Page 20 of The White Oak Lodge

Suddenly, she remembered what her uncle had told her on the final birthday she’d spent on the island. Tio Angelo had said that Alexander didn’t want to take over the family business and wanted nothing to do with the hotel. He wanted to go his own way and build the life of his dreams. It was clear that he'd done exactly that in going to flight school and moving all over the world.

A thought rang between her ears, one she wanted to dismiss: Did Alexander burn the hotel down so he could escape the family?

But now that she’d brought the idea into the world, she knew she had to entertain it. A good anthropologist had no business eliminating a theory without evidence.

With a shaking hand, she wrote in a notebook: Possibility of arson? Alexander? Motive: he wanted out.

Chapter Ten

Nina

One Year Ago

At a springtime barbecue, it was first suggested that Nina and Daniel might become the first married couple at Princeton to receive tenure together. Nina was barefoot in the grass with a dark-orange negroni and a smile that hurt her face. She was talking to one of their colleagues Caitlin, a professor five years Nina’s senior who’d spent much of her earlier years raising three children and therefore wasn’t up for tenure for another ten or so.

“You deserve it,” Caitlin was saying, smiling sadly down at Nina from her six-foot height. “You both have balanced parenting and the life of professorship remarkably. You should teach classes in it.”

Nina blushed and gazed across the lawn, watching as Daniel helped seven-year-old Will and nine-year-old Fiona play croquet. Will kept waving the croquet bat around, which made Nina nervous. It felt like a given that Will would accidentallystrike Fiona on the head, and they’d have two crying kids on their hands. But Daniel seemed to have everything under control. He set Will up and helped him click the ball into the first iron hoop, and Will jumped up and down with excitement, giving first his father and then Fiona a high five.

“Does Daniel know?” Nina asked.

“I’m sure you two have talked about the possibility of it,” Caitlin said.

It was true they had. Nina and Daniel had allowed themselves a few nights of whispering about it, eager to peel back the days between now and when they’d receive tenure, eager for the safety and authority that brought. But in their conversations, Daniel had been sure that Nina would get tenure before him. Nina had written far more books. She hadn’t allowed herself many days of rest. This was partially because Nina didn’t have the social circle that Daniel did. Sometimes Daniel had to maintain appearances, attend his family’s parties, or catch up with old Ivy League friends. On Nina’s nights away from her kids, she wrote herself silly and prepared herself for another round of publishing.

She knew she was more driven than Daniel. But she knew it was because being driven was the only thing that had gotten her this far—out of Michigan and into an Ivy League professor position. She didn’t know how to stop.

Later that night, after the kids were in bed, Nina told Daniel what Caitlin had suggested.

“Mark mentioned that to me tonight, too,” Daniel said, his smile twisted up. He walked to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of white wine, and said, “Should we celebrate?”

Nina giggled and strung her arms around him. “There’s nothing to celebrate yet.”

Daniel kissed the tip of her nose. “You know how it goes. The gossip around this stuff is powerful and almost always accurate.”

“But a married couple? Both receiving tenure? Isn’t that a bit much?”

“We’re a bit much, baby,” Daniel declared.

Nina laughed and wondered if she deserved to be this happy.

It was during that summer that Daniel’s mood shifted. At first, Nina thought he was overly immersed in his work, lost in research and planning his next trip to South America. Sometimes he snapped at Will or Fiona, and often, he wasn’t home for dinner. Nina was hard at work finishing the edits of her next book, which she did after the kids were asleep, and she knew very well what it was like to be obsessed, so she tried not to bother Daniel about it. Later, when she learned what Daniel was really up to, she cursed herself for not realizing earlier. She was an academic person. She should have seen the signs.

Caitlin pulled Nina aside a few days before Thanksgiving to tell her she’d seen Daniel with one of his graduate students. They were in the staff lounge, and Nina had just spilled a bit of coffee on her palm. It was scalding her skin.

“Okay?” Nina asked, furrowing her brow. She knew that Daniel often got close with his graduate students, that they were drawn to his fiery intellect and often wanted his help writing their theses.

“You know the one, don’t you?” Caitlin asked, crossing her arms and biting her lip. It was clear she didn’t want to have this conversation, either. Nina wanted to ask her to leave the staff lounge and forget she’d said or seen anything. It would be easier for everyone.

“The blond one?” Caitlin pressed. “I think her name is Angie?”

Being a professor herself, Nina had met all of the graduate students and had, of course, noticed the beautiful Angie. You’d have to be blind not to. She was slender and lithe and quick to laughter, floating between groups at the graduate party in a way that suggested she was beloved by all. Like Nina and Daniel, her specialty involved South American tribes, but that wasn’t such a strange thing, either. It was part of the reason she’d come to the Princeton program in the first place. She’d wanted the expertise that Daniel and Nina could provide.

Angie had been placed in Daniel’s cohort of graduate students. Nina had another cohort. And as a result, because she had papers to grade and undergraduates to manage and two children to raise and a house to take care of and dinner to cook, Nina hadn’t really thought about Angie since before the semester started. Not till now, anyway.

“Okay,” Nina offered, “I mean, it isn’t so strange you saw them together. I’m sure they were working on something. I’m sure Angie’s a bright girl, and…”

But Caitlin just shook her head and said, “I saw them.”

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