CHA PTE R 5
Y DAD’S ON COOK HOUSE tonight, which means bakedM potatoes. It’s never the wrong season to set the oven to four hundred degrees, as far as my dad’s concerned. He’s sautéing frozen spinach and has crabcakes from the store.
Christopher and Gus are in front of the TV, eating Triscuits.
“I’m actually going out tonight,” I say to the general space. “To Hog Tied for a bit. Some old high school friends.
Charlotte and those guys.” I am a terrible liar, and I am forever painting myself into a corner with unnecessary details.
“Sounds fun,” my dad says, eyeing the cocktail sauce stain on my jeans. I don’t know how I didn’t cover this with Naomi, but I have nothing to wear out to dinner.
I go upstairs to see if I can find anything suitable in Patsy’s and my old closet in Gus’s room. The two twin beds are covered in clothes from the explosion of Gus’s duffel bag, and the window seat has a rip in the upholstery. I’ll add it to my list. The little bookcase by the closet has a few framed photos—Pasty and me, Gus and my dad, my mom holding Patsy as an infant while I sat next to them, beaming.
I turn to the closet. My side is empty because I moved out like a grown-up. Patsy’s side is like a museum exhibit of 1990s fashion that she shows no sign of coming back for. I sort through the mainstays of an unfortunate grunge phase and several too-short skirts before finding a navy-blue
sundress. Sleeveless and sensible, it’s the coastal Rhode Island version of a business suit. It’s cotton, T-shirt material, and fine for standing but too short for sitting down. I’ll hopefully be sitting across from him with a giant napkin in my lap, so this is probably fine. I take my hair out of the knot on top of my head and brush it out. I let it fall over my face, like a cloak of invisibility. I part it down the middle and pull it into a low ponytail to prevent me from fidgeting with the ends over dinner.
Gus eyes me as I come down the stairs. “Why are you wearing that?” he asks.
“My jeans were filthy,” I say, and kiss both Gus and Christopher on the forehead. “I won’t be late.”
It’s fifteen minutes to Harvey, just north of Newport, and I pull into the mostly empty parking lot of Bistro Belle Vie.
The restaurant is dark. Couples, just as Naomi said, are leaning into each other in the booths toward the back. I’m about to ask the hostess for a table for two when I see him in the corner booth. He has a bottle of red wine and two glasses. He holds his up to me.
I make my way over to the table and sit across from him, and the whole thing feels so clandestine, like he’s going to pass me some money in exchange for compromising photos.
“Interesting spot,” he says. He’s in a white dress shirt, open at the collar and bright against his tan skin. I let my eyes dip to his neck and over the curve of his Adam’s apple.
There’s a votive candle on the table that’s uplighting his square jaw, and I wonder if he appreciates how perfectly
things line up for him all the time.
I look around. “Yes, weird choice.”
“It was your choice,” he says.
The roof, the ruse, being anyplace at all with Stewart Whitfield—it’s all too much. I can’t be lying about small
things. “That was my friend Naomi texting you. She has a history of grabbing my phone out of my hand when I’m faltering.”
He smiles a real smile, and it must be the first time I’ve seen it because I don’t remember the single dimple on his left cheek. It brightens his eyes. “I knew it,” he says.
“Knew what?”
He leans back in the booth. “I don’t know you at all, but I
thought your texting style seemed off.”
“How so?”
“Wine?” he asks, and then fills my glass. “I thought, for a person who has been busting my balls since I met her, you used a lot of exclamation points.”
I laugh. “Good call. I am definitely exclamation point averse.”
“Me too,” he says. “See, we have something in common.”
He raises his glass to me and takes a sip. My eyes stay on his mouth, even though I have specifically instructed them not to, and I consider how an occasional kiss this summer, just to prove we’re a couple, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. The last man I kissed was a thin-lipped guy in a sleeveless hoodie who I felt bad for because I beat him in darts. That was at least two years ago. I drag myself back to the reason I am sitting in this too-dark restaurant with this too-handsome man. My roof.
“Yes,” I say. “Good. So where do we start? Is there an agenda?” I pretend to look under my napkin. “I didn’t get my copy.”
“You were the one who had terms,” he says, and pulls a laptop out of his leather satchel. He opens it and looks up at me. “So I’m thinking a few times a week. I never saw Audrey
more than that.”
“You didn’t live together?”
“Well, sort of. Sometimes she stayed at my house. But she’s very social and I didn’t always go along. I was mostly asleep when she came home.”
“Could have been part of the problem,” I say.
He shrugs. “Also occasional photo ops. Just around town.
At the house.”
“There’s press at Eight Oaks?”
“No, actually. But that’s the other thing. My family can’t know about this, besides my sister, Busy.”
“Why are we lying to your family? I thought this was a business thing.”
He folds his hands together. It’s a deliberate movement and each of his fingers lands separately. They are beautiful hands, lightly tanned and perfectly manicured. There’s no way Naomi has ever seen a photo of these hands; if she had, she would have mentioned them in a pervy way.
“What?” he asks.
“Do you get manicures?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. I haven’t had a manicure since Layla’s wedding in 2021.
“You can tell a lot about a person by their hands,” he says.
I drop my hands onto my lap so he can’t see my nails.
“Yes,” I say. “I can tell by your hands you have extra money for manicures. So why are we lying to your family?”
He looks down at his laptop and then pushes it away and opens his menu. “It’s sort of complicated. What looks good?”
“Let’s split the chicken cordon bleu and the endive salad,” I say. I close his menu and stack it on mine. “If I’m going to do this, I need to understand what it is. Now spill.”
He takes his time refilling his wineglass, which is already half full. “I’m trying to get a promotion.”
“Okay?”
“And so is my cousin Grant. We’re both in business development. Basically my ideas are good and his are bad.
It’s in the best interest of the company that I get the job.”
“In your unbiased opinion.”
He doesn’t blink. “Yes. But it’s the truth. My dad is retiring as CEO at the end of the year, and they’re choosing his replacement in the next few months. My family makes up a big part of the board of directors, so I need their vote.”
“Ah, yes, this all makes perfect sense.” I swirl the red wine in my glass. “Naturally they won’t vote for you unless you’re dating a fish heiress.” I hold up a hand to him. “I get it. I minored in business. Say no more.”
The waiter comes and Stewart orders exactly what I’d suggested, plus a steak and french fries.
“I work a lot,” he says when the waiter’s gone.
“You’ve said.”
He bites his bottom lip and I have the feeling it’s a tell.
Stewart’s worried and he doesn’t want to say the next thing.
But he does. “My mother doesn’t think it’s entirely healthy.
It’s probably not. She’s always been worried that if I took over as CEO, I’d go overboard and never make time for a life outside of work.” Stewart’s mother, Victoria Whitfield, has recently retired from a long career in medicine. Pediatrics, I think. She is by all accounts not a typical socialite.
“So you think Audrey dumping you is enough for your parents to block your promotion.”
“Audrey dumping me is practically proof that they’re right. The way my mom looked at me when she saw the photo of Audrey with that guy—I don’t even have the job yet, and I couldn’t keep my relationship going. This is all really bad timing.”
“So I’m here to make you seem like you’re emotionally healthy enough for a relationship and in a balanced frame of mind to take on the role of CEO.”
“Essentially,” he says. “And like I’ve found my person.
You’re so different from her. We’ll show them how right you are for me, and they’ll know how wrong for me she was. It’s perfect, actually.”
“I’m the anti-Audrey.” That, at least, seems true.
“Exactly,” he says. He reaches into his satchel and pulls out his glasses. I like his glasses. He’s more human in them, like it’s an admission that he’s not twenty-twenty in every aspect of his life. “And Grant. In addition to the fact that his terrible projects happen to have higher returns than mine, he’s happily married. So right now, Grant’s looking like
exactly the right guy for the job.”
“Why do you work so much?”
“It’s what I do,” he says.
“Always?”
“Pretty much.” He pulls his laptop toward him and
readies himself to take notes.
“And are you good at your job?” I ask.
“Yes, why?”
“Because I would have done it for fifty.”
He looks up at me over his glasses and gives me that one- dimple smile again. “I would have paid you a hundred.”
“Shoot,” I say. Naomi was right.
“Duration,” he says. “Through the Starlight Gala on August twenty-second.” He’s typing as he speaks. “After that I’ll be back in Boston, and we can pretend to have a long- distance relationship until the CEO announcement is made.”
“I’m also going back to Boston.”
“Right,” he says, still typing. “Perfect. We both came for the summer.”
“Fine,” I say. “Why are you here this summer?”
“Grant floated the idea of remote work during the summer, and I’m pretending I don’t think it’s the worst idea in the world. Which it is.” He’s typing again. “Can you commit to two outings per week, as necessary?”
“Okay,” I say. “Any travel?”
“Yes, but not far. Maybe an overnight or two if we need to be in Boston.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Overnight? Stewart, let’s get super specific.”
“I think you mentioned already that you’re not involved in the flesh trade. Let me get that down.” He goes back to typing, mouthing, “no flesh trading.”
“Wait, did you just make a joke?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. A little color hits his cheeks, and he refocuses on his laptop. “I obviously don’t expect sex. Or anything sex-like. If we go overnight, you’ll have your own room on a separate floor of my house.”
“Touching?” I ask. I need to understand the parameters here. Or at least brace myself for what’s coming. “For
show?”
“Not necessary.”
“Okay, wow.” I’m thinking about Audrey and her twice- weekly sleepovers and absolutely no PDA. I can see why she was desperate for a make-out session in the dugout. “No touching at all?”
He shakes his head like he’s a bit exasperated by my specifics. “Maybe? Like if you were about to walk into traffic, I might grab you by the arm.”
“Okay. I’ll agree to touching in lifesaving situations.” He keeps typing, so I go on. “And maybe in a normal way when we’re in public? Arm around me for a photo, adjusting a stray piece of my hair because someone’s looking.”
“Sure,” he says, still typing.
“Why am I in love with you?” I ask.
He looks up and takes off his glasses. “I’m a great guy?”
I smile at the question mark. “How so? Got any Yelp reviews?”
He shakes his head. “Yeah, I don’t know. Ask Busy, she
likes me.”
“Does Oscar?”
He looks at me for a beat. “He used to.”
I think of how close Patsy and I were before my mom left and I stepped out of our childhood to mother her. I wonder what the big shift was for Stewart and Oscar, but I don’t ask.
Oscar Whitfield is a few years younger than Stewart, a relentless playboy who settled down with Lilly Hammersmith but still doesn’t work, as far as I know. Stewart will marry someone like Lilly in the little white chapel, and she’ll get to keep the horse.
“What else?” he asks, putting his glasses back on and turning to the computer.
“I need to work around my shifts at the fish house, and I’ll have to answer my Good Sports line. But I’ll keep it on vibrate. I’ll need to know about each event in advance. I’ll require twenty-four hours’ notice.” I am pushing him, just to
see where the edge is.
“What else?”
What else? I think of Naomi and a jillion dollars. “A clothing allowance.”
“Of course,” he says, eyeing the navy dress circa 1995.
I lean in across the table and whisper, “I want bespoke.”
He leans in too. “Bespoke what?” he whispers.
“Do you know what ‘bespoke’ means?” I ask.
“Custom-made for a specific person.”
“Really?” I laugh. I had no idea. “I don’t need that.”
Stewart laughs as a busboy places a basket of hot French bread between us. I take a piece and breathe in the steam. I look up and he’s watching me spread butter on it.
“So how did we meet?” I ask.
He’s quiet, really considering it. “You spilled your purse
at a coffee shop and I helped you.”
“Hate it.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Grocery store.”
“Because you go to the grocery store?”
“No.” He looks away for a second. “Blind date?”
“Who sets an engaged guy up on a blind date?” We’re quiet while I butter more heavenly bread. “We both bike the same route in the park and occasionally nodded hello, until one day you found me sitting on the ground by my bike with a flat tire. You helped me home and then vowed to teach me how to change a real tire someday. And thanks to the love gods, we’re both spending the summer in Whitfield. See what I did there?”
“Not bad. It has an arc.” He nods appreciatively and takes a piece of bread.
I say, “It’s sporty, it’s innocent. You look like a hero.
You’re welcome. What else?”
“Birthday?”
“January eleventh.”
“I’m May fourteenth.”
“I assume you live on Beacon Hill.”
“Yes. Let me guess. You live…” And he pauses for so long I’m thinking he can’t think of any place that’s not Beacon Hill.
“I live out near Boston College. Gus and I have the downstairs apartment of a two-family house.”
“That sounds nice,” he says, like he’s trying to make it sound nice.
“Oh stop.” I laugh. “It is. We’ve been there since he was three, and the landlord barely raises our rent. I take care of the lawn and stuff. And over the years, we’ve made it our own. I’d buy it and stay forever if I could.”
He’s nodding ever so slightly.
“And do you date?” he asks.
“A bit.” It’s an exaggeration for sure. My last actual date was with a middle-school teacher, but it would have been before Gus started middle school, so that’s at least three years ago.
“How do you approach that, with a child at home?”
“With very low expectations.”
“And how does that work out?”
“Exactly as I expect.” Our eyes meet and he waits for me to explain. I don’t. “How’d you meet Audrey?”
“She’s friends with Grant’s wife, Kendall. They introduced her to me, and it took.” He holds my gaze, and I’m trying to see a little heartbreak in it. He must have loved her a little. But he’s not going to explain himself either.
“I only go on dates on Saturday nights.” I lean in and lower my voice again. “Married guys can’t go out on Saturday nights.”
“So the expectations are that low? He has to be single to clear the bar?”
“You’d be surprised. Single. No smoking. Doesn’t want kids.” Stewart narrows his eyes at me, and I explain. “I love my son, but I’m almost forty and that’s a hard no. And I don’t want a guy who wants to be around all the time. Gus and I are a team, we have our routines, and I don’t want to break any of that up because I have some guy to look after.”
“Maybe he’d look after you,” Stewart says.
I smile and shake my head. “That has not been my experience.”
The waiter brings our food with little plates for sharing. I take a bite of the chicken and let it melt in my mouth. It’s heavenly, this chicken, almost illicit in this dimly lit
restaurant.
“Good?” he asks.
“Mmm.” I nod with a full mouth.
“Which is the favorite of your jobs?” he asks, pushing the
fries toward me.
“Teaching, hands down.”
“Why?”
“Well, nighttime Uber riders can be belligerent. And I don’t totally get the weighted-vest thing. I mean, regular life seems heavy enough.”
He raises his glass to me. “That’s the truth. So is there something about little kids that you like or is it just the least bad job?”
“Oh yes. Well, everything. I love the way they jump around when they’re excited and lie right in the middle of the floor when they’re tired. They’re just so connected to themselves. And they’ll tell you anything. They totally appreciate you and they never lie. That’s actually the best thing.”
He looks at me for a beat. “Because you’ve been lied to.”
“I’ve definitely been misled.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, my fiancée told me she was in France when she was really in the Bronx.”
“With a Yankee, of all things.”
“Bad things can happen to anybody,” he says, and pours me some more wine.
By the time Stewart walks me to my car, we have a deal.
He reaches into his satchel and hands me a check for thirty thousand dollars. It’s the most money I’ve ever seen or had. I
run my finger over the zeros. “Half now, half later.” He extends his hand to me, and I shake it.
“Thank you,” I say, still staring at the check. “I need a new roof, so.”
He nods. “Ah. It did seem like an oddly specific amount.”
I smile at the check and then look back up at him. He reaches out and pats my shoulder. Once. It’s one hard pat, like he’s pressing a call button for service.
I look at my shoulder and back at him. “What was that?”
I ask.
“Touching? I don’t know.” He looks away. “I was just trying to act like we’re a couple.”
I laugh and fold my check carefully in half. “We’ll have to work on that.”
He opens my car door for me, and I get in. Now that I’m sitting, my dress is too short. I feel his eyes go there, so I place my bag on my lap as if I plan to drive clutching my tote.
I look up at him through the open door. “Just to be super clear. There’s nothing weird here. Like, I don’t have to give you a bath or anything, do I?”
He stifles a laugh, but I see it in his eyes. “No, nothing like that.”
“And obviously no kissing.” It’s as much a reminder to myself as to him.
“I do not kiss in public.” He says it like it’s his blood type.
“Me neither, Stewart,” I say, and close the door.
