Winter Street (11 page)

A
va heads off to bed first, and shortly after, Isabelle emerges from the kitchen—cleanup is done—and Kevin rises, takes her hand, and leads her to the back of the house.

Kevin and Isabelle are engaged, Kelley thinks. He’s both thrilled and incredulous. And they’re having a
baby
. He’d always thought Kevin would make a magnificent father, but, after the way Norah Vale left him bruised and bleeding in the gutter, it didn’t seem likely. Not unless something astonishing happened.

Such as meeting Isabelle.

Kelley feels like Happy Scrooge again, despite his many troubles. He can’t
wait
to share the news with Margaret. Tomorrow, when she calls from Hawaii, he’ll get her on the line alone, and they will celebrate the advent of a fourth Quinn grandbaby—a piece of each of them coming together in another human being.

Kelley misses Mitzi; that hurt is fresh and new, like a bad toothache. But he misses Margaret, too, differently, in an older way, like a bone that has broken and never been set properly.

And Kelley misses Bart. That hurt is like a thorn in the soft arch of his foot that he valiantly tries to ignore. He wonders if Bart will be allowed to call home on Christmas.

But now isn’t the time to worry about Kevin or Bart. It’s time to worry about Patrick. Kelley can’t remember a single other time when Patrick has sought advice or counsel, when Patrick has come to him crying in pain or shame. He was born knowing what to do—he slept through the night, he crawled early, he walked early, he started reading early, he was valedictorian of his class, he got in early decision at Colgate, then got into Harvard Business School, and, in a handful of years, was made head of private equity at Everlast Investments. He married the right girl, bought the right house, fathered three noisy, beautiful sons. He is just like Margaret, Kelley thinks, in the way he seamlessly pursues
exactly what he wants and gets it. Kelley was more like that before, when he lived in New York and was basically single-handedly responsible for setting the price of gasoline in the United States. Of course, Kelley wasn’t a very nice person back then, and he suspects that Patrick isn’t always very nice, either. The other kids think he’s a relentless bastard.

But here he is, on the sofa with Kelley, as bereft as a sixteen-year-old girl who lost her prom date.

Kelley gives Patrick what he thinks is ample time to explain on his own what the problem is, but Patty says nothing and it’s getting late and it is Christmas Eve, and Kelley has endured one hell of a day and a half. The conversation he had in the master bedroom with George seems like three years ago.

“What happened, Patty?” Kelley asks softly.

“I screwed up,” Patrick says. “Like, really badly.”

Kelley assumes he means he cheated on Jennifer—which is the only reason Kelley can think of for why Jen and his grandsons aren’t here. Kelley feels a piercing disappointment in his son. Kelley is no saint, not by a long shot, but he was never unfaithful to either of his wives. He’s not built like that, though he knows many men are. He’s surprised at Patrick because he thought Patty and Jen were one of those couples destined for forever. They adore and respect each other, and they’re best friends, besides. They finish each
other’s sentences. Jen has found a career that dovetails with her role as wife and mother; Kelley has some notion that it’s easier for women to balance home and career now than it was when Margaret was trying to do it.

“Jen is…?” Kelley asks, hoping Patrick will say she’s still in Boston; that way, reconciliation by morning and a chance for Kelley to see his grandsons are both still possible.

“In San Francisco,” Patrick says. “She took the kids to her mother’s.”

Kelley is crushed. “Oh.”

“She’s really disappointed in me,” Patrick says. “And afraid of what’s going to happen. Our financial future.”

Kelley wonders if Patrick did something really stupid and got some girl pregnant.

“Patrick,” Kelley says, “what happened?”

Patrick takes a deep breath, and it all spills out: He tells first about the perks he’s been taking from clients over the years, and then about his Colgate reunion and the conversation with Bucky Larimer, and Bucky’s reassurance that the drug would be approved by the FDA and would change the face of childhood leukemia and possibly of all cancers, and then about Bucky’s request that in exchange for this information Patrick invest money for Bucky himself, his identity obfuscated by a trust. Patrick goes on, telling about how he was feeling giddy about a bright medical future for mankind, but also
greedy greedy greedy,
so he poured $25.6 million of his
clients’ portfolios into Panagea. The good news is that the drug
will
be FDA approved; the bad news is that Patrick’s investments with Panagea were red-flagged by the SEC. The SEC had been scrutinizing him because of the perks. They have a watch list for people they suspect are weak of character.

“Doesn’t everyone in the business take perks?” Kelley asks. “Isn’t that the way the industry works?” The same was certainly true in Kelley’s day, and, honestly, it was probably worse back then—in the era of the pin-striped suit and the power tie, the age of
Wall Street,
Ivan Boesky, and Michael Milken.

“Apparently my perks were ‘excessive,’ ” Patrick says. “The SEC had me on this watch list, and my compliance department knew it, but they didn’t tell me. I was basically stung by my own guys! Nobody really likes Compliance; I mean, we all work toward the same bottom line, but we don’t invite them into the football pool or anything. They were waiting around for me to do something they could really nail me on.” Patrick wipes his nose with the back of his hand. Kelley wishes he carried a handkerchief, like George. Instead, he hands Patrick a damp cocktail napkin. “And they were right, I did.” He starts crying again, but more quietly; he is whimpering. Kelley puts a hand around Patrick’s ankle and thinks there is nothing he can say, and nothing he can do except hold on.

S
he is drunk. Drunk, drunk, drunk, teetering in her high heels, which she kicks off sky-high in her bedroom. She falls onto her bed. Should she check her phone?

She has the spins. She sits up. That last shot of Jameson did her in. Goddamned Kevin and Patrick. They suck. All boys suck. She gets to her feet. She needs ice water and something to eat—one of the snowflake rolls she was planning on serving tomorrow, or some crackers. She careens down the hallway, through the back entrance to the kitchen.

She nearly screams. Santa Claus is sitting at the counter, picking at the remains of the ham. At first, Ava feels a sense of childish wonder—Santa! In the kitchen, on Christmas Eve, just as she always imagined! But then she realizes that it’s Scott. He has a jar of mustard out, and he’s smearing the pieces of ham before he eats them.

He sees her but seems unsurprised and unashamed to be in the Quinns’ kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed.

“Hey,” he says.

“Are there any little biscuits left?” she asks. “Or tiny slices of pumpernickel?”

“Long gone,” he says.

“I need ice water,” Ava says. “And maybe some crackers. I’m pretty drunk.”

Scott fetches Ava a glass of ice water and finds an entire box of Carr’s rosemary crackers, Ava’s favorite. She takes a second to appreciate a man who will do the small things for her. She smiles at him, or at least she thinks she’s smiling at him; she can’t feel her face.

Scott misreads her smile for something else. He leans down and kisses Ava, and she finds herself kissing him back. She wonders if she’s standing under mistletoe—as a rule, when she sees mistletoe at the inn or in the faculty lounge at school, she takes it down immediately—but she soon forgets about mistletoe, because kissing Scott is unexpectedly… awesome. There’s a charge. She is turned on. Is this real, or is it the Jameson? She had been so jealous when she saw Isabelle slip her arm around Scott’s shoulders. She’s happy it’s her kissing Scott right now. They keep going, kissing and kissing, lips and tongues, and teeth—he bites her gently, and electricity runs up her spine. He pulls her in closer; she is now locked against him. She thinks,
This is Scott Skyler, the assistant principal
. Can they have sexual chemistry, despite the fact that she doesn’t have romantic feelings for him? Is this even possible? Then Ava thinks of Nathaniel, and she imagines how she would feel if he were kissing Kirsten Cabot the way she is now kissing Scott Skyler.

She pulls away.

“Damn,” Scott says. He takes a deep breath. He looks down at himself. “North Pole.”

Ava backs up.

“You felt something, right? Something good? Please tell me you felt something good.”

She can’t speak. She did feel something good, but how cruel to lead Scott on when her emotional state doesn’t match her physical state. She picks up the water and the box of crackers. If Shelby were here right now, she would call Ava an asshat.

“Good night,” she says. Her lips are buzzing with the tang of mustard. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Scott says weakly.

Ava scurries for the door, thinking she has to get to her bedroom, she has to go to sleep, before anything else happens. But in the doorway, she turns around.

“Scott?” she says.

“Yes?” he says, hopefully.

“Will you come to dinner tomorrow night? Five o’clock? Please? I’m making a standing rib roast and Yorkshire pudding.”

He nods but doesn’t look happy. “I’ll be here,” he says.

“Good,” she says, and she means it. She needs people other than her family at the table tomorrow. As she heads back to her room, however, she realizes she never made it to the store to pick up the standing rib roast she ordered. Will the store be open on Christmas? If not, they will all have to eat hot dogs from Cumberland Farms. Beef
hot dogs!
Ava thinks.

Once in her room, Ava checks her phone. There is nothing from NO—no missed call, no texts. Ava blinks and feels her heart plummet like a skinny Santa through a chimney. Nothing, not one word. Ava checks her texts and her call log, just to be sure.

Nothing.

She can’t help herself. She calls Nathaniel’s number and thinks,
Pick up, pick up!
Maybe he, like Ava, got drunk on too much of Mrs. Cabot’s eggnog and passed out while dialing Ava’s number.

She is treated to Nathaniel’s voice mail just after the first ring. Which means his phone is off. He shut off his phone without calling or texting her. Or saying
Merry Christmas.

Ava climbs underneath her comforter. She is still in her black dress, but she is too tired, and too heartbroken, to take it off.

In the middle of the night, Ava feels arms wrap around her. At first, she worries that Scott has lingered around and crawled into bed with her. Then she thinks,
It’s not Scott, it’s Nathaniel! He came back!

But it is neither Scott nor Nathaniel.

It is someone else.

B
ecause she is “Margaret Quinn,” the following things happen: She climbs into the car and tells Raoul to take her to Teterboro instead of Newark. Raoul has been driving for Margaret for fifteen years and has never once gotten flustered.

He says, “Teterboro it is.”

There is hellacious traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel. Margaret tries not to panic; she tries not to
think
. Second-guessing herself never works.

She calls Lee Kramer, the head of the network. He’s Jewish, so she’s not too worried about interrupting his Christmas Eve. But, as it turns out, he’s at a holiday party at EN, in the West Village, and it sounds like he’s had a few too many sakes. Margaret hopes this works to her advantage.

Lee says, “Great broadcast tonight. Ginny thinks you look great in red.”

Ginny, Lee’s wife, is an editor at
Vogue,
so Margaret can’t really object.

“Thank you,” she says. Then, “Lee, I need a huge favor.”

“For you,” he says, “anything.”

Right. Because she has done more than her share of huge favors for him. She has traveled to the epicenters of floods and earthquakes and tsunamis; she has stood before the wreckage of horrific plane crashes and school shootings. She
has reported the news, grim though it has tended to be, without complaining.

“I need one of the jets at Teterboro and a pilot. The smallest jet; it’s just me.”

“To go to
Hawaii?
” Lee asks.

“No, no, I had to cancel Hawaii,” Margaret says. “I’m going to Nantucket instead. To be with my kids.”

“Oh, okay,” Lee says. “Much closer. I’ll call Ned and see what he has. When do you need it?”

Margaret eyes the traffic. “In an hour?”

“Oh boy,” Lee says. “You do know it’s Christmas Eve, right? You might have better luck calling St. Nick and hitching a ride on the sleigh.” He laughs heartily. “I just made a Christmas joke. Me, a kid from Livingston, New Jersey. The rabbi would be so proud.”

“Lee?” Margaret says. “I really need this. It’s for my children.”

“Give me ten minutes,” Lee says. “Ned will call you directly.”

“Thank you,” Margaret says. “You’re a mensch.”

“That I am,” Lee says, and he hangs up.

Margaret sighs deeply. Raoul says, “You okay, Maggie?”

Only Raoul—and Kelley—call her Maggie. She smiles. “Hanging in.” She hates to tell Raoul that if she can’t fly to Nantucket tonight, she’ll have to ask him to drive her up to Hyannis. But no—she can’t do that to Raoul on Christmas
Eve. She knows he always goes to midnight Mass with his granddaughter, who is a student at Hunter College. So Margaret will have to rent a car and drive herself to Hyannis, spend the night at the DoubleTree, then fly over to the island first thing in the morning.

Good-bye, Maui; good-bye, Drake; good-bye, hot-stone massage.

Then Margaret chastises herself. Bart was most likely on that convoy and is now being held prisoner somewhere in Afghanistan.
Kelley Kelley Kelley Kelley Kelley Kelley
—his son, his baby. Margaret has to get to him.

Stuck.

In.

Traffic.

Where are all these souls
going
on Christmas Eve? Why aren’t they at home with their families?

Margaret digs into her luggage—the bikinis and cover-ups and sandals and straw hat have all been rendered useless—until she finds the zipped pocket where she stashed Ava’s paper angel. She lays the paper angel in her lap. She was raised Catholic and educated by the nuns, but her faith has morphed greatly over the years—it has both faltered and deepened. She is more certain now than ever that there is something bigger out there, but she is less sure what it is. God? Allah? Karma?

Holding the paper angel on her lap brings back the best
memories, but only in snippets. The first Christmas with Patty, when he was just a newborn. Margaret set him under the tree in his Moses basket, and neither she nor Kelley bought each other any gifts that year, because what could be more perfect than the gift they had created together?

The year she and Kelley drove from Manhattan to Kelley’s mother’s house, in Perrysburg, Ohio, through a blinding snowstorm, with Patrick and Kevin strapped into car seats in the back. Margaret was convinced they’d get stranded; she made Kelley promise they would never again leave Manhattan at the holidays, and they never had.

The string of years in the brownstone. There were some good memories, before Margaret’s career took off, back when she actually had time for things. Margaret used to pick the kids up from school and ogle all the shopwindows and then take them up to the seventh floor of Bergdorf’s for hot chocolate. She made sugar cookies every year with Ava: colored icing, silver balls, green and red jimmies. Kelley’s firm used to throw a whopper of a holiday party at Le Cirque—oysters and champagne and a twenty-two-piece orchestra, everyone drunk, partners’ wives doing lines of cocaine in the bathroom while wearing their furs. That had been the last rush of big-time Reagan-era prosperity—life before cell phones and the Internet. Margaret had a certain nostalgia for that time, those parties, the big hair. Patrick and Kevin used to participate in the pageant at their church on Eighty-Eighth Street. They were usually shepherds, but one year
Patrick was picked to be Joseph, and Kelley and Margaret were given seats in the front pew. Margaret loved the pageant, with its menagerie of barn animals and little children dressed as angels, and the whole sanctuary bathed in candlelight. The organist would play “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and the church walls would practically swell with the voices, young and old.

Christmas Eve—always quiche lorraine and spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, and a viewing of the movie where the little boy wants a BB gun. Margaret and Kelley would drink Golden Dreams and get pleasantly mulled before putting the kids to bed and setting out the presents.

It had all been a golden dream, Margaret thought. If only they had realized it at the time.

Margaret’s phone rings. It’s Ned, who is in charge of the four network-owned jets.

“Margaret,” he says, “I have one plane with crew ready to go, but I have to remind you, it’s meant for urgent scenarios. You know, for news stories. Lee okayed it, so I’m going to let it slide tonight, but this can’t become a habit.”

“It won’t ever happen again,” Margaret says, wishing Lee had told Ned to spare her the lecture. “I promise.”

“Anyway, the problem is that Nantucket is closing its airport at nine. I can contact them, but I’m warning you, the likelihood that they’re going to stay open for you on
Christmas Eve is pretty low.” He clears his throat. “People want to get home.”

I want to get home,
Margaret thinks. By no stretch of the imagination is Nantucket Island her home, although she and Kelley started going there in the summer years when the kids were small. They used to rent a house on North Liberty Street that had a screened-in porch, a charcoal grill, and no TV. It had been the perfect place to unplug, unwind, and watch the boys and Ava play endless games of badminton in the side yard. When Margaret and Kelley split, Kelley “got” Nantucket; Margaret is now just a visitor. But her children are there, and this makes it the closest thing to a home that Margaret has.

“Please check, Ned,” Margaret says. “Please. Tell the tower that once I’m on the ground, I’ll sign autographs. I’ll do photos. I’ll write their kids college recommendations.”

“Okay,” Ned says, and he hangs up.

Raoul pops in Margaret’s favorite CD by the Vienna Boys’ Choir. She leans back and wonders briefly what Drake is doing. She assumes he’ll go to Hawaii alone. He will meet someone else—a young divorcée or one of the luscious college-dropout bartenders. He will lose the intellectual stimulation that Margaret brings, but he will gain youth and vigor in bed. She can’t even summon the energy to text him, though she wishes him well.

Her phone rings. It’s Ned.
Bad news,
she thinks. It’s a
five-hour drive to Hyannis (does she even remember
how
to drive?). She will get to the DoubleTree at two a.m. If she’s lucky.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Ned says. “The secretary of state is flying in at midnight tonight from Israel, so Nantucket airspace is open until then!” He sounds truly joyous, as if nothing makes him happier than delivering Margaret this Christmas miracle. “When can you get here?”

Margaret feels the car surge forward. The traffic has just cleared, and Raoul steps on it.

“Half an hour,” she says. “I’m on my way.”