Chapter 11
As it happened, Roberto’s plane back to Italy was scheduled on the morning of the next White Oak Lodge party.
In the days and hours leading up to his departure, Lorelei made a half-hearted show of telling Roberto that he should stay longer, that maybe he’d want to be around for the food and the good wine and conversation.
That maybe he wanted to “celebrate the summertime” with her.
But Roberto told her point-blank that he needed to get back to Rome.
“You should be coming with me,” he said, his eyes black.
Should she be going back with him? Why couldn’t Lorelei pull herself away from her family, from Nantucket Island? Why did she feel that Roberto was a black hole she didn’t want to fall into?
Lorelei drove her husband, her son, and her youngest daughter to the Nantucket Airport, where they planned to take a small plane to Newark Airport, then a bigger plane all the way to Rome.
As Lorelei helped her daughter pull her suitcase out of the trunk, she watched as Pino dug out his headphones and Roberto checked his phone, presumably to text his mistress that he was on his way back.
Her heart surged with sorrow. What had happened to her family? How had they all fallen so far apart?
She took her time with each of them, hugging Pino tightly, although she knew he didn’t like that, and reminding Nadia to go to her doctor’s appointment next week, although she knew that Nadia had never missed an appointment in her life.
Before he disappeared, she kissed Roberto goodbye, then kept herself from asking him not to cheat on her, to keep loving her.
“Good luck tonight,” Nadia said before they left.
Roberto’s eyes burned with curiosity. “With what? The party?”
Nadia looked at her mother with big eyes, as though she couldn’t fathom why she hadn’t shared any of her music news with Roberto.
“I’m performing a little song,” Lorelei said, waving her hand back and forth. “It’s not a big deal.”
But Roberto knew it was a big deal. He knew that she hadn’t performed in decades. He stalled at the entryway to the airport, his massive hand gripping his suitcase. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lorelei stumbled over her words. “I don’t know.
I thought I did.” The truth was, she’d wanted to tell Roberto about the performance—but she also knew that things between them were sour, and that her performance with Carter Johnson wouldn’t in any way help things.
“Again, it’s not a big deal. I’m performing with an old friend from high school. We’re not going to be good.”
Roberto raised his shoulders, then said a final, “All right, then, ciao,” before guiding two of their children into the airport and out of sight.
For a moment, Lorelei remained there, clutching her car keys, watching them.
Someone honked their horn, pulling her out of her reverie. It was time to go back to the Lodge.
When she returned, she saw that already the veranda and grounds were decorated for the second official White Oak Lodge party.
Wearing an immaculate party dress, Francesca sat on the veranda, sipping a cocktail and speaking eloquently with one of the Lodge guests, a woman who had previously been married to a French diplomat before his death.
“Now, she’s dating someone twenty years younger than her! ” Francesca told Lorelei excitedly.
The French woman tittered and sipped her drink. Lorelei could tell that she was very pleased with herself. And why shouldn’t she be?
“Did I tell you that Lorelei will be performing tonight?” Francesca asked her new friend.
The French woman looked a little too lost in her love for her lover to care much about Lorelei’s music. “Is that so?”
“I’d better go warm up.” Lorelei waved goodbye and headed to the dining room, where most of the caterers were hanging out and getting ready for the upcoming party.
As she maneuvered toward the piano, she overheard several of their conversations.
Some of them talked about the White Oak Lodge, about how people said it was cursed.
They talked about the fire, about how Tio Angelo was in prison for it.
They clearly didn’t know that Lorelei was a member of the family.
That, or they didn’t care what she overheard.
Lorelei sat at the piano bench and did a series of arpeggios.
Although she and Carter Johnson still hadn’t practiced at all together, via text message, they’d decided to play one of their favorites from high school— “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel.
Although Simon and Garfunkel were both men, Lorelei’s voice fit the bill for Garfunkel, while Carter’s slipped in well to Simon’s.
Lorelei hummed along as she played, praying that she was at least half the singer she’d been as a teenager. Maybe she could suggest to Carter that they perform later, after plenty of people had had drinks and wouldn’t be as critical of how they sounded.
She still remembered what it had been like back then, when she’d secretly dreamed of “making it” in music, when she’d paired up with Carter and written songs and performed covers and talked with him about their incredible futures, which they felt would be linked.
She’d loved him desperately, in the way that teenage girls loved: with their full hearts, without distractions.
She’d poured all her love into her music, if only to show him how much making music with him mattered.
And then, suddenly, here in their “shared” future, his voice joined hers.
So surprised to hear his voice, Lorelei stopped playing and turned to find Carter Johnson, standing beside her with his guitar.
He was just as handsome as he’d been at the wine bar and just as dashing as he’d been in high school.
And the way he looked at her now had nothing to do with the past and everything to do with how she looked now, in the moment. Her stomach flipped.
“Carter!” she cried. “I didn’t know you were coming so early.”
Carter laughed. “I panicked a little bit. We haven’t practiced since what, 1995?”
Lorelei wrinkled her nose and smiled. “A thirty-year hiatus is really unheard of.”
“But you still play beautifully,” Carter said.
“I’ve hardly warmed up,” she told him, crunching her fingers up. They panged with lack of use.
“Then I can only imagine how you’ll sound when you’re ready,” he said.
For a little while, as the caterers grabbed their trays and spilled into the grounds to take care of the guests, Lorelei and Carter paired their voices together.
This singing required no conversation. It was as though they could peel back all the years they’d been apart by harmonizing, bringing their voices together.
Lorelei’s eyes filled with tears that she refused to let fall.
She didn’t want Carter to know how emotional this day had been for her.
She didn’t want him to know that just singing with him cracked her heart open.
When they’d finished playing the song for the fourth time, Carter said quietly, “I think we might have done enough for now.”
Lorelei laughed. “Maybe you’re right. We shouldn’t overdo it. Unless you want to play a few more? If they don’t boo us off stage, that is.”
“I would play music all night with you,” Carter said.
Lorelei’s heart shifted. Standing from the piano bench, she searched her mind for what to say, for how to get through the tremendous attraction she felt for this man—this man who was not her husband. She was not and never had been a cheater. “Let’s go outside and grab a drink?”
Carter agreed. He followed her out to the immaculate grounds, where they passed Francesca, Benjamin, Jack, and Charlotte, chatting happily with glasses of white wine. At the sight of Carter, Francesca bubbled with excitement.
“Carter! It’s been years and years,” she said, taking his hand. “How have you been?”
Lorelei marveled at the ease with which her beautiful mother encountered the world. It was as though nothing frightened her, especially not now that she’d gone through chemotherapy.
“I’m doing just fine,” Carter said. “Here on Nantucket for the summertime.”
“Just like our Lorelei,” Francesca said. “Isn’t it funny how people come back together again?”
“It feels like we’re teenagers again.” Carter flicked his eyes back toward Lorelei.
Lorelei felt someone’s gaze on her, and she twisted to the right to find Aurora, her eyes fiery and knowing. Beside her were those stable men—Oren and Kenny—each of them drinking beers and laughing, while Aurora remained quiet.
It had been a little while since Lorelei had had a conversation with Aurora. Maybe because Aurora was frightened of her father, she’d kept a wide berth, doing whatever it was that Aurora did when she was alone. There was so little Lorelei knew about her daughter.
Lorelei left Carter with her mother and father and picked her way across the veranda toward Aurora. Aurora seemed intent on not looking frightened, on looking as cool as a cucumber.
“Ciao, Mama,” she said. “You look beautiful today.”
Lorelei smiled. “I took your father and brother and sister to the airport.”
Aurora’s eyes swelled the slightest bit. “Yes, well. I guess we’ll both see them in the fall?”
“That’s the plan, right?” Lorelei searched her daughter’s face for any information but got nothing.
Beside them, Kenny and Oren were discussing one of Lorelei’s grandfather Accetta’s films—the cinematography and the buildup of the music.
They were artists, Lorelei realized. It was why Aurora was drawn to them.
She was an artist, too—but what had happened in Berlin had shattered her artistic heart.
For the first time, Lorelei wondered if she hadn’t been there enough for her daughter during that trying time. Yes, she’d gone to Berlin, and yes, she’d brought her home. But then she’d allowed Aurora to enroll in business school? What kind of mother was she?
She searched her heart and mind for what to say and how to translate this. But before she could, Aurora asked, “You’re performing? With that man?”
Lorelei followed Aurora’s gaze back to Carter, who, at that moment, threw his head back happily, laughing at something Benjamin was saying.
“He’s an old friend,” Lorelei explained.
Aurora took a beat. “I look forward to it.”
Feeling miffed and uncertain as to why, Lorelei excused herself and returned to the shadows of the Lodge, where she sipped her wine and waited for her time to go on stage.
In her head, she rehearsed the lyrics, as though they weren’t permanently written on her heart.
And when it came time to go up on stage with Carter Johnson by her side, she felt a generous smile on her face. She felt her heart opening up.
A staff member had wheeled the grand piano outside, so that Lorelei and Carter could perform in the day’s dying summer sunshine.
Out across the water, pinks and yellows and turquoises created a dynamic painting, one that made her soul feel illuminated.
The crowd gathered, tightening around the little stage, where Carter strummed the first chord quietly, as though he was frightened he’d forgotten it since they’d practiced.
Lorelei leaned toward the microphone. “Welcome to the White Oak Lodge,” she said.
“This place has been in my family for generations. In fact, my Great-Great-Great Grandfather Samuel Whitmore built it in 1862, smack-dab in the middle of the war that nearly shattered our great nation forever. It’s hard to believe so much time passed between the tragedy that befell our family back in 1998 and the reopening of the Lodge last month.
But we’re so grateful to be here with you all.
We’re so grateful to feel the love from all of you and from the island of Nantucket. ”
Delicately, beautifully, Lorelei began to play, closing her eyes as her words floated away from her and she fell into the music. Beside her, Carter began to strum his guitar. And when it was time, their voices came together in harmony, captivating the two hundred guests at the Lodge.