No One At The Trophy Home: Chapter One of Lady Slipper Farm and the Summer People, by Holly Nadler

Editor's introduction

How do four friends with an organic farm on Martha's Vineyard cope with a bevy of high-maintenance summer customers? We'll soon find out in Holly Nadler's serial novel, Lady Slipper Farm and the Summer People, with new chapters posting twice weekly on MV Patch.

It's a comedy of manners about high-profile summer residents and the insanity they create for the Island locals working for and around them, says screenwriter, columnist and published novelist Nadler, the author of Vineyard Confidential, Haunted Island and other books.

Nadler's fictional Vineyard farmers are:

• Thorn, formerly a successful young TV writer, who's just out of 12 months of rehab after burning the Lady Slipper Farm corn patch in a drunken rage;
• Mandy, who in addition to the farm works for a real estate office and a caterer, and has a pet teacup pig Alfred (see C.K. Wolfson's illustration);
• Nandica, a Brahmin Indian with a PhD in French medieval poetry, who has forsaken her engagement to a wealthy man in India to be with: 
• Sam, described by Nadler as "a crazy fashion designer." 

Their challenging customers include:

• A divorcing set of movie stars;
• A "Lillian Hellman-type" famous artist;
• A 23-year-old country music singer who's looking for her next heartbreak so she can write a new song.

Holly's new novel replaces her Monday "Vineyard Confidential" column, which has run for two years on MV Patch. But worry not: We're bringing back classic Holly columns on weekends.

And now ...

No One At The Trophy Home: Chapter One of Lady Slipper Farm and the Summer People, by Holly Nadler

The combined advice of Miss Manners and the Dalai Lama could not have prepared Mandy Pease for the sight of Becca Van Norden – Becca Van freakin’ Norden – outside the kitchen door. The young woman who had essentially ruined her own young life.

“Becca Van freakin’ Norden,” she greeted her.

Becca appeared equally flummoxed to see Mandy Pease in this spot, at this time, nine years, in fact, after the two of them shared a Katama rental that ended with Mandy plunking down Becca’s bags and cartons of stuff outside on the lawn.

Becca said, “I guess you’re still in that social category known as The Help?”

Mandy, 28, simply stared at her. Of course she was a hired hand in this glamour pile of a house on the south shore of Chilmark. She stood before an endless cornelian countertop, clad in a white apron stretched across overalls, her fist wrapped around a wooden spoon encrusted with Thai peanut sauce.

Becca, also 28, said, “Couldn’t you do something . . . better? Hook up with some rich dude? Turn those disgusting gorgeous looks to something lucrative?”

Mandy secured the refrigerator door against her elbow and forearm. It wasn’t in her nature to be combative, but in her mind she imagined a retort: You wouldn’t understand, Becca, being the last woman in this post-apocalyptic world to be supported by her husband.

At Mandy’s feet, Albert stared up at the people food in the fridge. She smiled down at him. “Nothing there for you, big boy.” 

Becca rounded the counter. She had a bob of silky blond hair and dark blond eyebrows arched above grey eyes. She’d slicked red lipstick over a thin but shapely mouth. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but she was put together with thousands of dollars of apparel, haircut, and cosmetics that gave her a look of supreme polish.

Mandy couldn’t help but think how out of place red lipstick was on this island that, even for the rich folks, offered a chance to kick back, forget about mousse and makeup, and even wear crappy clothes.

Becca drew up short at the sight of Albert. “Is that the main course?”
Albert, a specially-bred mini-pig, pink and white with Dalmatian-style black markings, was just as aware as any dog, but smarter. He turned to stare at the intruder.

Mandy felt threatened for her pet. She bent to pick him up, all thirty-three chunky-piggy pounds of him. The fridge door gently closed behind her.

Becca said, “You’re breaking fifty health codes catering with a live pig in the kitchen.” Mandy’s old roommate was, alas, correct.

Mandy set Albert back down on the floor, then crossed to the nearest sink to wash her hands and forearms. She ripped away at a roll of paper towels to dry herself. At her back, she heard Becca say, “I just got off the ferry. Drove straight up here.”

Mandy considered Becca’s headlong charge from the boat to the Lytton house frankly creepy, especially at this point in time when no one dropped in on anyone anymore without calling in advance. At least not on the Vineyard they didn’t; certainly not in the summer crowd.

“Where are your kids?” she asked Becca.

“Didn’t bring ‘em. They’re with their dad. We had a custody fight in reverse – each wanted the other to take the kiddos.”

Mandy had almost – not completely, but almost forgotten how heartless this woman could be. Mandy’s best friend, Thorn Dixon, due out of rehab any day now, had known both women during their long-ago summer fiasco. Thorn had decided Becca Van Norden was a sociopath. But then Thorn brandished that term at anyone who annoyed him.

Now Mandy blinked. “Does that mean you -- ?” “Yeah, Josh and I split. You and I travel in different circles, Mandy. Guess the news didn’t sift down to the working classes yet. So where’s Priscilla?”

“She sailed off on some errands. You know Priscilla. She sails off.”

Becca strode through the kitchen and stared up at the great room with its soaring triple-hung glass granting views of the terraced garden and – crucial visual – just where the lawn dropped off the cliffs, the pewter-blue sweep of sea.

Becca felt suddenly disoriented. Priscilla’s absence from the house changed its aspect. All during her six-hour ride up from northern New Jersey, she had pictured the Very Important Lady here, in place.

Her fantasy: Priscilla in the sunroom stretched out on a celadon-green wicker chair. She was clad in a Savile Row silk dressing gown, something she and Titus, Mr. Booker Prize author, always bought in pairs which they wore, in the grip of one of their cute mannerisms, constantly around the house. A leather-bound notebook was open in her lap as she daintily jotted down today’s poem. One a day. Like a bowel movement, her husband liked to joke. “One of these days I’ll try to get them published,” Priscilla always said with a sigh or a yawn. So far no one had read a single one of them. Not that anyone was in a hurry to do so.

Becca tottered back into the kitchen. “Is she really not here?”

“Why would I lie about it?”

“Because saying someone’s not home is just a wussie-weenie lie. Come on, Mandy, stop shaking in your Uggs. What about Titus? Is he also far far away in a long-ago time?”

Mandy wondered how anyone told a falsehood without being caught out. Even thinking about it, she could feel her pupils dilating. She returned to her mixing bowl, taking up the wooden spoon.

“He’s not here either,” Mandy lied directly to the golden peanut sauce.

Becca said, “So no one’s home? By no one, I mean you don’t count yourself, do you?” 

Mandy sighed, suddenly in dread of the approaching summer when, she knew from hard experience, everyone would manage to aggravate everyone else.

Becca swiveled her head to take in other signs of party food prep, presumably to be placed in the freezer for a couple weeks' time – an industrial-sized slow cooker bubbling away on the far end of the counter, a platter of pie shells with what looked like a mushroom mixture expressed from a pastry bag. Very professional.

Becca said, “So I guess this is for Priscilla and Titus’s Summer Solstice party?”
Mandy nodded. She’d heaped a plate for herself and her pig with carrot sticks, black olives, and grape leaves wrapped around a rice mixture of her own making. She extended the plate to Becca who popped a bright carrot into her ruby red lips.

Mandy looked down at Albert and slid a carrot into his tiny mouth that had a way of gaping open with surprising capacity, like a Cadillac’s trunk in a Prius.

Becca watched Mandy’s simple pleasure while her own spirits sank. The Lyttons’ annual bash was only a couple of weeks away, and her own invitation was writ on water, as far as her post office box or iPhone was concerned. And only last summer she’d reigned as Priscilla's best bud.

She faced Mandy who stared back at her, Mandy with her pre-Raphaelite tumble of chestnut hair, amber freckles on porcelain skin, pale full mouth, blue eyes under nearly invisible gold eyebrows: Mandy whose beauty would be vapid as a model’s were it not for her easy smile, her uncanny listening ability; at least those were the traits available to Becca a long time ago.

Now, even Mandy, whom Becca had, unquestionably, severely wronged, looked sorry for her. That was the pathetic low to which Becca Van Norden had sunk.

Becca said, “Is this because I’m getting divorced? Do you get, like, dumped for being a single woman? No one even liked Josh. Certainly I didn’t like Josh! I thought I’d have more to offer without him.”

Mandy had no idea how to respond to this bizarre admission. Becca stared back as if the fate of the world rested on solving this issue. Then she turned and fled the Lytton kitchen. She slammed the door shut behind her.

Mandy sensed an invisible banshee had blown through these high gleaming walls.
She bent again to pick up Albert. His body heat and weight felt like a dog’s, but his bristly skin made him inconvenient to pet, plus his porcine scent took some getting used to, which she, of course had, long ago.

She dipped her face to his pink-and-white brillo-pad head. If there could be a new classification for pigs as support pets, this little fella would qualify in a heart-beat.