“Chapter 1
LINDSEY 2009
Lindsey Davis took the job out of desperation. She was in denial that summer would actually come. She was hoping that, instead, a great, global natural disaster would rocket humanity into panic, and her small problems would just disappear in the chaos. But summer did come, and on a crisp morning in late June, she found herself on board the ferry from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
She rode a Peter Pan bus for two hours from South Station in Boston to the ferry port and sat next to a middle-aged man wearing pink khaki shorts and a yellow button-down shirt. “
First time on the island?” he asked her as he settled in to his seat, tossing a canvas bag into the storage space above. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, I went to the Cape once when I was a kid, but that was a while ago.” He laughed as he sat down. “
You still are a kid, kid. Enjoy it while it lasts.” He put earphones in and shut his eyes. They didn’t speak again for the remainder of the ninety-minute drive. Lindsey dozed off, and when she woke, the bus was approaching a bridge that stretched across a grass-banked canal.
On the other side, a rotary was decorated with thick hedges carved out to say CAPE COD. Lindsey knew that the man next to her was right; she was basically still a kid. She had just graduated from college two weeks ago.
The graduation festivities at Bowdoin had lasted for three entire days. There was a decadent barbecue, an arts fair, and a carnival set up on the main quad.
Lindsey was relieved to have the days packed with distracting events and activities. She didn’t have anything to say whenever someone asked her what she was doing next. Bowdoin had been Lindsey’s first-choice college because of its arts program. The school had an unparalleled arts department within a small, intimate, picturesque Maine campus.
Lindsey had combed through a Bowdoin brochure she found in her college counselor’s office and had known that it was where she wanted to go. Bowdoin felt far away from her world, a place where she could start over and become whoever she wanted to be, a place where she could learn about art without everyone around her wondering why she was bothering. It seemed elite and intellectual yet somehow informal and welcoming.
She dreamed of one day being a curator or director at a major museum or gallery. Bowdoin, she thought, could help her get there. She loved that art was, in her opinion, the only truly universal language among humans. There were no wrong answers about art, she thought; what you saw, how you saw it, how it made you feel—it was all dependent on the person, the light, the setting, the experience. Art had the power to equalize and bring people together.
The art world, however, she had come to learn, did not equalize people; it judged and scrutinized those who wished to enter.
But they insisted that she go to Bowdoin. “This is what you want. You’ve got to go for it, Linds,” her mother had said. “We’ll make it work,” her father had agreed, nodding. Part of her had wished that they’d just said no. In a way, it would have made things a lot easier.
Later in her life, Lindsey would struggle with this more: the conflicting feelings of gratitude toward her parents for the sacrifices they’d made for her and the subsequent feelings of pressure she put on herself to never let them down.
She went, and she spent four years learning about art, making art, volunteering at the school’s art museum, and working at a local gallery in Brunswick on weekends. She made friends, mostly girls from the field hockey team, many of whom were also there on a scholarship.
Her closest friend was a tiny girl named Rose. “I’m probably the only Mexican on the planet who even knows what field hockey is,” she had said to Lindsey during their preseason training when they first met.
Rose was from the Bronx but had attended a private boarding school in New Hampshire on a full scholarship for high school, and she’d proved herself to be one of the best players in the country.
She was much better adjusted to northeastern customs than Lindsey was. She had the same Adidas bag for her gear that everyone else at Bowdoin seemed to have, and she knew how to braid her hair into two french pigtails and tie the ends with ribbons on game days.
Lindsey carried her gear in a shiny duffel bag she’d won at a raffle once at her local gym back home. She didn’t know how to french braid. She learned what french braid. She learned what she could.
By sophomore year, Lindsey understood how to fit in at Bowdoin. She and Rose became roommates. They mostly hung out with their teammates, at least the ones who were there on scholarships like they were. In their off-season, they partied together, drinking cheap white wine or White Russians in their dorm rooms, listening to music, letting loose and enjoying the few months when they didn’t have to worry about the pressures of a looming championship. Lindsey didn’t date anyone seriously, but she had a few flings that lasted a semester or two each. She’d already lost her virginity at fifteen, to her high school boyfriend at the time. Sex wasn’t a big deal to her, but emotional intimacy was.
Though she’d figured out how to socially fit in at Bowdoin, the thought of seriously dating one of the white-bread, Waspy guys there didn’t seem like a real possibility for her. Once they realized where she came from, she thought to herself—once they realized that she was poor, uncultured, had never even been out of the country—they wouldn’t want to date her. It would just never happen. But guys pursued her. She was smart, friendly, and pretty, with wavy brown hair, pouty lips, and a toned body. Though she resented them most of the time, she also had large breasts, no matter how much she worked out.
Now, listen,” Jonathan said, as if he could feel that he was losing Lindsey’s interest by the second, “we know that this probably isn’t what you had planned. Karen was once my teacher, too, so I know firsthand that she doesn’t pick favorite students unless they’re really exceptional, and she told me that you’re one of her favorites. You’re obviously an incredibly bright young woman. And we can help you get a job after the summer. I’m sure Karen mentioned to you that I’m a great supporter of the arts, always have been.” Rich people liked to use that word—supporter—Lindsey had noticed, as though the fact that they bought expensive art somehow meant that they were doing community service. “There are a couple of galleries in Boston that we’re particularly fond of. And I’m on the board of the MFA.” The conversation felt like it was turning into some odd negotiation. The Deckers were desperate for Lindsey’s help, but at the same time, Lindsey didn’t have any bargaining chips of her own. She felt hot and could feel beads of sweat beginning to form under her bra and in her armpits. “The job is easy, really,” he continued. “You’ll have your own room and bathroom, of course, total privacy, and basically we just need some help getting Berty to his daily activities and taking care of them both during the evenings that we go out.” “And of course,” Carol chimed in, “you can’t beat the Vineyard in the summer. We’re right in Edgartown. Have you been?” It was the kind of question to which, Lindsey suspected, Carol already knew the answer. “No,” Lindsey replied. “Never.” “Well, then, you must come,” Carol said, in a way that felt like a command. Lindsey wondered why this woman didn’t want to know more about her; she was asking her to take care of her children for the whole summer. For all she knew, Lindsey could be a psychopath. “So,” Jonathan said, his eyes searching Lindsey’s face for an answer, his brows raised and his smile earnest, “what do you think?” Before she could answer, he reached over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I can help you, Lindsey.” Lindsey felt the warm weight of his hand pushing into her until he released it a moment later. It was such an odd act, she thought, so invasive and personal yet out in the open, in front of his wife, in front of Karen. Something about the way he said it—he could help her—made Lindsey feel like she didn’t have a choice. She looked out at the two kids on the lawn. She didn’t have siblings of her own, and she’d babysat only a handful of times in high school for the family next door when they occasionally needed an extra set of hands to help with their two toddlers. She wasn’t even sure if she liked kids at all. Being a full-time nanny was simultaneously something that she felt too good to do and also underqualified to do. She looked back toward her class’s tent, knowing that her parents were in there somewhere, telling some other parents how they’d driven all the way from Maryland and that their daughter was going to work in the art world. Maybe this job would lead to something better. Maybe Jonathan really would set her up with a top gallery job after this. And anyway, what other options did she have? “Okay,” Lindsey said, hearing the word come out of her mouth before she even decided to say it. “I’ll do it.” She regretted it the second she said it but felt like she was being pulled by a force out of her control. Jonathan and Carol both smiled at her response, giving each other a quick look of relief. Thank God. Carol pulled out a datebook from her purse and asked Lindsey to write down her email address and phone number. “My office will get you all the information right away,” Jonathan said as Lindsey walked away, waving goodbye. His office? Lindsey just nodded. She had to return to her parents. As she walked away with Karen, she realized that she hadn’t even met the children. The Deckers didn’t even know her. What if the kids hated her? Or worse, what if she hated them? As they walked, Lindsey thanked Karen, who was beaming, as though she had just secured funding for Lindsey to start her own gallery instead of what was really going to be a dressed-up summer of indentured servitude. It occurred to Lindsey that she hadn’t even asked about salary, and no one had mentioned it. But she had a feeling that whatever she’d be getting paid that summer would be more than she’d make at home. She sulked toward her parents, forcing a smile on her face and deciding that she would lie to them. Not a real lie, she told herself, just an exaggeration of the possibilities of the job. She told them that she’d landed a job with a famed art collector. It was true, sort of, even if the job itself had nothing to do with art. Karen had told Lindsey on the walk back that Jonathan worked for his family’s office in Boston. “You know, they’re the kind of family who’s so rich that they have their own family office,” Karen explained in a hushed voice. Lindsey nodded, though she wasn’t sure what that really meant. “The Deckers have been huge champions of the arts—for generations. You must have been to the Decker Gallery in the Museum of Fine Arts, no?” Lindsey nodded again, this time remembering that she had, in fact, been there. Karen even told Lindsey, confidentially, that Jonathan had donated the funds for Bowdoin’s new art building, though he didn’t want to have his name on the building. “Sometimes the real big-time donors want anonymity,” she had said. So maybe this job might lead to something good, Lindsey thought. Her parents were supportive of her ambitions within the art world, but they didn’t understand that the pathway there often involved unpaid internships and low-level receptionist gigs and now, adding to the list of shitty jobs, nanny. Her father was an insurance agent at a small shop in downtown Bethesda, and her mother was an elementary school nurse. They’d both held these jobs for most of their adult lives. Lindsey never knew what kept them motivated. The jobs were practical, laborious, humble. In comparison, Lindsey’s professional desires seemed frivolous, and she often felt guilty admitting to her parents what she wanted to pursue. Especially because, she knew, she’d barely be making ends meet with whatever job she got next. But her parents responded by telling her that they were proud. “Sounds promising,” her father said with a smile. “And wow,” he added. “The Vineyard. Fancy!” He elbowed her with a grin. “How much will you be making? What about health insurance?” Her mother wanted to know more about the practical concerns, which angered Lindsey because she herself hadn’t even thought to ask these questions and now she needed to know. “It’ll be fine,” Lindsey said, swatting away the questions and suddenly feeling overwhelmed and strangely homesick. The more questions her mother raised, the more Lindsey wanted to burst into tears. But Jonathan’s office, in the form of a woman named Marcia, emailed her the very next day and answered those concerns. No health insurance, but a salary that would not only make for an incredibly comfortable summer but would also give her a plush cushion for whatever happened next. Free rent, free food, and days spent at the beach. Maybe it would be okay. Fun, even.
