On the Tobacco Coast by Christopher Tilghman

Author:Christopher Tilghman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

* * *

“Sweetheart?” He was standing outside their room, announcing himself, asking to come in. The door was closed, and at the moment, that made their bedroom her space. She didn’t answer, but his gesture was enough for him. He cracked open the door and found her lying on her back, her bandanna balled into one palm, her other hand on her forehead, staring at the ceiling.

“What?” she said.

“Look. I’m sorry. The Ethan-meter is with you on this one.”

“Oh,” she said.

He advanced a little into the room. Through the open window he heard, of all things never to be imagined, the sounds of Rosalie and Eleanor playing catch with the lacrosse sticks. Unimaginable, Rosalie offering, Eleanor accepting. He went to the window just as Eleanor actually caught one. Behind them, one terrace closer to the water, Pop and Paul were chasing after Daniel. “Family Happiness,” the scene could have been called, an instant of perfection that would be gone in a second or two if Francis or Heidi didn’t put it in a bottle. “Will you look at this?” he said.

“What?”

He described the scene, though clearly she was not interested. “Maybe it will loosen Rosalie up a little. Have you noticed that she’s been a little grumpy?”

Kate did not stir. “Why don’t we just bag this. Okay? You show the French around if they ever get here, take them for their to-ur of Tuckertown”—she said this in a sarcastic little chirp, for some reason pronouncing “tour” in two syllables; Harry couldn’t tell if it was he himself or Julien who was taking the heat here—“we send Lotte and Hector and Alice Howe back with some kind of apology. Blame me. Blame my illness. Eleanor can drive Pop home, maybe even take him for a hamburger at Ruby Tuesday; he’d love that more than anything, and it might cheer Eleanor up. The salmon is cooked, and the kids can just forage for dinner and go out on the boat to watch the fireworks. No one wants to do this. I bet every single one of us woke up saying, Ugh, the goddamn Fourth of July at the Retreat. I know I did. Everyone’s in a shitty mood. This kind of enforced event is just the sort of thing that I am not going spend a single second of my time on. I mean, what’s it for? It’s not tradition; it’s just habit. The only people who really want this to happen are you and Margaret Howe.”

She had not taken her eyes off the ceiling, and when he sat down beside her on the bed, she shifted over a bit, either to give him room or to keep her distance, it was not clear which.

“Well. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Margaret, would we? It would kill her to miss a free meal.”

She let out something between a grunt and a snort. Harry chose to read it as conciliatory.

“And Pop.”

“Pop doesn’t want to do it just as much as he wants to.”

Harry paused to figure out, amid the negatives, what she had just said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.