Florie
“And this is our post office, isn’t it cute, and across the street, here is our library, it’s Greek Revival, don’t you love the columns, and it has the most beautiful small park in the middle of town where you can sit and eat an ice cream, and here’s the Dreamland where all the movies are shown plus lots of other stuff, and let’s step in here, it’s the Rose and Crown.
It’s got yummy burgers and karaoke on the weekends, and a really good bar.
Let’s grab a stool and get a drink. I need to sit down. We’ve been walking so fast!”
“Darling! What are you doing in this pit?” She grabbed him by the shirt collar and yanked him forward to give a big smacking kiss that left scarlet lipstick around his mouth.
Daniel exploded with laughter. “Allegra, what are you doing here?”
“We all came for the Christmas Stroll. Isn’t it the sweetest little thing ever?” Allegra turned and shouted for her friends. “Hakeem! Peaches! Gunnar! Get over here!”
Daniel leaned toward Florie, sweeping her against him with his arm, holding her tight.
“This is my fiancée, Florie,” he yelled at the group shoving their way toward him.
A woman with glossy strawberry-blond hair crowned with red berries and white flowers half-fell onto Daniel. “Daniel, I’m drunk!”
A handsome dark-haired man in a North Face parka loomed up. “My man,” he said solemnly, gripping Daniel by the shoulders.
A tall, broad-shouldered, blond man who seemed to have just stepped off his Viking ship slugged Daniel in the shoulder. “Daniel!”
“Guys!” Daniel yelled, pulling Florie close to him, “This is Florie, my fiancée!”
The drunk woman who Florie assumed was Peaches staggered against Florie. “Oh, I’m so jealous. Isn’t Daniel just the best kisser ever?”
Florie was speechless, which no one noticed. They were all speed talking.
“Why are you all here?” Daniel yelled.
“Because I won the bet!” Allegra said, pulling Florie close to her—and away from Daniel. “We all live in Wisconsin.”
Hakeem interrupted. “Excuse me! I live in Illinois.”
“But you grew up in Milwaukee and the University of Chicago is practically in Wisconsin,” Allegra argued, and without drawing a breath, continued, “Last year we bet on what team would win the Super Bowl and we won and decided to spend the money on a group trip. I always wanted to see Nantucket. It’s so cute! ”
Gunnar yelled, “Florie, honey, are you a poet, too?”
“She looks like a poet,” Peaches said, slurring her words.
“BOOTH!” Gunnar the Viking yelled, grabbing Daniel by the arm and pulling him off his bar stool and across the room to an empty booth.
Allegra put her arm around Peaches and shoved their way through the crowd. Hakeem politely held out his hand. Florie took it and allowed him to tow her through the mob.
From the loudspeaker Alvin and the Chipmunks were singing “All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)” at an earsplitting level.
Someone accidentally shoved Hakeem who fell against Florie and someone else stepped on Florie’s foot.
By the time they reached the booth, Florie had spilled half her drink on someone’s coat, but no one seemed to notice.
The booth was crescent shaped. Daniel was crushed between Allegra and Peaches.
Gunnar was on the outer left side, so Hakeem ushered Florie in against Peaches and sat on the outside corner.
The table was sticky and getting stickier with six people trying to lift drinks while being nudged in the elbow.
Florie caught part of the ongoing conversation next to her.
“How’s your mother?” Allegra yelled at Daniel.
Peaches turned to Florie. “Daniel’s mother is the best ever! She makes the most delicious kringles!”
“What’s a kringle?” Florie asked.
Peaches had already turned back to Daniel. “Did you hear that Hannah’s dog died?”
Daniel said, “No, how sad! What happened?”
“Her father accidentally backed over it with his Chevy!”
Hakeem leaned past Florie, unintentionally nudging her out of the way. “Warren Short always was a careless asshole.”
Pressed against the back of the booth, Florie tried to keep up with the conversation.
Gradually, she realized with an ice-cold shiver that she would be moving to the place where Daniel knew everyone and she knew no one but Daniel.
The more the group talked, the more Florie understood that Daniel had dated so many women and he slept with so many women who would be cuddling up to Daniel at parties to reminisce and Florie would be there alone with no one on her side.
His parents had been warm and friendly when she went out to visit for a few days, but that was quite different from moving out there and starting a new life where Daniel knew everyone and she knew nobody.
Florie had thought she was brave when she went off-island to college.
She’d gone off-island before, of course, for trips to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and to New York to the Met and Lincoln Center and one winter to Saint Thomas with a group of friends.
But those trips had taken a few days or a week. She hadn’t left Nantucket forever.
She’d always assumed she’d live somewhere near the island—Boston, Providence, New York City.
Now she realized how lovestruck she was to agree to move halfway across the country to live with a man in a landscape and community she didn’t know.
Some people who grew up on the island always came back, couldn’t stay away, and she understood that, because Nantucket was absolutely magical and different from everywhere else, but first of all, her sister Lydia, who Florie secretly (and maybe not so secretly) adored, was making a life for herself working for hotels in other cities, maybe even in other countries.
Florie wanted to be as sophisticated as her older sister, as capable of living elsewhere, anywhere.
When she met Daniel, she knew wherever he was was where she wanted to be.
But she hadn’t realized that his home could never be her home the way it was his home.
Was she drunk?
No! She was more sober than she’d been since she fell in love with Daniel.
She’d made peace with her inner jealous monster about Daniel going off occasionally for poetry readings, but had she really thought about how it would be even with Daniel in Wisconsin?
He’d be at the university, teaching flocks of ravishingly gorgeous and worshipful young women, and what would Florie be doing?
She certainly wouldn’t be phoning Peaches to compare Daniel’s kisses.
And Allegra was a whirlwind, sucking everyone around her into her universe.
Get a grip! Florie told herself. She could sit there with her wandering interior monologues because no one else at the table seemed to notice she was there.
She had to cheer up. She knew she would find a job.
With her degree in business administration, she’d find a job in an upscale firm.
She’d buy Jimmy Choos and Christian Louboutin heels and Ralph Lauren and Armani.
She’d go out for cocktails after work with the guys, and she’d flirt, she really would.
But what could she do now? Hakeem and Peaches were leaning over Florie to yell at each other, not noticing that Florie had been smushed back into the upholstery.
She didn’t want to simply sit here, alone in a crowd, forgotten, invisible, while the air shook with laughter and shouts and music from chipmunks.
She considered sliding down below the table and crawling over Hakeem’s feet and escaping from the group but the thought of touching the sticky floor with her hands gave her the shivers. Besides, she wasn’t a child. She didn’t want to run away with her feelings hurt, boo-hooing all the way.
Peaches had ordered Mudslide cocktails for the women.
A full glass sat on the table in front of Florie.
A delectable, treacherous combination of vodka, Irish cream, coffee liqueur, and real cream, it sat untouched because Peaches was too busy shouting at Hakeem.
Florie had had one before—and regretted it.
Now she couldn’t resist. She snaked her hand out beneath the shoulders of her seatmates and carefully brought it back to her mouth.
She sipped. Oh my God. So rich, so chocolatey, so creamy, so luscious—and immediately she relaxed against the booth and closed her eyes as she chugged down the cocktail.