3. Chink in the Armor
Caroline Shaw-Madden receives a text from her mother requesting her presence on Nantucket for the weekend.
No, Caroline says to herself. But then she reconsiders.
For the past seventeen sweltering, feverish days, Caroline has been romantically involved with her boss, the Academy Award–winning documentarian Isaac Opoku.
Caroline never dreamed things with Isaac would take this kind of turn, not only because of the age difference (fourteen years) or the power differential (Caroline is a rising senior at NYU who has yet to make even a short film of her own) but also because Isaac is in a committed relationship. His girlfriend, Sofia Desmione, is a bona fide supermodel (Vogue, Italian Vogue, Valentino, Dolce e Gabbana), and Sofia lives with Isaac in the Chelsea loft that also serves as Isaac’s studio.
But… Sofia is rarely around. She’s either out on a shoot or partying until dawn at Zero Bond. Isaac, though, suffers from social anxiety; he asks Caroline to go through his e-mails and decline all invitations. From the beginning, Caroline wondered why Isaac and Sofia were together. She’d seen Sofia only once in her first month of work: Sofia breezed in, smelling like a mixture of Jo Malone and tequila and wearing a dress that looked like a Hefty garbage bag, kissed Isaac on the forehead, and told him she’d gotten an assignment with Acne Studios and would be shooting in Stockholm for three weeks. She added, “I’m having lunch with Mauricio at Cluny, then I’m off to JFK. Gemma will come in a little while to pack my bags. Love you.”
And Isaac had said in his darling Ghanaian accent, “Love you too, ma chérie.”
Only then had Sofia noticed Caroline. “New assistant? Cute! I’m Sofia.”
She offered Caroline a cool hand. “Please, no trouble.”
Please, no trouble. Caroline was so startled by the statement that at first she was unable to respond. Did that mean what she thought it meant? Had
there been “trouble” with other assistants, or did Sofia find Caroline particularly threatening (the thought was laughable)? By the time Caroline had recovered enough to say, “No, of course not,” Sofia was gone.
Caroline is, technically, helping Isaac edit his documentary L’Étoile Verte; it’s about Amira Delacroix, a chef who left her wildly popular restaurant kingdom in Paris to open an elegant French bistro in the Moroccan desert town of Ouarzazate. However, what helping means is that Caroline goes to the corner bodega to fetch Isaac’s bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, she opens his mail, and she sits on a stool to his left as he teaches her how to edit.
From the beginning, Caroline found Isaac gentle, lovely, and kind. He hired Caroline to complete the mundane tasks of his day but also because he likes the company. Plus he wants to impart his knowledge to someone, and Caroline is a sponge. But one afternoon shortly after Sofia left for Sweden, Caroline handed him the script with the pages out of order, and Isaac lost his temper. He said, “A kindergarten bébé could do this, Caroline, and yet you manage to make it a mess!”
Caroline couldn’t help herself—she started to cry, and once she started, she couldn’t stop. It wasn’t Isaac’s reprimand, it was everything, and by everything, Caroline meant that her father was dead. She hadn’t told Isaac about her father because she didn’t want special treatment. Certainly the nine hundred and ninety-nine other students who’d applied for this job had problems too, but those problems didn’t belong in the studio.
She said, “I’m sorry. My father died unexpectedly in December, and I’m still fragile.”
She wouldn’t have been surprised if Isaac had fired her on the spot, but instead he backed away from his computer and took her by the hand, and led her over to the vintage sofa in the loft’s living area. He made her a cup of Yellow Gold tea and brought out an assortment of cashews, Turkish figs, and dried apricots from Kalustyan’s on Lexington. He told Caroline that he’d lost his mother when he was nine years old, and not a day went by that he didn’t mourn her.
He was so sweet in that moment and his loneliness so obvious (his relationship with Sofia was a sham, Caroline decided then; they were together only because they were good for each other’s brands) that she forgot herself.
She dismissed Sofia’s request—Please, no trouble—and kissed him. To his credit, he pulled away and said, “This isn’t what you want.” What he meant was This will not replace your father’s love. What he meant was I am in a position of power and you are not and therefore this won’t be fair to you. We have seen stories like this play out before and they always end badly.
Caroline said, breathing into his mouth, “It is what I want. It is.” And she kissed him again.
Caroline receives her mother’s text as she’s leaving Isaac’s loft and beginning the long walk to her sublet on the Upper East Side (it’s too hot for the subway and she doesn’t have money for a cab). Sofia is returning to New York the following day, and as agonizing as it will be for both Caroline and Isaac, the affair has to end.
Caroline and her mother haven’t spoken in months. This, Caroline has to admit, is her fault. Caroline got an A in both Intro to Psych and Social Psych so she understands that she’s punishing Hollis because Hollis is the surviving parent. Everyone at the funeral kept commenting on how “strong” Hollis was, which made Caroline livid. Hollis used to be a devoted wife and mother, but when her website went stratospheric, she shoved both Caroline and her father into a corner. Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but there was a marked difference in their family dynamic. Hollis’s social media presence became her new baby; it was top of mind for Hollis every second of every day.
Caroline and her father used to jokingly call Hollis “the Cooking Kardashian,” but now that her father is dead, it isn’t funny. Caroline is furious with her mother for reasons she can’t articulate, and the stark truth is that Caroline is still in so much emotional pain that holding a grudge feels good.
But Hollis has always been intuitive. Caroline wouldn’t be surprised if her mother had somehow sensed that Caroline just experienced the first breakup of her adult life.
Would you consider coming to Nantucket this weekend? Please, Caroline. I’ve done something.
Caroline hates that Hollis has reached out now, when she is at her most vulnerable. She takes a deep breath—the city air is redolent of exhaust,
sweat, and trash—and calls her mother.
Hollis answers on the first ring. If she hadn’t, Caroline might have hung
up.
“Darling?” Hollis says.
“Yes,” Caroline says.
Neither of them speaks for a moment. Caroline breaks first, mostly out of impatience. “You said you’ve done something. What have you done?” She braces herself for the worst.
“Well,” Hollis says, “I’ve decided to host something called a Five-Star Weekend, and I was hoping you could help.”
All Caroline hears is host and five-star, and she thinks, Of course she’s hosting something fancy. Can Caroline end the call? She sort of wants to, but she’s surprised by how much she’s missed her mother’s voice.
Hollis goes on to explain: four friends, one from each phase of Hollis’s life, coming to stay at the house on Nantucket.
To Caroline, the Five-Star Weekend sounds like some kind of internet challenge for boomers. “What sort of help do you want from me?”
“I’d like you to come to Nantucket and film it,” Hollis says. “The original woman who did it, Moira, took pictures and made a Shutterfly album. But I thought, since you’re a filmmaker”—I’m a college student, Caroline thinks, who, until today, was sleeping with a filmmaker—“you could document our adventures.”
Adventures? Caroline thinks. Like a trip to the needlepoint store? Or ordering a kombucha at Lemon Press instead of a latte? Caroline pictures a glass of chardonnay on a porch railing with beach dunes in the background as Bonnie Tyler sings “Holding Out for a Hero.”
Absolutely not, Caroline thinks. But before she can decline, Hollis says, “I’ll pay you twenty-five hundred dollars. How does that sound?”
It sounds as good as a hot stone massage, a chilled raspberry White Claw, and a sneaky link with Jacob Elordi. Caroline’s pockets are hurting, but she saw the hypocrisy in asking her mother for spending money when she had basically slammed the door in her face.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” she says. Caroline needs funds, but also, thanks to Sofia’s imminent return, she wants to get out of the city. “When do you want me there?”
“Friday morning,” Hollis says. “I’m sorry, I know it means missing work
—”
“That won’t be a problem,” Caroline says.
The next day, Caroline shows up at Isaac’s loft wearing black to mark the death of their romance. Caroline can tell by the serene energy in the loft that Sofia isn’t back yet.
“She lands at five,” Isaac says. They gaze at each other with longing and Caroline thinks, One more time? But Isaac slices the air between them with his hand. “We must get back to business.”
Caroline nods. “I’ll be taking tomorrow and Monday off.” She knows she can ask for whatever she wants now.
Isaac frowns, then grasps Caroline’s chin in his fingers so that she has no choice but to look into his brown eyes. Sofia Desmione is not worthy of those eyes, Caroline thinks. “You need time away?” he says. “Where will you go?”
“To Nantucket to see my mother,” Caroline says. “She’s hosting a weekend for her… friends.” After Caroline hung up with Hollis yesterday, she realized she’d forgotten to ask the most important question. She’d texted Hollis: Wait—who did you invite to this thing?
Three dots rose on Caroline’s phone, then disappeared, then rose again,
then disappeared again.
Finally, a text came in: Tatum.
Okay… Caroline thought. She hadn’t realized her mother and Tatum were
friends anymore.
Dru-Ann.
Of course, Caroline thought.
Brooke.
Eye-roll emoji, Caroline thought.
There was a pause and Caroline thought, That’s it? I thought there were supposed to be four friends, but then another text arrived.
Gigi Ling.
Who is that? Caroline had never heard of Gigi Ling. She texted: ?????
Her mother responded: I met her through the website.
Caroline groaned. The Hungry with Hollis community worshipped her mother, and one of Caroline’s major beefs was how much Hollis seemed to relish their adoration.
It was very alarming that Hollis had invited one of these people to the Five-Star Weekend.
Please tell me you’ve met this woman in person, Caroline texted.
Three dots rose, then disappeared.
This, Caroline thought, means no.
Caroline mentally composed a response to her mother: I can’t believe you’re inviting someone you’ve never met IRL to the Five-Star Weekend. It’s probably some scary dude living in his mother’s basement who’s going to murder you all. Or she’s a scam artist, a predator, or, at the very least, someone so needy and friendless that she’s going to a girls’ weekend with complete strangers. Really, Mom, what are you thinking?
Now Caroline tells Isaac, “She wants me to film it.”
“Mon Dieu,” he says. His expression is dubious.
“One of the women my mother invited is someone she’s never met,”
Caroline says. “It’s someone from her, you know, foodie website.”
Isaac’s beautiful eyes widen. “So bizarre. This will be a funny little project for you. And maybe not a complete waste? You can practice shooting landscape.”
There was one afternoon in Isaac’s bed when Caroline described Nantucket to him: the stretches of pristine golden beach, the moors dotted with green ponds, the peppermint stick of the Sankaty lighthouse.
“May I please borrow a camera?” Caroline asks. “Either the Red or the Alexa? And one of your Sachtler tripods?”
She watches doubt flicker across Isaac’s face—he never lends his equipment.
“Of course, mon petit chou. And you should take my drone.”
His drone? Whoa. Maybe he thinks Caroline can get some good footage of the island, or maybe he’s patronizing her. Probably a bit of both. It will be a “funny little project,” and Caroline will return to New York twenty-five hundred dollars richer.
On Caroline’s first day at the loft, Isaac had told her that the most challenging part of documentary filmmaking was finding a worthy subject.
Look for a chink in the armor, he said, where you can penetrate the surface and discover a hidden truth.
As Caroline packs up Isaac’s precious equipment, she laughs to herself.
There won’t be any hidden truths behind a bunch of olds eating lobster rolls,
wearing capri pants, and quoting Sixteen Candles.
That much is for sure.
