Page 75 of The Identicals
Franklin has been careful to hire subcontractors from off island: the electrician hails from Falmouth, the plumber from Mashpee. These guys don’t know who from what as far as Vineyard gossip is concerned; they just come in and do the work. The only person Franklin trusts—and, for this project,needs—is Tad Morrissey. Tad is Franklin’s right-hand man. He can do anything—tile, plaster, cabinetry—and he does so without complaining. Also, despite being Irish, he’s a man of few words. A human vault. Franklin doesn’t have to explain the fine print to Tad, but he does it anyway:My sister cannot find out that we are renovating Billy Frost’s house. Do you understand?
Tad nods with mouth full of nails.
Franklin worries that someone saw him with Tabitha that first night at the Ritz and reported back to Sadie, thinking Tabitha was Harper, but by the following day, when he hadn’t heard about it, he figured he was safe. He had been clear with Annalisa at the Outermost Inn:I’m bringing in Tabitha Frost, Harper’s twin sister, and nobody can know.Franklin has known Annalisa since elementary school. He told her he trusted her with his life, hoping that would be enough to ensure her silence.
A few days after Franklin starts seeing Tabitha and working full-time on her house, he is summoned to his parents’ home in Katama for dinner. His mother doesn’t use a cell phone or a computer, so she tapes an index card to the front door of his cottage, on Grovedale Road in Oak Bluffs, that says:DINNER MONDAY 6:00 P.M.Franklin is lucky he even sees this minimalist invitation; he has spent every night with Tabitha at Billy’s house. He stops at home only to get clothes and, finally, to grab his electric razor.
He sighs. He can’t, obviously, take Tabitha to his parents’ house for dinner. All hell will break loose.
All hell is going to break loose anyway, he realizes. But he can stave it off a little while longer.
And in fact things at the Phelpses’ that evening start out fine. Tabitha accepts the news that Franklin is eating with his parents with equanimity. She says she’s going to stay home and paint the powder room a shade of silvery gray called Paul Revere’s Ride. Franklin approves: Tabitha’s taste is impeccable, which is to say, it matches his own.
The elder Phelpses are in good spirits, as ever. Al Phelps is a favorite with nearly all of us because he was such a dedicated and benevolent principal during his tenure at the high school, and now, in retirement, he runs errands to Shirley’s and Mocha Mott’s seemingly just so he can spread goodwill. He is famous for buying his former students a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, Lydia is an active member of the Excellent Point book group, and she volunteers each week at the Island Food Pantry.
Both the elder Phelpses embrace their son. Lydia runs a hand over Franklin’s now smooth face.
“I’m glad you shaved,” she says. “Christine Velman told me she saw you stopped at the Barnes Road intersection and that you were growing a beard.”
“No,” Franklin says. He shakes his head. If Christine Velman reported back to his mother about the state of his facial hair, how long will it be before someone tells Lydia that Franklin is dating the twin sister of the woman who betrayed Sadie—and, worse, is working on their father’s house?
Al Phelps claps his son on the back. “Can I buy you a beer?”
“Please,” Franklin says.
Sadie arrives in short order, which is good, Franklin thinks, because it doesn’t leave Lydia any time to talk about her. One look at his sister, however, tells Franklin what his mother would have said if she’d had the chance. Sadie has lost at least ten pounds, and she wasn’t a very big person to begin with. Her cheeks are sunken; her face, for lack of a better word, looks cadaverous. She keeps her hair very short, but now it looks as if she’s taken kitchen shears to it in a fit of grief. There are purplish-red circles under her eyes, and she is shaking.
Franklin’s heart sinks. He knows that Sadie has closed the pie shop “until further notice,” but he had hoped she would have taken the hiatus to rest and recoup. He had hoped she would rise above her circumstances and maybe even revel in her newfound independence. Reed betrayed her—yes, he did. He cheated on her with the daughter of one of his patients, a woman whose morals were already held in question by most of the island because of her involvement with Joey Bowen.
Franklin has refrained from sharing his opinion with his sister, which is that he doesn’t think Harper is a bad person. He has always liked her. She has been a fan of his music; she came to see him every time he played and was the first person to buy his ill-fated CD of original songs. Harper has never been anything but sweet and lovely to him, and he had witnessed firsthand the crap she had to put up with as a cocktail waitress at Dahlia’s. Those girls were teased and manhandled and harassed. A chance to quit slinging drinks and do something far easier—if illegal and dangerous—for Joey Bowen must have seemed like an answer of sorts.
Franklin also believes that no affair is ever one partner’s fault; it signifies the collapse of the union. This past winter, Franklin stopped by Reed and Sadie’s house to get a prescription for a Z-Pak; Franklin had a nasty case of bronchitis that was wreaking havoc with his carpentry and singing. It was a Sunday afternoon: Sadie was at the pie shop, and Reed was home alone, drinking an eighteen-year-old Aberlour, watching the Patriots in the playoffs. He invited Franklin to stay.
He held up his glass. “Aberlour has its own medicinal properties, you know.”
After they had each had two glasses—Franklin’s with water, Reed’s straight—Reed muted the television; the Pats were winning in a blowout. Reed said, “Does your sister ever say if she’s happy being married to me?”
The question was as welcome as a bowling ball to the groin. Franklin sucked in a breath and opened his mouth to reassure his brother that yes, his sister was happy. Of course she was happy! Why wouldn’t she be happy? It was islandwide opinion that Dr. Reed Zimmer was agreat guy.Reliable, trustworthy, dedicated. A Martha’s Vineyard treasure—a hero, even. But Franklin had, in fact, accidentally overheard Sadie talking to their mother, Lydia, during one of the family dinners Reed hadn’t been able to attend because he’d been called into the hospital. Sadie had been venting to Lydia because Reed had suddenly decided he wanted children.
But I won’t do it,Sadie had said.And I will punish him until he takes the words back.
Franklin had stopped listening at that point. He had sought refuge with his father, who was loath to talk about anything more controversial than local politics.
“I don’t know,” Franklin said to his brother-in-law. He and Reed had never had a heart-to-heart chat before. He didn’t know Reed was capable of it. But of course Reed needed a confidant; everyone did.
“We haven’t slept together in over a year,” Reed said. He had slugged back his Scotch and poured another two fingers. “And I’m talking sex, but I’m also telling you we now keep different bedrooms. She won’t touch me at all, Franklin.”
Franklin had been muted by discomfort. The next-to-last thing he wanted to hear about was his sister’s sex life; the last thing he wanted to hear about was his parents’ sex life. But he put two and two together and deduced that cutting Reed off was Sadie’s way of exacting her punishment. Now, Franklin isnotsaying Reed was justified in having an affair. But he isn’t sure how Sadie saw that strategy working out to her advantage, other than that it would ensure she wouldn’t have a child. At this point, neither does she have a husband.
They sit down to dinner promptly at six. Franklin’s mother doesn’t believe in a cocktail hour; she claims hors d’oeuvres ruin the appetite. She also has no use for seasonality. It’s mid-July, and she has made a pot roast with potatoes and carrots and onions, snowflake rolls from scratch, and an iceberg salad with bottled blue cheese dressing. Franklin has warned his mother that one day the Martha’s Vineyard farmer’s market police are going to arrest her simply for serving iceberg lettuce. But Lydia feels no shame.
Franklin sweats his way through the meal in more ways than one. All he can do is hope that his mother made pie for dessert—peach or triple berry. He pictures Tabitha rolling Paul Revere’s Ride onto the powder-room walls, a few specks of paint dotting her nose. She had told him, right before he left, that Wyatt, her children’s father, was a professional housepainter and had long ago taught her how to tape off a room. The thunderbolt of jealousy Franklin experienced nearly caused him to pass out.
It was only on the way to his parents’ house that he thought,Children?He has only heard about the daughter, Ainsley.
“So,” Sadie says, contributing to conversation for the first time. “Where are you working these days, Frankie?” The childhood nickname is a playful touch. Maybe she’s not as damaged as she looks. But even so, Franklin can’t own up to the truth. He harbors the naive belief that if he just lets some more time pass, Sadie’s mind-set will improve, and she won’t care when he tells her he’s seeing Tabitha Frost.
And the wordseeingdoesn’t begin to convey how he feels. He’s gobsmacked. He’s neck-deep in emotion for the woman.
