44. The Friendship Sloop
Their sail on the Endeavor is scheduled to go from two to four, but at two fifteen, neither Hollis nor Gigi has arrived, and Caroline can tell that Captain Jim is getting antsy. The first mate is Captain Jim’s son, James, who asks Caroline how much longer she thinks it will be until they can get under way.
“They should be here any minute,” Caroline says. “They’re just parking.”
But a few minutes later, Caroline receives a text from Hollis that says: Go without us.
Srsly? Caroline texts back. Where are u?
Go, Hollis texts. Just please go.
“Actually my mom isn’t coming,” Caroline tells James. “So I guess we’re ready, then.”
Caroline, Brooke, Dru-Ann, and Tatum choose seats in the cockpit and they listen as James gives a briefing—lifejackets, no toilet paper in the head, et cetera—and a quick history of the boat. The Endeavor is a thirty-one-foot Friendship sloop that Captain Jim built himself.
Very cool, Dru-Ann thinks, but as James is talking, Dru-Ann peeks at her phone. Hovland bogeyed seventeen; he’s out. Phineas and McIlroy are tied headed into eighteen.
She should have gone with Gigi and Hollis, she thinks.
Tatum sends a quick text to Kyle: You will not believe what happened at lunch! Some woman is stalking us! Tatum is actually grateful for all the drama, it’s keeping her mind off the other thing. She considers Electra’s accusation. Gigi was with Matthew, as in his lover? Tatum doesn’t blame Gigi for walking away; Tatum would have slapped the woman, then left.
Brooke is listening to James, but she’s also still stunned by Electra’s audacity. Who approaches a group of women at lunch and accuses one of the women of sleeping with another woman’s dead husband? Being provocative is Electra’s superpower—but something is niggling at Brooke. It’s the thing Electra said at Slip 14 when she was telling Brooke about bumping into
Matthew. I think we caught him by surprise. Maybe what Electra meant was that Matthew was with a woman? Maybe, Brooke thinks. But it certainly wasn’t Gigi!
Caroline is worried about her mother. Are you okay? she texts.
Yes, darling, everything is fine. See you when you get back to the house.
She sounds normal; she’s probably at home prepping the dough for the pizza party tonight. Gigi will help her with the toppings, and they’ll laugh about what a fiend Electra is.
Caroline pulls out her camera and takes what has to be the most breathtaking footage of the weekend. As soon as the sloop leaves the Boat Basin, Captain Jim raises the sails; they rumble in the wind. He cuts the motor and the world quiets; they glide past the beach at Brant Point Light, where a gentleman is surf-casting and little kids are building a sandcastle.
The kids wave and Caroline and Brooke wave back. Caroline films the stately summer homes that front the harbor. There’s nothing like seeing Nantucket from the water to make you fall in love with the island all over again.
Dru-Ann moves up to the bow and enjoys the feel of the wind against her face. Okay, that was a nice moment where she was present and calm—but now she has to check in on St. Andrews. She gasps: McIlroy’s drive at eighteen lands in the water. That’s going to be… challenging to come back from. Phineas is next. He hits a beauty, straight up the fairway. Holy cow, she thinks. He has a chance. He has a chance!
He had a dream he was going to win.
“Hey.”
Dru-Ann looks up from her phone. Tatum sits down next to her. “I know
I’ve been a real bitch this weekend.”
You? Dru-Ann thinks.
“I thought maybe we could talk,” Tatum says.
“Now?” Dru-Ann says. She wanted to clear the air with Tatum all weekend and at this moment, when Dru-Ann’s attention needs to be elsewhere, Tatum is finally ready. It figures.
“Yes, now.”
Well, sure, why not make things as cinematic as possible? Dru-Ann
thinks. They’re sitting on the bow of a sailboat—a Friendship sloop!—with the sun on their faces and the wind in their hair. Although it pains her, Dru- Ann sets her phone down. “Okay, shoot.”
“I’m sure you think it’s juvenile or petty or whatever that I’ve held a grudge for so long.”
Dru-Ann sighs. “We were young; I was territorial about my friendship with Hollis.” She clears her throat. “But so were you, Tatum.”
“You said that horrible thing to me at Hollis’s wedding.”
“It was meant to be a joke,” Dru-Ann says. “But if you’d like me to formally apologize for it, I’ll do so now. I’m sorry, Tatum. What I said was crass, thoughtless, and not at all funny.”
“It was more than just that joke,” Tatum tells her. “It was also the bachelorette weekend and the way you made unilateral decisions without considering other people’s socioeconomic circumstances.” Kyle would be amused that Tatum is using all her big words, but Tatum has been planning this speech for a long, long time. What was SAT prep for if not to teach you words that will intimidate your enemy?
It’s the fall of 1998: Hollis’s wedding is the following February, and Dru- Ann is the maid of honor. Hollis informs Dru-Ann that Tatum is “also” maid —well, matron—of honor and Tatum’s one request is that she walk down the aisle last. This irks Dru-Ann, who says, “Why do you always give in to her?
You’ve been doing it your whole life.”
Hollis says, “I’ve known her my whole life. She’s like a sister. Please, Dru, be the bigger person and roll with this.”
Dru-Ann is (obviously) the bigger person, and fine, she’ll roll with it. Her own “one request” is planning the bachelorette weekend in Boston.
It will be epic. They’ll spend two nights at the Ritz-Carlton on Arlington Street; they’ll hit the North End for Italian on Friday night, shop Newbury Street on Saturday, get massages at the hotel spa, and on Saturday night, they’ll do a fancy dinner at Biba. Dru-Ann sends a letter to each of the girls on Hollis’s list, outlining the activities and estimating the cost, depending on what kind of room they want at the Ritz. (Dru-Ann is booking a suite and inviting Hollis to share with her.) Dru-Ann estimated the total cost of the weekend for each bridesmaid to be
between six and seven hundred dollars, because in addition to their own expenses, they would split Hollis’s costs.
I can’t go, Tatum thinks. It’s too much money. The Ritz, Sorellina, a massage? Tatum waits tables at the Lobster Trap, but by November they’re closed for the season. Tatum is pulling a couple of shifts at the Anglers Club.
She makes, maybe, three hundred bucks a week. She has a car payment, and she and Kyle are saving to buy a house.
She calls Hollis to tell her she can’t swing the bachelorette weekend and Hollis, predictably, goes into problem-solving mode. Tatum can skip the massage, she can skip the Ritz altogether. Why doesn’t she stay in Hollis’s apartment, a ten-minute walk away? All she’ll have to pay for then is the boat and bus to Boston and her meals.
“You can’t miss the weekend, Tay. You’re my matron of honor.”
It’s the first time Tatum and Dru-Ann have met in person. Dru-Ann hugs Tatum right away, saying, “I feel like I know everything about you.
Seriously, everything. Hollis never stops talking about you.”
This is such a nice thing to say! Tatum thinks. But it turns out to be window dressing. Dru-Ann spends the rest of the weekend making Tatum feel irrelevant—like a second-class citizen, the weak link. Tatum stays in Hollis’s apartment instead of the hotel and she misses the best parts of the weekend—the room-service breakfasts, the champagne that Dru-Ann orders to the suite before they go out, the late-night chatting and gossiping. Tatum skips the massage; she follows mutely along as the other girls shop at Kate Spade and Pierre Deux on Newbury Street. She orders chicken at dinner while everyone else gets crab, lobster, foie freaking gras. She’s constantly obsessing about how much money she’s spending or might spend in the next hour. It’s exhausting. On the way back to Hollis’s apartment Saturday night, she buys a lottery ticket. If she wins ten million dollars, she’ll book a suite at the hotel that second and cover everyone else’s bills as well. There will be caviar for breakfast, and a stretch limo—not a Peter Pan bus—will take her back to the Cape.
She doesn’t win; of course she doesn’t. Back in Hollis’s apartment, she calls Kyle and cries.
“You commandeered the bachelorette weekend,” Tatum says. “I’m still paying it off.”
“I know,” Dru-Ann says. “I’m sorry. When I look back on it now, I see it was an obnoxious flex.”
Tatum turns to study Dru-Ann’s profile. Does she seem contrite behind her designer sunglasses?
“I was jealous of you,” Dru-Ann says. “You had history with Hollis, years longer than me, all the growing-up stuff. You knew who she was at her essence, and I just knew who she wanted to be once she left home. And what can I say? I’m competitive. I wanted to be the best friend. I wanted to be the one who loved her the most, the one she loved the most.”
“I felt the same way,” Tatum says. “I thought of her love as a pie and I wanted the biggest piece. Hell, I wanted the whole pie.”
“Because I couldn’t make your importance to Hollis smaller, I tried to diminish you in other ways. What I said at the reception was inexcusable,”
Dru-Ann says. “Believe me, Tatum, I am sorry. I think about it and I just hate myself.”
The ceremony at St. Andrew’s Episcopal followed by the reception at the Wellesley Country Club are both lovely and fun. Tatum brings Kyle, and they notice that Hollis hasn’t invited another soul from Nantucket other than her father. Nearly all the guests at the wedding are friends of Matthew’s parents. Fine, great; Tatum still enjoys herself. The bridesmaids wear silk sheaths in a dusty-rose color, and Mrs. Madden has instructed them to accessorize with “a pearl choker, nothing opera-length or longer.” (Tatum didn’t own pearls of any length, so she had to go out and buy a pearl choker.) Mrs. Madden pays for all the bridesmaids to get their hair and makeup done, and Tatum chooses a French-braid crown with pink roses woven in.
She is, as she requested, the last one in the bridal party to walk out, and the program reads Matron of honor: Mrs. Tatum McKenzie, which makes her very happy.
Right before the reception, Dru-Ann tells Tatum that she’ll be giving the toast. Tatum has written a rhyming poem, but in truth, she’s terrified of public speaking, so she accepts Dru-Ann’s announcement gracefully; she’ll hand her poem to Hollis later. However, Mrs. Madden overhears the girls
talking and tells Dru-Ann that the only people who will be giving toasts that evening are her husband and the best man.
Ha, Tatum thinks. She gives Dru-Ann a sorry-not-sorry smile and goes to find more champagne.
In the middle of the dancing, the bandleader pauses between songs and says, “This next one is a special dedication from our bride to the matron of honor, Tatum McKenzie.” The band launches into “Take My Breath Away.”
Tatum meets Hollis out on the floor and they do their dance while the other guests—who are fairly inebriated by this point—cheer. It’s the greatest honor Tatum could have imagined.
Near the end of the reception, Tatum goes to the ladies’ room. She’s had a lot to drink and her feet hurt from dancing in her dyed-to-match-the-dress silk pumps. Tatum stands in front of the mirror and unwinds her French-braid crown—it’s giving her a headache—and her fingers catch on her choker. The strand snaps, and the pearls go raining all over the bathroom floor just as Dru-Ann steps out of a stall.
Dru-Ann gazes at Tatum in the mirror as she washes her hands. “That’s what happens when you buy them at Kmart,” she says—and walks out.
Thinking about it now makes Dru-Ann want to throw herself overboard.
Who says something like that? She was every bit as thoughtless and idiotic then as certain young people she has the pleasure to know are now. “I apologize for making a classist joke,” Dru-Ann says. “It was a crappy thing to do and I feel like a jerk.” She rests a hand on Tatum’s forearm and squeezes. “I’m sorry, Tatum.”
Tatum is quiet for a moment and Dru-Ann hopes Tatum realizes her apology is authentic.
“I forgive you,” Tatum finally says. “I have bigger things to worry about
now than my Kmart pearls.”
Dru-Ann laughs. “Yeah, me too.”
Caroline creeps around the boat with her camera. She manages to film the moment between Dru-Ann and Tatum. Finally, they’ve made up.
Dru-Ann and Tatum are having a moment on the bow and Caroline is filming, so Brooke sits alone in the cockpit. Only yesterday, this would have
bothered her, but today, Brooke is content to take in the scenery and think.
The first mate, James, comes by and says, “How’s it going?”
He looks like a nice kid and the way he asks makes it seem like he really wants to know: How is it going?
She smiles at him. “I came out of my walk-in closet this weekend,” she says.
He tilts his head like he’s heard her but doesn’t understand.
“I’m gay,” she says.
James breaks into a surprised grin. This is probably not what he expected to hear, Brooke thinks. “Good for you,” he says. “Congratulations!”
Not everyone in her life might view her announcement as something to celebrate, but first mate James does. Brooke loves kids this age. The future, she decides, is bright.
