Prologue
The Day of the Wedding
Saturday, July 3; 6:00 a.m.
It was a perfect day for the wedding. The Ocean House gleamed yellow in the early-morning July sun. The sea sparkled, the blue hydrangeas were in full bloom, the scent of beach roses filled the air, and the large white tent, erected yesterday afternoon for this evening’s wedding reception, shaded the grass beside the croquet lawn. This was the quiet hour, when the early-rising hotel guests were having their first coffee. The only sound was the crash of waves, their white-frilled edges spilling onto East Beach.
Most of the wedding guests were staying in the legendary hotel. She was staying there, too, with a man who thought he was her boyfriend. They had gathered for last night’s rehearsal dinner in the Harbour Room. She had no doubt that the dinner was seared into their minds; thanks to her, they would remember it forever.
They had checked in to rooms and suites with views of the Atlantic Ocean or Watch Hill’s sailboat-studded harbor. A mansard-roofed tower, with pediment-topped porthole windows, crowned the hotel. The American flag flew from a flagpole on the very top. The towercontained a magnificent suite—theirs, not hers—but she tried not to think about that.
Maybe if she had taken a different path in life, happiness could be hers. She had known love, she couldn’t deny that, but the life she had chosen guaranteed it wouldn’t last. Here she was, in a house diagonally across the street from the hotel. She called it the Finishing School, to continue a tradition.
Other Watch Hill houses had names like Bluffside, Seawinds, First Light, and Grey Ledge. The names were sometimes painted above the front door or etched into stone pillars at the ends of private drives. But the Finishing School was the name of this house and others in the network, and it did not appear anywhere on the properties. The Finishing School wasn’t a place; it was a state of mind.
The hundred-year-old house was charming. Its white cedar shingles had been silvered by a century of salt air. It had white shutters with anchor cutouts, window boxes full of coral-pink geraniums and deep-blue lobelia. Best of all, there was a view of the Ocean House from the upstairs bedroom.
So much planning had gone into this day, down to the exact detail. The invitations had been printed on Crane medium-weight paper. Her mouth twitched—a tiny smile—at the fact that there was one small typo. Well, not really a typo—she had inserted it. She deserved to claim a little happiness, didn’t she?
She read the invitation now:
Kate Woodward & Conor Reid
Saturday, July 3
Ceremony 6:30 p.m.
Watch Hill Chapel
Belles will ring!
Dinner and Dancing to Follow
Ocean House
By 6:30 p.m., the sun would have gone around the point, and the summer day would start to cool down a bit. The idea of an evening wedding was to give guests the chance to enjoy the Ocean House for the entire day: go to the beach, take a sail, relax at the spa, stroll past the harbor on Bay Street, or go golfing at Winnapaug with Conor and his brother, Tom.
She drifted toward the bedroom closet to look at the wedding dress. It had been made in Italy by Alexander McQueen, a sleek column of white crepe with a crystal neckline and a trumpet silhouette. She thought of the time-honored traditions: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
Old was the plain silver ring. New was the dress. Borrowed was the veil—a family heirloom, never to be owned by any single person but, rather, passed down through the generations.
She stared at the dress, then took it off the hanger and carried it to the window. She gazed over at the Ocean House. The enormous white sailcloth tent glistened in the morning light, and festive medieval-style banners flew from the peaks. The hotel verandah was starting to fill with guests having their morning coffee and croissants. She stared up at the stately yellow tower and tried not to think about the people inside. She would have given anything to trade places with the bride.
Life was nothing but a series of lessons and choices. She had been the pupil, and then she had accepted the challenge of becoming one of the teachers. She thought of the boat and of all the other places where lessons had been learned and where she had started to pass them on to the new pupils. She thought of the torn canvas—the ruined painting. She wondered whether she might be insane, but she knew she wasn’t.
This was their fault, not hers.
They were all in the Ocean House, getting ready for the wedding. She stared out the window at it now.
The tower reminded her of the top of a wedding cake, a symbol of the way life builds upon itself and how love reaches for the sky. There was one single suite in the tower. She pictured the spiral staircase, thewarm wood varnished like the interior of a yacht, and the view of three states from those upper windows. She thought of the tower, the wedding cake, and she was filled with overwhelming emotion. Her eyes stung with tears, and her heart burned with hatred.
She wondered what was going on up in the tower. Love wasn’t always what it should be. It wasn’t always fair. She was trying to right the wrong; she deserved it after all she had been through. This was the day she would make him pay.
She couldn’t resist putting on the wedding dress. She let her robe slide to the floor, and then she slipped the dress over her head. The white crepe felt cool to her skin; the weight of the crystal-beaded neckline caressed her chest.
“Beauty,” she said out loud, looking at herself in the full-length mirror. “Belle,” she said, staring into her own eyes.
Downstairs, the front door swished open and shut. Her heart sped up. She wasn’t expecting anyone. For a minute she considered running into the bathroom and hiding so they couldn’t see the dress, but then she figured it was meant to be, so she stood right where she was.
