24. Shotgun II
There are multiple sightings of Hollis Shaw and her “stars” in town on Saturday morning. We hear from Naz at Black-Eyed Susan’s, from Joey at Gypsy, and from the priest at St. Mary’s, Father John, who spies the women on his way to the church to prepare for a wedding. (Father John knows nothing about the Five-Star Weekend but he does recognize parishioner Tatum McKenzie, and it looks like she’s in some kind of altercation with a woman who might be the host of Throw Like a Girl. Is that possible?) Blond Sharon is just popping out of Erica Wilson with embroidery thread in a rainbow of colors for her daughter (apparently, friendship bracelets are back) when she sees a scene unfolding by Hollis Shaw’s strawberry-red Bronco. Sharon, who has been hoping to catch a glimpse of Hollis and her friends, gets as close to the Bronco as she can without revealing herself as the shameless eavesdropper she is.
Tatum reaches for the door handle of the front passenger side of the Bronco, and Dru-Ann swats her hand away.
“Nope, nuh-uh, you sat in front on the way here, I’m taking shotgun now.”
Tatum turns to her. “What are you, nine years old?”
“Me?” Dru-Ann says. “You’re the one who put a rubber snake in my bed like we’re rivals in a Disney movie.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tatum says.
“You’re holding this weird grudge against me because of what I said in the bathroom at Hollis’s wedding,” Dru-Ann says. “It was a joke.”
“There were other things that pissed me off as well,” Tatum says.
“Things that happened twenty-five years ago!” Dru-Ann says. “How can they possibly still matter?”
Dru-Ann’s voice is loud enough to draw attention, and Tatum looks around. Main Street is crowded with summer people living their best lives.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tatum glimpses Father John from St. Mary’s. (Tatum has known Father John for years and she doesn’t want him to see her acting in a manner unbecoming.) Tatum knows she’s blowing the whole wedding thing out of proportion; probably only 10 percent of her anger is about Dru-Ann—90 percent is about other stuff.
So Tatum huffs and lets Dru-Ann have the front. It doesn’t matter, except now she’ll be squished in the back bench seat with Gigi and Brooke. Brooke offers to sit in the middle, and Tatum is the last one to climb in, which puts her behind Dru-Ann. She pokes Dru-Ann’s shoulder and says, “Slide the seat up, please. I’m chewing on my knees.”
Dru-Ann ignores her. Hollis backs out onto the road. Blond Sharon watches the Bronco buck and bounce up Main Street. Evidently the Five-Star Weekend has its share of drama! Sharon, of course, is dying to know more.
“How was everyone’s shopping trip?” Hollis asks once they turn left onto the smoother surface of Orange Street. “What did you all get?”
Tatum noticed that Dru-Ann was carrying a large matte-black shopping bag from Gypsy, a store where everything costs four figures—not really, but yes, really. Tatum wouldn’t dare set foot in the place but it comes as zero surprise that this is where Dru-Ann shopped.
Brooke leans forward and shouts, “Gigi and I had the best time! We went to Mitchell’s and Gigi bought me two books, the new Maggie O’Farrell and a novel by a debut author named Karen Winn, and I got one for myself—it’s a beach book set on Nantucket. What could be cooler than that?” Brooke pulls the beach book out of the brown paper bag at her feet and the pages flap in the breeze like the wings of a distressed bird.
Ha, Tatum thinks. The author of the beach book is a local, a client of McKenzie Heating and Cooling, but Tatum won’t mention this because Brooke’s enthusiasm is already pretty grating. Tatum wishes she were heading out to Smith’s Point with Kyle and Jack. They’d bring a cooler of beer and stay until sunset, and on the way home they’d stop at Millie’s for margaritas and lobster tacos. Instead, Tatum will be left to wonder what Kyle and Jack are getting up to. She can’t believe they saw Irina and Veda while they were out last night. Jack danced with them. Tatum will be damned if she’s going to become another sickening story: They were high-school
sweethearts, married thirty-one years, then she died and he married her boss!
No. Tatum pulls cigarettes out of her purse and turns to Brooke. “Will it bother you if I smoke?”
But Brooke is on a roll and can’t be stopped. “Then we went to Murray’s!” she says. “And I got this Nantucket Reds skirt!” She pulls the skirt out, and the rushing wind over the car snaps the material like a flag. It doesn’t hit Tatum in the face but it comes close, and Brooke’s curly hair is also flying all over the place. She probably thinks it’s romantic, letting it loose in a convertible. Tatum edges away from Brooke, though she has only inches to spare. “You’re going to look like you dressed up as Nantucket for Halloween,” she says.
“Tatum,” Hollis says. “You and I both wore those skirts. You probably still have yours and it probably still fits.”
“That was for work,” Tatum says. The summers of 1986 and 1987, when she and Hollis scored jobs serving at the Rope Walk, they had to wear Nantucket Reds skirts and tight white T-shirts. “We didn’t wear them voluntarily. We didn’t spend good money on them.”
Brooke folds her skirt and tucks it back into the bag. “And I got a sweater,” she says meekly. “Gigi helped me pick it out.”
Brooke is a grown woman who needs help picking out her own clothes, Tatum thinks. That pretty much sums her up. What is Tatum doing here with these people? When they reach the rotary, she nearly asks Hollis to drop her off at home. It would be such a relief. But Tatum doesn’t quit things. She doesn’t abandon people.
Brooke leans into the front seat. “What did you get, Dru-Ann?” she asks.
“Show us!”
“I don’t feel like showing you right now. And can you tone it down, please? You’re at an eleven and we need you at a three.”
Amen, Tatum thinks. At least they agree on that.
Brooke sinks back into her seat. She opens her mouth to apologize (she shouldn’t have had a coffee at the Handlebar Café; she knows too much caffeine makes her unbearable to be around, or so says Charlie), but no, she won’t. She will just sit quietly the rest of the ride. Forget enthusiasm, forget sharing.
Gigi squeezes Brooke’s forearm and it’s this tiny kindness that makes Brooke’s eyes burn with tears. Probably Gigi pities her. Brooke digs through
her purse, finds an elastic, and ties back her hair.
Tatum can’t wait another second; she lights the cigarette. They are, after all, in a convertible. She inhales deeply, then blows smoke out the side and dangles her hand outside the car as well. Nobody complains. Gigi has her eyes closed and her head back. Hollis is watching the road and, Tatum would bet, dreaming about Jack. The two of them reverted right back to their seventeen-year-old selves. It was hilarious to watch.
Tatum takes another drag. She feels her tension ease a bit but then Dru- Ann whips around. “Are you smoking? You are—and you just blew smoke right into my hair!”
Tatum nearly exhales in Dru-Ann’s face, but that’s a step too far even for her. She lets the smoke slip out the side of her mouth and taps off her ash. “I most certainly did not.”
“Who smokes in a car full of people?” Dru-Ann says. “Talk about trashy.”
Tatum leans forward. “What did you say?”
“What you’re doing is beyond inconsiderate.”
“You called me trashy,” Tatum says. “I heard you.” Here it is, then, solid proof of what Tatum has suspected all along. “I’m sorry I don’t make six figures like you.”
Try seven, Dru-Ann thinks, but she doesn’t say it and now she wishes she’d kept her mouth shut because she doesn’t want Tatum to hate her any more than she already does. “It’s not about money,” Dru-Ann says. “It’s about manners.”
“We’re in a convertible!” Tatum says. She flicks the cigarette away. “But whatever, I’m sorry.” She hates herself for apologizing to Dru-Ann, though, really, she’s apologizing to Hollis. “I hope your hair survives.”
Hollis is tempted to speak up on Tatum’s behalf—the poor woman is awaiting biopsy results—but if she does, Dru-Ann will no doubt say, Why do you always protect her? You’ve been doing it your whole life, and then Tatum will jump in and say, Because she’s known me her whole life. Hollis is quiet, and everyone else is quiet, and Hollis exhales, hoping that’s the end of it. The ride home, she thinks, is a three-star experience, maybe only two stars. When they pull into the driveway, the only person smiling is Gigi.
Thank God for Gigi, Hollis thinks.
