The Jetsetters Read online

  The Jetsetters is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Amanda Eyre Ward

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Ward, Amanda Eyre, author.

  Title: The jetsetters: a novel / Amanda Eyre Ward.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Ballantine Books, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019037440 (print) | LCCN 2019037441 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399181894 (hardback; alk. paper) | ISBN 9780399181900 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3623.A725 J48 2020 (print) | LCC PS3623.A725 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037440

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037441

  Hardback ISBN 9780399181894

  International edition ISBN 9781984820181

  Ebook ISBN 9780399181900

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Debbie Glasserman, adapted for ebook

  Cover design and illustration: Sarah Horgan

  v5.4_c0_r1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue / Hilton Head Island, 1983

  Part One: Baggage

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Chapter 6 / Cord

  Chapter 7 / Regan

  Chapter 8 / Lee

  Chapter 9 / Charlotte

  Part Two: Athens, Greece

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Three: Welcome Aboard

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Four: Fun Day at Sea

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Five: Rhodes, Greece

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Six: Valetta, Malta

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Seven: Sicily, Italy

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Eight: Naples, Italy

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Nine: Rome, Italy

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Ten: Florence, Italy

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Eleven: Marseilles, France

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Part Twelve: Barcelona, Spain

  Chapter 1 / Charlotte

  Chapter 2 / Cord

  Chapter 3 / Regan

  Chapter 4 / Lee

  Chapter 5 / Charlotte

  Epilogue / 2018

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Amanda Eyre Ward

  About the Author

  THE LARGE OIL PORTRAIT of Charlotte and her children began with a photo snapped on a Hilton Head Island beach at sunset. Charlotte wanted the night to be perfect. She packed a cooler of beer and Cokes in glass bottles. They were sunburned, light-headed. Winston considered himself an amateur photographer.

  In the portrait, Charlotte looks happy but not too happy. She is thirty-nine, thin and sunburned, perched on a blanket in the sand. Her three children surround her: Lee, blond hair wispy in the salt-smelling wind; Cord, dressed in seersucker shorts and a white polo shirt; and baby Regan, barefoot in a sundress.

  Lee, just six, was eager to please. She read her parents like a ghost story, alert for danger. Winston had spent the day in their vacation villa smoking cigarettes and watching television. Although he had showered, he still smelled sharp. Lee had thought weekends, when Winston was home, were the worst. She was wrong.

  It was the sun, making Lee’s skin hurt, even after Charlotte applied sticky aloe. It was the hours not knowing when he would emerge from the bedroom, and if he’d be angry or just blank and sad. Charlotte was more nervous than usual: it seemed desperately important that their weeklong holiday be perfect, and Lee tried to understand what this meant. Staying quiet was definitely good. Seeming excited by lighthouses, sand dollars, and collecting shells was imperative. If you were stung by a jellyfish, you should tell Charlotte quietly and not “be dramatic,” no matter how much it hurt. No sand in the condo. No talking back. No “gimme gimme gimme.” If you got an ice cream, you ate it, all of it, even if it wasn’t the flavor you wanted, and you did not allow a melted drop to spill. If you ordered chicken fingers at the Salty Dog, you did not leave half-cooked fries in the paper tray like a spoiled brat.

  Lee did her best but sometimes, as soon as she figured out a rule, one of her siblings would break it. She understood that Regan was an infant, but just that afternoon her little sister had started crying with Winston in the room. Lee’s stomach hurt as their father looked at them, his eyes narrowing. Lee was learning to be a ghost herself, even while her body remained in Winston’s line of fire. Nobody could tell. She’d just take her brain somewhere else, somewhere safe. But when she left, it meant nobody was protecting four-year-old Cord and baby Regan. So Lee tried to stay, sometimes biting the side of her mouth to keep from making a sound.

  Cord, Lee could tell, was starting to get it. He didn’t run up the stairs anymore. He pretended to enjoy crabbing with his father, though Lee saw the flash of despair when Winston handed his son a chicken n
eck to put on the hook. It was so hot. Cord was fragile. Lee saw him blink back tears and grip the crabbing pole. Winston would slap his son on the back, but Cord steeled himself, did not recoil. When Winston looked at the water, it seemed as if he was seeing something else, something heartbreaking in the distance.

  Lee and her father were the early birds in the family, and would hold hands and walk along the boardwalk to the beach to watch the sun rise. The sand was still cool. Her father said kind things to her: he loved her golden hair, she was his superstar. But he also said strange things. “I really am trying,” Winston said, speaking maybe to himself. “It’s like a fog. I wish I could make it go away but I don’t know how.”

  Lee hugged him hard. Many years later, she would understand what he was talking about, but that morning, his words were a mystery.

  * * *

  —

  TIME FOR THE PHOTO. Charlotte was laughing in her high, frightened way, fluffing her hair back. “How do I look, honey?” she said.

  “Fine, you all look fine,” said Winston. “My family. There you are.”

  It was as if he couldn’t believe it himself, as if they were a movie he wanted to like but just didn’t. Cord rested his head on Charlotte’s knee, gazing placidly at the camera. Maybe he knew how to take his brain elsewhere, too.

  “Cord, you look miserable,” said Winston.

  Cord blinked, as if woken from a deep sleep. Baby Regan was silent in her mother’s arms. Charlotte lifted her chin.

  “That’s right, that’s right,” said Winston as his expensive Nikon clicked.

  Regan gripped Lee’s finger in her tiny hand and Lee reached around Charlotte to touch her brother. At least she had Regan and Cord, thought Lee. Because of them, she would never be alone. She yearned to make things okay in her family: to fix her father’s “fog,” to keep her siblings from making Winston yell, to tell her mother she was beautiful and could stop fishing for compliments.

  “Lee!” said Winston. “Come on now, give me that smile.”

  Lee smiled with brilliance, hoping to make her father proud. This day, and the two more excruciating days that followed—days of sand and beer-scented misery—would be the last time Lee went on vacation with her mother and siblings.

  Until thirty-two years later, when they became jetsetters.

  SOME EVENINGS, CHARLOTTE FOUND herself standing in front of the family portrait. It hung in her Savannah, Georgia, condominium, above the gas fireplace she rarely turned on. In the painting, her hair was a marvel of burnt umber and gold, falling in loose waves around her jawline. Her face was inscrutable with a “Mona Lisa smile,” as they called it, alluring in its standoffishness. No actual person smiled in this way. It was an expression meant to be gazed upon, not the sort of smile that came spontaneously, from joy. And yet, Charlotte concluded, she looked lovely, much better than she’d ever looked in real life. And certainly much better than she looked now that she was seventy-one years old, her gray hair frosted to Marilyn Monroe platinum every third Tuesday by Hannah at Shear Envy.

  * * *

  —

  CHARLOTTE DECIDED TO WEAR a little black dress to her best friend’s funeral. Minnie had made gentle fun of Charlotte when she bought a neon-pink cardigan at the Ralph Lauren outlet store, so Charlotte tossed it over her shoulders and added a white Coach purse. Charlotte could have called her daughter Regan for a ride, but then she would have to hear about the Weight Watchers gift certificate again, so Charlotte drove herself.

  Charlotte and Minnie had discussed caskets more than once. Charlotte felt an open casket was both scary and kind of tacky. Minnie disagreed. She believed that saying goodbye to an actual face gave you more closure afterward. “I deal in reality,” Minnie had said, “and you live in denial. Or you try. But it’s going to catch up with you one day, Char.”

  Perhaps today was the day.

  * * *

  —

  CHARLOTTE WALKED SLOWLY TO the altar, weak and dizzy. She could see Father Thomas watching her, and appreciated his concern. She peered inside the open casket, as Minnie would have wanted her to do. Minnie was wearing too much bronzer, but then she had always worn too much bronzer. Charlotte had tried to tell her, “Minnie, go easy with the bronzer!” But Minnie hadn’t listened, had gone on doing whatever she wanted. It was part of why Charlotte had loved her, ever since they’d first met at a St. James pancake breakfast, soon after Minnie had moved to Savannah. The pancakes had been awful—mealy, drenched with cheap syrup—and Minnie had turned to Charlotte and said, “Eyuck!”

  Charlotte had looked down. She considered herself refined, not the type to insult pancakes at a church.

  “Did you hear me?” said Minnie. “I said, ‘Eyuck!’ ”

  “I heard you,” murmured Charlotte.

  “Your pants are fabulous,” said Minnie.

  Charlotte touched her leopard-print culottes (which matched her cheetah-print shoes). They were fabulous.

  They’d both been lonely. They went to art openings, Wine Down Wednesdays, and the Driftaway Café. They went to Marshwood Pool and Franklin Creek Pool, zipping along the golf-cart paths, past magnolia trees and winter-flowering camellias. They played golf and watched people play tennis. Minnie had a Blue Demon golf cart with a forty-eight-volt motor and leather seats. Somehow—how?—twenty years passed, and now Charlotte was officially old and Minnie was dead.

  “Too much bronzer, honey,” whispered Charlotte. Her throat grew hot. She touched Minnie’s cheek. “A nice blush. Why not a nice blush, Min?” she said softly. Once, after they had split a bottle of Barefoot Chardonnay, Minnie had allowed Charlotte to give her a makeover. In Charlotte’s bathroom, Minnie offered up her face. Charlotte applied foundation, mascara, lip liner, and lipstick. She curled Minnie’s sparse lashes, dusted her with loose powder. At last, Minnie opened her eyes. Charlotte ran a brush through her best friend’s hair as Minnie took in her new and improved visage.

  “Well?” said Charlotte, crossing one arm over her chest, resting her chin in her opposite hand. “Aren’t you beautiful?”

  “I look like a prostitute on Saturday night,” said Minnie, turning her head side to side to survey Charlotte’s expert contouring.

  “It’s Wednesday,” said Charlotte primly.

  And then they both collapsed into laughter. How good it felt, thought Charlotte, to allow yourself to laugh, to let your guard down for an instant. The next day, when they met for their sunrise walk around the lagoon, Minnie’s face was as naked as a baby’s. A few years later, after her daughter sent her bronzer for her birthday, Minnie began showing up each morning in her usual visor and track pants, her cheeks carrot-colored. For evening events, Minnie went orange from her hairline to her décolleté. The more Charlotte advised her, even buying Minnie subtle, tinted sunscreens and liquid blush at T.J.Maxx, the more defiantly Minnie bronzed.

  Charlotte remembered Minnie’s warm cheekbones under her fingers, Minnie’s small sigh as she enjoyed the pleasure of being touched. Now, Minnie’s skin was ice.

  “Ma’am?” said the woman behind Charlotte in line. She turned, but the woman was a stranger.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS POURING RAIN outside St. James the Less Catholic Church. A young man offered his umbrella. Charlotte shook her head, hating to depend on anyone.

  She had trouble getting her key in the lock of her VW Rabbit. The rain was relentless. When she was sitting inside her cozy condominium, she loved Savannah thunderstorms. But now, in a parking lot, she felt afraid. Everything seemed too loud. All Charlotte wanted was to drive home, pour a cold glass of Barefoot Chardonnay, and drink the cold glass of Barefoot Chardonnay. How could it be true that she couldn’t call Minnie to gossip about the funeral? Who had dressed Minnie in her least favorite floral blouse—the one with the tulips—and an unflattering, high-waisted skirt?

  Minnie had
two children: a ne’er-do-well son and a divorced daughter. Both lived in New Jersey, the state Minnie had fled after her husband’s death. Charlotte had received an Evite to a brunch being held at Minnie’s townhouse “directly after the burial of our beloved Mama,” but had deleted it. Charlotte couldn’t bear to see Minnie lowered into the ground and was upset on Minnie’s behalf that her children couldn’t be bothered to send actual paper invitations. Though Minnie wouldn’t have cared. But Charlotte cared! It was simply gauche to send an Evite for an après-funeral brunch. Minnie deserved better—an eggshell-white or pale pink invitation; handwritten calligraphy on heavy card stock.

  Did Charlotte’s own children know to send paper invitations? Did they know she’d like a lunch held at Marshwood after her funeral? She made a mental note to tell Regan, who would remember. For a moment in the rain, Charlotte felt a wave of gratitude for her overweight, thoughtful daughter. She resolved to make more of an effort to be kind.

  The battery on Charlotte’s key fob had run out months before. She knew she was jamming her key in the right place! But the door remained locked. “Mrs. Perkins!” cried the young man Charlotte had walked away from moments before. “I can help!”