wants to hire a home wrecker. He was afraid for you and the girls. He enjoyed Hope and thought she was a great kid, but he had never even met Allegra. What happened within the confines of the garden shed might have looked a little different once it was brought out into the sun.” Eddie had been struck, however, by Benton Coe’s adoration of his wife. When Benton talked about Grace, Eddie could feel love coming off the man in waves. It had given Eddie pause. “I think he was willing to take the risk if it could be done with my blessing? My permission?” Eddie was pretty sure that was why Benton had agreed to come to the office-he thought Eddie was going to surrender. “But I wasn’t about to just hand you over. You’re my wife, my life, you’re the mother of my children. I’m aware, Grace, that I haven’t been the most attentive, nor the most loving, husband. I realize I didn’t succeed at nurturing your interior life. Most days, I didn’t ask what you were thinking or feeling. You had emotional needs that I was incapable of meeting, which was why I was glad you had Madeline. And, for a while, I was even glad you had Benton. I knew you liked him, I knew his friendship was important to you. I knew you enjoyed having someone to talk about flowers. But I’m not going to lose you to him. I told him, Grace, that if he ever contacted you again, or if he even responded to a text or call that you made, I would have him killed.”

“Killed?” Grace said. “Really?”

“Really,” Eddie said. “I would have found someone to do it for money. I would have, Grace, and he knew it. Or maybe, let’s say, I wouldn’t have actually had him killed. But I would have ruined his life. I would have taken down his business, shredded his good name.”

“He told you he loved me?” Grace said.

“He did,” Eddie said. “And now, I think you should go with him, if that’s what you want. Because I failed. I did this evil thing, and I let you down.”

Grace didn’t respond. Eddie had never been good at gauging her emotions, but if he tried now, he would say she seemed… overwhelmed. It was a lot to deal with-after all, in a few minutes, he would stand before the judge, he would plead guilty, he would be sentenced and would be taken into custody. Two law-enforcement agents would bring him via ferry to the mainland, where a van would meet them and transport Eddie to MCI-Plymouth. Eddie had a duffel bag in the back of the car, packed with sanctioned items. Grace would be able to visit in thirty days.

He was trying to think of it as going away to college, something he had never experienced. He toyed with this delusion-prison as an institute of higher learning-at least until he pulled up in front of the town building. FBI officers were outside, waiting, as was Eddie’s lawyer, Bridger Cleburne, as was a photographer from the Nantucket Standard, as was… the chief of police.

Eddie groaned.

“Oh, Eddie,” Grace said.

Eddie had mixed feelings about the Chief’s role in all of this. The Chief hadn’t known about the prostitution ring on Figawi weekend-no way-nor, probably, when they went out fishing. But at some point the Chief had found out what Eddie was doing, and he hadn’t given Eddie any warning. By then, possibly, the FBI was involved, and the Chief’s hands were tied. Eddie knew he couldn’t have expected the chief of police to help; friends or not, there was the law to consider. Eddie hung his head as he walked up to the Chief.

“I’m so sorry, Ed…”

The Chief held up a hand. “Don’t apologize to me. I told you I don’t judge. But the court does, and I’m sad to see it go down this way.”

Eddie stared at his feet and shook his head.

The Chief said, “You’ve always struck me as the kind of guy who can bounce back. Be careful in there, Eddie. Keep your nose clean, serve your time. We’ll have that drink when you get back.”

“We will?” Eddie asked. The road he had to travel between now and the time he would actually be a free man again, and able to sit on a bar stool next to the Chief, seemed infinitely long and arduous, but Eddie was heartened that the Chief thought he could do it.

“We will,” the Chief said.

As much as everything had changed, everything had stayed the same. Her father went to jail-he was gone-but he had never been around much before. Grace seemed subdued, but she got this way sometimes, especially when she had a migraine. She still did the gardening and cared for the hens, only now she gave Allegra and Hope chores. Allegra was to mow the grass every four days, and Hope was to skim the pool and deadhead the lilies each morning.

One day, Allegra asked Hope if she wanted to go to the beach.

Hope considered this. The beach. Could she and Allegra reasonably make an everyday summer outing to the beach when their father had just been sent to prison?

“Are you sure you want to go to the beach?” Hope said. She had envisioned sitting by the pool in a bubble of reclusive sadness all summer. She hoped that collective memory was short and that by the time their senior year started, people would have forgotten about Allegra and Ian Coburn, and about their father, the pimp.

“I’m sure,” Allegra said. “We can pack sandwiches, take our books, jump in the ocean.”

It did sound appealing. Eddie was in jail, but they weren’t. “Where are you thinking? Steps? Dionis? Sconset?”

“I was thinking Nobadeer,” Allegra said.

“Nobadeer?” Hope said. Nobadeer was where the entire high school hung out. Allegra’s former friends would be there. “Have you made up with Hollis, then?”

“God no,” Allegra said. “But just because she might be there doesn’t mean I can’t be there. I like Nobadeer. It’s my beach.”

It was your beach, Hope thought. But the photo of Allegra in her underwear had knocked her name off the top of the Nobadeer masthead. Hope herself never hung out at Nobadeer-not because she didn’t like it but because her sister and Hollis and their friends congregated there.

Hope said, “Let’s try another beach for starters.”

Allegra said, “Let’s try Nobadeer for starters.”

Hope sighed. They were still Alice and the Dormouse. She didn’t have the energy to fight. She wondered if Allegra was planning on using Eddie’s incarceration as some kind of social currency. Maybe she thought her old friends would find running a prostitution ring of illegal girls cool, or maybe Allegra thought they would feel sorry for her. Hope couldn’t predict. Despite the fact that she was one, she did not understand teenagers.

Grace packed them sandwiches. She seemed happy they were getting out. “There’s no reason to hide,” she said. “Your father made a bad decision, and now he’s paying his dues. It doesn’t reflect badly on the rest of us.”

She sounded as if she were lying. Because she was lying. Eddie’s downfall did reflect badly on the rest of them. Their lives-Allegra’s Italian leather jacket, the red Jeep Wrangler, the chemicals that cleaned the pool, the groceries required to make beautiful sandwiches such as the ones Grace was now making-had been financed by a prostitution ring. Or at least partially so.

It did reflect badly.

Nonetheless, Allegra and Hope put on their bikinis and cover-ups and packed up towels and lotion, bottles of cold water and Diet Coke, and their most precious commodity-the novels they were reading-and accepted the picnic hamper from Grace.

They were off.

The day was bright and blue skied. Allegra insisted they take the top off the Jeep so that sun flooded the front seat as they drove down the sandy roads to the dunes of Nobadeer.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Allegra said. “This is a beach day. This is a gift from God-I mean, look at it.”

They walked over the dunes, onto the golden sands of Nobadeer. The ocean seemed vaster here than anywhere else on the island. There were long breaking waves; the green-blue water sparkled. Tons of kids were surfing and boogie boarding and stand-up paddle boarding. The scene was picturesque, and for a second, Hope thought they were right to have come.

Then she saw Bluto.

Bluto was impossible to miss. He weighed 250 pounds and was as pale as the moon. He wasn’t ugly; he had the sweet, round, blue-eyed face of a baby and nice, thick light-brown hair. But he was crass, and he specialized in the mean exploitation of other people’s worst flaws in order to keep people’s attention off his own. Bluto was lying on a towel next to Hollis, Kenzie, and Calgary-and there, set a little bit apart, were Hannah and Brick. It was an all-star lineup of Allegra’s worst enemies.

Hope turned to look at her sister. Allegra zoomed right for her former friends, beaming. She was wearing a straw hat, her Tom Ford sunglasses, a black bikini, and a black pareu around her hips. She was dazzling.

“Hey, guys!” she said.

Hollis snorted. Bluto said, in his high tenor voice, “Move along, Zippy.”

“Zippy?” Allegra said.

“Your ankles are in different zip codes,” Bluto said.

Calgary McMann laughed maniacally at this. Hope wanted to kick sand in his face. Her foot was less than a yard away from his towel. She then saw that Calgary and Kenzie had their legs entwined. Gross.

Allegra said, “You find that funny, Calgary? Have you told Kenzie how many times you’ve tried to kiss me?”

“That’s not true,” Calgary said.

With one finger, Allegra lowered her sunglasses. “The last time was when you waited for me outside the bathroom at your house earlier this summer. When I almost had to kick you in the nuts.”

Kenzie stared at Calgary. Hope thought, Yes. Calgary had pretended to like Hope, but only because Hope looked like Allegra. Hope thought Brick might be interested in this news, but he and Hannah were in a world of their own. They hadn’t even seemed to notice Allegra and Hope. Brick looked as fit and tan as ever, and his hair was growing blonder. Hope’s heart lurched in his direction, although she realized he and Hannah were having some kind of love conversation, and she also recognized that this was a positive thing. Hannah and Brick were a good match. Hannah was an A student, she played ice hockey, she had ambition: she wanted to play Division I in college and make the Olympic team. She wasn’t as gorgeous as Allegra, but Brick was probably all finished with gorgeous.

Hope tore her attention away from Brick in time to see Kenzie jump up from her towel and lay into Calgary. “Did you try to kiss that slut? Did you?”

“Oh, please,” Hollis said in her sly voice that always reminded Hope of the cobra Nag in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. “This is hardly news. Everyone knows Calgary has had a hard-on for Allegra since the sixth grade.”