10. Blythe
— ? —
Blythe
The Bellcliff had been my second home for seven years.
I knew every waiter by name, every table by reputation, every unwritten rule about who sat where and with whom.
I’d hosted charity luncheons on this terrace, celebrated anniversaries in the private dining room, spent countless Sunday mornings at the corner table with a mimosa and the society pages.
I arrived fifteen minutes early for lunch with Blair and let the hostess seat me at the harbor terrace, my usual table, the one with the best view of the water. The sun was warm on my shoulders. The wine list was familiar in my hands. For one brief moment, everything felt almost normal.
Then two staff members appeared at my elbow.
“Mrs. Chadwick.” The older one, a man named Edmund I’d known for years, looked deeply uncomfortable. “I’m terribly sorry, but there seems to be an issue with your membership.”
“It’s Navarro now.” I set down the wine list. “And what kind of issue?”
“Your membership was held under Mr. Stan Chadwick’s account.” Edmund’s voice was low, apologetic, painfully polite. “When the divorce was finalized, the membership reverted to him exclusively. You’re no longer… that is to say, your access has been…”
“Revoked,” the younger staff member supplied. She looked less apologetic and more pleased about it.
“Yes.” Edmund winced. “Revoked. I’m so sorry, but we’ll need you to come with us, please.”
They were both on their feet. Standing over me. In front of the entire terrace, a sea of women with mimosas and wide eyes, all of them watching, all of them already composing the text messages they’d send the moment I was out of sight.
This was how it happened in Newport. Not with a scene, not with shouting, but with two polite staff members and a quiet exit that everyone would pretend not to notice while noticing every detail.
“I see.” I folded my napkin carefully. “And when was this decision made?”
“This morning, ma’am. Mr. Chadwick’s office contacted us directly.”
Of course he did. Stan couldn’t stand to let me have anything: not my clothes, not my dignity, not even a table at a club I’d spent seven years helping to run.
I started to stand. Edmund reached for my chair, ready to pull it back, ready to escort me out like a trespasser.
“Don’t.”
Blair Beaumont’s voice cracked across the terrace. She was standing at the entrance to the dining room, her sunglasses pushed up on her head, her face arranged in an expression that made both staff members freeze mid-motion.
“Don’t touch that chair,” Blair said. She crossed the terrace in five quick strides, her heels clicking on the stone. “Edmund, what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Mrs. Beaumont, I’m afraid there’s been a membership issue-”
“I don’t care.” Blair stopped beside my table, one hand on the back of my chair. “Blythe Navarro is my guest. She’s sitting at my table, drinking my wine, and if anyone has a problem with that, they can take it up with me personally.”
Edmund opened his mouth. Closed it. The younger staff member took a step back.
“That will be all,” Blair said. “Thank you.”
They retreated. Blair sat down across from me, picked up the wine list, and smiled like nothing had happened.
“Sorry I’m late. Traffic on Bellevue was a nightmare.”
I stared at her. My hands were shaking, adrenaline, anger, humiliation, all of it tangled together in my chest.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Blair flagged down a waiter. “Two glasses of the Sancerre and the crab cakes to start. And tell the kitchen we’re not in a hurry.”
The waiter nodded and disappeared. Blair leaned back in her chair and studied me with sharp eyes.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re white as a sheet and your hands are shaking.” She reached across the table and squeezed my fingers. “But you will be fine. That’s what matters.”
I took a breath. Then another. The shock was fading now, and what took its place was colder. Clearer.
I looked across the terrace at a woman sitting alone near the railing.
Janice Holbrook. Sixty-two years old, old money, sat on the membership committee for fifteen years.
I’d met her at my first Bellcliff event, two months after my wedding, and I’d listened to her talk for forty-five minutes about her disappointing children and her distant husband and her quiet drinking problem.
Two years ago, I’d found her passed out in the ladies’ room at the Commodore’s Ball, covered in her own vomit. I’d cleaned her up, fixed her makeup, walked her out a back entrance, and never told a soul.
I stood up.
“Blythe?” Blair’s voice behind me. “What are you doing?”
I crossed the terrace. Janice looked up as I approached, her face going carefully blank, the Newport mask, the one we all learned to wear.
“Janice.” I leaned down, close enough that only she could hear. “You haven’t forgotten about that little incident two years ago, have you? The one at the Commodore’s Ball?”
Her face went pale.
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” I continued. “Not once. But I’m asking now. I’d like my membership restored. And I’d like my husband’s membership added. His name is Reid Navarro.”
Janice’s mouth opened. Closed. She looked at me, really looked, for the first time in years, and her eyes flickered. Fear, maybe. Or recognition.
“Of course,” she said. Her voice was steady, but her hands were trembling. “Of course, Blythe. I’ll speak to the committee this afternoon. I’m sure we can sort out this little… misunderstanding.”
She stood up. Cleared her throat. And then, loud enough for the whole terrace to hear:
“Blythe, darling! How wonderful to see you. I was just telling the committee the other day how much we’ve missed you. Please, sit, stay - the crab here is excellent today, I hear.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Janice. That’s so kind.”
I walked back to my table. Blair was watching me with raised eyebrows.
“What was that about?”
“Secrets.” I sat down and picked up my wine glass. “The only real currency in this town.”
Blair laughed. Actually laughed, loud enough to turn heads. “God, I’ve missed you.”
The wine arrived. The crab cakes followed. We ate and drank and I caught Blair up on everything: the marriage, the arrangement, the contractor bags full of destroyed clothes.
“And now?” Blair asked. “What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to destroy Chadwick Shipping.” I said it calmly, between bites of crab. “Starting today.”
“Today?”
I smiled. “Look who just walked in.”
Blair turned. A man in his sixties had entered the dining room, silver-haired, well-dressed, moving through the crowd with the easy confidence of someone who belonged everywhere.
“Is that-”
“Patrick Webb.” I raised my hand. “Chadwick’s marine insurer. He handles the entire fleet.”
Patrick saw me wave. His eyebrows went up, surprise, curiosity, but he changed direction and crossed to our table.
“Blythe.” He bent to kiss my cheek. “I heard about… well. I’m sorry. Terrible business.”
“Thank you, Patrick. Please, sit. Have you eaten?”
“I shouldn’t intrude-”
“You’re not intruding.” I gestured to the empty chair beside Blair. “Please. The crab is excellent today.”
He sat. I ordered him a drink, asked after his wife, his daughter by name, the house in Jamestown, his bad knee.
“Getting better,” he said, touching his leg. “Physical therapy three times a week. Eleanor says I’m too stubborn to follow the exercises, but she’s wrong.”
“She’s always right,” I said. “You know that.”
He laughed. “I do know that. Twenty-three years and I’m still learning.”
So I didn’t ask him about Chadwick. Not for a long time.
I asked him whether Eleanor had finally gotten him to the cardiologist she’d been nagging him about, and whether the daughter, Caroline, who’d wanted to be a marine biologist since she was nine and whom Patrick had privately despaired of ever supporting, had heard back from Scripps.
She had. She’d gotten in. And I watched the whole man change when he said it, watched the careful society mask come off, because in twenty-three years of Newport dinners I was apparently the only person who’d ever remembered to ask.
That was the thing none of them understood, not Stan, not Sandrine, not any of the men who’d taken notes on what I said in meetings and then thanked my husband for it.
They thought I collected people the way you collected favors, to be spent.
I collected them because I paid attention.
Because when Patrick Webb told me two years ago at a Christmas party that his knee was going and his daughter wanted a life he couldn’t imagine paying for, I’d listened, and I’d remembered, and now, sitting across a lunch table with the wreckage of my marriage still smoking behind me, that was the only capital I had left. It turned out to be enough.
Finally, Patrick set down his coffee cup and smiled at me. “All right, Blythe. Why did you really call me?”
I smiled back. “Have you heard of Halyard Capital?”
“Vaguely.” He frowned. “Risk assessment firm, isn’t it? Marine and freight?”
“My husband runs it.” The word still felt strange in my mouth. “Reid Navarro. He’s brilliant, Patrick. The best in the business.”
“Has he a point, or is this lunch?”
“Both.” I leaned forward, keeping my voice low. “You’ve insured Chadwick boats for twenty years, and you and I both know they cut corners. They always have. Sooner or later one of those boats is going to hurt somebody, and it’s going to have your name on the paperwork when it does.”
Patrick’s expression shifted. The society smile went away, and what was left underneath was the man who actually read the reports. “What are you proposing?”
“Walk away from Stan,” I said simply. “Bring the boats to Reid instead. He’ll flag the real dangers instead of burying them - he actually cares whether the men on those ships come home.”
“That’s a big ask, Blythe.”
“It is.” I smiled. “But you’ve been losing sleep over those boats for years, Patrick. I’ve watched you do it at four Christmas parties.”
Patrick stared at me. Then he laughed, a genuine laugh, surprised and impressed.
“You’re clever,” he said. “I always thought you were just Stan’s pretty wife, but you’re actually clever.”
“I know.” I didn’t break eye contact. “So what do you say?”
He considered for a long moment. Then he nodded.
“I’ll have the paperwork sent to your new address,” he said. “Give me two weeks.”
“Thank you, Patrick.”
He stood, shook my hand, nodded to Blair. “You’ve got a good friend here,” he said to me. “And a good head for business. Don’t waste either of them.”
He left. Blair let out a breath and actually whistled.
“Holy shit, Blythe.”
“That’s one piece.” I finished my wine. “There are more.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Blair was grinning. “I really don’t-”
She stopped. Her face changed.
I followed her gaze to the entrance of the dining room, and everything went cold.
Birdie had walked in on Stan’s arm.
She was enormous, eight months pregnant, glowing, dressed, as ever, in white.
Stan had his hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the room like a trophy.
They moved through the crowd together, accepting congratulations, accepting smiles, accepting the place in Newport society that should have been mine.
Whispers everywhere. I could feel them like a current, passing from table to table. There she is. The sister. Can you believe it? Right in front of her.
Birdie’s eyes found me across the room. Her face lit up with a smile that had nothing warm in it.
She said something to Stan. He laughed. Then the two of them cut across the dining room and bore down on us.
“Blythe!” Birdie’s voice was bright, poisonous. “Oh - I didn’t know you were still allowed in here. I thought the membership was Stan’s.”
“It’s been sorted out,” I said. My voice was steady. “You look well, Birdie.”
“I feel wonderful.” She ran a hand over her belly. “The baby’s been kicking all morning. He’s going to be a fighter, I can tell.”
“He gets that from his father, I’m sure.”
Stan’s eyes narrowed. “Blythe. Good to see you’re… landing on your feet.”
“It’s a talent.” I smiled at him. “How’s the company, Stan? I heard you lost the marine insurance contract.”
His face flickered. Just for a second, surprise, then anger, then the smooth mask sliding back into place.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will.” I stood up, gathering my purse. “Blair, we should go. The company’s getting stale.”
Birdie stepped into my path. Still smiling, still glowing, still every inch the victor.
“Before you go,” she said sweetly. “I wanted to make sure you got this.”
She pressed something into my hand. A cream-colored envelope, expensive paper, my name written in calligraphy on the front.
I opened it.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby Chadwick at a shower in honor of Mrs. Bernadette Chadwick…
Birdie’s baby shower. My sister’s baby shower for the child she was having with my husband, the husband she’d apparently married sometime in the last three weeks, in the quiet, rushed ceremony you throw when the bride is eight months pregnant and the family wanted the paperwork done before the baby came.
I looked up at Birdie. She was watching me with bright, eager eyes, waiting for me to crack, waiting for me to cry or scream or beg.
I smiled instead.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I said.
And I walked out with the invitation in my hand and my heart pounding so hard I could taste it.