About the Book:
Montauk, Long Island, 1938.
For three months, this humble fishing village will serve as the playground for New York City’s wealthy elite. Beatrice Bordeaux was looking forward to a summer of reigniting the passion between her and her husband, Harry. Instead, tasked with furthering his investment interest in Montauk as a resort destination, she learns she’ll be spending twelve weeks sequestered with the high society wives at The Montauk Manor—a two-hundred room seaside hotel—while Harry pursues other interests in the city.
College educated, but raised a modest country girl in Pennsylvania, Bea has never felt fully comfortable among these privileged women, whose days are devoted not to their children but to leisure activities and charities that seemingly benefit no one but themselves. She longs to be a mother herself, as well as a loving wife, but after five years of marriage she remains childless while Harry is increasingly remote and distracted. Despite lavish parties at the Manor and the Yacht Club, Bea is lost and lonely and befriends the manor’s laundress whose work ethic and family life stir memories of who she once was.
As she drifts further from the society women and their preoccupations and closer toward Montauk’s natural beauty and community spirit, Bea finds herself drawn to a man nothing like her husband –stoic, plain spoken and enigmatic. Inspiring a strength and courage she had almost forgotten, his presence forces her to face a haunting tragedy of her past and question her future.
Desperate to embrace moments of happiness, no matter how fleeting, she soon discovers that such moments may be all she has, when fates conspire to tear her world apart…
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Excerpt
Montauk – Chapter 1 Excerpt
Summer
1938
We left the train and were escorted to our awaiting cars, one for
Harry and me and one for our trunks—packed to the brim for the summer months
ahead. I looked up at the Manor on the hill and saw it for the first time,
silhouetted against the deep orange early evening sky.
As we drove up the tight and winding road, tree
branches reached overhead toward each other like lovers’ hands desperate to
connect, and then the road suddenly opened up and I gasped. It was just as it
had looked in the brochure, but bigger, grander, even more magnificent than I
could have imagined—a Tudor façade with turrets and spires, more reminiscent of
a vast and dignified English castle than a beach town hotel.
Harry put his hand on my knee and squeezed. “I told
you you’d like it here.”
“Oh, you were right, darling; I can already tell I’m
going to fall in love with this place.”
Several other couples had taken the same train from
the city as Harry and I, and a caravan of cars followed behind us. We entered
through the carved wooden doors and as I looked around the grand lobby,
whichseemed to extend for miles with its enormous exposed wooden beams, stone
flooring and three oversized fireplaces, I felt like a guest at the palace.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bordeaux, welcome to The
Montauk Manor. We are so pleased you’ll be staying with us for the summer,” the
front desk clerk said. “I see this is your first time.”
“First time in Montauk, actually,” I said. “Some of
our friends have been summering here for the last few years and we’ve heard
such wonderful things.”
“It certainly is the place to be.” She smiled sweetly
as if she were right off one of the posters I’d seen around Manhattan
advertising the beach town. “Tomorrow night’s the first soirée of the summer;
it will be here in the grand lobby.”
“We wouldn’t miss it, would we, Beatrice?”
“Not a chance.” A jazz band played quietly at the
other end of the room and I could already feel myself getting into the swing of
things.
“Please arrange for the butler to deliver our luggage
and unpack our belongings while we dine,” Harry said.
“Of course.” She nodded, handed us our keys and had us
escorted up to our room.
- - -
Harry and I first talked about Montauk that April during a pre-show
dinner at Barbetta’s, our favorite Italian restaurant, behind the Metropolitan
Opera House. We were seated at our usual table under the great chandelier when
he’d snapped his menu shut. He said he had a surprise for me, then told me we’d
be spending the whole summer in Montauk—or rather I would. Harry would stay in
the city during the week and take the new express train out to join me on the
weekends.
I resisted at first. We’d already agreed on three
weeks in Providence, together, it was all planned and I’d been so looking
forward to spending time with Harry, just the two of us, away from the hectic,
overheated city and his busy work life.
“Cancel it. We’ll try something new this year,” he’d
said, taking a swig of his drink. “It will be good for us, Beatrice, a change,
a fresh start. You said we needed that, remember?”
He was right, of course. I had said that. He handed me
a brochure and I looked at the illustration on the cover: The Montauk Manor was
the focal point and pictured below it were men and women engaging in various
leisurely activities: fishing, golf, archery, swimming, tennis, horseback
riding. One man, or woman, I wasn’t quite sure, was in flight gear. They
certainly made it seem that anything was possible. Far in the background a
lighthouse stood proudly at the very tip of the island, surrounded by seagulls.
“What will I do all summer long?” I’d asked. “Most
women who summer at their vacation home have children to entertain and nannies
to help them, and friends with children. What reason do I have to be in Montauk
for twelve weeks?”
“What reason do you have to be in the city?”
His quick response felt sharp. Feelings of futility
came gushing to the surface and I felt my cheeks burn red. “Well, I could work
again,” I’d said, quietly, turning the stem of my glass, making small ripples
in the cream-colored tablecloth. But Harry told me, once again, that it wasn’t
appropriate for someone like me.
“We’ve already discussed this, Beatrice. You’re not a
college girl anymore, or a farm girl for that matter. You’re a Bordeaux now and
you should be proud of that.” He reached over the table and placed his hand on
mine. “And it’s my job to take care of you now, to support you; don’t rob me of
that, sweetheart.”
Something in me hesitated and I couldn’t quite tell
why. I looked at the illustration again; everyone had a look of strange
detachment, each person lost in his own world. Of course it would be a treat to
summer all season long; who wouldn’t want that? But to be away from my husband
four nights of the week left me uneasy. A tiny voice in my head told me it was
a precarious situation, and suddenly that was the only voice I could hear.
- - -
We dined at the Manor’s seafood restaurant that first
night in Montauk. The ceilings were high and the sound of laughter, chatter and
clinking wineglasses mingled in the air and made me excited for our adventure
ahead.
“Harry, let’s explore the town tomorrow and maybe even
take a boat out; wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Not tomorrow, sweetheart, I’ve got archery,
remember?”
“Oh,” I sighed, and looked at the menu. Local fluke,
striped bass, lobster. “You know, now that I think of it, I remember my brother
mentioning the name Montauk years ago.”
“Why would your brother have known anything about
Montauk? It wasn’t even a destination to visit until a few years ago.”
“I remember him telling me it was a little fishing
town all the way out on the tip of Long Island and that he wanted to go there
sometime to fish for bass.” I looked out the window; just the mention of him
made my chest tighten. I focused on an elderly waiter putting all his effort into
opening a window on the far side of the room that looked out into the night
sky. I had the urge to get up and help him. Eventually he wrestled it open and
I felt relieved by the cool, crisp ocean air on my bare arms.
“Darling, I don’t know why you bring up the topic of
your brother; you get upset every time,” Harry admonished.
The next instant he started waving madly at a couple
walking into the restaurant and insisted that they join us. “It’s Dr. and
Mrs. Sanders,” he said in a whisper as they approached. “He knows a lot of
people.”
It was quite an ordeal for the restaurant manager and
another waiter to move a table next to ours so we could sit together and I
wasn’t entirely sure the other couple was as enthusiastic as Harry about the
arrangement, but he was insistent.
“So what do you think of this place?” Dr. Sanders
asked once we were situated. “Pretty great, isn’t it?”
“It looks lovely,” I said, “though we haven’t had a
chance to take it all in yet; we just arrived.”
“We summered here last year,” Mrs. Sanders said,
touching my arm. “The swimming pool is beautiful—you’ll be spending a lot of
time there, I’m sure, but wait until you see the beach and the boardwalk, it
extends for more than half a mile along the ocean, oh, and the yacht club, it’s
perfect, it really is, such a wonderful escape from the city.”
“We’re so lucky,” I said.
Harry lit a cigarette. “Have you put any money into
this town yet, Doc?”
“Not yet, but I’m considering. We have a few
properties in Miami, so I don’t know if it makes sense to invest in all of
Fisher’s schemes. But I heard you’re going in big—I’m impressed.”
“With the way things are going,” Harry said in a
hushed voice, “now’s the right time to buy in.”
Dr. Sanders nodded. I tried to catch Harry’s eye
so he’d let me in on what he was discussing, but he looked into his martini,
swirled it, then gulped the rest of it down.
Back in the bedroom I looked around, opened the
drawers and the cupboards and marveled at the attention to detail. The
hand-carved drawer pulls, the soft cotton bedsheets trimmed with lace. Harry
sat on the end of the bed and untied his shoelaces.
“I don’t want you to leave on Sunday,” I said. “I’m
going to miss you.”
Harry sighed.
“Well, what if I get lonely?” I said.
“Beatrice, you’ll be a mother one day and then you’ll
have your hands full and you won’t have the luxury of time to lounge and
relax.”
I nodded, my expression turned serious. I was trying
to remain hopeful that we would be blessed with a child sometime in the near
future, but the same old fear and questioning about why it hadn’t happened yet
came rushing back. The thought of being around all the women during the week
with their children at the beach and the pool, teaching them to playtennis and
build sandcastles, made me feel rather melancholy. Most likely I’d be the only
one of childbearing age without a child to care for and everyone would be
asking why I wasn’t in the family way. My stomach clenched and I suddenly found
it hard to swallow.
“But Harry, I’m not a mother yet.”
“You’ll get in with the women. It’s good for business.
You’ll make friendships here and then back in the city we’ll be invited to
dinner parties where I’ll forge business relationships.”
“I hardly think that my making friends will lead to
any business,” I said.
He shrugged. “It’s how my mother and father always
worked, as a partnership, and it turned out pretty damn well.”
The mention of his mother made me cringe a little—I
had never really fit with the Bordeaux family and they knew that as well as I
did.
Of course we’d been to all the parties and we’d hosted
lots of dinners and I’d done my best to play the part of the perfect companion,
but the idea that Harry and I could be more than just a married couple was
compelling, that I could somehow be beneficial to his business gave me a sense
of purpose and direction, a feeling that had been hampered since we’d married.
I twisted the band of my ring.
“Say, Harry, what was that talk with Dr. Sanders
about buying into Montauk, and now being the right time?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.”
“No, really, I’m interested. If you want me to be more
involved with your business life then you must keep me informed.”
He took off his jacket and unhooked his suspenders.
“Look, Beatrice, I wasn’t going to tell you about this yet, not until I had
more information, but there’re a few of us who are very seriously considering
investing out here.”
“Really? But you’ve barely even seen the place. Is
that why you wanted to come here, for an investment?”
“It’s the real thing, Beatrice. We could be sitting on
a gold mine if we are smart about it.”
“Who was the Fisher guy you mentioned?”
“You met at the horse races last summer.”
“I don’t recall.”
“Sure you do. Dapper fellow, a bit of an oddball. Carl
Fisher, an eccentric dresser. When War Admiral won the Triple Crown and we all
stayed until the wee hours dancing on the grass.”
“I remember the night, but I don’t recall meeting
anyone named Carl Fisher.”
“It doesn’t matter, but he’s the one who turned
thousands of acres of unpopulated, unwanted mangrove swamp into Miami Beach.
You couldn’t give that land away before he took an interest in it, and now his
fortune is made.”
I sat down on the bed next to him.
“He convinced the entire East Coast that it was
America’s greatest winter playground, and he was right. After Miami he set his
sights on Montauk. Same thing, nothing was here, just a rural wilderness,
cattle roaming the hills and a tiny fishing village.”
“So he’s the one who put up all those posters around
the city, Montauk in the Summer, Miami in
the Winter; he wants wealthy New Yorkers to spend their money in both of
his worlds,” I said.
“Exactly. He brought his construction crew from Miami
and built his dream—a yacht club, a bathing club, polo fields, a golf course,
prime hunting, a ranch, and this place, the Manor, is his centerpiece, a
two-hundredroom castle by the sea.”
I laughed. “I suppose it is.”
“There are glass-enclosed tennis courts, a beach club
and a fantastic swimming pool looking out on to the beach—you heard
Mrs. Sanders rave about it.”
“You don’t even swim,” I said, hearing it come out
sharper than I’d intended.
Harry stood up and went into the bathroom. “Fine, but
you do.”
“Darling, it sounds spectacular, I can’t wait to see
it all and I am not disagreeing with you,” I called through the doorway, “but
it doesn’t sound like there’s much to invest in if Mr. Fisher has done all
this work already.”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Harry leaned his head out of
the bathroom with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.
“What’s the thing?”
“He’s done all this work, well, a lot of it, but
there’re still some things that are not finished. He’s designed and built up
this glamorous, luxurious town and now he’s broke.”
“Broke?”
“Broke, broke, broke.” Harry hit the doorframe hard
and loudly three times as he said it, grinning. He turned and I heard him spit
into the sink; then he reemerged, suddenly perked up.
“Remember that hurricane that hit Miami? It devastated
the place and it needed a massive rebuild, which cost him an absolute fortune,”
Harry said, grinning. “He’d already lost a lot of his money in stocks and he’d
put the rest of his money into Montauk.”
“So you and your friends will just swoop in and take
over?”
“Beatrice, don’t you see what I’m saying? He needs
people like me to come in and save him so he doesn’t go under completely. We’re
going to help him. And you, my darling, by staying out here for the summer and
getting to know Montauk, you’ll be an asset to me. We could be spending a lot
of time here in the future; it’s important to me that you like it.” He took my
face in his hands and he kissed me. “I want you to be with me on this,
Beatrice, in every way; can you do that for me?”
It was the first time I’d heard him say something like
that in years, not since we first kept steady company and he had big plans for
us.
“I can.” I smiled. Perhaps he was right; maybe Montauk
would be good for us after all.
Something about the way Harry spoke to me that first
night in Montauk gave me hope. We’d been married for five years, but the last
year or two had been difficult. I’d felt him pull away, distance himself from
me, and I’d seen his eyes wander. But that night it was as if he wanted to come
back to me fully, as if he wanted me to be an important part of his life again,
for us to go back to the way we were when we first married, when it seemed that
nothing mattered more than me and him. We werein love again. I felt this so
strongly that I agreed to everything he proposed.
I had his undivided attention for the first time in
months and was sure something between us had changed. I slept in his arms that
night and convinced myself we had turned a corner. I grasped at the possibility
of a transformation, a shift, however small or insignificant, a new place for
the summer, a new sense of partnership, something, anything different from our
last year of marriage where I’d always felt he was just beyond my reach. A new
beginning, I thought. I hoped.
About the Author:
Born in England, Nicola Harrison moved to CA where she received a BA in Literature at UCLA before moving to NYC and earning an MFA in creative writing at Stony Brook. She is a member of The Writers Room, has short stories published in The Southampton Review and Glimmer Train and articles in Los Angeles Magazine and Orange Coast Magazine. She was the fashion and style staff writer for Forbes, had a weekly column at Lucky Magazine and is the founder of a personal styling business, Harrison Style. Montauk is Harrison's debut novel.
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