“I do. You can live with me on the base. You can get a job. You can take real estate classes. We can be together.”
Allegra hunts through her salad like she’s looking for the answer there. Bart is waiting for her to say she won’t go or can’t go or she doesn’t want to. She’s happy on Nantucket, she has a job, she’s comfortable. Bart will try to explain that being uncomfortable is what helps you to grow. Allegra needs to leave Nantucket and get out of her parents’ house—maybe even more than Bart does.
Bart is so sure that Allegra is the woman for him that he won’t be told otherwise. Over Thanksgiving, Patrick pulled him aside and told him to “be careful.” Patrick said that things between Bart and Allegra seemed to be moving “a little fast.”
Patrick said, “Dad can’t exactly give you advice, so I’m going to.”
Bart was even-keeled with Patrick instead of punching his lights out, which was what Bart wanted to do. Patrick had always been Bart’s favorite brother, and all the times when Patrick had acted as a surrogate father, Bart had been grateful. Paddy was younger than Kelley, and way cooler. But Bart is a grown man now. He has endured things Patrick can’t fathom. Bart isn’t going to have Paddy tell him how to live his life.
Patrick does have a good marriage. Bart will give him that.
Long ago Kelley told Bart way more than Bart wanted to know about Kelley’s own marriages. Kelley and Margaret had loved each other, but they had lived in a pressure cooker. “It was Manhattan in the nineties,” Kelley said by way of explanation, but Bart had no idea what that meant. Ultimately, the relationship had proven unsustainable. “That sometimes happens when you get married too young,” Kelley said.
Bart is sensible enough to realize that his relationship with Allegra might not pan out. Allegra might be miserable, unfulfilled; she might prefer one of Bart’s superiors—or subordinates—to Bart. He knows there are risks. But he also knows that some relationships between young people do weather the storm. It takes hard work, dedication—and good luck. Bart feels like he’s due some good luck; he has had enough bad luck to last a lifetime.
If Allegra refuses, will Bart leave anyway? Will he say good-bye to this girl, this new love, this person who is rapidly becoming Bart’s best friend on top of everything else?
No. He’ll stay. He won’t want to, but he will stay on Nantucket for Allegra.
Allegra smiles at him. “I feel like my parents will say it’s too soon. They’ll say we barely know each other…”
“It is soon, I realize that,” Bart says.
“But I don’t care!” Allegra says. “I’ll go with you wherever you want. North Carolina, Alaska, Germany, Mars.”
“You will?” Bart says.
“Yes,” Allegra says. “I will.”
Bart drops Allegra off that night, then sits outside her house on Lily Street until he sees the light go off in her bedroom. He is so happy he’s dizzy. Allegra will come with him. He doesn’t have to be alone ever again.
Bart floats up the side steps of the inn until he smells smoke and sees the glowing tip of his mother’s cigarette in the dark.
He can’t wait to tell Mitzi the news. It will make her so happy.
“Mom?” he says.
As he gets closer, he hears Mitzi crying. “We’re losing him,” she says.
MARGARET
This year Margaret is all about Christmastime.
She buys a tree from the Korean deli on the corner. It’s small, but it’s the first tree Margaret has owned since she and Kelley and the kids left the brownstone on East Eighty-Eighth Street.
Of course, one can’t buy only a tree, Margaret realizes, once her doorman helps her get it upstairs. She has to buy a stand. And lights. And ornaments. She goes to Duane Reade but keeps her sunglasses on in the store so as not to be recognized. It’s far worse being recognized now than it ever was when she was working. First of all, when she was working, she rarely ventured out on the street to do everyday errands like this. Second of all, the general population of New York seemed cognizant of the fact that Margaret Quinn was busy and therefore not to be interrupted for photos, political opinion sharing, or reminiscing. Now that Margaret is retired, she has become fair game. When people recognize her, they want to stop and tell her how much they loved her broadcasts, how much she meant to them, how the “new girl” has an annoying lisp. Then they start to talk about Trump, and this is when Margaret always excuses herself.
She gets a tree stand at Duane Reade as well as a box of four hundred white lights. She inspects the boxes of ornaments, but the offerings look sad and cheap. New York is the center of gross consumerism. Surely there must be a store—or many stores—dedicated solely to Christmas ornaments.
It’s Always Christmas in New York, on Mulberry Street down in Little Italy, Google tells her. And the Christmas Cottage, on Seventh Avenue.
The next day at the Christmas Cottage, Margaret fills her basket with ornaments. She and Kelley used to collect ornaments when they traveled, and they added those to the ornaments Kelley inherited from his mother, Frances, in Perrysburg and Margaret’s from her family. They topped the tree with the angel they had bought from the shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, commemorating the day they met. That’s how one is supposed to acquire ornaments, Margaret thinks: bit by bit, with each ornament telling a story.
But oh well! Whatever ornaments Margaret used to have went with Kelley to Nantucket. And she and Drake need ornaments, so Margaret continues to pick and choose the prettiest, most tasteful ornaments she can find. The story behind all of these ornaments will be the same: These are the ornaments I bought at Christmas Cottage on Seventh Avenue once I retired from CBS and rediscovered Christmas.
That very same afternoon Margaret decides that she is going to string popcorn and cranberries into a garland. She figures out how to do this using Martha Stewart’s website. Martha Stewart is a goddess, Margaret realizes. The breadth and depth of her empire takes one’s breath away.
The garland requires another trip to Duane Reade—for fishing line and a sewing kit—as well as a trip to Gristedes for the popcorn, cranberries, and vegetable oil. Nope, forget the popcorn and oil; Margaret buys two packages of Jiffy Pop instead. She has fond memories of watching the foil dome rise over Melanie Jerrod’s hot plate in the dorm at the University of Michigan.