Page 71 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

“India, if you can’t find out about the house, can you try to get Russell to tell you why Charlie went there three times this summer? If it wasn’t to see this woman, which she swears is the truth, then why was he there?”

They decided to walk along the water, trying to puzzle it out. “It has to be a coincidence,” India said. “Nothing else makes sense unless that woman is lying through her teeth and she and Charlie have been carrying on all along.”

Virgie grimaced. She could always smell another woman on Charlie, but she’d never gotten a whiff of the same one twice.

Louisa took the week off from the bookshop. Virgie had asked her to help her get everyone packed for a surprise trip to see their father in Washington. It was the end of July, and she wouldn’t wait for Charlie to get up to the island. It was hard enough waiting until tomorrow, since this wasn’t a conversation that they could have over the phone. Charlie had called her again this morning, and she’d made pleasant small talk with him, even as she gritted her teeth thinking about him all those years ago, knowing that she and Melody were pregnant at the same time.

But no, she needed to remain calm. An emotional woman was a powerless one. Virgie would bide her time. If she acted too rash, she would lose the upper hand.

They would be on the seven a.m. ferry the following morning, and it would take eight hours to drive from Woods Hole to Washington. First, there was one more person Virgie needed to talk to.

A rainstorm earlier in the week had caused seaweed to wash ashore the small sandy beach where the yacht club stowed the sailboats. The air was briny when she located Wiley fixing a sail near the work shed. He painstakingly pushed the needle through the thick fabric.

“How was Nantucket?” he asked. They made small talk about the ferry, how different the islands were, how very much the same. Virgiesat down in the sand in her long sundress, letting her bare feet splay out.

“I need a favor,” she said.

Wiley lowered the sail, sat next to her. “Are you okay?”

She buried her hands under the sand so he couldn’t see her gripping it. “There is nothing untoward happening on Nantucket, at least not from an election standpoint.” India had called her last night, saying that her husband admitted easily that Charlie was going to earmark money for the Skybolt program; it wasn’t a secret. Her friend whispered into the phone: “He obviously doesn’t know why I’m asking, but we talked about how wonderful the two of you are, and he did say that he’d seen Charlie twice, once in Washington, and once in Nantucket, where they met with a potential investor.”

That was the nugget that the reporters would want: a backdoor deal playing out on an exclusive New England summer island. The rest was for the tabloids. Virgie didn’t want to destroy Charlie, and she wouldn’t lead Wiley to that shady detail, but she would lead her journalist friend away from 12 Chapel Way.

“What did you find at the address I gave you?”

Virgie liked Wiley. She’d always liked him; perhaps that was why her husband hated him so much. She cleared her throat.

“Wiley, I need to talk to you as a friend.” When he nodded, a gentle expression crossed his face, one of concern. “One of my closest friends in DC lives in the house at 12 Chapel Way. I didn’t realize that she and Charlie had some kind offriendship,” and when she said this, she rubbed up and down her calves, watching the gentle lap of the water.

Wiley leaned forward, his tone disappointed, maybe even surprised. “A friendship?”

“Yes.” She forced herself to look at him so he wouldn’t doubt the veracity. “You must trust me that the only story on the island is one for the tabloids. Please don’t let them ruin us.”

“Virgie, you shouldn’t accept that from him.”

She put a hand on his arm. “I’m not accepting it.” Her sack purse was on her lap, and she reached in and pulled out three Dear Virgie columns. Her story “Flying Lessons” was there too. “I’m hoping you can help me get my column back.”

He took the typed pages. “That will be easy. Readers loved you.”

Virgie nodded, pleased. “But I want to talk to you about writing a more serious column too. I don’t want to just solve the dilemmas of housewives; I want to reinvent the housewife.”

This caused him to waggle his eyebrows. “Charlie’s going to hate it.”

Virgie shrugged. “Good.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINEBetsy

1978

Near the docks in Nantucket town, they found a small motel built on stilts. Louisa signed for two rooms, since James decided to stay, the sisters carrying their overnight bags to a row of white-painted doors, small navy anchors painted at the centers. James settled into the room adjacent to them. After jimmying the skeleton key in the lock, Louisa pushed open the door to the smell of musty Captain’s furniture.

“Ugh, there’s sand on the floor.” Louisa frowned at the indoor/outdoor carpets. They dropped their bags on a wicker chair near the door. “The sheets better be clean.”

Betsy wasn’t sure if it mattered whether there were fresh linens on the bed—she’d still feel this crushing disappointment in her chest. She lay back on the stiff bed, placing a pillow on her face, wishing she could be alone and yet too afraid to be. They needed to call Aggie, but first, she and Louisa needed to talk about what they were going to do about Melody.

Louisa disappeared into the bathroom and took a hot shower. The spray of water came fast and hard, while Betsy’s thoughts tumbled to her mother. The summer when she was ten and her father rarely came to visit and sent a police officer to check on them. How she’d always believed her father wholeheartedly when he said he had meetings on the Hill, that hecouldn’t get away from work—she’d never had reason to doubt him. Her mother knew about Melody, though, and about Vera, and she hadn’t left him. Now every memory Betsy had of her parents felt like a lie.

Betsy lifted the pillow off her face, staring at the water stain on the ceiling. All these years, she’d thought she had two sisters, but she had three. Three! She, Aggie, and Louisa had been cheated of any relationship with this half sister named Vera, and she couldn’t help but wonder what Vera was like. If she and Vera, as the youngest, would have been bonded by their age, or if they would have competed harder for Louisa’s and Aggie’s affections. Had her mother thought it best to keep this child away from her girls? Or had it been a decision to protect her father’s political career?

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