Winter Storms by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

you.”
    â€œAfter work?”
    â€œNo,” Shelby says. “Right now. This instant.”
    There is an expression of extreme urgency on her best friend’s face.
    Bart?
she thinks. Her stomach drops. But would Shelby be the one to deliver news about Bart? No.
    â€œIt can’t wait?” Ava asks.
    â€œIt can’t wait,” Shelby says. “I’m not even hungry. I just stood in this line so I could talk to you. I’ve texted you ten times already.”
    â€œOkay, meet me out back,” Ava says. She grabs Kevin. “Watch the register for a minute?”
    â€œWha—” he says.
    â€œPlease,” Ava says.
    Out behind the shack, Shelby reaches out to hold both of Ava’s hands. Xavier is fast asleep against her chest; his tiny lips make a sucking motion.
    â€œRoxanne Oliveria…” Shelby says.
    â€œRoxanne?” Ava says. “Did something happen?”
    â€œShe’s pregnant,” Shelby says.
    That night, Ava is supposed to meet Scott at the Boarding House. They have plans to eat at the bar and then go to the Chicken Box to see Scott’s favorite band, Maxxtone. An hour before they’re supposed to meet, Scott calls.
    He says, “I have to cancel.”
    Ava has been thinking about how to handle this. She has decided to play dumb and let Scott lead the way. She says, “Really? How come?”
    â€œAva?” Scott exhales a long breath. “I’m going to be a father.”
    I’m going to be a father
. This statement tells Ava everything she needs to know. It doesn’t matter that Scott is in love with Ava; it doesn’t matter that he was planning on breaking up with Roxanne. Scott has a set of values made from solid gold. He always does the upstanding, honorable thing. Plus, he has always wanted a child, three children, ten children. He’s going to marry Roxanne and he is going to be a father. Ava can’t stand in his way.
    â€œI’m sorry, Ava,” he says. They have to stop, cold turkey, he says. He can’t see her one-on-one ever again.
    Devastation. Heartbreak. Loneliness.
    Ava calls Shelby and cries over the phone. She tells Kevin the news and he gives her the next day off work. She drives out to the beach at Ram Pasture with a bottle of wine and a bag of peanut butter–filled pretzels. The beach is deserted— it’s the best-kept secret on the island—and this gives Ava the freedom to scream at the ocean and throw her pretzels to the seagulls. Roxanne is pregnant. Scott is going to marry her. Nathaniel is in Block Island, by now probably dating somebody else, some lucky Block Island girl that he met at the Oar, the bar that’s apparently the place everybody goes. Nathaniel has asked Ava to come visit, but she has declined. Until yesterday, she had been happy with Scott. She had chosen Scott, and Scott had chosen her.
    That’s over now.
    Scott will marry Roxanne, a woman he couldn’t tolerate for seven days even in the picturesque countryside of Italy, a woman who wears high-heeled, fur-lined boots and requests “Brown-Eyed Girl” everywhere there’s music playing. Ava pours herself a plastic cup of wine even though it’s only three o’clock in the afternoon. She used to have two boyfriends; now she has none. It serves her right. She toasts that old bitch Karma and drinks. There is today’s pain, which is bad, but she understands that today’s pain will pale in comparison to the pain she will feel when she bumps into Roxanne at the grocery store and is confronted with Roxanne’s burgeoning belly or when she sees the birth announcement in the
Inquirer and Mirror
or when, years from now, she sees Scott and his son or daughter having an ice cream at the soda counter of Nantucket Pharmacy.
    There are emotional landmines everywhere, but there are also pragmatic landmines. It’s three days before Margaret and Drake’s wedding, and now Ava