Free The Surfing Lesson (Digital Original) by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

shop, which smelled powerfully of vanilla and just-pressed waffle cones. The kids knew the rules: Once they were “in,” they were allowed to talk about what flavors, what sauces, what toppings, what kind of cone. Drum Jr. and Carson became absorbed by this, as did Drum Sr., who read the names of the flavors out loud to Ellie. Margot was free to scrutinize Hadley Axelram, who was four people over and two people ahead, one spot away from ordering.
    Hadley had two children in her custody. One was a boy Drum Jr.’s age, ten, who had inherited Colin O’Mara’s Irish coloring—the strawberry hair, the freckles. The other child was twoish, younger than Ellie, young enough to be carried, and this child, also a boy, had dark hair and olive skin like Hadley. Margot wondered how Hadley could stand having the child straddling her hip in the close, crowded heat of the shop. She was a good mother, Margot supposed.
    The first son was Colin’s, born only five months after Drum Jr., as though getting accidentally pregnant outside of wedlock had been a fad that year. Unlike Drum and Margot, Hadley and Colin had never married—her parents, who were apparently quite strict or religious, had forbidden it. They had stayed together for a couple of years and then split. Colin lived in Kauai now; he sent Drum and Margot cards at Christmas, pictures of himself on far-flung beaches or on the lips of volcanoes. In the last picture, there had been a Polynesian woman in a grass skirt at his side; it looked like he had snagged her from the luau at the Hilton.
    These cards made Margot sad.
    The second son, Margot knew, had been sired by an up-and-coming painter named Jan Jaap. In a victory of biology over history, his pale Dutch coloring had been colonized by Hadley’s Indonesian genes. Margot and Drum had unwittingly walked into one of Jan Jaap’s art openings in SoHo and, finding Hadley there, were treated to the love story. At that time, Hadley had been pregnant. She was one of those women who looked as though she had tucked a cantaloupe into her camisole.
    That night had ended in a vile fight between Margot and Drum, as so often happened on nights where Hadley was involved. Drum had climbed into a cab and screeched back to the apartment alone, and Margot had stumbled into a Burmese restaurant and cried over her momos.
    The painter, Jan Jaap, had never quite fulfilled his potential, Margot didn’t think. She wondered about the Hermès choker.
    Drum Jr. declared that he wanted vanilla ice cream in a cake cone; he was overly cautious with his taste buds, afraid to try anything new, no matter how alluring his father made other choices sound.
    “How about chocolate fudge caramel ripple, buddy?”
    No. Drum Jr. would not be budged. Margot sighed. A twenty-two-minute wait for vanilla in a cake cone?
    Carson went the opposite route. He asked for a waffle cup filled with a scoop of raspberry sherbet and a scoop of maple walnut, doused with hot fudge and topped with gummy worms. Margot admired his creativity even as she knew this would end in a stomachache, and possibly a cavity.
    Ellie wanted a cup of mint chip with chocolate sauce and a squiggle of whipped cream. She would eat three bites, and Margot would be left with the rest, which meant Margot shouldn’t order.
    Drum Sr. turned to Margot. “I’m going to have the pistachio.”
    He was as predictable as their eldest child. Margot said, “Note the look of surprise on my face.”
    That decided, there was nothing to do but wait. Margot eyed Hadley Axelram. The woman had inspired jealousy more insidious than Margot ever could have imagined. How many times had Margot told Drum that she knew he was still in love with Hadley? How many times had Margot ransacked Drum’s underwear drawer, where he kept photos from the summers of 1999 and 2000? These photos were mostly of Drum and Colin and Dred Richardson and the other guys who had surfed Cisco back then, but some of the group photos featured Hadley.