Page 64 of Drawing Home
“Okay, good. Sounds like a plan.”
“Well, not exactly. Mom’s nervous about it. She wants me to wait.”
“But a doctor recommended it. Your mother isn’t a doctor,” he said.
Uh-oh. “It was just a suggestion,” Penny said. “It’s not a big deal. Most of the time I’m fine.”
“Well, obviously not,” he said in an irritated tone she hadn’t heard before. He looked around the beach, then back at her. “Maybe we should get out of here. Try a different activity today. Is there somewhere else you want to go?”
Oh, how she wished she could rewind fifteen minutes, go stand at the water and boss it back. Her dad probably wanted to leave the beach so he could drop her off at home as soon as possible. She’d totally ruined everything. What could she do to turn things around?
“Do you want to see my new house?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Sag Harbor Whaling Museum archive room was windowless. Bea had no sense of how much time was passing, but once she found a folder of Henry’s drawings, she did not care.
The collection included architectural plans for Windsong, dated 1989, and two sketches of a man tending bar. The American Hotel bar, clearly. His angular features looked familiar. It took her a few moments of staring at the page to realize it was the man who had been tending bar the first time she and Henry visited Sag Harbor, in the spring of 1988. Immediately, she recalled the sketch of the crowded party she’d seen in the art gallery on Washington Street; that wasn’t just any party, it was the dinner party they’d gone to that same weekend.
The event had seemed important at the time. The host was a big art collector and on the board at the MoMA and the Guggenheim. Henry, with his typical disdain for any “scene,” had had no intention of attending even though he was the guest of honor.
As his manager, Bea insisted they go. “Forget about the professional obligation. Look at it as an excuse to visit a new town.” This reasoning got to Henry, as she’d known it would. He prided himself on his sense of curiosity. And while they had spent time in the Hamptons, they had never ventured far enough north to experience the village of Sag Harbor.
The American Hotel was the place to stay, people in the know assured them. Bea and Henry were not disappointed; they were immediately enchanted by the old-fashioned charm of the place. They checked into their rooms, dressed for the party, and met at the bar for a warm-up cocktail.
“Time seems to have stood still in this place,” Henry said to the bartender, a man who looked to be in his thirties with bright green eyes and russet-colored hair.
“That’s the idea,” said the bartender.
Bea knew that Henry was not thrilled with the direction of the world. The 1980s had ushered in Ronald Reagan, new wave music, and, in the fine-art world, the rise of neo-expressionism.
The bartender was too young to be nostalgic for the sixties, but he and Henry seemed to hit it off anyway. Apparently, the bartender was a prizewinning fisherman in his spare time.
“Maybe that’s what I should do,” Henry said to Bea. “Give up painting and start fishing. Living off the sea.”
“Ha-ha,” Bea said, not amused. After an hour of the two men’s boat talk, she told Henry that if they didn’t leave right away, they were going to be late.
“Go without me.”
“Henry,” she said, fighting panic. “Don’t be absurd. The whole reason we’re here is for this party. You’re the guest of honor!” Bea was tempted to remind Henry that he was lucky that the guest of honor at this party was him and not the new art-world darling Jean-Michel Basquiat. But provoking him wouldn’t get her anywhere.
Henry, stubborn as always, refused to leave the hotel. Bea went to the party alone. When Henry finally showed up two hours later, he was clearly drunk. The host was simply delighted that he’d arrived at all, but Bea was furious.
In the morning, Bea handed in her room key to the front desk and was unhappy to find Henry once again seated at the bar, although this time he was drinking coffee.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked him.
The bartender, the same man as the night before, greeted her with a friendly smile and said, “Bloody Mary?”
“Certainly not,” she snapped. She knew it wasn’t the bartender’s fault that Henry behaved badly last night, but she also didn’t want him encouraging a repeat performance. Best to get on the road.
“Bea, Tom here’s had family roots in this town since the Revolutionary War.”
“Is that so?” she said, glancing at her watch.
“Yes,” Henry said excitedly, more animated than she’d seen him in some time. “His great-great-…well, however-many-greats-grandfather was a member of the Eastern Regiment of 1776. He fought in the Battle of Long Island. Tell her, Tom.”
“Really, there’s no need. I’m far from a history buff,” Bea said.
