Chapter Nine Mallory
June 2008
Winthrop Island, New York
It was Monk’s idea to hold art class after dinner each night.
Once the kids and I finished our pasta or chicken nuggets or meatballs or teriyaki salmon and cleaned up—I insisted that they rinse off their own plates and put them in the dishwasher—we trooped outside to the terrace that looked out across the lawn to the bluffs and the ocean beyond. Sometimes we set up easels and sometimes we just lay on our stomachs on the paving stones, still warm from the sun, and I’d show them a few basics, suggest a few ideas, let them have at it with colored pencils or watercolors while the air turned gold and the sea rushed against the beach below.
Monk was right. During this hour of tranquility they could pour all their thoughts onto the paper, express everything they’d done and felt during the day. By the time we got up and trooped back into the house, they were rinsed clean. They were ready to bathe and change into their pajamas, brush their teeth, and climb into bed and listen to a single story before falling into a docile sleep.
“Not bad,” Mr. Adams said, peering over Blue’s shoulder at a watercolor of dolphins and mermaids. “I like that smile on the porpoise’s face.”
“It’s a dolphin,” she said.
“Honey, it’s a porpoise. Look at his nose.”
“I painted it and I say it’s a dolphin.”
Mr. Adams made a dry, nervous chuckle. He looked at me, winked, and said, “Okay, honey. Whatever you say. Dolphin it is.”
An hour later, I came downstairs from putting the twins to bed and went into the kitchen, where the housekeeper was putting away the kids’ dinner dishes. Grace was a small, dainty woman from one of the Portuguese fishing families on the island, and the top shelf was giving her some trouble.
“Oh gosh, let me help you with that,” I said.
“No, no. I’ll get the step stool, okay?”
“Please. Just hand me the glasses.”
She handed me the glasses. “Thank you, Miss Mallory. Must be nice to be so tall.”
“I wish. I’m like, five seven. Not that tall.”
“To me, that’s tall.” She laughed. “You and Mr. Monk. You’re going to have some long babies together, that’s for certain.”
I spun around. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I have eyes in my head, Miss Mallory. I see the way you two look at each other. You’ll make my sweet boy very happy someday.”
“That’s just—we’re just friends, Grace. Totally just friends.”
“The best way to start. Like my Tommy and me.” She shooed me to the door. “Go. He’s in the sunroom with his father. So you know he could use a little company.”
Sure enough, I found Monk in the sunroom with Mr. Adams, deep in conversation next to the french windows. Mr. Adams held a lowball glass of brown stuff, no ice. Monk held a beer. He looked scrubbed, damp. He’d worked all afternoon on the golf course, had showered and changed. It was the end of June and the heat had settled into the earth, into the pores of the floorboards. The two of them turned as I entered.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize—”
“Come in, come in,” said Mr. Adams. “Drink?”
“I—well…”
“You’re off the clock, aren’t you? Little monsters all tucked in. Come on, what’ll you have?”
“I guess…a beer?”
Monk said, “I’ll get one for you.”
As he passed me on the way to the kitchen, I caught his stony expression. I lifted my eyebrows and he shook his head, just brushing the inside of my elbow with his fingers.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” I said to Mr. Adams.
“What? Oh, no. Just trying to pass along a little fatherly advice. Hot day, isn’t it?” He hung his hand on the back of his neck and looked out the window to the glistening water. “Shall we go out on the terrace?”
“Um, sure.”
I followed him through the door that opened onto the terrace, which ran the entire width of the house. At one end there was a table and chairs, where the family usually ate on those rare occasions when they ate together at home, instead of at the Club or someone else’s dinner party. At this end, some wicker furniture formed a seating area, tricked out with a wicker bar cart and wicker coffee table and dainty wicker footrest. Mr. Adams settled himself in a wicker armchair and gestured to the wicker sofa. I perched on the edge. Mr. Adams was on his third wife—the starter marriage with Monk’s mother’s predecessor didn’t take—and somewhere between his fifty-fifth and sixtieth year. He was still handsome in a creased, distinguished way that made you think of boardrooms, like an aging movie star playing a CEO. He wore an impeccable navy blazer and white shirt and silk tie patterned with the Winthrop Island Club crest, and a pair of chinos in a color they called Nantucket red, which you or I would call pink. Party at the Club tonight, I remembered—Club with a capital C, you understand, to convey a subtle prestige over the Little Bay Club on the public side of the island. Mrs. Adams was still upstairs getting ready. Assisted by a vodka bottle, probably.
“I must say, we’re extremely pleased with the job you’re doing, Mallory,” said Mr. Adams. “The kids are thriving.”
“Thank you. They’re good kids.”
“Let’s be honest, they’re hellions. But you’re not afraid to show some discipline. I appreciate that.” He sipped his Scotch. “God knows it’s an easy habit to slip into, letting children have what they want, when we have so much to give them. It’s natural to want to make them happy. The trouble is, you end up with adults who don’t understand the responsibility that comes with privilege. Ah, Monk. There you are.”
Silently Monk handed me the beer and stood next to me, on the other side of the sofa armrest.
“Sit, sit,” said Mr. Adams. “I was just telling our Mallory she’s the best nanny we’ve ever hired. You’ve got a good nose for talent, son.”
Monk tilted his beer bottle—he seemed to have fetched himself a fresh one as well—and drank down two or three long gulps. Touched the back of his hand to his lips. “I told you, Dad. Mallory’s the best.”
“Well, thanks,” I said. “But I can’t take all the credit. Monk’s been giving me a big hand. The kids really love him.”
“This art you’ve been doing with them every evening. Fantastic. Just fantastic.”
“That was Monk’s idea.”
“You know, you’ve got real potential, Mallory. Monk’s shown me some of your work. Those botanical drawings are exquisite. How long have you been interested in flowers?”
“Gosh. Since the summer after high school? I got this job in a florist shop in Provincetown. Never really paid much attention to flowers before. The color and the…the allure? How each one draws you to its center. The beauty of biology, you might say. I started trying to figure out how you could paint a scent and ended up…” I glanced at Monk, who gripped his beer and stared earnestly at me, “Sorry, don’t mean to bore you.”
“Not at all, not at all. It’s not the most revolutionary choice of subject, of course. Particularly for a woman.” Mr. Adams jiggled the ice in his drink and smiled. “But well executed.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I don’t know if Monk’s told you, but I happen to sit on the board of the Gardiner museum. MOFA as well. So I do know a bit about art. And some of these flowers you’ve painted are remarkably well done.”
“Gosh, Mr. Adams. I don’t know what to say.”
“He’s only right,” said Monk.
I looked at Mr. Adams. “Monk was the one who told me I should study art in college.”
“Hey, I didn’t tell you, Pinks. You wanted to apply to art school, remember? I just said you should study what you want to study. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.”
“It was good advice,” I said. “Gave me the guts to go for it.”
Monk tipped his beer bottle toward me. “Maybe I should have taken it myself.”
“You’re at RISD, though?” Mr. Adams said to me. “More commercial than fine art, am I correct?”
“Most people say it’s probably the best in the country for a career in the visual arts.”
“But you never considered training at the conservatory level? Or, say, a liberal arts college?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I have to make a living, right?”
“Oh, naturally.” He spread his hands and smiled. “Call me a geezer. I just worry that in this age of television and computers, we’re at risk of failing to nurture the next generation of great artists.”
Monk set his empty bottle on the coffee table. “Excuse me. I think I’ll go for a walk before dinner.”
Mr. Adams sighed and reached into the immaculate pocket of his blazer. One by one he laid out a snack-sized Ziploc baggie, a stack of cigarette papers, and a lighter, and proceeded to roll up a joint. Being a gentleman, he offered it first to me.
I said no thanks. I set down my half-empty beer bottle and rose to follow Monk toward the beach.
Just as Monk had warned me that first night, the lawn at Seagrapes ended in a bluff that fell about thirty or forty feet to a narrow beach of fine sand. You had to pick your way down the path that traversed the side, making a switchback about halfway down. God forbid you should wear flip-flops, like mine. I skidded down the last stretch and staggered into Monk’s ribs. He’d taken off his blazer and shoes and socks, rolled up his chinos.
“You’re going to wrinkle those,” I said. “Frowned upon.”
He made a single snort of laughter, just to be polite.
I kicked some sand. “Need a hug?”
Monk stretched out his arm and tucked me against his side. The other hand he kept in his pocket. The air was thick and warm, the breeze had stilled. The water hardly moved, just rustled against the shore in a gentle rhythm. “I’m not sulking, I swear,” he said.
“I didn’t think you were.”
“I just didn’t want to punch him.”
“Would have been messy.”
Something pressed against the top of my head. I thought, He’s kissing me. Kissing my hair.
Oh, blessed hair.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “That was some seriously impressive passive aggression. Work of art.”
Monk released me and sat down in the sand. I sat next to him, knee to knee. My thin cotton sundress stretched between my legs, offering the crabs an eyeful.
“When I was a kid,” he said, “Dad pounced on the music thing. Piano lessons, guitar lessons, voice lessons. Summer camps. Sure, son, take that AP Music Theory class! Looks great on those college applications. Shows passion. Commitment to excellence. Well-rounded kid, the whole package. Sports and academics and the arts. Came to all my recitals. Framed all my awards. He was all in.”
“But music turned out to be the means to the end,” I said. “Not something you do for a living, anyway.”
He lifted his hand and examined the fingertips. “Look at those calluses.”
“I love your calluses. Battle scars.”
“What kills me,” he said, “is the way he presents to the world as this fucking arts patron. Oh, let’s encourage young artists. Let’s offer scholarships and grants and fellowships. Let’s dress in our gowns and fundraise at fancy galas at ten thousand bucks a table. Let’s sponsor all those musicians and singers and writers. Just so long as my own kid isn’t one of them.”
“But why? He should be proud as fuck of your talent.”
Monk laid on his deep voice. “You see, son, being an Adams is a privilege. It’s a burden. We can’t do whatever we want in life. We can’t indulge ourselves. We work for the greater good.” He dredged some sand between his feet. “But you know what? It’s all bullshit. It’s not the greater good he cares about. It’s the prestige of the family.”
“Status,” I said.
“Not status exactly. Status is kind of a bougie obsession, right? More like stature.” Monk lifted his hands and made quote marks around the word. “Musicians. Actors. Artists. The creative arts. That’s for people like us to patronize. To own. To pass judgment on.”
“What? I’m sorry, what century is this?”
“He almost killed me when I told him I wasn’t applying to Harvard. I mean, what the hell was I supposed to do? Walk around four years with fucking legacy admit stamped on my forehead? Or worse, fucking lacrosse.”
“Monk, you didn’t even want to go to Harvard. We used to talk about it, remember? That whole cliché, you hated it.”
He deepened his voice again. “If it wasn’t for that B plus in AP Chem, son. You should have studied harder. You’re the first generation of this family not to go to Harvard.”
“Please. They’re just a bunch of robots now. Programmed for perfection. Harvard would have squeezed all the juice out of you. Turned you into a nice successful investment banker.”
“Yeah, well. I think my dad would have considered that a plus.”
I knocked my knee against his. “If you want to know my opinion—”
“Pinks,” he said, “I swear to God, I swear to God, there are times when your opinion is the only damn opinion I care about.”
“—in my opinion, or by my logic, I guess, your music brings people joy, right? Which does a lot more for the greater good than moving money around the capital markets.”
“Actually, he’s thinking Harvard Law now,” said Monk. “Redemption or something.”
“Do you want to be a lawyer?”
“I don’t know. I guess, if I can’t make a living writing music. Can’t…you know, support a family on it. I’d rather practice law than finance, anyway. Or tech.”
“Those are your only options?”
“Mallory,” he said, “Pinks, honey, it’s just the world I’m in. That’s all. Everyone’s reading off this same script. You know what I mean, you saw it everywhere at Nobles, the good life, the money and privilege, and all I want to do is tear this script the fuck up and burn it. I mean, what even is the good life? Fuck it, I want to write my own script.”
“Like what?”
Monk leaned back in the sand and put his arms behind his head. “Like last winter. When I was writing those songs. The way the music and the words came together, I can’t explain. It was magic. Like I’ve always wanted to do. I just did it.”
“Why? I mean, what set you off?”
“Because I was so shit miserable.” He laughed. “I guess that’s irony.”
I lay down on my side next to him and stared at the horizon past the sharp, perfect line of his nose. “What made you miserable?”
“I can’t even tell you, Pinkie Pie.”
“Come on. Don’t insult me. We’re better friends than that.”
Monk closed his eyes. He looked so peaceful, I wanted to cry. His face, his shoulders, his fresh gold skin. A thumbnail of fine metallic stubble he’d missed at the edge of his jaw. The wedge of his cheekbone to the slight hollow underneath. I needed so badly to touch that ridge, just to know what it felt like beneath my finger.
“There was this girl,” he said.
“You mean the Colby girlfriend? The on-off?”
Monk opened his eyes and laughed softly. “No, not her. I mean, she’s great and all. Smart, pretty, fun. The whole package. Our families are tight. My dad’s like, ‘She’s the one, son.’?”
“Wow. She sounds like a dream.”
“Maybe. But this girl I’m talking about? She’s in a whole other league of special. Someone I used to have a little crush on, back in high school? And then we saw each other again, we spent this amazing few hours, just talking, we connected at this deep, honest level, the way we always had, like drinking from a well when you’re dying of thirst, and I realized I was kind of in love with her. That maybe I’d always loved her. I mean, even when she wasn’t there, I’d have these conversations with her in my head. If I saw some painting or read some news story, wondering what she’d think about it or how we’d laugh about it together, because she just got me, you know? She saw right into me. And now there she was, even better than I imagined her, and all I wanted was to sit there with her forever.”
“So why didn’t you tell her how you felt?”
“Because I’m a coward, Pinks. Because the way I felt, looking in her eyes, saying goodbye, it was just so fucking big, you know? I didn’t know how to even begin. I mean, I couldn’t even explain it to myself. Drove home in a daze. We went back to our different schools, our regular lives, but we kept in touch, and for a while I had this dream, right? I thought maybe I had a chance with her. I figured I’d work up the nerve to ask her out, once we were back home for the summer. So April rolls around and I’m like, all casual, ‘So what are you up to this summer?’ And she’s like, ‘Oh yeah, spending the whole time out west with my dad.’?”
“And you didn’t think—it didn’t occur to you that maybe she was hoping you’d say something to change her mind?”
“It did not, Pinks. I guess I’m not that subtle, you know? I took it all at face value. Figured she just didn’t feel the same way as I did. She kept me parked in the friend zone, like she always had. I didn’t have a hope. So I got back together with my old girlfriend for a while, tried to move on. But it wasn’t the same with her anymore, it wasn’t right. Lee saw me the way she wanted to see me, the person she wanted me to be, not the person I was. And when I was around her, it was just easier for me to be that person. The old Monk, the face I’d been showing to the world all my life. Swim with the current. And I kind of hated myself for it, but I couldn’t see any other way, you know? I couldn’t figure out how to be alone.”
He knit his fingers together across his chest and stared at the sky. I heard the rush, rush of the tide creeping up the sand. A feather of breeze stirred his hair. I wanted to nudge him, to make him go on, but I couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe.
Monk closed his eyes. For a second I thought he was falling asleep to the beat of the ocean, but he opened his mouth and continued.
“Then the leaves fell and the Maine winter blew in. Fucking dark and freezing all the time. And I just couldn’t pretend anymore. All I could think about was her. This sexy, vibrant, incredible girl I was crazy about. This girl who didn’t love me back. I’d heard she was seeing some guy, it was pretty serious. I’d write all these texts to her and just delete them. Missing her, it was like a hole in my gut that wouldn’t close. I needed her voice, I needed her. So I picked up my guitar and started to make some music. That was all I could do. The only way I could deal with this—this shit miserable despair—was to turn it into music.” He opened his eyes and turned his head to the side, so we were eye to eye. “Music was the only thing that saved me, Pinks. That’s the truth.”
By now my throat had wound so tight, I couldn’t speak. I was a little dizzy, taking this in. Trying to sip from this fire hose of emotion. Just don’t fuck it up, I thought. Just say one right thing. For once.
I raised my hand.
“Yes, Pinks. I’ve said my piece. You have the floor.”
I cleared the dust from my throat. “So. I just want to say that these past few weeks with you have been hands down the happiest of my life and…”
“And?”
We fixed our eyes on each other. Scent of warm sand, scent of Monk’s breath.
“Oh, fuck it,” Monk said.
He sat up, hauled me into his arms, and kissed me.