Chapter 2
Chapter Two
F rankie folded her napkin halfway, then the opposite way. Her head throbbed, and there was a black spot in her vision—hovering just above the center of Nellie’s head and moving around every time Frankie twisted around to talk to anyone else. The black spot was proof she hadn’t slept well last night nor the one before that. Maybe she hadn’t slept well all summer long. Not since Colin had dumped her. Not since she’d graduated and floundered around Nantucket like a plastic bag floating in the wind.
Nellie sat in front of her, giving her one of her looks. Frankie had grown accustomed to Nellie looking at her like that this summer. It was a role reversal, the youngest child worrying about the oldest child. It had never happened to Sophie and Ida, their aunt and their mother. But maybe it was healthy , Frankie thought. Perhaps it meant that she didn’t always have to be the one to carry the burden. Nellie could pick up the slack, too.
Suddenly, their mother burst from the cockpit. Her face was pale, and she tugged at her hair the way she always did when she was panicked about something. Panic was the name of the game in Ida’s chosen industry. All summer long, Ida and her business partner, Shelby, rushed from one proverbial fire to another, tending to the Nantucket Sunset Cruisers.
Now, Ida wore an expression that meant that something else was amiss. Something she had to handle immediately.
The only problem was, of course, that they were more than a half mile out to sea. And Ida wasn’t one to ruin Grant Coleman’s seventy-first birthday party.
Frankie watched her mother like a hawk. Ida scurried over to their father and bent to whisper in his ear. Rick pulled a face immediately and got up, his chair making an ominous screech across the wooden floorboards of the yacht. They were talking to the captain in a flash, who adjusted his captain’s hat and gestured toward the lower deck.
Under her breath, Nellie muttered, “Uh-oh.”
It was akin to watching a play: their mother ducking down to the lower deck, their father hurrying after her, their grandparents asking one another loudly what all the commotion was about.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with your present, Grant,” their grandmother said to their grandfather, swatting him on the shoulder.
Their grandfather smiled mischievously and sipped his glass of champagne.
Ida and Rick returned to the top deck with a large box and a life vest. Their grandmother Katrina was on her feet, stricken, demanding, “What on earth is this about, Ida?”
Ida looked flummoxed. Frankie could already guess why. Ida was the eldest child, the daughter who’d never done anything wrong in her life. Leaving her father’s birthday party was definitely “wrong.” Frankie could relate because she’d been perfect up until recently when she’d gotten dumped, got very tired, and gained some weight from her medication. She sensed her mother’s eyes on her all the time. She sensed her mother muttering worriedly about her to her father—demanding of him what had gone wrong with Frankie.
“There’s been an incident on shore,” Ida said as she tugged what looked to be a raft out of the plastic box. “I have to get back as soon as I can.”
“Goodness!” Katrina cried.
“Can’t Shelby take care of it?” Sophie asked.
Frankie watched her mother’s expression carefully. She sensed that Sophie’s suggestion made her irate. She imagined her mother thinking, what does Sophie know about running a business?
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Ida assured them.
Rick helped Ida pull the plastic boat to the opposite side of the yacht so they could blow it up. The process took all of thirty seconds. Frankie had seen this particular boat just a few times before. There was a motor you could attach to it, one that made it like a motorized raft. It allowed someone to depart a larger vessel if needed. Ida put on her life jacket and set her jaw. Frankie watched her mother tell her father not to come with her. “Enjoy the party,” she said.
Frankie was on her feet. She felt Nellie’s eyes on her.
“Mom?” Frankie called. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to do something. To help during a season of her life in which she felt so helpless. “Can I come with you?”
Ida raised her eyebrows and clicked another piece of her life jacket into place. “Honey, no. Stay here. Celebrate with your grandfather.”
Frankie’s cheeks burned with a flash of embarrassment. All summer long, she’d avoided her grandpa Grant like the plague. Her mother’s disappointment was palpable yet something she could carry, but her grandpa Grant’s was far worse. She couldn’t very well explain to her grandfather why she’d gained this weight, that it wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t explain to him that her heart was broken because of some twenty-three-year-old boy named Colin. All Grandpa Grant saw—probably—was a failure.
“Stay with us, Frankie!” Aunt Sophie called. “She’ll be back in no time.”
Ida gave Frankie a confused smile and then disappeared down the ladder to board the vessel. There was a moment of silence. Although she couldn’t see her, Frankie imagined her mother getting settled. After that, there was the roar of the engine, and then her mother disembarked, blasting out from the yacht and back toward shore. Having done his share, their father returned to the dinner party, clapped his hands, and said, “That’s all, folks. Let’s get back to the party.”
Rick pulled up a chair to Nellie and Frankie’s table and refilled his glass of champagne.
“Did Mom say what was up?” Nellie asked.
“It was the Grayson party tonight, right?” Frankie remembered. Their mother always pulled out all the stops for the Grayson family, who’d been loyal customers for years and always spent buckets and buckets of cash on their lavish parties. Without the Graysons, their mother had said, the Nantucket Sunset Cruisers wouldn’t have survived past their first three years.
“It was,” Rick said. “But Shelby didn’t say what happened. Your mother is heading over there blind.”
Frankie and Nellie winced in unison. Frankie remembered that, for many years, people had always said they looked more like twins than sisters with two years between them. That wasn’t the case now.
The catering staff cleared their plates and said cake would be served in another hour. Music bumped from the speakers. Nellie got up and tugged at Frankie, saying, “We should get a swim in before it gets dark!”
Nellie and Frankie had always loved swimming off the side of their mother’s business yacht. Something was utterly romantic about being so far from shore, tossing about in an ocean that suddenly seemed so massive, so untouchable. Even through the ages of sixteen and sometimes seventeen, their mother had demanded that they wear life vests. “ The ocean is unpredictable, ” she’d always said. But now that they were twenty-three and twenty-one, Ida let them do as they pleased. How could she not?
But Frankie was embarrassed to wear a swimsuit around anyone—including her family. In the changing room downstairs, she put on her brand-new red one-piece and twisted from side to side in the mirror. Nellie’s eyes widened, and she said, “You look hot , Sis.”
Frankie stuck out her tongue. “Don’t try to make me feel better.”
“I’m not kidding,” Nellie said. “The curves are doing you all kinds of favors.”
Frankie felt a momentary rush of heat through her belly.
But she swiftly reminded herself, No. She’s lying to me.
A few others decided to swim with them. Sophie, wearing a life vest that surged over her pregnant belly, her husband Patrick, Great-Aunt Oriana, and Great-Aunt Meghan. Frankie breathed deeply and reminded herself to relax in her own skin. It was easier said than done. But very soon, they were out in the open water with a vibrant sunset electrified across the horizon. Frankie floated on her back and felt the supple waves over her stomach, across her arms and legs. Nellie did a few flips and then a backstroke from one end of the boat to the other. It was currently the Summer Olympics in Paris, and Nellie and Frankie had spent a lot of time watching the swimming, diving, and gymnastics events. Apparently, it had inspired Nellie. It had made Frankie feel more incapable than ever. It’s the depression talking, Nellie had told her when she’d said it aloud.
Suddenly, Frankie’s name was called from the top deck. Frankie heard it through the water, then straightened herself and looked up to find her grandma, grandpa, and father smiling down on her. There was no mistaking it; there was love in their eyes, but there was also something else. Confusion? Fear?
“Frankie!” her grandmother said again. “Your father was just telling us more about this job. It sounds so exciting!”
Frankie’s stomach twisted into a knot. She put on a brave smile and swam to the ladder to hold on to something.
“Um, yep!”
“You’re going into the city to interview this week?” her grandmother continued.
“Nellie’s driving me,” Frankie said.
“How fun!”
Grandma Katrina continued to smile in a way that made Frankie feel so small. If I don’t get that job, everyone will know for sure I’m a loser. Everyone will know for sure that I’ve failed.
“Why don’t you come up here and tell your grandfather more about it!” Grandma said after a moment’s pause.
Suddenly, Nellie swam up beside Frankie and gave her a firm smile. “Let’s both go. Come on. I’m no Olympian. I can’t swim for long.”
Frankie wanted to stay out in the abyss of the water and hide from conversations about responsibility, next steps, rent prices in New York City, and what her co-college graduates were doing now that college was over.
But it was her grandfather’s birthday. There was no getting out of it.
Frankie dragged herself out of the water, toweled off, and slipped her dress back on. Nellie looked happy, glowing. She smiled and said, “Just tell them what they want to hear.” If only it were that easy.
“But what if what they want to hear isn’t true?” Frankie said.
“But you do have a job interview,” Nellie reminded her. “And you’ll probably get it because you’re a genius and really smart and cool. And then you’ll be working in Manhattan—with so many of your other college classmates—and by the time I join you in two years, you’ll probably have forgotten who I am.”
“Ha.”
Nellie shot her a look that meant don’t insult yourself.
Frankie surged with jealousy. Nellie had decided to major in education, which meant her path forward would be clear and easy. Everywhere in the world needed teachers. Every child in the world needed to read, learn, and grow. But did the world really need more linguistics? Most people didn’t even know what her major meant. Trying to explain it usually left her feeling even more empty than she already did.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Back on deck, the caterers were preparing for the birthday cake portion of the evening. An elaborate carrot cake sat in the corner, decorated with Grant’s name and decadent sugar flowers.
Grandma Katrina tapped the chair directly beside her and smiled. “We saved our granddaughters seats with us!”
Nellie squeezed Frankie’s hand en route to the table. Frankie watched her grandmother’s eyes go up and down on her frame.
Grandpa Grant raised his glass and said, “It sounds like we should be celebrating the next step of your career, young lady.”
“Like I said, I haven’t gotten the job yet,” Frankie reminded them.
“But tell us what it is!” Grandma Katrina urged, waving both hands in the air. “We know you studied lin-sig-wits . Was that it?”
“Yes,” Frankie said, deciding not to correct her. “But the job doesn’t really have anything to do with that. It’s copywriting.”
“And what’s that?” Grandma Katrina asked.
Great-Aunt Estelle came to Frankie’s rescue, sweeping across the boat in that elegant way of hers. “It’s really so important, Katrina,” she explained. “You see copywriting everywhere. It’s in advertisements, on banners, on billboards, and in restaurant menus. Open your phone, and it’s filled with important copywriting.”
Katrina clasped her hands together as though that was enough for her. “Wonderful.”
“What’s the company called?” Great-Aunt Estelle asked.
“Wigmelle,” Frankie said, reminding herself not to wrinkle her nose when she said it. The fact that she’d even applied to such a place mystified her. Wigmelle sold boring lamps and toasters, rice cookers, and banal artwork to very boring people who’d never had an original thought in their lives. People who definitely didn’t know what the term “linguistics” meant.
“Frankie had a fantastic interview over the phone,” Nellie bragged. “They adored her.”
“Isn’t that wonderful!” Grandpa Grant cried. “Although I’m not surprised.”
“Not at all,” Grandma Katrina said.
Frankie felt suddenly doomed to the next two to five years of her life at Wegmelle. She hadn’t even gotten the gig yet, but she knew now that she had to take it, that she had to prove herself to her family, that she had to be the sort of young woman who lived in Manhattan and made a great deal of money. Her stomach tightened with fear. Very soon, the caterers came by with a slice of cake, but she smeared off the icing and only ate the innards—knowing that her family would think she was doing all she could to drop the weight.
“Any word from Mom?” Nellie asked their father, licking the frosting from the tongs of her fork.
“Not yet,” Rick said. “I assume she’s busy saving the world, as usual.” He smiled.