Page 23 of The Identicals
“I still have it,” Eleanor says. “Someday it will go to the Smithsonian.”
“I’m sure it will,” Tabitha says. “It’s very…” She nearly sayspretty,butprettyhas never meant anything to Eleanor. “Strong. Makes a statement. Perhaps you should bring it back.” She returns the clipping to Eleanor.
“Perhaps I should,” Eleanor says. She tucks the clipping into her purse before laboriously getting out of the car. She’s less steady on her feet these days, especially when she’s wearing heels—slingbacks, at that—and she’s had at least half a dozen glasses of champagne. Tabitha should walk her to the door, help her get situated inside—make her a cup of tea, fix her a snack, fetch her a robe.
But no. Tabitha won’t do it. Not tonight. She’s too angry, and the things Eleanor has said today are too hurtful. Eleanor longs for Harper. Fine. From now on, when Eleanor wants something, she can ask Harper for it. Harper can manage the Nantucket store, maybe sell meth or heroin in addition to the Eleanor Roxie-Frost label. That, at least, would put an end to their cash-flow problems.
“Have a good night, Mother,” Tabitha says.
Eleanor makes her wobbly way up the flagstone path toward the steps of the front porch. Tabitha studies the grandness of the house and decides that she will throw a party there in a few weeks, when Eleanor goes to New York to meet with the tailors and ERF manufacturing people. Ha! Tabitha is no better than Ainsley! But really, Eleanor’s house is ideal for entertaining—cocktails on the porch, buffet dinner in the dining room, dancing in the living room. Maybe Tabitha will invite Captain Peter. Maybe she’ll invite young Zack, the bartender from Nautilus. She will definitely invite Stephanie Beasley now that Ainsley and Candace are friends again. And maybe Teddy’s uncle Graham while she’s at it.
She needs more friends, she thinks. Ainsley is right. Eleanor has ruined her life.
Eleanor climbs the stairs holding on to the rail. It’s like watching paint dry, Tabitha thinks.
She’ll invite the Tallahasseeans!
Harper has been conducting an affair with Billy’s married doctor. Does no one but Tabitha find this disgusting?
Eleanor reaches the porch and turns around to wave, or maybe not wave, maybe signal, because she is now crying. She steps forward—possibly she wants to apologize to Tabitha or maybe she’s left her reading glasses in Tabitha’s car—but she misjudges her footing and falls down the porch stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom.
AINSLEY
She is so busy getting her phone up and running that she doesn’t know anything is wrong until she hears the ambulance sirens. At first they’re distant, and she barely registers them, but then they get closer, and then they’re basically on top of her, and she looks out the window and she sees the flashing blue and red lights pull into their driveway. She spies the distant figure of her mother waving the ambulance over in the direction of Grammie’s house.
Ainsley dashes out the front door in time to see the paramedics sliding Grammie onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance. Tabitha gets in her car, does a doughnut in the driveway, and follows the ambulance out. When she sees Ainsley, she puts down her window.
“Grammie fell. I’m going with her to the hospital. Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
“Stay here,” Ainsley says. She feels bad for that choice, but her mother actually looks relieved.
“Does your phone work?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call you,” Tabitha says. And off she goes.
Ainsley goes back into the house alone. This is what she’s been waiting for since Friday night—to be left alone, with a mode of communication—yet she regrets the answer she gave her mother. She should have gone to the hospital. What if her grandmotherdies?What if she loses both of her grandparents in the same week?
She waits for her phone to boot up. She’s expecting a host of texts and missed calls, but only one text comes in, from Emma, dated Sunday at noon. It says:Head hurts. Call me.
That’s it?Ainsley thinks. Nothing from Teddy? He doesn’t know her phone was drowned, although maybe he guessed. He doesn’t know her grandfather died and that she went to the memorial on the Vineyard.
She has been completely out of touch. She assumed he would try to contact her, yet her phone shows nothing.Didhe go to the Jetties to see G. Love with Emma? Emma complained of a headache at noon on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t rally for a big rager on Sunday night.
Maybe Teddy lost his phone privileges as well. Maybe Uncle Graham finally went to the library and checked out a parenting manual. But somehow Ainsley doesn’t think so. Teddy didn’t do anything wrong except spend his date money on vodka. Maybe Teddy’s mother showed up, fresh out of Brookhaven Hospital in Tulsa, and took Teddy back to Oklahoma with her. This is what would happen in a Charles Dickens novel; Ainsley has been paying enough attention in English class to know this much.
Ainsley calls Teddy. When he answers, he sounds weary. “Hey, Ainsley.”
“Teddy?” she says. “My mom sunk my phone on Saturday night, which is why I haven’t called. And then we found out on Sunday morning that my grandfather died, but I still had no way to reach you. I missed school today because we went to the memorial reception on the Vineyard. I just got back, and my new phone was here, so that’s good news, but the bad news is that my grandmother got drunk at the reception and fell down. An ambulance came, and now she and my mother are at the hospital. I’m here alone.” She swallows. “Can you come over?” She’s asking not because she wants to have sex but rather because she could really use some companionship, a friend. Her mother doesn’twanther at the hospital, and can Ainsley blame her? On the ferry, Ainsley told Tabitha she hated her. “Please, Teddy?”
“Ainsley,” Teddy says. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
Ainsley understands how her mother must have felt earlier that afternoon: struck out of the blue for no discernible reason.
“I want to break up,” Teddy said.
“What?” Ainsley says. “Why?”
