The Beach Club by Elin Hilderbrand Read Free Book Online

she pulled away. “I’m here for the summer,” she said.
    “Your first summer?” Love asked.
    Tracey nodded. They drove slowly up the cobblestones of Main Street.
    “Mine, too,” Love said. Her voice jumbled and bounced with the tires. “Did you know these cobblestones were brought here by the early settlers as ballast on their ships?”
    Tracey didn’t respond. Love looked out the window at the names of the shops and restaurants: Murray’s Liquors, Espresso Café, Congdon’s Pharmacy, Mitchell’s Book Corner. They they reached a brick building with stately white columns: Pacific National Bank.
    Love tapped on the glass. “They call this the Pacific Bank because the Nantucket whaling ships had to sail to the Pacific Ocean to hunt whales. They went all the way down around Cape Horn. Sometimes ships were gone for five years. But that’s where the money came from, the Pacific Ocean.”
    “You’re a regular encyclopedia,” Tracey said.
    Love ignored the sarcasm. She didn’t want her first interaction on Nantucket to be a negative one. She studied her map. “Let’s keep going to the top of Main Street.”
    They crept up on the Greek Revival Hadwen House, which Love intended to tour in the next few days. “This big white place on the left has an upstairs ballroom,” Love said. “The ballroom was built with a retractable roof, so people could dance under the stars.”
    “Really?” Tracey said. She slowed down. “You mean, the roof rolls back?”
    “It’s such a romantic idea, dancing under the stars,” Love said. She leaned back in her seat. “I’ve got something to confess, Tracey. I came to this island to get pregnant.”
    “Whoa, lady, that’s more information than I need to know,” Tracey said. “If you want to tell me stuff about the history that’s fine, that’s stuff I might use again on somebody else, but don’t tell me personal stuff, please. They don’t pay me enough.”
    Love laughed. “Everybody comes to Nantucket for a reason. Some people came to hunt whales and the Quakers came to escape religious persecution. And I came to get pregnant. It feels good to tell you that I came here to have a baby. Now that someone knows, I feel like I’m responsible for it.”
    “You’re not responsible to me,” Tracey said. “Believe me, you’re not.”
    “Would you look at me?” Love asked.
    “What?” Tracey said.
    “Would you turn around and look at me?”
    Slowly, Tracey turned. Her brow twisted in extreme discomfort.
    “I came to the island to get pregnant,” Love said. “I will get pregnant.”
    “Okay, so now what do you want me to do? Say ‘Amen’?”
    “No, just watching me say it is enough.” Love checked her map. “Let’s go to the Old Mill,” she said. “I know the way.”
    The next day, Love skated to the Beach Club. A pleasant-looking, sandy-haired man was standing on a stepladder, fiddling with the lamppost. Love swung in a half-circle near the ladder and came to an easy stop.
    “I’m Love O’Donnell,” she said. “You Mack?”
    “Yep.” He screwed the glass bulb back into the lamppost and patted it. “Hope this works.” He stepped down from the ladder and shook Love’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    “Likewise,” she said. He had nice blue eyes, and Love judged him to be in his early thirties. Too young.
    “I need to wash my hands and then we’ll get started,” Mack said. “Feel free to look around. Those are the doors to the lobby.” He pointed across the parking lot. “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
    Love skated across the parking lot. Bill had explained the hotel as an L, and that’s what Love saw: plain, gray-shingled rooms, some running down toward the water and some facing the water. Nothing special about them from the outside except that they were all built in the sand and looked out over the ocean, which today was slate gray. Love felt a wave of disappointment. She was expecting world-class, something grandiose.