Page 20 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

Apparently, Betsy getting a job marked the end of everyone’s “vacation,” because at eight thirty Wednesday morning, she was cooking banana pancakes for everyone on the griddle. Aggie and the kids waited on their servings, while Louisa worked on her first stack and announced the banana slices “perfectly caramelized.” Diner secret, Betsy said: use two pats of butter, not one. Virgie was upstairs getting dressed, so Betsy left her a plate of pancakes on the kitchen table while she went on the front porch with her breakfast. A woman in a purple skirt suit gingerly took the bricked steps.

“Hi, dear,” she said, speaking as a nanny would to a young child. “Your mother is expecting me, from Edgartown Realty.” When Betsy still seemed confused, the woman, who had the buoyant hair of someone who still set her hair in hot rollers every night, stuck her hand out as a form of introduction.

“You can call me Sally.” She grinned, handing Betsy a business card. “Oh, look at that. My lilac suit is the color of the wisteria growing right up your gutter.” She scrunched her round nose in a cutesy way. “It must be a sign.”

Betsy smiled politely, her body growing hot with that panicky feeling she had whenever she was worried; involving a Realtor in selling the house was inevitable. “Come with me, we’ll find Mom.”

She led the woman inside, stepping over wooden blocks Tabby had left in the hallway, and they followed voices to the kitchen. Her mother and sisters were watching Tabby on the floor shaping Play-Doh, her mother’s face obscured by her coffee mug. She was dressed like she was going to the bank, in slacks and a sleeveless sweater and loafers on her feet.

“Welcome, Sally,” her mother said, offering Betsy a weak smile. “I was just telling the girls that Sally had a last-minute opening. Sally, I take it you met my youngest daughter?” Virgie turned to the woman, who was holding a leather portfolio and nodding, saying something banal likeshe’s lovely. “These are my other two: Louisa, my lawyer, and Aggie, my athlete and mother to these adorable grandchildren.”

Betsy wished her mother had introduced her as something other than “the youngest.”

“I have a grandchild myself,” Sally said, scrunching her nose the same way she had on the porch. “Our house was too quiet before my grandson was born.”

“I know what you mean,” Virgie said, smiling at the wallet photos of the baby boy that the Realtor removed from her billfold. Virgie fawned over him, then padded to the table, setting her coffee down, the mug emblazoned with the symbol for female. “Would you like a cup?”

Sally shook her heart-shaped face, a fake pout in her lips while she clicked her pen. “I do wish I was coming under better circumstances, my dears. I want you to take comfort in the fact that I’ll be on the island if you or your sisters ever want to buy a house of your own.”

“How generous of you,” Betsy said. The Realtor knew full well that the adult children couldn’t afford a house on the island, or they wouldn’t be letting this one go. Aggie shot her a withering look while they waited for Sally to arrange her folders, pulling a few loose pages from her binder.

“Yes, well, you’d be surprised at how often these things happen. A parent sells a summer house and the adult child rings me before LaborDay and says they want a home here. Once the Vineyard is in your blood, finality can be, well, final.”

The woman studied the contract she’d removed, placing it in front of Betsy’s mother.

“I’m going to get ready for work,” Betsy said as the agent began to explain what was in the pages, her mother picking up a pen and half-heartedly nodding along. Apparently, her mother and Sally knew each other from a decade ago, something about a woman’s club on the island. Trudging upstairs, Betsy brushed her teeth and rebraided her long hair, then pinched her cheeks to combat the sickly pallor overtaking her face. She glanced outside, feeling nostalgic already for the view of the harbor. Minutes from now, it would fill up with small sailors steering their petite sailboats, Betsy teaching them how to jibe and tack. There was just enough wind to get them moving, but not enough to frighten anyone new to the sport.

She forced herself to smile in the gilded mirror over her dresser, applying a coating of glossy lipstick to bring color to her face. The Realtor was right. Selling the house felt sofinal. Running into James at the yacht club had socked her with a gut punch, reminding her of how pivotal her time in the house was in her younger years.

It’s just a house.She felt a wet blot hit her wrist, then another, and she wiped her nose with her hand. It was embarrassing blubbering on like this. They were going to get a loan. They wouldn’t have to sell.

Because the house wasn’t just a house. It was all she and her sisters had left of their childhood, of all those memories they’d made when they were young.

CHAPTER NINEVirgie

Edgartown

1965

Virgie had never cared for sailing, and she rarely socialized at the Vineyard Yacht Club unless Charlie was in town. Throwing an informal dinner party, inviting a cross-section of local couples and Washington types, and tossing conversation starters out for the table to tackle was her sweet spot. Most of the time she was busy flitting from guest to guest, refilling cocktails and making a few minutes of casual chatter before racing back into the kitchen to check the roast. Maybe she would have an untraditional dinner party and invite several women on the island for dressy cocktails rather than the usual slate of couples. Make her chicken à la King, serve wine in long-stemmed glasses, and talk about how much the island has changed.

Virgie heard the voices of the children walking up from the docks near the spot where they beached their dinghies. As she made small talk with some of the other mothers, she hunted the group for her girls.

“Virgie? Is that you?” An American flag flapped off the yacht club entrance.

She turned to find Wiley Prescott, the newspaperman who had put her in touch with her New York editor last summer.

“Wiley! How lovely to see you.” She took in all six feet of his khaki canvas jumpsuit, which made him look slightly ridiculous, like he was a professional airman. “Is that an aviator suit?”

He tugged at the front of his shirt pocket; air goggles stuffed inside. “Yes, I’ve been offering lessons out at the airfield. Everyone wants to learn how to be a flyer these days.”

“The result of growing up on war stories, I suppose.”If he’s teaching at the tiny airfield, it’s likely he’spurchasedit too, Virgie thought; he and his brother were quietly buying up so much of the island. “Are you teaching at the yacht club as well? The girls were so excited to start today, except Louisa, who is working at the bookshop.” She was babbling. “Are you here for the week?”

“I’m here for the summer. I’m a kid in that respect.” Wiley ran his hand up the back of his closely shorn hair, his nose his most dominant feature. “I heard you quit the column?”

Wow, news travels fast, she thought. Her cheeks turned the color of the cherries she bought at the market that morning. “Sorry,” he said. “Industry gossip.”

She lowered her eyes to the ground, feeling like a bird with a broken wing; she hadn’t quit. She’d been forced to quit. There was a very big difference.

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