Kayla
IT IS DECEMBER ON Nantucket Island—a month of white skies and the first truly cold winds of the winter, a month made bearable by Christmas cheer. When Kayla stands next to the big Douglas fir in front of Pacific National Bank, she gazes down Main Street at the rows of trees with their fat colored lights, the snow flurries dusting the cobblestones, and the people she has lived amongst for twenty years, who are hurrying into the warm shops.
Kayla has shopping to do as well. At The Complete Kitchen, she buys an ice cream scoop for Luke’s teacher, and the woman behind the register offers her an hors d’oeuvre from a silver platter: smoked salmon on rye bread topped with caviar that looks like black pearls. At Nantucket Sleigh Ride, they’re handing out hot cider in paper cups. Kayla buys ornaments and a strand of scallop-shell lights. At Johnston’s of Elgin cashmere shop, Kayla splurges on a cherry red pashmina for a party she and Raoul have been invited to on the fifteenth. The salesgirl wraps the pashmina in cream-colored tissue paper, ties it up with red ribbon, and then slips it into a fancy shopping bag with silk cord handles.Walking back to her car, Kayla marvels at how, on the outside, everything in her life appears to be back to normal. And on a day like today, better than normal.
Antoinette has been missing for three months.
As Kayla walks into her house, the phone rings. She still can’t bring herself to answer the phone because she’s afraid.
“Afraid of what?” Raoul asked her once.
Afraid of this very thing: She waits for the machine to pick up, and then she hears a voice.
“Kayla,” the voice says. “This is Paul Henry. I have news. Please call me.”
Kayla deletes the message and begins pacing the house, still clutching her shopping bags. She is grateful that she’s the only one home. No one else heard the message.
I have news.
Afraid of what?
Afraid that everything is not back to normal. Antoinette, the woman whom Kayla once called her best friend, was swept off the coast of Great Point while swimming in the middle of the night on Labor Day weekend.
Was Antoinette dead? Alive? There was no way to know.
Until now.
Kayla
AT TWO O’CLOCK ON the Friday of Labor Day weekend, the phone rang. Kayla was eating lunch: half a tomato sandwich and eight Lay’s potato chips. As she ate, she paged through the Dutch Gardens catalog, looking for spring bulbs.
Kayla plucked the phone off the kitchen wall. It was her friend Valerie Gluckstern’s secretary.
“Hold for Val,” the secretary said.
Twenty seconds later, it was Val herself. Kayla heard her shut the door to her office. Val always took her personal calls behind closed doors.
“Kayla?”
“Yes, Counselor,” Kayla said, licking salt off her fingers.
“Have you talked to Antoinette?”
“Not yet.”
“But we’re on for tonight? Eleven-thirty, and not a minute later? You’re driving?”
“As promised.”
“God, I’m so happy, I could just burst. I have, like, sixteen closings this month, and I don’t care. John said something last night about running for selectmanagain in the spring, and even that didn’t bother me.”
“And tonight you’re going to tell us who’s making you so happy?” Kayla said. “The mystery man?”
“As promised,” Val said. “I’m bringing a bottle of champagne I picked up when I was in France. You bought cheese?”
“I’m going to the store this afternoon. When I talked to Antoinette last week I asked her to bring the lobsters, but I’ll call and remind her.”
“It’s a full moon tonight,” Val said. “Can you even believe the romance in that? Has there ever been a full moon for Night Swimmers before?”
“I don’t remember one.”
“So this is the first time in twenty years,” Val said. “Twenty years, can you believe it? God, we’re old.” She sucked in her breath and let out a long stream of air. It sounded like Val was smoking a cigarette, but Kayla knew better.
“Are you lifting your weights?” Kayla asked.
“Twenty reps, bicep curl,” Val said. “You can fight age, you know.”
“You can fight age,” Kayla said. “It’s too late for me. I have to ration potato chips. Count them out, seal the bag, and hide it away.”
“I know what you mean,” Val said.
“You don’t know,” Kayla said. “Ms. Size Two.”
“Size four.”
Copyright © 2002 by Elin Hilderbrand
