He smiled. “Pops’d never come in here. Not Greyfriars.”
“Really? Why not? Mr. Fisher’s not some kind of snob, is he?”
“A snob? No, nothing like that. I’ll say this about the Island. The Families and the locals, they respect each other, which is more than you can say of a lot of places like this.”
“The Families?”
“Summer residents. Like you.” He wiped his fingers on a dishtowel and held his hand out to me. “Real nice to meet you, Miss Schuyler. Wish it could have been under friendlier circumstances, of course, but it’s been a pleasure all the same.”
I slid down from the counter and shook his hand. “It’s Miranda.”
“Miranda.” He smiled again. “Admired Miranda! Indeed the top of admiration! Worth what’s dearest to the world.”
I snatched at the edge of the counter behind me. I think my mouth made an amazed circle. Outside the window, which was cracked open an inch or two, the birds sang like mad, thrilled to pieces at the beauty of the morning, and Joseph just stared at me like we were sharing a secret, and he was waiting for me to find out what it was.
Finally I said, “Why, how do you know—”
“Joseph! My goodness, what’s going on?”
We turned to the doorway, where Isobel Fisher stood, long limbed and done up in curlers, her yellow dressing gown belted at the waist.
5.
I MET ISOBEL Fisher at the same instant I stepped onto Winthrop Island for the first time, two nights before the wedding. The morning storms had cleared away, and the breeze was cool and smelled of ozone, of the ocean. She had come to meet the ferry, and when I saw her, leaning against a massive, venerable Oldsmobile 98, wearing a checked shirt, rolled at the sleeves, and billowy white trousers, I waved from the railing. We might not have known each other, but I recognized her face and the pale, cornsilk shade of her hair. She wore no cosmetics that I could see, except for a swath of cherry-red lipstick, perfectly drawn. I remember she wasn’t wearing a hat.
The ferry’s engines ground and ground, shoving us alongside the dock in lazy, expert thrusts. Isobel’s gaze slid along the line of passengers at the rail, and when she found me at last, still waving, she straightened from the car and waved back. I don’t know if she actually recognized me. As the ferry knocked into place and the ferryman tossed the rope to the fellow on the dock, she swung her car keys from the index finger of her left hand, with no apparent regard for the monstrous diamond that perched a few digits down.
That was Thursday evening, and there weren’t many other passengers. I came last down the ramp, staggering a little under the burden of the two old leather portmanteaus that contained nearly all I owned. My pocketbook banged between my wrist and the handle of the right-hand suitcase. As I reached the bottom and stepped onto the dock, Isobel went around to open up the back. “Just a minute!” she called, thrusting her head and shoulders inside, rummaging around. “I picked up the flowers from Mrs. Beardsley along the way. Was your journey perfectly horrible? I can’t believe you made it all by yourself, you brave thing.”
Her torso emerged from the back of the Oldsmobile. She pushed back her pale hair and reached for one of the suitcases, and without any effort at all she lifted it up and heaved it inside. Even at school, her lean, straight-hipped athleticism had awed me. Nearly all the girls brought their own horses to Foxcroft, but Isobel had brought two—great, rangy, bloodthirsty beasts—and hunted them both all autumn. Once she’d broken her arm in a bad fall, and the sling had somehow suited her.
Not to be outdone, I hauled the second suitcase myself, only more awkwardly. Isobel made a few adjustments, satisfied herself to the security of Mrs. Beardsley’s flowers, and turned around at last. “Can you believe we’re sisters?” she said, in that drawly voice of hers, always faintly amused at something or other. She stood back and held me at the shoulders. “Miranda. Little sister. I simply can’t wait to show you Greyfriars. I can’t wait to show you Winthrop and everything in it.”
But that was two nights ago, and she hadn’t had much time to show me anything yet, because of the wedding and because her fiancé arrived the next afternoon. Clayton Monk. (Yes, those Monks, the department store fortune.) His parents’ house lay at the northeastern end of the Island, four miles away, and we’d all met for dinner at the Winthrop Island Club last night. Sort of a celebration. Mama’s wedding and Isobel’s betrothal, because they’d only just gotten engaged in May, when Clayton graduated from Harvard Law—Hahvahd, the Monks called it, short a, they’re a Boston family—and this was the Club’s first chance to properly congratulate the happy couple.
Well, it was a grand night, all right. Clay Monk was a clean, handsome, well-tailored fellow, you know the type, and Isobel wore a dress of such shimmery pale yellow satin, it looked gold and matched her hair. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said she was trying to outshine my mother—the actual bride, you’ll recall—but then you haven’t seen my mother, have you? I mean, not up close. Even at thirty-six she was more beautiful than Isobel. I say that without prejudice. Raven hair clean of even a single gray strand, eyes the color of twilight. Picture Elizabeth Taylor, I guess, and you’re not far off. Isobel didn’t stand a chance, even in her golden dress, and maybe she knew it. She laid low, stealing off with Clayton after dinner, and he must have driven her home afterward because when she walked into the Greyfriars kitchen at twenty minutes past seven o’clock on the morning of Mama’s wedding, wearing her curlers and her yellow dressing gown, that was the first I’d seen of her since Clayton wiped a smear of crème anglaise from her chin the night before and led her out on the terrace, where the orchestra played “Sentimental Me.”
Joseph greeted her with a smile you might call familiar. “Morning, Isobel. Nothing much. Just old Silva fell in the drink, and I had to haul him back out.”
“Well, they’re putting him to bed upstairs, awful fuss. I’ve got a terrible hung head. Is that coffee?” She yawned.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She moved to the Welsh dresser that held all the everyday porcelain, planting a kiss on my cheek along the way. “Morning, sister dear. Did he wake you up too?”
I lifted my hand to return the caress, but she’d already slipped away. “I was already awake.”
“Too excited to sleep, were you? What about your mother? I hope she got her beauty sleep, all right. Her wedding day!” Another yawn, and a wince. “I’m sure I’ll be able to appreciate all that sunshine in an hour or two. Hit me, will you?”
She held out her cup to me and smiled. She wasn’t wearing her lipstick yet, but her mouth was still pink. I took the cup and filled it with coffee from the percolator, added cream and sugar from the tin on the counter.
“Thanks, darling,” Isobel said, taking the cup. “Shouldn’t you be heading back to your boat now, Joseph? I’m sure you have plenty of lobsters left to catch this morning. Or maybe college boys are above that kind of thing?”
“College?” I said.
“Joseph’s at Brown.” Isobel looked over the rim of her cup, not at me but at Joseph, who stood before the icebox with his arms crossed. In her drawling, intimate voice, she said, “He’s a rising junior. Isn’t that right, Joseph?”
“Two years to go.” He returned to her some kind of look, I didn’t know what it was. Something warm and knowledgeable, something that connected the two of them, something that made me feel like an absolute stranger in that room, an intruder, an innocent. Which I was, of course. Still, whatever the frisson between them, it lasted only a second or two. Joseph uncrossed his arms and said cheerfully, “Like you said, best be heading back out on the water now. Nice to meet you, Miss Schuyler. Isobel.”