Page 113 of Summer Longing
“Elise Douglas, why don’t you come up here and tell us where your mystery baby came from. Please—share the news! You’re so open with your house; surely you can be open with the truth about the new addition to our community.”
This could not be happening. Elise’s first impulse was to run, to get the hell out of there. But she was boxed in by the crowd that had moved together more densely to hear Bianca’s toast. There was no way she could flee with the stroller. She looked around for Fern, panic rising in her chest.
Amelia made her way to the table, looked up at Bianca, and shouted, “That’s enough!”
“I’m just asking a simple question,” Bianca said from her elevated perch. “Who’s the mother?”
Elise knew Amelia would put a stop to this if she could. But at her advanced age, she couldn’t climb up on the table. Someone needed to drag Bianca down from there.
“This is outrageous.” Lidia Barros appeared beside Elise and put her arm around her. “I’m so sorry.”
Elise couldn’t speak. Where was Fern? She craned her neck and saw Jaci breaking through the crowd, heading for the table. Fern was just a few feet behind her, but she turned and moved toward Elise. “See—Jaci is going to put a stop to this,” Lidia said, then she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Get her down from there, Jaci!”
Jaci climbed up on the table, almost tripping over her costume. Marco and Manny were not far behind, and they each took one of Bianca’s arms to usher her off the table.
“This can’t be happening,” Elise said to Fern.
“I need to talk to you,” Fern said. “Let’s go inside.”
Bianca had been removed but Jaci remained on the tabletop. The music resumed, but she yelled for Amelia to turn it off. She removed her wig and her mask and tossed them aside while every guest stood still and hushed, aware that the show was not yet over.
“My aunt Bianca is right,” Jaci said. “It is time to confess, and since everyone is here, I can do this once instead of a dozen times over. You can hear it from me: I’m the mother of the baby.”
Lidia let out a shriek. Fern reached for Elise.
Elise felt the earth disappear from under her.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Olivia woke up to an empty bed.
She checked the time; it was eight in the morning. That meant she’d gotten about five hours of sleep. Even that slumber had been broken; she’d woken up intermittently due to Marco’s tossing and turning. They’d both had too much to drink.
After the spectacle at Amelia’s party, the entire Barros family dispersed. Lidia and Manny ushered Jaci home while Marco fled to Old Colony Tap. Olivia followed him to the bar, trying to talk to him, but he said he needed a few shots of vodka first.
By one in the morning, they were huddled in a booth at Spiritus Pizza, and still he didn’t want to deal with Jaci’s bombshell. Actually, Olivia was in no rush to push the issue. Any in-depth discussion would require her to admit she’d known the truth for weeks. She couldn’t have a lie between them.
But now it was a new day, a new reality. Olivia pulled on sweatpants, Marco’s Long Point hoodie, and a pair of flip-flops. She headed out back, where she found him sitting on the deck with a cup of takeout coffee.
“Hey,” she said. “You wentoutfor coffee?”
“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said, reaching down for another cup by his feet. He handed it to her. “It might be cold by now.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“A couple of hours,” he said, gesturing for her to grab one of the other chairs. She pulled it up next to him. “You feeling okay?”
“I really should know better than to try to keep up with you at a bar,” she said.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “That was a lot even for me.”
“It’s understandable.” She reached for his hand.
“I just can’t believe Jaci would get herself into this situation and then handle it in such an outrageous way.” He shook his head. “I’m shocked. I’m just…really disappointed in her.”
“Oh, Marco. She’s still a kid. And this whole thing with Elise and Fern…I think she meant well.”
“She made such a big deal about not wanting to work on the oyster farm and about wanting a career. She was the first woman in our family to go to college. Did you know that? Princeton, no less. And now what?”
