The Rumor

GRACE

The second they walked through Jean Burton’s trellised arbor, Grace felt the eyes of fifty jealous women upon her.

She was on Benton’s arm.

Jean, ever the gracious hostess, approached as soon as Grace and Benton entered the yard.

“Grace!” Jean said. “I am so happy to see you. And, Benton…” She moved in to give him a juicy smooch on the cheek. It would go this way all evening, Grace knew. The upstanding ladies of the Nantucket Garden Club would all fall over themselves for Benton’s attention. Some of the women might even out-and-out proposition him.

But he belonged to Grace.

In years past, Grace had donned what Eddie called a “Mary, Mary, quite contrary” outfit for this event-a white blouse and long skirt, as well as her Peter Beaton straw hat. But tonight, she was wearing a brand-new black halter dress, a pearl choker, and a pair of black thong sandals that she had taken from Allegra’s closet. She had decided to wear her hair down and loose, because that was how Benton liked it best.

Even Eddie did a double take when he saw her. “Wow,” he said. “You look great. Where are you going again?”

“The Sunset Soiree,” Grace said, trying not to show her frustration. The man didn’t remember a thing she told him. “Nantucket Garden Club.”

“Oh, right,” Eddie said.

Grace nearly reminded him that she was attending with Benton and that Eddie had given his okay. But then she thought, Why stir the pot? She kissed Eddie and Hope good-bye. Allegra was out.

Grace had picked Benton up at his complex off Old South Road, out by the airport. Benton rented two large barnlike buildings that housed his fleet of work trucks and all of the trailers, mowers, and backhoes. He lived in an apartment on the top floor of one of the two buildings with his manager, Donovan, and Donovan’s girlfriend, Leslie, who ran one of Benton’s landscaping crews. When Benton socialized, he did so with Leslie and Donovan. They went to beach barbecues and art openings and listened to live music at the Lobster Trap. This was the extent of what Grace knew about Benton’s life apart from her on Nantucket.

But now, she was seeing his space. It was dusty and industrial. There wasn’t a blade of grass in sight. The driveway was gravel; the “yard” asphalt.

The cobbler’s son has no shoes, Grace thought. Still, she liked seeing all of the small pickups lined up with the four-leaf clovers painted on the sides. This was Benton Coe’s headquarters, his mission control, his domain.

She honked the horn, a practice her grandmother Sabine would have frowned upon. An extramarital affair was one thing-certainly they had been prevalent in the 1940s and ’50s, when Sabine was Grace’s age-but honking the car horn instead of walking to the front door was nigh unforgivable. But Grace didn’t want this to seem like a “date.” She didn’t want to meet Donovan or Leslie, and she didn’t want any of Benton’s workers-some of whom lived in an apartment on the top floor of the other building-to see a woman in a black dress knocking on their boss’s door.

But when Benton had come strolling out of the house in stone-white pants, a turquoise-blue button-down shirt, a navy blazer, and loafers, Grace swooned. She had to put her Range Rover in park and take a few metered breaths. The man was… so gorgeous. She had never seen him in anything other than jeans, a T-shirt, and his hooded sweatshirt.

He had climbed into the car and said, “Damn, Grace. You are so beautiful it blows my mind.”

Smile and say thank you, she thought. But his words had left her tongue-tied. The tops of her ears buzzed.

Grace, never one to show up at a party empty handed, gave Jean a carton of pale blue eggs. “These are from Hillary and the other Araucanas,” she said. “My best producers.”

“I’m partial to Ladybird’s speckled eggs,” Benton said.

Jean accepted the carton and said, “I’ll treat them like gold.” Then she dramatically swept a hand, presenting her yard-manicured in its every aspect-and the mandolin player and the caterers passing hors d’oeuvres and also, Grace supposed, the sun, which was dutifully casting a golden, syrupy glow over the party. Immediately, Grace noticed la grande table, half of which served as a bar and half of which was a groaning board of cheeses, grapes, strawberries, apricots, nuts, salami, marinated vegetables, crackers, baguette slices, quince paste, olives, and dips. Grace had invented la grande table three years earlier-it was just a ploughman’s lunch on a bigger scale-and Jean had continued the tradition.

“Look at this!” Benton said. “Jean, you outdid yourself.”

Jean beamed. “I learned everything I know from this breathtaking creature right here,” she said, squeezing Grace’s biceps. “I swear, Grace, when you walked in, I thought you were one of your daughters. You are positively glowing. You’re not pregnant, are you?”

At this, Grace hooted as if she’d been goosed. “God no!” she said.

The other women at the soiree were all dressed in flowered sundresses and linen shifts; there was an abundance of Jack Rogers sandals and Lilly Pulitzer prints. They looked like extras in a Merchant Ivory film, but that was the point. Of all the cocktail parties on Nantucket all summer, this was the most elegant and genteel.

“Let’s get a drink,” Grace said.

“I’ll get you one,” Benton said. “What would you like?”

“I’ll have a sauvignon blanc,” Grace said. “A Sancerre, if they have it.”

Benton headed off to the bar, and women descended on Grace like buzzards on roadkill-Jody Rouisse, Susan Prendergast, Monica Delray.

Monica said, “You lucky duck! You brought Benton!”

“He’s dreamy,” Jody said.

“And he sure cleans up well,” Susan said.

“What happened to Madeline?” Monica asked. “Did the two of you have a falling out?”

“Falling out?” Grace said. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time she and Madeline had even been cross with each other. “She’s been really busy writing.”

“Oh yes,” Jody said. “We’ve heard.”

“So I decided to bring Benton,” Grace said. “He’s been consulting with me on my garden since last summer.”

“We know,” Jody said. “We are dying to see your yard.”

“We thought you might host the soiree this year,” Susan said.

“It’s not quite soiree worthy,” Grace said, though of course it was, and then some. Jean had actually asked Grace, back in November, if she would be willing to host. But even then, Grace had been thinking of a gardening feature, and she hadn’t wanted a hundred people walking across her grass and terrorizing the chickens.

“Oh, stop,” Jody said. “You enjoy keeping it for yourself. Grace’s secret garden.”

Benton appeared by Grace’s side and handed her a flute of champagne. “They only had chardonnay,” he said. “So I thought you’d prefer this.”

Grace accepted the flute and smiled at him. “I would, thank you.”

“Ladies,” Benton said. “Thank you for allowing a boor like me into your party. I can see my gender is greatly outnumbered, but I like it that way.”

The assembled ladies giggled.

Jody said, “Grace was just telling us that you’ve been consulting with her.”

“I’m there every day,” Benton said. “It’s my pet project.”

“It’s Benton’s design, his brainchild,” Grace said. “I take no credit. I am merely a worker bee.”

“Have you told them the news?” Benton asked.

“What news?” Monica said.

“Are the two of you running away together?” Susan said. She put her hand on Benton’s arm. “Don’t take her, take me.”

Benton laughed. He said, “It’s Grace’s news to tell.”

Grace blinked. The conversation was getting away from her. When Benton had said her yard was his pet project, what did the other women think? Had they thought…? And what was that comment about Benton and Grace running away together?

Madeline had been right. These women were vipers.

“Your news, Grace?” Jody prompted.

She almost didn’t want to tell them. Let them be surprised on July 26 when they opened the newspaper.

But Grace couldn’t help herself. She said, “My garden is going to be featured in the Boston Globe. It’ll be in the Sunday home-and-garden section.”

There were some gasps and nods, a jealous eye roll from Jody Rouisse-no surprise there. She was the one who had called Benton dreamy, and she was going through a divorce. She would probably like nothing better than to sink her teeth into Benton’s strong shoulder.

“That’s great!” Susan Prendergast said. “You must be thrilled.”

“I heard Eddie hired a publicist,” Jody said. “Is that how this came about?”

“It is,” Grace admitted. “Hester Phan. She sent out photographs and a full description in a press release, and the Boston Globe was the first to bite.” The way she said this made it sound like there might have been more than one publication that wanted to shine its spotlight on Grace’s garden.

“I was hoping for Classic Garden,” Benton said. “I did a project in Savannah years ago that was featured in that magazine. They do a spectacular job.”

“I do love Classic Garden,” Susan said.

Grace wondered if she should have waited for Classic Garden to say yes before she agreed to the Boston Globe; that way, Benton would have had his first choice.

She sipped her champagne. The other women were looking at her with envy, yes, but also with a certain amount of disdain, or so she suspected. Her husband had hired a publicist, and now Grace’s yard would be featured in the Boston Globe.

What was it, really, but a colossal display of vanity?

Before Grace could gauge how egregious getting a publicist for her garden might seem to these women, her thoughts were interrupted.

“Grace, hi!” a loud female voice said. “Hi, hi, hi, hi! I can’t believe you two are here.”

Grace turned to see Sharon Rhodes, otherwise known as Blond Sharon. Sharon Rhodes was nearly six feet tall, and she had aggressively dyed blond hair. She had a wide mouth with crowded teeth and a big, hearty, infectious laugh, which was her best feature. She was the loudest person in any room and was therefore always the center of attention. Tonight she stood out, as usual, in a poppy-red strapless blouse, tight white pants, and five-inch stiletto heels that were going to decimate Jean Burton’s gorgeous lawn.

Flats, Grace thought. One wore flats to the Sunset Soiree for this very reason.

“Hi, Sharon,” Grace said. She leaned in for an air kiss. “It’s nice to see you.”

Blond Sharon regarded Benton with undisguised interest. “I don’t think we’ve ever been formally introduced,” she said, offering her hand. “I’m Sharon Rhodes.”

“Nice to meet you, Sharon Rhodes,” Benton said, taking her hand.

“I’ve heard about your work, of course,” Blond Sharon said. “And didn’t you used to live with Katharine McGovern?”

“McGuvvy,” Benton said. “Yes. Great girl. We’ve parted ways, but I hear she’s very happy…”

“In San Diego!” Blond Sharon said. “She taught my children sailing at the yacht club last summer.” Blond Sharon winked at Benton. “I think she was hoping you two would get married.”

“It didn’t work out that way, unfortunately,” Benton said. “Wasn’t in the cards.”

Blond Sharon nodded, then looked between Grace and Benton as if trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

“Benton is consulting with me on my garden,” Grace said. “He’s got the magic touch. You should see my roses.”

“I would like to see your roses,” Blond Sharon said, “but you never invite me.”

Grace smiled. She felt like she was the only person left on earth who cared about manners. God bless her grandmother Sabine and the Sundays Grace spent learning how to properly butter her bread. “You’re invited any time,” she told Blond Sharon.

Blond Sharon laughed as if this were the funniest thing she’d ever heard. It was pretty funny. If Blond Sharon showed up at Grace’s house unannounced to take a gander at Grace’s roses, Grace would pretend to be down with a migraine. She would be grateful for the massive oak door separating her from Blond Sharon’s curiosity. Her home was a fortress, and Blond Sharon wasn’t welcome. Grace didn’t think Blond Sharon was a bad person. She was just too obvious for Grace. Her clothes were too flashy, her heels too high; her laugh was too loud. Madeline felt the same way. If Madeline were here, they would talk about Blond Sharon the instant she stepped away.

As if reading her mind, Blond Sharon said, “So, Grace, have you heard about Madeline’s new book? I guess Rachel McMann got to read some of it the other day.”

“I know she’s been hard at work,” Grace said. She smiled at Benton. “Shall we repair to the garden?”

“Yes,” Benton said in his Surrey accent. “Let’s repair.”

“You should ask Madeline about it!” Blond Sharon sang out.

“I’ll do that,” Grace agreed. She linked her arm through Benton’s. “Good to see you.”

Grace and Benton strolled along, admiring Jean Burton’s beds, all of which were bordered with impatiens.

“Oh, impatiens,” Benton whispered.

Grace squeezed his arm. She and Benton held the same opinion about impatiens. Tired and overdone.

They walked over to the first koi pond and watched the orange fish swim in lazy circles. Grace felt the same way about koi in ponds as she felt about tigers and lions in cages at the zoo.

“So, McGuvvy wanted to marry you?” Grace said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Benton said. He stared at the surface of the water.

“You can tell me,” Grace said. “I won’t get jealous.” This was a lie. Grace was already feeling jealous. The instant Blond Sharon said the name Katharine McGovern, the hair on her arms stood on end and her heart grew spikes. Grace knew that Benton and McGuvvy had lived together the previous summer. Grace had even met McGuvvy once, when she and Eddie and Madeline and Trevor were out to dinner at Le Languedoc. The Panciks and Llewellyns had been devouring their cheeseburgers and garlic fries at the bistro downstairs when Benton had walked in with a young woman. Grace had remembered feeling extremely interested. She wanted to get a gander at this curiously named woman.

My girlfriend, McGuvvy, was how Benton had referred to her last summer.

McGuvvy: it was the name of an elf, or a gremlin.

Benton had brought McGuvvy over to the table and introduced her. “Everyone, this is McGuvvy.”

McGuvvy was what people meant when they used the phrase “girl next door.” Her hair was auburn, she had freckles and glasses with black frames. She wore a white blouse with black embroidery over white pants, and black Jack Rogers sandals. Toenails painted turquoise. Was she pretty? Grace couldn’t decide. She was pretty enough, and she was young. She seemed spirited, gung ho, ready for anything. She was probably lots of fun to be with. Grace knew only two things about her: she taught sailing at the Nantucket Yacht Club, and she did not care for gardening at all. When Grace had asked how that was working out, Benton said, “Fine, fine. We have different interests, no biggie.”

Now, of course, Grace and Benton were lovers, and so any mention of McGuvvy was newly loaded.

“She wanted to get married and have kids,” Benton said. He shrugged. “Can’t really blame her. That’s what women her age want.”

“And you didn’t want… which part?” Grace asked. “You didn’t want to get married? Or you didn’t want kids?” Grace had never considered the possibility of Benton wanting children. She thought of Jean Burton asking Grace if she was pregnant. Grace was forty-two years old; she was the mother of teenagers. She hadn’t given any thought to being pregnant in years. She had felt Madeline was nuts to keep trying for another child after thirty-five, after Brick was in middle school.

But now, she wondered… if things progressed and Grace left Eddie and married Benton, would she consider having another child?

“I don’t know, Grace. I guess I didn’t want any of it with McGuvvy,” Benton said.

Grace sipped her wine. She and Benton walked slowly around the other koi ponds, and then they followed a flagstone path that led to a hidden koi pond, one nearly encircled by white ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea bushes.

“Six koi ponds!” Benton said gleefully.

There was a stone bench by this pond, and none of the other partygoers had discovered it, so Grace sat. She wanted to finish the conversation.

“Do you want to get married?” Grace asked. “Do you want to have children?”

Benton regarded her and sighed. “That’s a confusing question for me to answer right now.”

Grace knew what he meant. The whole topic was fraught. She and Benton were having a love affair, which was hot and immediate. And, Grace had thought, evanescent. How do you see things ending? Madeline had asked. The answer, at that time, was that Grace had expected the whole thing to pop like a soap bubble. She had expected to wake up one day and feel back to her normal self, in love with her husband and her girls and her chickens. But now that she was deeper into it, now that she was, most certainly, falling in love, Grace couldn’t bear to think of an ending. And so-if not an ending, a future. And if a future-then the answers to these questions were important.

“Forget marriage for a second,” she said. “Do you want children?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve always wanted children.”

Grace sipped her wine. Tears sprang to her eyes for no reason. Despite the complications with Hope’s birth, Grace could still have children. But she was old. Benton deserved someone younger, someone like McGuvvy.

He wiped the tear from her cheek. “Grace, please. Let’s not have this conversation here. It’s not a good idea.”

“Yes, well,” Grace said. “I wasn’t the one who brought up McGuvvy.”

“I didn’t bring her up either,” Benton said. “Your friend did.”

“God,” Grace said. “That woman is not my friend.” She stood up from the bench and finished her champagne. She was suddenly angry, though she couldn’t say why. She and Benton were having a tête-à-tête, as usual, but it had ventured into uncomfortable territory, and their sensibilities were no longer dovetailing so nicely. Grace should never have exposed their tender new love to the outside world.

Benton pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to Grace so she could dry her tears.

“My grandmother would have loved you,” Grace said.

“You think?” Benton said. He held one of Grace’s hands and gazed down at her with that look he had. She thought, He’s going to…

But at that moment, Blond Sharon came clomping down the flagstone path with Jody Rouisse in tow.

“Oh, there you are!” Blond Sharon said. “We were wondering what became of the two of you.”

Jody said, “Are you okay, Grace? Have you been crying?”

“I’m fine,” Grace said, sniffing, shoring herself up to smile.

“We’re going to hit la grande table,” Benton said. “I’m starving.”

“I love the stinky cheese!” Blond Sharon said.

As Grace and Benton strolled out of the hidden koi pond, Grace said, “I want to get out of here.”

“You read my mind,” Benton said. “That woman is stinky cheese.”

“They all are,” Grace said. Suddenly, Grace felt like Eleanor must have when Grace introduced her to the henhouse. Hillary and Dolly had nearly pecked her half to death.

Grace found Jean Burton and made their excuses.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving so soon,” Jean Burton said. “I haven’t made my speech yet.”

“I’ll send a check,” Grace said, giving Jean a hug. She hated to go, but she couldn’t stay another second.

As soon as they were out on the street, Benton said, “Where to…?” The sun had finally set, and darkness was closing in.

“Should we go for a drink?” Grace said.

“We could,” Benton said. “Or we could drive to the beach?”

“That seems risky,” Grace said. They climbed into Grace’s Range Rover, and Grace started the engine. She didn’t want the evening to end-she never wanted it to end-but neither did she want to get caught in a compromising situation. She turned off Fair Street, onto Lucretia Mott Lane. The only reasonable thing to do was to take Benton home.

“Stop the car,” Benton said.

“What?” Grace said.

“Stop the car.”

Grace did as she was told. Her headlights shone down the length of the narrow lane. Nobody was around. Benton got out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Grace asked.

“Come with me, please. Shut off the headlights.”

“I can’t just block the road,” Grace said.

“Nobody uses this road,” Benton said.

Grace switched off the lights and got out of the car. It was dark now, and Lucretia Mott Lane was lined with ancient, leafy trees, trees that had known the Wampanoag Indians, and the Quakers, and the whaling widows.

Benton gathered Grace up in his arms and kissed her right in the middle of the street. It was thrilling but terrifying.

She said, “Someone is going to see us.”

He said, “I don’t care. I don’t care who sees us. I love you, Grace. I love you.”

She stared at him; tears stood in her eyes, making everything sharp and clear. “Yes,” she said. “I love you, too. I have never loved anyone the way that I love you.”

Grace drove Benton home, and when he told her that Donovan and Leslie were off island, seeing Lyle Lovett at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, Grace followed him upstairs to his apartment.

How do you see this ending?

She didn’t.

Love the way she experienced it with Benton Coe was dramatic and urgent and all consuming. It was LOVE in capital letters, boldfaced, underlined. It made what she felt for Eddie seem like some other emotion entirely. She liked Eddie and had been charmed by him. He made her laugh and offered her what she so desperately needed: a way out of her house with her stifling parents and overbearing brothers. Eddie had presented her with an opportunity to create a home and raise children the way she wanted. He had let her be the boss and run the show. He had provided her with every material thing she could ask for. She was grateful to Eddie for that, but she did not love him the way that she loved Benton.

When Grace got home, the house was dark and quiet-everyone was either out or asleep-and she was grateful.

She ran right up to her study, to call Madeline.

EDDIE

Grace went to her little garden-club party, and Allegra was out as always, leaving just Eddie and Hope at home. Grace hadn’t made any dinner, which was unusual; she was too consumed with her dress and hair and makeup, Eddie supposed. She looked so beautiful that Eddie almost wished he were going with her. But the garden club… no. He’d rather stick his hand in a nest of killer bees.

What was he supposed to eat? He could scramble some eggs, he supposed. There were five fresh cartons on the counter.

But he could do better than eggs, he thought as Grace drove off in the Range Rover. He knocked on the closed door of Hope’s room.

She swung the door open. “What?”

“Are you hungry?” Eddie asked.

She shrugged. She and Allegra shrugged in exactly the same way; it irritated him.

“Get dressed up,” he said. “I’m taking you out for dinner.”

Thirty minutes later found Eddie and Hope walking up a cobblestone path between two garden cottages, toward the grand front porch of the Summer House. Wafts of good smells came from inside, as well as the sound of the piano, and glasses clinking, conversation and laughter. Eddie’s spirits lifted. He took Hope’s arm. She looked lovely in a white sundress, with her hair in a French braid. She looked like a girl, whereas Allegra always looked scarily like a woman.

Eddie and Hope were seated at a table by one of the front windows. The Summer House had uneven wooden floors and the rustic, genteel feel of a summer house from the 1940s. The piano player favored Cole Porter. Eddie ordered a martini with a twist, and Hope got a Coke.

When the drinks came, Eddie raised his glass and said, “Cheers, Big Ears.”

Hope said, “This is nice. Thanks, Dad.”

Eddie nearly teared up. He worked his ass off, he hustled like no one else, and yet the three women in his life remained unimpressed. Eddie didn’t need a parade, but it was nice to hear a thank-you every once in a while, an acknowledgment that he was more than just an ATM.

“You’re very welcome.”

Hope ordered the clam chowder and the Caesar salad, and Eddie splurged on the foie gras and the lamb chops. He ordered a good bottle of pinot noir from the Willamette Valley, and then he leaned back in his chair and he said, “So, what’s going on with your sister?”

“I have no idea,” Hope said.

“Really?” Eddie said.

Hope said, “Please tell me you didn’t invite me out to dinner on a recon mission about Allegra. If you want to know about Allegra, Daddy, ask Allegra.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” Eddie said. “I have you here, and I care about you. What’s going on with you?”

Hope shrugged.

“Do you like your job at the rectory?”

“It’s fine.”

“Father Declan isn’t inappropriate with you, is he?” ’

“Dad!” Hope said. “No! Please shut up.”

“A father has to ask,” Eddie said.

“I like Father Declan,” Hope said. “He’s smart. I’m reading John O’Hara’s novel An Appointment in Samarra, and Father Declan said it was one of his favorite books in college.”

The conversation had just gone over Eddie’s head. He liked to tell people he hadn’t read a book since Dune in the tenth grade, but he hadn’t even read Dune all the way through. The last book Eddie had finished was Stuart Little.

“Is it a Catholic novel?” Eddie asked.

“No,” Hope said. “Father Declan is a priest, Dad, but he’s also a person. Not everything he does has to be ‘Catholic.’”

“I know,” Eddie said. He dug into his foie gras. He loved foie gras, but Grace wouldn’t let him order it. She didn’t approve of the way they force-fed the geese. As a raiser of chickens, she was offended by any type of fowl abuse. But Grace wasn’t here now; she was at a garden party.

“I wonder if Mom is having fun at her garden party,” he said.

Hope said, “Don’t you think it’s weird that she took Benton as her date?”

“She took who?”

“Benton Coe? The gardening guy?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Eddie said. “She told me, but I forgot.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Hope said.

Did Eddie think it was weird? Well, it made him a little edgy, maybe, that Grace had dolled herself up into such a knockout for an evening with the gardener. But, although Benton was as big and tall as a Hun, Eddie didn’t find him particularly threatening. He was a man who dealt with roses and tulips. Eddie didn’t think he was gay, but he was definitely emotionally attuned toward the feminine-and this was exactly what Grace needed. She needed someone to talk to about her garden. Grace felt about the garden the way Barbie felt about privacy and the way Putin felt about Russian supremacy. Eddie had never been particularly passionate about anything except making money and running. But the running had been more of a God-given natural talent, which wasn’t quite the same thing.

“No, I don’t think it’s weird,” Eddie said. “Benton is the gardener, and they went to a garden-club event. Maybe I’m crazy, but that makes perfect sense to me. He can teach your mother the names of all the flowers.”

“Mom already knows the names of the flowers,” Hope said.

“Exactly,” Eddie said. He finished the luscious lusciousness that was his foie gras, and then he waved over the waiter to pour his wine. Then a ghastly thought crossed his mind: maybe Grace had heard the rumor about Eddie and Madeline and had orchestrated this “date” with Benton Coe in order to get back at him? But no-if Grace had heard the rumor, Eddie would have had a knife to his balls immediately. He didn’t want to think about Grace and Benton Coe, and he sure as hell didn’t want to think about the rumor about him and Madeline. He just wanted to enjoy dinner with his daughter; it had been so long since he’d been out.

Hope was finishing up her molten-chocolate lava cake, and Eddie was paying the bill-the lamb chops had cost forty-six dollars! How had he not noticed that before he ordered them?-when the chief of police approached the table.

“Eddie!” the Chief said.

Eddie jumped out of his chair. “Chief, how are you?” The two men shook hands, and Eddie presented Hope. “My daughter Hope. Hope, you know Chief Kapenash?”

Hope smiled shyly, whereas Eddie knew Allegra would have been up out of her chair, shaking his hand, eager to impress. But Eddie would not compare.

“You’re having a father-daughter dinner?” the Chief asked.

“We are,” Eddie said. How fortuitous that the Chief could witness this moment of excellent parenting. He was not by himself and not with Madeline or any other woman. He was with his daughter. It was the best P.R. Eddie could have asked for-and it was happening organically. “Her mother and sister are out, so we’re taking advantage.”

“Nice,” the Chief said. “I’m just about to sit down and have a romantic dinner with my wife. Good to see you, Eddie.”

“Good to see you, Chief,” Eddie said. He remained standing until the Chief wandered away. The piano player launched into “Some Enchanted Evening.” Eddie beamed at Hope.

She said, “Okay, I’m finished. Can we go?”

“We can go,” Eddie said. He ushered Hope in front of him and walked out of the restaurant, indiscriminately waving to everyone he saw.

HOPE

A phone call came to the house in the middle of the night. Hope rolled over. She felt sick to her stomach; the food at the Summer House had been rich, and when Eddie had gotten up to go to the men’s room, Hope had sneaked a sip of his martini, just to find out what it tasted like.

It had tasted like lemon-flavored lighter fluid. Hope nearly spat it out, but she didn’t want to call attention to herself, and so she swallowed it.

Alcohol was disgusting.

The ringing of the phone stopped. Hope’s stomach gurgled. She really hoped she didn’t puke; she tried not to think about the martini. It had been so clear and innocuous looking that Hope had thought it would taste like water.

Suddenly, she heard her parents’ voices in the hallway. Her mother was hitting what Hope thought of as her hysterical register. She heard them open the door to Allegra’s bedroom, which elicited more hysteria from Grace. So Allegra was still out. Hope checked her phone. It was ten after three.

Wow, Hope thought. Their curfew was eleven thirty. Allegra had shattered her previous broken curfew record of one forty-five.

Grace started to cry, and Eddie was trying to comfort her, but he started sounding a little shaky himself, and suddenly Hope wondered if maybe there was something really wrong-like maybe Allegra was hurt.

Or…?

Hope made it to her trash can in the nick of time. Oh God, she thought. The damned martini, never again, and never again clam chowder or Caesar salad, which was too bad, because they were her favorites, but, ugh, ick, vomiting ruined everything. She heaved and spat, and then, trembling, she collapsed on her bed until she had a rush of that thank-God-I-got-it-out feeling. Then she managed to stand and open her door.

“Dad?” she said. “Mom? What’s going on?”

“Your sister is in trouble,” Eddie said. “I’m headed to the police station. You go back to bed, please.”

“What kind of trouble?” Hope asked. The police station wasn’t good, but it was better than the hospital. “Is she hurt?”

“Not yet,” Eddie said. “At least not until I get a hold of her.”

Oh boy, Hope thought.

Grace said, “You’re such a good girl, sweetheart. But your sister…”

Hope didn’t want to hear it. She retreated to the safety of her bedroom and closed the door before Grace could finish her sentence.

Hope was such a good girl, but Allegra was… not. Nope, not at all. She and Ian Coburn had been caught out in Ram’s Pasture, sitting on the hood of Ian’s Camaro in just their underwear, drinking Wild Turkey and smoking weed. Further search of the car by police turned up a quarter ounce of cocaine, enough to arrest Ian, who was nineteen.

The police officer who found them was Curren Brancato, although it had been the chief of police who had called the house, as a courtesy to Eddie.

More interesting than what happened to Allegra was how Hope found out about it. At five thirty in the morning, she was awoken (with a funky mouth and the stench of vomit in her room) by a text from Brick Llewellyn.

It said: I saw the photo. Your sister was cheating and you knew and you didn’t tell me.

And Hope thought: What photo?

Hope responded: ??????????

Brick texted: Hollis sent me a photo of Allegra and Ian in their underwear sitting on Ian’s Camaro. They got caught smoking dope and drinking by our friend Officer Brancato. Ian = cocaine dealer = going to jail.

As Hope was processing this, there was a knock on her door.

“Come in,” Hope croaked.

Allegra tiptoed in, closing and locking the door behind her. She slipped into bed next to Hope.

“Whoa,” Hope said. This kind of physical proximity to her sister was extremely unexpected. Allegra and Hope used to do things like snuggle in bed together and flip each other over in cheerleading moves, but it had been years and years since Allegra had voluntarily touched Hope. Hope thought she might welcome Allegra’s return to the bubble of their twinhood, but she merely felt disgusted.

A second text came into Hope’s phone, and as Allegra shook and wept into Hope’s pillow, Hope checked it. There was the picture of Allegra and Ian. Ian was in just a pair of navy-blue boxer briefs, with a bottle of Wild Turkey between his legs. Allegra was in her pale-pink bra and panties-for a second Hope thought she was nude-and she was pinching a joint at her lips. Her eyes were closed on the inhale. This photographic evidence was so damning that Hope immediately deleted it, even while realizing that this didn’t make the picture go away. Who had taken it? Hope wondered. Then, she realized, it must have been Officer Brancato. With his own personal phone. And he texted it to Hollis. This must have been some kind of professional breach of ethics, right? It hardly mattered, because, as the old adage went, a picture was worth a thousand words, and all thousand of these words said that Allegra was doing drugs, drinking, and cheating.

For the first time in years and years, Hope felt bad for her sister. She patted Allegra’s hair and rubbed her back in circles.

“Sorry I don’t smell that good,” Hope said. “I puked.”

“I don’t care,” Allegra said. “I probably don’t smell like flowers either.”

True, Hope thought. Marijuana, booze, cigarettes-or, as Mrs. Aguiar in the rectory office would say, the odors of hell and damnation.

“What are you the most upset about?” Hope asked.

This question was met with an extended bout of tears. Hope continued to rub her sister’s bony back. Allegra barely ate; possibly, she was still holding out for that modeling contract. Or she was so thin because she snorted cocaine with Ian Coburn off the dashboard of the red Camaro. Nothing, at this point, was beyond the realm of possibility.

“Ian going to jail?” Allegra said. “Brick hating my guts? Hollis telling everyone I’m a slut? Curren Brancato busted us. He took a picture. I thought he would be cool about it. I thought he would just let us go. But he was out to prove himself, or whatever. Big man on the Nantucket police force. As soon as he got back to his squad car, he texted the picture to Hollis. And Hollis, my own best friend, my soul sister, texted it to the rest of the universe.”

Hope tried to think up some words of comfort. Hollis had sent the picture out. She and the rest of Allegra’s friends were a gang of backstabbing opportunists.

“Mom and Dad are pissed,” Allegra said. “Dad grounded me.”

“Wow,” Hope said. Eddie never grounded Allegra, but apparently being called in the middle of the night by the chief of police had done the trick.

“And he took my phone,” Allegra said.

“Oh boy,” Hope said.

“Can I use yours, please?” Allegra asked. “I need to text Brick.”

“Just call him from the landline,” Hope said.

“Let me use your phone.”

“No,” Hope said. “I’m not comfortable with that.”

“Not comfortable?” Allegra said.

“Sorry,” Hope said.

Allegra’s face took on an expression that Hope thought of as Standard Operating Bitch, but then, perhaps realizing that wouldn’t get her what she wanted, she dissolved into tears. “What should I do, Hope?”

“Probably,” Hope said, feeling a surge of tenderness for her sister, “you should try and sleep.”

Later, when Allegra was in fact asleep and snoring softly in Hope’s bed, Hope texted Brick.

She said: You should probably forgive her.

No way, he texted back. Never.

EDDIE

Eddie was still half-asleep when he arrived at the police station to pick up Allegra. The Chief had been the one to call Eddie, and when Eddie heard the Chief’s voice, he turned into quivering jelly. He thought, Barbie was right. He thought, The girls have been caught with Kasper Snacks out at Ten Low Beach Road. Eddie wasn’t going to lie. When the Chief said he was calling because Allegra had been caught drinking in Ram’s Pasture, Eddie had felt nearly giddy with relief. Then the appropriate emotions caught up with him, and he said, “For God’s sake, Ed, you’re kidding.”

“I wish I were,” the Chief said. “I’m sorry, Eddie. She’s at the station. You’ll have to go get her.”

Eddie said, “I guess I took the wrong daughter out for dinner.”

The Chief said, “They’re teenagers, Eddie. What can you do?”

The Coburn kid’s parents were at the station, the father a hothead all up in arms, yelling at the staff officer, the mother blond and silently uptight. Eddie didn’t know either of them well enough to say hello. He would have liked to have told them what a bad influence and corrupting reprobate their son was, but Eddie focused on collecting Allegra and getting her home.

Once in the car, Eddie grounded Allegra for the rest of her life. Then he took her phone. He said, Do you know what it feels like to have the chief of police call in the middle of the night? Your mother and I thought you were dead! But no, you’re just a druggie boozehound sitting out in public in your underwear with some guy who isn’t even your boyfriend! They have names for people like that, Allegra, and they aren’t very flattering!

Allegra cried. And then she bawled and hiccupped and sounded as if she were having an epileptic seizure. Eddie nearly handed the phone over and told her that everything was going to be okay and that he was just glad she was safe. After all, nobody was perfect, least of all him. But he recognized that one of the reasons Allegra had acted this way was because Eddie and Grace indulged her. It had to stop!

When Eddie woke up the next morning, it felt like his heart had been braised in a stew pot overnight. He couldn’t move, could not rise or get dressed or brush his teeth or face down a cup of coffee or imagine himself upright behind the wheel of his Cayenne. Even the name of his car inflamed his heart. Why had he ever bought it? Because it was a Porsche, because he wanted to impress his clients, because he wanted to give the impression of being hot.

He couldn’t move from his supine position under the covers. He couldn’t rise to relieve his bladder.

“Grace,” he moaned. There was no answer.

Eddie closed his eyes and prayed for sleep. For the first time in forever, Eddie wasn’t going to work.

When he awoke at noon, the house was quiet. Where was Grace? Had she come to check on him? There was no note, no glass of ice water, no new bottle of cherry Tums placed thoughtfully on his nightstand. Did she not find it unusual that Eddie had slept until noon? Was she not worried?

Miraculously, Eddie found he could stand, although he was shaky. He put on his oldest, softest khaki shorts and his T-shirt from Santos Rubbish Removal, and he crept out into the hallway. It had been so long since he’d been home in the middle of a weekday that he felt like a prowler. The doors to the twins’ rooms were closed. Were they still sleeping? Hope had a job at the church rectory-she would most likely be there-but what about Allegra? Had she gotten up to go to her SAT prep course, or was that over? Eddie couldn’t remember. He was a lazy-ass parent. He paid for Allegra’s class, but when he remembered to ask her how it was going, he barely listened to her answer. And when the class was over, how did Allegra spend her days? Eddie had a vague idea that she went to the beach with her friends. Where, he now suspected, she smoked weed and drank Wild Turkey. But that lifestyle was coming to a screaming halt. Eddie should bring Allegra into the office and make her file-but he was afraid she might develop a taste for the business, and he didn’t want that. Real estate crapped upon the soul.

Allegra was probably asleep, he decided. He should wake her up and make her help Grace with the hens. He stared at her closed bedroom door, considering this-but he was in too much pain for a confrontation.

Eddie shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen. Grace had been to the henhouse already, probably twice. Seven dozen eggs waited in cartons on the counter. And there were fixings out for lunch; it looked as if Grace were making turkey club sandwiches. Eddie was starving, but he feared eating.

He poured himself a cold glass of milk. Through the open kitchen window, he heard Grace crying. Naturally, she would be upset about Allegra; she would be blaming herself. He heard her say, “I’m afraid of her. Isn’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard? I’m afraid of my own daughter.”

It wasn’t the worst thing Eddie had ever heard. He was a bit afraid of Allegra himself. She was so confident, so in charge of her world, that he sometimes forgot she had been alive for only sixteen years. Of course, Eddie wielded slightly more influence over their daughter because he controlled her spending power, but he agreed that Allegra was intimidating.

Whoever Grace was talking to murmured a response that Eddie didn’t hear. Who was she with? But no sooner did he ask himself this than he realized Grace was confiding in the gardener. Benton Coe.

Don’t you think it’s weird that she took Benton as her date?

Eddie stepped out onto the deck. Grace and Benton were having what appeared to be a lovely little lunch, despite Grace’s tears. Eddie bristled. While he was at work, toiling and sweating over their finances, Grace was at home picnicking with the person who was supposed to be working for them.

If Eddie were lucky enough to be reincarnated, he was coming back as Grace’s gardener.

“Hey, there,” Eddie said.

Benton was leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head. He looked a little more at ease at Grace’s side than Eddie might have wanted him to, but there didn’t appear to be anything untoward going on. It wasn’t even like Grace was crying on his shoulder. She had her elbows on the table and was dabbing at her eyes with her lunch napkin. She and Benton were sitting next to each other, but not unreasonably close. And when Eddie stepped out, they didn’t seem jumpy or alarmed. It didn’t seem like they were hiding anything.

Benton got to his feet. “Hey, Eddie,” he said. He shook Eddie’s hand. “Grace was just telling me about your night.”

Grace raised her weepy eyes. “How’s your heartburn?”

“Never been worse,” Eddie said.

“Can I get you some crackers and butter?” Grace said.

Eddie wasn’t sure he could manage even that much, but it was embarrassing to be offered nursery food because he couldn’t handle stuff like bacon and tomato-or even cucumber sticks and Grace’s buttermilk-herb dressing.

“I’m fine,” he said, in a way that made him sound like a pouting child.

Grace scooted her chair back and got to her feet. “I’ll get the crackers.”

Benton stood as well. “I should go. I have the lovely Mrs. Allemand waiting for me.”

“Edith Allemand?” Eddie said.

Benton grinned. “The one and only.”

Edith Allemand lived at 808 Main Street in a house that made Eddie salivate every time he drove past it. It was, possibly, the finest example of whaling-era money on Nantucket aside from the Hadwen House and the Three Bricks. Edith Allemand was about five hundred years old but still cogent and active. She was the kind of woman Grace had described her grandmother Sabine to be: impossibly refined and elegant. Otherwise, Eddie might have knocked on her door and begged her to let him list the house.

“Do you think she’ll ever sell?” Eddie asked.

“Never,” Benton said. “She’s leaving the house to the Nantucket Historical Association.”

Eddie’s hopes deflated, even though he knew she would do something socially responsible with it like give it to the historians. “Perfectly good waste of a six-figure commission,” Eddie said.

Benton threw his head back and laughed, and Eddie congratulated himself on being able to joke despite his excruciating pain. He liked Benton Coe, he decided. Nice guy, and clearly at the top of his professional game if Edith Allemand trusted him.

Benton waved. “Good to see you, Eddie. I’m sorry to hear about Allegra, but… this too shall pass.”

“Oh, I know,” Eddie said. “Thanks.”

“Bye, Grace!” Benton called out. “Hang in there-I’ll see you later!”

They could just barely hear Grace’s voice from inside. “Thanks! Bye!”

MADELINE

She was awoken in the morning by a phone call from Trevor.

“You have to come home,” he said. “We have a crisis on our hands.”

Madeline didn’t know why she felt surprised, but when Trevor showed her the photograph on Brick’s phone, she gasped. Allegra was sitting on the hood of Ian Coburn’s Camaro in pale, lacy underwear, and she was pinching a joint to her lips. Her long, dark hair was mussed, and her eyes held a faraway, dazed look. Ian Coburn was also in his underwear, a bottle of whiskey between his legs. It was disgusting, not so much because of what it showed but because of where it led the imagination.

“I guess they’ve been seeing each other on the sly for months,” Trevor said.

“Oh my God,” Madeline said. “How did you end up with his phone?”

“He threw it at the wall,” Trevor said. “There’s a hole in the plaster upstairs, but the phone survived.” He minimized the screen so that Allegra and Ian Coburn disappeared. “Lifeproof case.”

If only there were lifeproof cases available for humans, Madeline thought. Even from the kitchen, she could hear the sound of Brick crying-horrible, broken moans punctuated by shouted profanities.

Madeline climbed the stairs and stood outside the closed door. She instantly flashed back to when Brick was a baby; she could never stand to listen to him cry. But hearing him cry as a sixteen-year-old was far, far worse. His pain was real, his heart was broken, he had believed in a girl, he had loved her, and she had deceived him. She had preferred another, she had carried on behind his back. She had humiliated him.

Trevor came quietly up the stairs. It sounded as if Brick were pounding on his mattress.

Madeline said, “What should we do for him?”

“What can we do?” Trevor said. “It’s heartbreak. He has to work through it alone, just like the rest of us.”

Madeline looked into her husband’s green eyes. She said, “I am not, I repeat, not having an affair with Eddie Pancik.”

Trevor said, “I’m glad you’re home.” And he gathered her up in his arms.

Madeline was weak with relief. She squeezed her husband as tightly as she could.

Brick cried out. “Why?”

Why? Madeline thought.

We won’t get involved, she thought. Brick and Allegra were kids-this was their first time through all these confusing emotions. Allegra had strayed from the path of decent human behavior, but she was hardly the first person to do so.

We won’t get involved.

They were kids.

The house phone rang. The caller ID said it was the Pancik house.

Trevor said, “That would be Allegra. She’s been calling all morning.”

“Has she?” Madeline said.

“He won’t talk to her,” Trevor said. “I’ve just been letting it ring.”

Yes, Madeline thought. Let it ring.

We won’t get involved.

But the anger in Madeline was its own beast. No mother should have to listen to her child cry like that.

She thought, You wicked, wicked girl.

Madeline picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Madeline?”

It was Grace.

“Hey,” Madeline said.

“I take it you heard?”

“I heard.”

“The police called at ten after three,” Grace said. “Eddie had to go to the station to get her.”

Madeline was silent. We won’t get involved. They had made that promise for a reason-but what was it?

Grace said, “There were a couple of seconds when I thought she was dead. Eddie is… God, he’s just furious.”

He’s furious? Madeline thought.

“He stayed home from work,” Grace said.

Well, even Madeline had to admit: this was surprising. Eddie went to work every day except for Christmas and Thanksgiving. He went to work on Easter, he went to work on Mother’s Day, he went to work on New Year’s Day-just in case someone’s resolution was to buy a house on Nantucket. But, judging from Madeline’s own dealings with Eddie, she gathered there was less going on for Eddie at work than Grace knew.

Grace said, “He came downstairs while Benton was here. I knew he was home, so obviously nothing was going on, but it still made me very uncomfortable to have them in the same place.”

It was the mention of Benton that did it.

“Your daughter’s behavior was despicable, Grace.”

“Madeline, I’m sorry…”

“We all knew!” Madeline said. “That night when we came for dinner, Ian Coburn was texting her nonstop. And you and Eddie tolerated it.”

“No,” Grace said. “Eddie told her to turn her phone off.”

“She was flaunting it in Brick’s face!” Madeline said. “In front of all of us! As if daring us to notice what she was getting away with.”

Grace whispered, “I saw her with him.”

“What?” Madeline said.

“They were kissing in the car in the Stop and Shop parking lot,” Grace said. “I saw them, but I told myself it wasn’t Allegra. I told myself she wouldn’t do that.”

“What?” Madeline said. “How long ago was this?”

“Ten days?” Grace said. “Two weeks?”

“So you knew a week ago, and you didn’t tell me? And you didn’t say anything to Allegra?”

“I didn’t want…”

“You didn’t want what?” Madeline said. She carried the telephone into her bedroom and closed the door. “You didn’t want to face what Allegra was doing to Brick because it’s exactly the same thing you’re doing to Eddie?”

“Madeline…”

“In this case, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree,” Madeline said. “Allegra is a cheater, and you, Grace, are a cheater.”

There was silence on the other end, Grace no doubt stunned by Madeline’s words. Madeline couldn’t believe she’d said them out loud, but she was caught up in a swirling tornado of anger-not just about Allegra and Ian Coburn and the fact that Grace had apparently known about it, but also about Eddie and the fifty thousand dollars. Madeline wanted her money back! And, while she was at it, there were other things that ate away at Madeline but that she’d never bothered to bring up. Such as Grace’s migraines. The whole world was supposed to stop and bow down to Grace’s pain once a month, but when Madeline had had her third and worst miscarriage, Grace had attended five o’clock Mass rather than come straight to the hospital. Grace later explained that she was a Eucharistic minister and couldn’t find a last-minute replacement, and she said she had prayed for Madeline and the soul of the baby-but, even so, Madeline had been hurt. Grace was her best friend and should have put everything on hold, especially since Grace alone knew how badly Madeline wanted another baby.

And then there was Madeline’s suspicion that Grace hadn’t actually finished reading her last book, Islandia. Madeline had seen it in Grace’s beach bag the previous summer when Grace had announced that she had “made it” to page 150. And then, months later, Madeline saw the book on Grace’s front hall table, and the bookmark remained at page 150. Had Grace simply stopped reading? Madeline had been too embarrassed to ask, but she had been pretty sure that her own best friend had never finished her book. This was maybe because… Grace’s intellect was too lofty, because she had been a French-literature major at precious Mount Holyoke and read only things she considered “important” and “worthy.”

Madeline couldn’t remember ever being this angry before.

“You’re right,” Grace said softly.

“I know I’m right!” Madeline screamed. “And I want my money back!”

With that, she slammed down the phone and for one second felt completely self-righteous! She thought of her novel B/G. Maybe she wouldn’t change any of the details! Maybe she would leave them all just as they were so Grace would know!

Trevor knocked on the door. “Honey, are you okay?” he asked. “Who were you talking to?”

“Grace,” Madeline spat out. Then she started to cry.

NANTUCKET

Officer Curren Brancato texted his sister, Hollis, the picture of Allegra Pancik and Ian Coburn sitting on the hood of Ian’s Camaro in their underwear. Underneath the photo, Curren wrote: Your BFF is in BIG TRUBS.

Hollis Brancato was no angel. Secretly, she had had her sights set on Ian Coburn. To learn that Allegra was hanging out with him at the same time that she was steadily dating Brick set her off like a fire alarm. She forwarded the photo to Kenzie and Bluto. Allegra is a two-timer, and here’s the proof. She didn’t use the phrase two-timer, however. She used other words, too profane to be repeated.

From Kenzie and Bluto, word spread to Hannah, and Hannah felt compelled to tell the person who would be most affected, Brick Llewellyn, and then Hannah told Calgary and Taylor Rook and Parker Marz, and the rest of Brick’s baseball team, so that he might have some brothers-in-arms.

By midafternoon on Friday, it was safe to say that every student at Nantucket High School had heard some version of what had happened to Allegra and Ian Coburn, and most of them had seen the photographic evidence. Some people said that Ian Coburn had been cuffed and thrown in jail; some said he was headed to Walpole. In truth, he had been given a slap on the wrist-the amount of cocaine found in his car was too small to charge him with intent to distribute-but his parents were concerned enough that they had already checked out several drug rehabilitation centers out West.

Worlds collided when Blond Sharon took her two ambiguously named children, Sterling and Colby, for their six-month cleaning appointment with Dr. Andy McMann. While other mothers sat in the waiting room and caught up, via People magazine, with Blake and Miranda and Kanye and Kim, Blond Sharon hung out in the exam room and chatted with Janice, the hygienist.

Janice said, “So, have you been out lately, Sharon?”

And Sharon said, “A few nights ago I went to the Sunset Soiree for the Nantucket Garden Club.”

Janice mentally tuned Sharon out as she scraped away at the plaque on Colby’s teeth with a vigor that made Colby wriggle. Colby was only seven. Janice had never seen so much plaque on a seven-year-old, and she was about to tell Sharon so when Sharon said, “Grace Pancik was there with Benton Coe, her gardener.”

“Really?” Janice said. “Were they together together?”

“Hard to say?” Sharon said. “I don’t think officially? But Jody Rouisse and I found them sitting alone by this little pond, and Grace was crying.”

Janice wondered if Grace had heard the rumor about Eddie and Madeline King. Maybe she was crying to Benton Coe about that? Janice almost asked Blond Sharon what she thought, but she wasn’t sure if Blond Sharon had heard about Eddie and Madeline. Janice sneaked a quick glance at Sharon. She knew a lot-she always seemed to be in the right place at the right time-but maybe not everything.

Sharon said, “And then later I heard that Jean Burton thinks Grace is pregnant.”

Whoa! This news startled Janice so badly that she accidentally poked poor Colby in the gum above her bicuspid, and Colby started to cry.

Janice said to Sharon, “Dr. Andy would kill me if he heard us gossiping about the Panciks. Eddie is our landlord.”

“Okay, well,” Blond Sharon said, “you didn’t hear it from me.”

The only person Janice felt safe repeating Blond Sharon’s news to was Dr. Andy himself. Grace and Benton Coe, out together at the Sunset Soiree, Grace crying because she’d discovered she was pregnant.

“What?” Dr. Andy said. So few things pierced Andrew McMann’s bubble of serenity-but this had done the trick. And what had Rachel told him recently about Madeline writing some sexy book, possibly based on her own experiences with Eddie Pancik?

On his lunch break, Dr. Andy called Rachel at the offices of Bayberry Properties. He said, “Janice told me Grace is having an affair with her gardener.”

“Oh yes,” Rachel said. “I’ve heard.”

“Oh,” Dr. Andy said. He felt a bit dejected. “Do you think maybe Madeline’s book is about Grace and the gardener and not herself and Eddie? I mean, didn’t you tell me the book was about a woman and her gardener?”

“Contractor,” Rachel said. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You just want to let Eddie off the hook because he’s your landlord.”

Dr. Andy admitted to himself that this might be true. He held a delusion that if he kept in Eddie’s good graces, Eddie would stop raising the rent; it had gone up twice in the last eighteen months. Dr. Andy had considered moving, but few people understood the logistical nightmare that moving a dental office entailed.

Rachel said, “The Pancik family is a mess. You do remember what I told you Calgary told me about Allegra?”

Dr. Andy made a noncommittal noise. When Rachel started talking about teenage drama, he tuned her out. His last memory of Allegra Pancik was as a pretty, friendly young woman with an impeccable smile and good flossing habits. And he preferred to keep it that way.

EDDIE

He was sinking.

The notice came from the bank, along with a stern phone call from Philip Meier, loan officer: numbers 9 and 11 Eagle Wing Lane were going to be repossessed unless Eddie could come up with the three months’ back mortgage that he owed on each.

He was going to lose them. The time had come (said the newfound angler in Eddie) to “cut bait.”

He went through the contacts on his phone once, twice, three times. Was there anybody else in his circle of acquaintances that he could ask? His buddy Lex from high school was now a slumlord in New Bedford. He was the only other person Eddie thought might have the cash and the interest (up his game a little, with two high-end projects on Nantucket)-but when Eddie called, an automated voice announced that Lex’s number was out of service.

And so, Glenn Daley it was. Eddie didn’t even bother with a phone call. The only way Glenn would realize that Eddie was dead-on balls serious was for Eddie to walk right into the office of Bayberry Properties.

This was exactly what Eddie did.

Rachel McMann, thankfully, was not at her desk. She was probably out trying to solicit clients off the tour buses.

Glenn tried not to show his surprise. “Edward!” he said, standing up. “To what do I owe this honor?”

The two men shook hands. Eddie nodded at the chair next to Glenn’s desk, which was, blessedly, separated from the rest of the floor by three cubicle walls.

“By all means,” Glenn said. “Sit.”

It was hard to explain why Eddie hated Glenn Daley so much. He was a rotund, affable guy who was losing his hair and who wore slip-on shoes. He had a loud, cheerful voice and always knew who had won what game the night before and where the stock market closed, and he’d always just seen the movie everyone was talking about or just finished the book everyone was reading. The best way for Eddie to describe it was that Glenn had always been Eddie’s rival, his adversary, the person he wanted to beat. This was probably borne out of their similarities-he and Eddie had started in the Nantucket real-estate business at the same time; they had started their own agencies at the same time-and the fact that Glenn was very good at what he did.

Glenn had been one of the cocaine abusers back in the nineties-rumor had it that an entire commission on a house on India Street had gone right up Glenn’s nose-and then Glenn went through a high-profile divorce, which had reportedly cost him three hundred thousand dollars. Lots of people liked to claim that their ex-wife was psycho, but in Glenn’s case, it was true. Ashland Daley had once chased Glenn through the Stop & Shop with a loaded pistol, and at the time, Eddie had remembered thinking it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

But Glenn had proved to be like one of those stupid Weeble toys from Eddie’s youth. Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down. Glenn quit the drug habit, Ashland moved to California, and Glenn started selling houses left and right, thanks to his happy-go-lucky personality and his desire for self-improvement.

Eddie sat down in Glenn’s chair. And then, sotto voce, he explained: design and build on Eagle Wing Lane, bit off more than he could chew, and did Glenn want to score an incredible deal and help Eddie out in the process by buying numbers 9 and 11? A million dollars for both. A total steal.

Glenn whistled. “A million dollars.” He picked up a notepad and a pen. “How much did you pay for the land?”

Eddie considered lying, but Glenn could easily go down to the Registry of Deeds and check his work. “Buck fifty apiece,” Eddie said.

“So three,” Glenn said. He wrote 300 on the notepad. “And how much did you dump into them? Not three fifty apiece, no way, they’re barely framed, Ed. I’ve driven past.”

“About two apiece,” Eddie said.

Glenn slammed his pen down. “Why come to me if you’re just going to lie your ass off? I know Schuyler Pine designed all three for the price of one because you nominated him for commodore of the yacht club…”

“Wait a minute,” Eddie said. “How do you know that?”

Glenn clammed up. Fiddled with the notepad, tore the top sheet off, and crumpled it up. He said, “Don’t include number thirteen in your spiel to me, Eddie, if you’re planning on keeping number thirteen for yourself. Divide everything by thirds, not halves. Two hundred on the land. And maybe, maybe, a buck fifty into each… but that’s being generous. So that gives us five hundred. I don’t see how you can come in here asking for a million dollars.”

Eddie remembered now why he hated Glenn Daley: the guy was a douche bag! Obviously Eddie came in asking for a million so he could have enough money to finish number 13 and sell it!

Eddie said, “When you’re finished, you can sell them each for one point two. Each, Glenn. So two-four on a million-dollar investment, nearly a million and a half profit.”

“I’ll give you half a million,” Glenn said. “I’ll call Ben Winford, and I’ll take them both off your hands today for half a million.”

Eddie stared at the numbers on Glenn’s notepad. Half a million was enough to make the mortgages go away and recoup about a quarter of his initial investment.

Then Eddie noticed the notepad itself. It was from the Four Seasons in Santa Barbara.

“Hey,” Eddie said. He was trying to form a thought, but it wouldn’t quite crystallize. When it did, Eddie swallowed. No, he thought. No fucking way. He pointed to the notepad. “Have you ever stayed at the Four Seasons in Santa Barbara? I hear it’s really nice.”

Glenn flipped the notepad over. “That’s really none of your business, Eddie.”

None of his business. P for personal. Barbie was sleeping with Glenn Daley! Sleeping, quite literally, with the enemy! She took trips with him to places like Santa Barbara, and she discussed business secrets like Eddie’s deal with Schuyler Pine.

Eddie’s scalp prickled. Had Barbie told Glenn what they were doing on Low Beach Road?

She wouldn’t.

Or would she?

It might be good pillow talk. Hey, guess what? Eddie and I are running a whorehouse.

Eddie tried to think like his sister. They had been so close their whole lives, and yet a part of Barbie, in adulthood anyway, had remained inscrutable. P for personal. There were things Barbie didn’t want Eddie to know. Like… she was sleeping with big, fat, stupid, successful former druggie Glenn Daley.

Had she told him about the girls?

No, Eddie didn’t think so, because something in Glenn’s expression shifted, and Eddie thought, He knows that I know.

“Nine hundred,” Eddie said.

“Six hundred,” Glenn said.

“Seven hundred and you’ve got a deal,” Eddie said, though seven hundred wasn’t quite enough to get him where he wanted to be. But it was seven hundred more than he’d had fifteen minutes earlier, so why not call it a victory?

Eddie put on his Panama hat, the last one in his possession. He had wanted to replace the other two, but he didn’t have the money for such an extravagance.

Seven hundred grand: pay the mortgages on his commercial properties, pay the remaining bills on number 13, pay the mortgages on his house (also a month or two in arrears), pay Hester Phan’s stupid fucking “success bonus,” pay for electricity and water and groceries and gas, like the rest of America. Maybe-maybe-there would be enough to get the floors and countertops installed at number 13, maybe talk to a drywall guy and painters so he would be that much closer to selling and be able to assure Madeline that her money would be coming along shortly.

“I’ll have Ben draw up the papers,” Glenn said.

Lawyers’ fees. Seven hundred grand wasn’t nearly enough.

P for personal.

“Thanks, bro,” Eddie said.

Glenn Daley raised an eyebrow, and Eddie strolled out of the office.

GRACE

The shift was minuscule, but Grace noticed it right away. Benton pulled away from their kiss a second sooner than he might have normally. He said he couldn’t stay for lunch.

On the night of the Sunset Soiree, he had professed his love in the middle of the street. He had made love to Grace in his own bed (a welcome change from the garden shed). But now, he was acting strangely. Grace thought maybe he had been spooked on Friday morning, when she met his truck in the driveway and told him that Eddie hadn’t gone to work, that he was still upstairs asleep, due to the fiasco with Allegra.

Or maybe Benton was just doing that thing that men did when they got close to a woman and the feelings got scary.

She wasn’t sure, but Benton’s timing couldn’t have been worse. Grace needed him. She hadn’t talked to Madeline in three days.

Have you and Madeline had a falling-out?

It was almost like Blond Sharon had predicted it. The only relationship Grace could count on had blown up. Madeline had been so angry. Grace hadn’t even realized Madeline was capable of getting that angry. She was always so sunny and sweet, so California laid back. She took things in stride. She smiled, she listened, she excelled at understanding what she called “the three sides to every story.”

Grace missed her so much. Fifty or sixty times a day, something would happen and Grace would think, I have to tell Madeline. But then she would look at the phone, and she would think of Madeline’s words: Allegra is a cheater, and you, Grace, are a cheater. And Grace would shudder. Madeline didn’t want to hear from her. Madeline thought she was a common harlot.

It was awful heartache, fighting with her best friend. Madeline was probably hanging out at her apartment, breaking her writing discipline so she could meet Rachel McMann for lunch.

Eddie needed to pay Madeline back. Maybe if he did that, Madeline would be less angry, and Grace could call.

And now, on top of everything, Benton was acting funny.

Grace said, “Are you okay? You’re acting funny.”

“I’m not acting funny,” Benton said. “I just can’t stay for lunch today.”

“Nobody else is home, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Grace said. Eddie was back to work, Hope was at the rectory, and Allegra had gone into town to look for a volunteer job. She was to check in with either Eddie or Barbie in person at the office every hour. Neither Eddie nor Grace trusted that Allegra wouldn’t simply slip off to the beach.

“I’m not worried about that at all,” Benton said. He checked his phone. “I have to go.”

“Go, then,” Grace said. “You seem in a terrible hurry.”

He sighed. “Grace.”

“We only have two weeks until they come!” Grace said. She made a grand gesture with her hand. “Does this yard look ready to you?”

“Fifteen days,” Benton said. “And, actually, yes, it does.”

Grace couldn’t figure out what was happening here. This was the same man who had spelled out his love for her, was it not? He had said he didn’t care who heard him.

Then the worst came to mind.

“Is McGuvvy coming today?” Grace asked. “Is she flying in from California?”

“No, Grace,” Benton said. “She is not flying in. I don’t keep in touch with her-you know that.”

“Right,” Grace said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you seem distant, like you’re pulling away.”

Benton slid his phone into his pocket and faced Grace. “You should probably give your girls some attention.”

“I’m sorry?” Grace said. “Are you telling me how to parent?”

“I had a conversation with Hope,” Benton said. “It was no big deal, but even she told me Allegra was heading for trouble. I feel like I’m taking you away from your number-one responsibility.”

“You… no, you’re not,” Grace said. “The girls are… well, they’re sixteen. If I paid more attention to them, they would call me annoying and tell me to go away.”

Benton sighed. “You’re right. I have no business telling you how to parent.”

“Is something else bothering you?” Grace asked. “Something you’re afraid to tell me?”

Benton nodded slowly. “I think people are talking about us.”

“Do you?”

“There’s a woman named Donna who works for Mrs. Allemand, and she heard Madeline King was writing some sexy novel about a woman and her contractor. I guess people are saying it’s based on you and me.”

“Madeline?” Grace said. Madeline was writing a new novel, but Grace didn’t know the subject.

“You haven’t told Madeline about us, have you?” Benton asked.

“No,” Grace said. She feared the tops of her ears would burst into flames, giving her away.

“I know she’s your best friend,” Benton said.

“Was my best friend,” Grace said. “She isn’t speaking to me right now because of this thing with Allegra.”

“She’s not writing this as some kind of revenge, then, is she?” Benton asked.

“No,” Grace said, but her mind was racing to the night when Grace invited Madeline up to her study, and then all those phone calls. Madeline knew every detail. If she were writing a book… but no, Madeline wouldn’t do that, not even as a revenge tactic.

Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left.

Grace shook her head to clear it. “Who’s Donna?” she said. “And where did she hear this rumor?”

“I guess she’s friends with a girl named Greta, who’s the nanny for that blond woman Sharon that we saw at the party.”

“Oh God,” Grace said. “Sharon is awful. Sharon makes stuff up all the time and tries to pass it off as the truth.”

“Well, all I’m saying is what I heard.”

“I thought you didn’t care who knew,” Grace said. “That’s what you said the other night.”

“I had been drinking.”

“So you do care?”

“Well, I don’t love being the subject of gossip. I have a business to run. I hate to generalize like this, but it’s the women who hire me-however, it’s the men who pay the bills. But this all reflects much more poorly on you, Grace. I don’t want anyone thinking badly of you.”

Grace took a deep breath. “I’m ready to leave Eddie.”

Benton raised his eyebrows in an expression of boyish hope. “Really?”

“Really,” she said. Then she thought about the twins. Allegra was already such a mess, and Hope was fragile.

Benton read the doubt off her face, maybe, because he said, “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Let’s just work on the yard for the shoot for now.”

Grace nodded. “Okay.”

He said, “I’ll stay for lunch tomorrow, Grace, I promise.” He bent down and kissed her in a way that turned her inside out. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” Grace said.

Benton strode away, and a few seconds later, Grace heard the engine of his truck. She ran upstairs to her study and called Madeline.

Three rings, four rings, voice mail.

Grace said, “There’s a rumor going around that you’re writing your new novel about a woman having an affair with her contractor, and apparently some people think it’s about me and Benton? This had better not be true, Madeline.” Grace swallowed. “This had better not be true.”

MADELINE

She hadn’t held out much hope that Brick would want to ease his heartache by spending time with his mother, but Madeline offered, and Brick accepted. In the week following Allegra’s deception, they hung out together. The first day, they grabbed sandwiches from Something Natural and drove out to Sesachacha Pond, where Madeline sat at the water’s edge and Brick listened to music on his headphones. The second day it rained, so they went to the movies at the Dreamland Theatre, each with their own tub of popcorn and box of Milk Duds. The third day, they rode their bikes to Madaket and napped on the beach until the sun set in orange and pink streaks-then Trevor met them at Millie’s for fish tacos.

The fourth day, Brick wanted to “stay home and chill,” whatever that meant, so Madeline wrote in her apartment all day.

The fifth day, Brick asked Madeline if she wanted to join him and Parker Marz at Cisco Beach.

“Sure,” Madeline said. Parker was smaller in stature than Brick’s other friends, but he was smart and funny and related well to adults, and Madeline enjoyed his company.

When she pulled into the parking lot at Cisco, she said, “Are you sure you want me tagging along? I can just drop you guys and come back and pick you up later.”

“You should definitely join us, Mrs. Llewellyn,” Parker said. “Our social cred will skyrocket in the presence of a beautiful woman.”

“Dude, chill,” Brick said. He smiled for the first time in who knew how long. “It’s my mom.”

“Should I just drop you?” Madeline asked Brick.

“No, Mom, come with us. It’s cool,” Brick said.

Madeline followed the boys down to the beach and set up three chairs. Cisco was home to the Nantucket surf scene-young guys in wet suits standing possessively next to their boards, and the gorgeous, underfed girls who loved them. Madeline also recognized the elder statesmen of surf-men like Sultan Nash, the housepainter, and Thornton Bayle, paving king, who had ditched work for waves. Then there was a slew of aspirants-from kids Brick’s age all the way down to fourth- and fifth-graders.

Brick charged into the water to bodysurf while Parker plopped into the chair next to Madeline.

“I think he’s doing a little better each day,” Parker said.

Madeline nearly laughed. “Do you?”

“He’s my bro,” Parker said. “And he got done wrong by that… well, excuse my French, Mrs. Llewellyn, but by that bitch, Pancik. That’s the risk you take when you date a beautiful girl. Allegra is the most popular girl in school-well, her and Hollis; I mean, I have no prayer of scoring even one date with someone of their caliber, but the good thing”-Parker held an arm out to indicate Brick, floating alone over the swells-“is that I do not own a time share in Heartbreak City.”

“You guys are all really young,” Madeline said. “I think maybe Brick and Allegra were too immature for an exclusive relationship.”

“It sounds like you’re letting Allegra off the hook, Mrs. Llewellyn,” Parker said. “And I hate to see you being a softie. Allegra had been cheating on him for a while. I saw her at the Cape Cod Mall with Ian back in April. They were at the Chanel counter. I mean, come on, is it not totally obvious what game Allegra was playing? She picked an older guy with money. Brick never stood a chance!” Parker let out a weary sigh. “I just hope our boy bounces back.”

Madeline reached over and squeezed Parker’s arm. “He’s lucky he has a good friend like you.”

“I love that kid,” Parker said. “He’s my bro.”

Madeline smiled, and then she brought her legal pad out of her book bag.

“Is that your new novel?” Parker asked. “My mom tells me it’s a real doozy.”

Madeline had received Grace’s voice mail-This had better not be true, Madeline. This had better not be true-but it hadn’t stopped Madeline’s progress on the novel or even slowed her down. Madeline was going to write B/G until Eddie paid her back her money!

As soon as Madeline got home from the beach, her phone started to buzz. Rachel McMann. Madeline was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but, to be honest, she was starved for female interaction. She ached for Grace every second of every day.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Rachel said.

Madeline sniffed. She already didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

“What?” she said.

“I heard?” Rachel said. “That Grace Pancik…?”

“Oh God,” Madeline said.

“Took Benton Coe, her gardener, as her date to the Sunset Soiree, and now Jean Burton thinks she’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Madeline said. “Grace?” This pierced her. She had tried and tried and tried to have another baby. If Grace had gotten accidentally pregnant by Benton Coe…

But no, uh-uh, no way, not possible. This was gossip at its most insidious.

“Rachel,” Madeline said. “There is nothing going on between Grace and Benton Coe. Grace is happily, happily married to Eddie. So, please, Rachel…?”

“Yes?” Rachel said.

“Mind your own business,” Madeline said.

EDDIE

He walked into the office with one thing on his mind. He had tried calling Barbie at home, and he’d left two messages on her cell-no response.

Eloise was in but on the phone. Eddie collapsed into Barbie’s chair. She was wearing a red Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and four-inch Manolos and the whopper pearl at her throat.

Eddie wondered if Glenn Daley had ever held that pearl between his teeth.

He said, “I’m selling numbers nine and eleven Eagle Wing Lane to Glenn Daley.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know.”

“You know?” Eddie said.

“Someone in his office sent over the paperwork,” Barbie said. On her desk were two large coffees from the Handlebar Café, Barbie’s new favorite place. She handed one to Eddie that was loaded with milk.

“Thank you,” Eddie said. Barbie never brought him coffee. So this was a peace offering, or a please-don’t-hate-me-for-sleeping-with-Glenn-Daley offering. Eddie was dying to address the issue, but he feared that to do so would be to embarrass them both. But he wanted her to know that he knew. He knew for sure.

“From now on,” he said, “I’m going to schedule the girls.”

Barbie shot a glance across the room at Eloise. She nodded. She was so damn insouciant that Eddie wanted to pick up her stapler and throw it across the office just to get a response.

“Okay?” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

The next group in was Nightbill, a little more than two weeks hence. It was some kind of accounting or payroll firm from Kansas City. The contact person was a man named Bugsy Greer.

Bugsy? Eddie thought. He had checked the guy’s photo out online. Quite frankly, he looked like someone from a horror show. He was completely bald, and there was something wrong with his teeth. Eddie had wondered which of the girls would have to have sex with Bugsy Greer, but then he shuddered and tried to think of something pleasant-hot-air balloons, Christmas trees.

He was very nervous as he prepared to make the phone call. He left the office with his cell phone and loitered at the edge of the Nantucket Yacht Club parking lot. It was now summer, which meant that Eddie had to be more careful, or the attendant stationed at the guardhouse would tell Eddie to scram, or one of the old ladies carrying a Nantucket lightship basket would scold him.

He lingered on the far side of a brand-new Range Rover. He wished he’d listened more closely to Barbie when she was propositioning these groups.

Bugsy answered, “Hello?”

Eddie spoke so quickly, he tripped over his words. Hey, there, Bugsy, this is Eddie Pancik, your real-estate agent on Nantucket? Excited about coming to the island? Need any dinner reservations? Pearl? Cru? Ventuno?

And then Eddie said: Listen, here’s something for on the down low. We have a cleaning crew of five Russian girls who do more than just clean.

“Really?” Bugsy said, his voice perking up.

“Really,” Eddie said. “They can come back at night, if you’d like.”

“We would like,” Bugsy said.

“Would you?” Eddie said. He took some steady breaths. “You understand me, then?”

“I think so, yes,” Bugsy said. “How much?”

“Twelve thousand a night,” Eddie said. He felt both bad and good about raising the price. He was going to keep the extra two grand for himself.

Sleeping with Glenn Daley!

“That’s fine,” Bugsy said.

“Will you pay night by night or all at once?” Eddie asked.

“Which do you prefer?”

“All at once,” Eddie said. “If you can make that happen, Bugsy?”

“I can make that happen,” Bugsy said. “Bugsy” was obviously some kind of nickname, and Eddie felt ridiculous using it. “I can make anything happen.”

“I like the confidence of that statement,” Eddie said.

A few days later, when Eddie checked his voice mail, there was a message from Madeline. He thought maybe she was calling to express her dismay or anger over Allegra’s behavior, and Eddie was ready to list all the ways he’d punished his daughter: He’d taken away her phone, and she was grounded until further notice. No beach with friends, no parties, and she was never to see the Coburn kid again.

But it turned out that Madeline wasn’t calling about Allegra.

The message said, I’ve called Layton Gray, Eddie.

Layton Gray was the Llewellyns’ attorney, the very same attorney Eddie himself had recommended back when they needed someone to do their real-estate closing. He’s going to take action against you unless you pay us back by the end of next week. I’m being nice here, Eddie. You’ve got ten days. Then she hung up.

“What?” Eddie said. “No good-bye?”

He was selling numbers 9 and 11 to Glenn Daley, and he would use some of the cash to pay Madeline and Trevor back. He would get out from under his debt, and he would live his life on the straight and narrow-as soon as he could.

He called home to check in with Grace and the girls. How long had it been since he’d called just because? He would do it more often, he decided. He would do it every day.

Grace said, “Hi, there.” She sounded perplexed. “Everything okay?”

“Just checking in!” Eddie said. “How’s everything there? Are the girls home?”

“Yes,” Grace said. “They’re both here. Neither of them is working today, so the three of us are going to the Galley for lunch.”

Eddie wondered if “grounding” Allegra could reasonably mean taking her to the Galley for lunch. But he knew how much Grace wanted special together times with the twins, and that would never happen unless Allegra were grounded-sad fact. Eddie himself loved the Galley for lunch or sunset cocktails, although he hadn’t gone yet this summer. It was pricey. He wished Grace were tougher and had suggested Allegra take over mowing the lawn.

“Allegra seems… different,” Grace said.

“In a good way or a bad way?” Eddie asked.

“Good way?” Grace said. “Like she might actually be contrite?”

“Yeah, well, she’d better be,” Eddie said. He needed to hang up before his good mood evaporated completely. “Glad to hear things are headed in that direction. Have fun at lunch!”

“We will,” Grace said.

HOPE

In a mere four days, Allegra’s world had imploded like a dying star.

On the morning after, Hope had relented and allowed Allegra to use her phone to text Brick and Hollis and her other friends-but the results weren’t pretty. Brick told her to never contact him again. He said she had made a joke of him. He had loved her as well as he knew how, but clearly it wasn’t enough love or the right kind of love, which was fine, but he wasn’t going to waste another second on her. Good-bye and good luck, he said.

The calm, firm words freaked Allegra out. Hope had never seen her sister lose her composure in this way. Allegra was screaming, her hair was wild, and she tore around Hope’s bedroom as though looking for a way off the Titanic. She stared at Hope’s phone, saying, “What do I tell him? How do I get him to forgive me?”

Hope sighed. She wished that she, like Cyrano de Bergerac, had magic words to offer her sister. But, even with as little experience as Hope had with relationships, she knew that Brick was beyond Allegra’s reach at this point. He might forgive her in ten years or, more likely, twenty or thirty-when he was forty-six and possibly had a tempestuous sixteen-year-old daughter of his own.

“I don’t know?” she said.

Allegra handed Hope the phone and said, “Here, you text him. He’s always liked you. He respects you. Tell him I’m not doing well. Tell him to at least take my phone call.”

“Okay,” Hope said. She sent Brick a text that said: Hot glass looks like cool glass.

She waited. Surely he would respond to their secret code?

Nothing.

She texted: My sister isn’t doing well. She’s probably too selfish to actually kill herself, but high anxiety and depression are likely. Can you please just talk to her? Thanks. Your friend, Hope.

Brick responded: Please never contact me again.

Hope texted: It’s me, Hope. Really. Hot glass looks like cool glass.

Brick texted: Yes, I know, Hope. Please never contact me again.

Hope felt stung. This was not how it was supposed to go. Hope and Brick were supposed to forge a secret connection, a deep simpatico understanding that would lead to Brick falling in love with her. Brick was supposed to realize that Hope was everything Allegra was, only she was also good, nice, kind, and honest.

Hope threw the phone down on the bed. “He hates me, too, apparently.”

Allegra started to wail. She picked the phone up to call him again, and that was when the screen started blowing up with texts from Hollis, Hannah, Kenzie, and Bluto. And none of them were very nice. Hope read the texts over Allegra’s shoulder and cringed at the names her friends were calling her: boozehound, pothead, anorexic slut.

“Do I look anorexic?” Allegra asked, showing Hope the photo.

“Well, you don’t look fat,” Hope said, in a voice meant to point out a silver lining. In fact, despite the gruesome circumstances, the photo of Allegra was gorgeous in a way. Minus the booze and dope, Allegra and Ian might have been doing a shoot for fragrance. “Maybe the photo will go viral and someone at a modeling agency will see it?”

Allegra gave her sister a hopeful, watery gaze. “You think? Maybe?”

A text came in from Bluto: Lying, cheating slut.

“Maybe,” Hope said.

Allegra put up a good fight. She had some choice words for Hollis and Kenzie, and she unleashed a mighty wrath on Bluto, calling him a lard-ass succubus. When she ran out of oomph, she fell back on the bed next to Hope.

She said, “I don’t know what to do.”

Hope said, “They’ll come around.”

“It doesn’t matter. The toothpaste is out of the tube. You can’t call someone a lying, cheating slut and then take it back. These are relationship destroyers. It’s all Hollis’s fault. She’s been waiting for years to knock me down.”

Hope had to concede that this might be true. Hollis and Allegra were pretty well matched, but Allegra had always been just a little bit luckier. Now that she had proved herself fallible, Hollis would solely retain the title of Queen Bee.

“This too shall pass away,” Hope said.

“So what do I do until then?”

Hope didn’t understand the question and said so.

“What do I do until it ‘passes away’?” Allegra said. “I don’t have a job, like you. Now I can’t go to the beach. I’m forbidden from leaving the house, for starters, but even if I weren’t grounded, I couldn’t go to the beach alone.”

“Well,” Hope said, “you could always read.”

“Read?” Allegra said. Her tone of voice contained actual wonder, as if to say, What? As if to say, Why would I do that?

Hope tossed her sister the copy of Lolita. Hope had recently finished it and was thus able to claim personhood. The book had been excellent, thought provoking, original, and weird.

“Read this,” Hope said. “There are some big words in it. It’ll help you with your critical reading score.”

Allegra studied the cover of the book skeptically. “Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov. Is it even in English?”

“Yes,” Hope said. “It’s about a grown man named Humbert Humbert, who abducts a thirteen-year-old girl and drives with her across America.”

“Sick,” Allegra said, but Hope could tell her interest was piqued.

Allegra had stayed in Hope’s bedroom all of that first bad day, reading and napping, and Hope stayed in the room as well. She plowed through most of House of Mirth, and then she practiced her flute. She told herself she was staying in her room to watch over her sister so that she didn’t do anything stupid, but really Hope was just enjoying their quiet camaraderie. When Hope finished playing a selection from Mozart’s Flute Concerto in G, Allegra-who was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, with Lolita splayed open on her chest-said, “You’re really good. I wish I were good at something.”

Hope said, “You’re good at things.”

“Like what?”

Hope took her flute apart and pulled felt through the mouthpiece. The things that Allegra was good at-being pretty, being popular-were pretty compromised at that moment.

“Like what, Hope?”

“Like lots of things,” Hope said. “I’m not going to sit here and enumerate your many talents.”

“Because you can’t,” Allegra said. “Because I don’t have any talents. Because I’m a mean-hearted, cheating, lying tramp.”

“Oh, stop it,” Hope said. “You made a mistake, is all. We’re young. We’re supposed to make mistakes, learn from them, and move on.”

“Tell me one good thing about myself,” Allegra said. “Please? One thing.”

“You have a great sense of style,” Hope said.

Allegra was quiet. Her eyes closed. “You’re right,” she said. “I do.”

Hope would have guessed that Allegra’s newfound humility would be short lived and that by the end of the first day of shame, she would have tired of Hope’s company. But on the second week, Allegra had managed to score a volunteer job at the Weezie Library for Children, shelving books part time. Their mother was so pleased that she suggested lunch at the Galley, just the three of them. Allegra not only agreed but actually seemed excited. Excited to be seen in public with Grace and Hope? Well, it would get her out of the house-she would be relieved about that, maybe-and the Galley was fancy, so she would have a chance to dress up. Hope wore her strapless Lilly Pulitzer dress with the turquoise-and-white butterfly print. Allegra wore a jade-green patio dress from Tbags Los Angeles and a pair of Dolce Vita gladiator sandals. Hope had French braided her hair, but Allegra did some messy half-up, half-down style right out of Vogue.

“It’s really not fair how beautiful you are,” Hope said.

Allegra actually seemed embarrassed. “You look just like me,” she said. “We’re identical twins.”

“Except you’re Alice,” Hope said, “and I’m the Dormouse.”

“Stop,” Allegra said. She lifted the end of Hope’s braid and tickled Hope’s nose with it. “We can both be Alice.”

Lunch at the Galley was fun and special, despite Grace announcing every five minutes how fun and special it was. Grace took their picture at the entrance to the beautiful beachfront restaurant, and then, once they were all seated, she had their waiter take a photo of the three of them.

“These are my twin girls,” Grace announced, loudly enough for half the restaurant to hear. “I can’t believe how lucky I am today. This is so special.”

Hope turned to Allegra to shoot an eye roll, but Allegra was smiling at their mother in earnest.

???? Hope thought. Allegra seemed totally into the mother-daughter-daughter luncheon. It was weird. A month ago, if Grace had suggested this outing, Allegra would have flat-out refused. Or if Grace had guilted or threatened her enough, she would have sat sullenly at the table and texted the entire time.

Of course, now there was no phone and no one to text.

Grace ordered a glass of white wine, Allegra a Diet Coke, Hope an iced tea. They did a cheers. Grace said, “This is so fun! This is so, so special. Thank you for joining me.”

“You don’t have to thank us for coming to lunch with you,” Allegra said. “You’re our mother.”

Maybe Allegra is being nice in an attempt to become ungrounded, Hope thought. She was doing such a good job, it might actually work.

Grace ordered the gazpacho and the Gruyère-and-spring-onion omelet. Allegra ordered the lobster salad. Hope ordered the mixed greens with blueberries and goat cheese, and a side of fries. They were seated with a view overlooking the white beach, the lifeguard stand, the blue, green, and yellow umbrellas of Cliffside, and the placid blue water of Nantucket Sound. Sailboats dotted the horizon, and the steamship cut its way over to Hyannis. A breeze lifted the lip of the awning.

“As I’m sure you probably know,” Grace said, “the Boston Globe is coming to do a photo shoot and feature article on our garden next week. So Benton will be around a lot to help me get the garden ready.”

Allegra said, “Benton who?”

“Mom’s gardener,” Hope said. “He’s the one who gave me Lolita.”

“I really like that book,” Allegra said. “I mean, it’s disturbing, but it’s holding my interest. What are you reading, Hope?”

Hope said, “House of Mirth, Edith Wharton.”

Grace said, “I read that a million years ago, during my freshman year at Holyoke.”

“Maybe I’ll read that next,” Allegra said.

Hope thought, Where’s my sister?

They ordered a brownie sundae with three spoons, and Grace got a cappuccino and the check. As Grace paid the bill, Allegra nudged Hope under the table. Mrs. Kraft, their English teacher, was headed straight for them.

“Look at the lovely Pancik ladies lunching,” Mrs. Kraft said. She beamed at the table.

Grace stood up and gave Mrs. Kraft an air kiss. “Hello, Ruth.”

Hope wondered if she and Allegra would be expected to greet Mrs. Kraft in such a manner. Air kiss her English teacher? She couldn’t bring herself to do anything but wave. Ruth Kraft-all the kids called her Ruthie behind her back-had a cumulus cloud of frizzy brown hair. She had been trained as an opera singer, and her classroom trademark was to belt out those phrases to which she wanted to give emphasis. Allegra, especially, liked to imitate her.

Shall I compare theeeeeeeeeee to a summer’s daaaaaaaaaay!

Mrs. Kraft had given Allegra a D, but there was Allegra, beaming an angelic smile anyway, saying, “Hiya, Mrs. Kraft!”

Mrs. Kraft said, “And how’s our summer going?” Something about the way she sang it out made it sound like she was fishing for information. Was it possible that Mrs. Kraft had heard about Allegra getting caught drinking and smoking pot while modeling her underwear for Ian Coburn? If Mrs. Kraft knew, then it was official: everyone knew. Had Mrs. Kraft seen the photo? Hope felt seriously bad for her sister. News like that would quickly make its way around the faculty room in the fall, and Allegra would have no one to ask for letters of recommendation. Last week, Hope would have found this gratifying. But now, she and Allegra were like the Corsican Brothers; someone kicked Allegra in the shin, and Hope felt the pain.

“The girls were just talking about all the books they’ve been reading,” Grace said.

“Speaking of reading!” Mrs. Kraft said. She turned her attention now to Grace. “Have you heard about the new Madeline King novel? It’s supposed to be quite scandalous.”

“I haven’t heard a thing,” Grace said. And with a hand motion like the one Father Declan used at Mass, she indicated that the girls should both stand up. “I’ve been busy with the garden and the hens.”

“I just figured you would know about it,” Mrs. Kraft said. “Since you and Madeline are such close friends.”

“Actually,” Grace said, “Madeline and I aren’t speaking at the moment.”

This seemed to throw Mrs. Kraft for a loop-de-loop. She answered in a normal speaking voice. “Oh, I’m so sorry… open mouth, insert espadrille. I should never have brought it up.”

Grace smiled ruefully and fiddled with the clasp of her purse. “Probably not.”

Hope studied her mother. She wasn’t speaking to Madeline? This was outrageous news, so outrageous that Hope thought her mother was lying-but then she realized that there had been an absence the past week or so; her mother hadn’t been locked in her study on the phone with Madeline, like she usually was. Was it because of what had happened between Allegra and Brick? Or was it because Grace was so engrossed by Benton and the garden? Every once in a while, it occurred to Hope that her mother was a human being with her own complicated set of emotions. She wondered if Grace and Madeline had had a fight, like Allegra and Hollis. But weren’t Grace and Madeline too old for that kind of behavior?

Hope shifted her weight. She wanted to tell Mrs. Kraft to buzz off, go sing her arias or recite her sonnets, leave their mother alone. As if sharing this very same thought, Allegra spoke up.

“It was nice to see you, Mrs. Kraft. Enjoy your lunch.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Kraft said. She seemed so taken aback by this polite rebuff from her worst student that she wobbled on the wedge heels of her espadrilles. “Yes, thank you, I will.”

Hope gave Mrs. Kraft a second little wave-this one of farewell-and followed her mother and sister out of the restaurant.

GRACE

Nantucket had a week of heat, and when Grace said heat she meant temperatures in the high eighties and low nineties. It was hot enough that the girls would come home from their volunteer jobs and jump right into the pool and Grace would stay inside with the central air-conditioning cranked unless she was tending the chickens or Benton was around.

Benton came only for a perfunctory hour, and he was all business. He couldn’t stay for lunch or for any other reason. His other gardens were in crisis, he said.

Because of the heat.

Then the heat broke, and they got two and a half days of relentless, pounding rain.

On the first rainy day, Benton texted: Not coming today. Staying home to catch up on paperwork.

Grace curled up in bed and fought off a migraine. Was she really going to consider leaving Eddie for this man?

The second day, he texted, Not coming today. Doing bills. BTW, I have a substantial one for Eddie, you might want to warn him?

Migraine. Grace thought, Not coming today to see the woman you love, or your pet project; sending Eddie a substantial bill, which would send Eddie through the roof. He was still complaining about Hester Phan’s fee, and when Grace had broached the matter of Madeline and Trevor’s fifty thousand dollars, Eddie had glared at Grace and said, Honestly, Grace, what do you think I do all day?

Madeline hadn’t responded to Grace’s voice mail, and Grace began to worry that she’d done further damage to the relationship. She went back and forth between believing that Madeline was writing a novel about her and Benton-Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left-and thinking that it was just a bad rumor cooked up by Blond Sharon.

But then Ruth Kraft mentioned Madeline’s book, and Grace wondered how ditzy Ruth Kraft would have found out about it?

It must be true?

It couldn’t be true. Madeline would never, ever do that, no matter how angry she was.

Would she?

If it were true, Grace would… she would… well, she would be so mad that she couldn’t fathom what she would do. She had shared everything with Madeline in confidence! They had been friends for nearly twenty years!

Madeline would never, Grace decided. It was just a rumor.

Unless Madeline was exacting some kind of revenge.

Allegra is a cheater, and you, Grace, are a cheater.

What Madeline clearly didn’t understand was that Grace was in love. There was nothing she could do about it!

The pain in her head descended, pressure like a lead helmet, squeezing, squeezing, crushing her skull. She was in love; she was dying to talk to Madeline and get the mess sorted out, but really, Grace wanted only Benton.

On a trip to the bathroom-the only reason she rose from bed-she stared out the window at her soggy backyard.

A garden was no good in the rain.

Happiness restored. The sun came out. Benton returned with a big smile and a ferocious appetite for Grace. He loved her again. The big day was nearly upon them.

Lawn mowed and trimmed, beds weeded, roses blooming, perennial bed freshly mulched, daylilies deadheaded, pool skimmed, chaises arranged with pillows plumped, grill scrubbed, deck swept, canvas umbrella cleaned, Adirondack chairs wiped down, hammock tightened. Together, Benton and Grace walked every inch of the property, clipping blossoms for an arrangement, smoothing imperfections in the white shell driveway, filling the bird feeders.

“It’s ready,” Benton said. He kissed Grace deeply up against the side of his truck. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Clara Teasdale, the Boston Globe’s home-and-garden editor, and Big George, a Globe staff photographer, arrived in a car driven by Bernie Wu. Bernie and Grace were friendly because Bernie Wu’s daughter, Chloe, played the flute in the student orchestra with Hope. Apparently, Bernie felt comfortable enough in his friendship with Grace that he showed up forty-five minutes early and bypassed the front door. He walked Clara and Big George around the side of the house, to the backyard. He had stopped at the henhouse and pointed at each chicken, indiscriminately naming them, “Martha, Dolly, Eleanor, Ladybird, Hillary.” Bernie Wu’s wife was a big fan of Grace’s eggs and was good for five dozen a month.

Clara laughed at the names. “First ladies,” she said.

Grace and Benton were making fast, furious love in the garden shed, Grace clinging to Benton, wanting him farther and farther inside of her, wanting to become him. He thrilled her, he challenged her, he was her great big shining sun.

Grace heard what she thought were voices. Then, she clearly heard a female voice say, First ladies. She pulled away from Benton. “They’re here.”

“Already?” Benton said. He checked his watch. “Forty-five minutes early?”

Silently, they adjusted their clothes. Grace tried to smooth the wrinkles out of her pale-pink linen shift. “You ready?” she asked.

Benton nodded, and Grace swung open the door to the shed and stepped out to greet their visitors. Grace noted the confused expression on Bernie’s face when Benton followed her out. He was, at least, holding a rake and a clipboard.

Bernie then started speaking very quickly. Grace could tell he was nervous, but whether that was because he had overstepped his bounds by barging into the backyard or because he realized he had interrupted something, she wasn’t sure. Maybe he was just impressed by Clara and Big George and by the idea of Grace and Eddie’s yard being featured in the Boston Globe. Grace hoped that was it, and she endeavored to set everything back to normal while continuously smoothing the front of her dress. She tried not to think of Benton’s hands lifting it.

“Well, I’m off,” Bernie said. “I’ll be back here to pick you up at twelve thirty.” He gave Grace a smile of what seemed like genuine good luck, and she waved. Big George was already at the far edge of the property, shooting a stream of photos of the Adirondack chairs and the placid blue surface of Polpis Harbor beyond, framed by Grace’s blue lace hydrangeas.

Clara Teasdale was smitten with the yard and probably also with Benton, who was taking enormous pride in showing off his favorite features-the rocks of the streambed, the perennials, the roses, which were luscious enough to eat. The entire property was showing off. Benton lingered by the bench that held the potted ferns, and he described how he’d found the only Parisian antiques dealer wise enough to salvage the old benches from the Jardin des Tuileries.

Grace took over with Clara when it was time to talk about the hens. She even let Clara harvest half a dozen pale-blue eggs from the nesting boxes, despite the ladies’ clucking disapproval at a stranger performing this task. Grace then threw open the door to the garden shed and listened to Clara oooh and ahhh over Grace’s collection of watering cans and the high polish of the copper sink and the practicality yet allure of the soapstone countertop.

Big George snapped photos in a constant, clicking stream.

Grace showed off the riding mower in its alcove, then Big George asked Grace if she wouldn’t mind bringing it out to the middle of the emerald-green grass and perching upon it in her pink linen sheath.

Clickclickclick.

As the hour wore on, there were suggestions of other fanciful photos-one of Benton amid the roses, brandishing the largest set of clippers, one of Grace standing ankle deep in the shallow end of her pool, and one of both Benton and Grace hanging from their arms from the branch of the big elm.

Then it was time for lunch. They hadn’t discussed lunch as part of the shoot, but, nevertheless, Grace had gone all out. She’d made six kinds of tea sandwich-egg salad, naturally; cucumber and herbed cream cheese; radish and sweet butter; curried chicken salad; roast beef with horseradish mayo; and ham and baby Swiss. She had also bought three cartons of big, fat strawberries, and she’d made meringues and fresh lime curd.

Big George snapped photos of the food, and Grace was tickled.

She pulled a bottle of Schramsberg rosé sparkling wine from Eddie’s wine cellar, and, using Grace’s ten-inch chef’s knife, Benton sabered off the top. The cork landed in the daylily bed, and everyone cheered. Grace, Benton, and Clara sat for the lunch, and they posed for Big George. Grace fed Benton a strawberry. Clara overfilled her champagne flute and drowned her ham and Swiss. Grace made Big George a plate piled high with sandwiches, and when he stopped to eat, Grace stole his camera and took pictures of him stuffing his face.

Benton said to George, “Are you a Stones fan, man?”

George said, “Isn’t everybody?”

Benton plugged his phone into the outdoor speaker and played “Loving Cup.” He poured the last of the sparkling wine between Grace’s and Clara’s glasses.

Benton said, “This has sort of been the theme song of our summer.”

Clara said, “I can honestly say I’ve never had this much fun at a shoot before.”

Grace agreed. It was fun. She envisioned life with Benton being this playful, this sensuous and carefree, every single day.

As Clara finished her wine, she ran through the notes she’d taken, aloud: Benton, Ohio State grounds-crew work-study job; Surrey, England; passion for roses; Savannah, Oxford, the Nantucket Historical Association.

Clara looked up and narrowed her eyes. “How did you find Grace?”

Benton gave Grace a look that could only be described as filled with love. “She found me,” he said.

Clickclickclick.

NANTUCKET

Many of us knew the Pancik property would be featured in Sunday’s Boston Globe, but others were taken by surprise as we stirred cream and sugar into our freshly brewed coffee and opened our newspapers. However, even those of us who knew to expect the article were astonished by what we saw. For starters, the article was entitled Nantucket’s Private Eden. And the first photo-BAM! larger than life and in full color-was of Grace Pancik feeding Benton Coe a fat, delectable strawberry.

Whoa!

The caption read: Homeowner Grace Pancik enjoys an alfresco luncheon with landscape architect Benton Coe, owner of Coe Designs.

The article read: Some matches are made in heaven, such as the one between Nantucket resident Grace Pancik and Benton Coe, the man she hired to design and execute the landscaping of her three-acre property in Wauwinet.

Whoa!

Followed by a few paragraphs of background on Benton: impressive, but nothing we didn’t already know.

Followed by a few paragraphs of background on Grace: Mrs. Pancik was a French-literature major at Mount Holyoke College, which explains her fondness for the garden bench salvaged from the Jardin des Tuileries that is said to date back to the age of Louis XIV, Colbert, and the renowned Parisian landscape architect André Le Nôtre. This exact bench used to grace a long terrace, overlooking the Seine, called the Terrasse du Bord-de-l’Eau and most likely provided respite for the likes of Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet after a tiring visit to the nearby Louvre. Such vivid historical details thrill Mrs. Pancik and fuel her romantic imagination.

Mrs. Pancik is also passionate about her daylily bed, which she planted as a tribute to her beloved, now-deceased grandmother, Sabine Roddin-Baste, who kept an estate in Wayland with an apple orchard and a croquet lawn.

“My grandmother Sabine adored daylilies,” Mrs. Pancik said. “She was the one who fostered my deep appreciation for green spaces.”

Followed by a photo collage: Grace aboard a riding mower, looking not unlike a queen upon a throne; Grace and Benton hanging side by side from a branch like children on a playground; Grace drinking from a flute of champagne as Benton gazed upon her; Grace wading in the shallow end of her pool; Benton standing in the rose bed with a gargantuan pair of clippers; one of the hens-Martha or Dolly-strutting in the yard; and the inside of the garden shed, copper farmer’s sink gleaming like a new penny. The sign above the sink read: A garden is not a matter of life or death. It is far more important than that.

Followed by paragraphs about how Grace and Benton collaborated on every aspect of the yard in their attempt to create different “moments.” The pool and hot tub, tiled in bottle green and surrounded by antique pavers and real Nantucket cobblestones, made one feel that one had happened across a swimming hole in the woods. The rolling green lawn encouraged a stroll toward the Adirondack chairs, set where one could simultaneously hear the stream that ran along the back of the Pancik property and see the sailboats on Polpis Harbor. Suspended between two-hundred-year-old elms was a hammock where Mrs. Pancik often relaxed as she read Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas within full view of the glorious rose bed, featuring twenty-two varieties of rose.

“But the essence of what we were trying to accomplish,” Coe says, “is embodied in the garden shed.”

Mrs. Pancik agrees. “That’s really our baby,” she says.

Jody Rouisse called Susan Prendergast. “I, for one, think it’s disgusting,” she said. “I mean, is it not obvious to everyone on earth that those two are lovers? She was feeding him.”

“Like Adam and Eve in the garden,” Susan said. “Do you think the writer had inside information?”

“There was no mention of Eddie,” Jody said. “I mean, they referred to her as Mrs. Pancik, but it was like Eddie and the twins didn’t exist.”

“I have to say, the way Benton is looking at her in that one photo is pretty hot,” Susan said. “I wish someone would look at me like that.”

“I thought the mention of the bench from the Tuileries was pretentious. And Grace reads Victor Hugo in the hammock?” Jody said. “It’s probably more like Cosmo.”

“She was a French-literature major,” Susan said. “I hear her library is stacked with first editions.”

“Well, what about Grace calling the garden shed their ‘baby’?” Jody said. “You know, Jean Burton thought she looked pregnant. I think there’s a good chance that shed isn’t the only baby.”

“Her roses are absolutely incredible,” Susan said. “You have to give her that.”

“Fine,” Jody said. “I’ll give her that.”

Dr. Andy McMann saw the paper first. Normally, he savored the solitude of his Sunday mornings. Calgary slept late, and Rachel slept even later. This allowed Dr. Andy to sit out on his deck, enjoy the sunshine and the breeze, drink his coffee, eat his lightly buttered rye toast and half a ripe avocado, listen to Schubert, and read the Globe. He usually skipped the Home & Garden section, but his eye happened to catch a glimpse of the word Nantucket, and he checked to see what it was all about.

Grace Pancik’s yard. Some hotshot landscaper. Dr. Andy read the article and studied the pictures, and a feeling of distinct discomfort started at the base of his spine and traveled up to his neck. His landlord, Eddie Pancik, was being cuckolded by this Coe fellow-that much was obvious! Dr. Andy was hesitant to awaken Rachel for any reason, but this, he felt, couldn’t wait. He carried the newspaper up to their bedroom.

Alicia Buckler, a title examiner for the Town of Nantucket, was reading the Globe while standing in line, waiting for a table at Black-Eyed Susan’s, along with the rest of the world. She turned to her wife Janice, and pointed at the photo of Grace and Benton hanging from the tree branch.

“I think we’ve both been working too hard,” Alicia said. “We should take a vacation and goof off like these people.”

Janice gasped. “That’s Grace Pancik!” she said. “And Benton Coe.”

Alicia thrust the paper at Janice in frustration. She was sick and tired of the way Janice seemed to know everyone on the island just because she cleaned their teeth. And she was fed up with their Sunday routine of eating at Black-Eyed Susan’s. Every week, an hour of their day was wasted by waiting in line. Alicia pined for the olden days, when one could get breakfast at the Jared Coffin House, but if she brought this up, Janice would call her an old fuddy-duddy, and they would start to fight. Alicia was eight months older than Janice, and she was sensitive about it.

“Enjoy your tofu Benedict,” Alicia said. “I’m going home.”

But Janice didn’t hear. She was too engrossed in the article.

Glenn Daley rolled over and nearly crushed Barbie. They were lying in bed, drinking mimosas and reading the paper. Glenn had been with a lot of women, but never had he enjoyed creature comforts like good champagne and five-hundred-thread-count sheets and fresh flowers by the bed the way he did with Barbie. And she smelled delicious, even when she first woke up. He didn’t like to think that he was falling in love-his wife had ruined love for him forever-but he sure as hell didn’t want to be doing anything else or be with anyone else on this Sunday morning.

“Look at this,” Glenn said, showing Barbie the paper. “Your sister-in-law.”

“Good God,” Barbie said.

EDDIE

As the terrible old cliché goes: When it rains, it pours.

On Friday afternoon, Eddie received not one but two disturbing phone calls. One was from Madeline and Trevor’s attorney, Layton Gray, and one was from Philip Meier, at the bank.

Layton was calling about the investment of fifty thousand dollars. His clients were very upset, Layton said, and they wanted their money back. Eddie and Layton had worked together on countless real-estate deals. Eddie not only considered Layton a good guy; he considered him a sort-of friend, and so what bothered Eddie most about the message was Layton’s tone of voice. It was litigious and smoothly distant, with no hint that Layton even knew Eddie, much less had thrown a few back with him at the bar at the Great Harbor Yacht Club.

“Please call me to discuss,” Layton said, “before I have to take legal action.”

Legal action? Eddie didn’t think there were grounds for legal action. It had been a good-faith investment. Madeline and Trevor had written a check, and Eddie had promised them double back-a hundred grand-once he sold the houses. He had made a photocopy of the check and written across the bottom of the page, Llewellyn investment in Eagle Wing Lane, and then the three of them had signed the paper, which Eddie again copied, giving the original to Madeline and Trevor and keeping the copy for himself.

Nothing legal, nothing binding. A good-faith investment between friends.

And yet, the words good faith gnawed at him. He couldn’t default on this. He had to keep up his end of the bargain. And he certainly didn’t want Layton Gray to think that he, Eddie, had taken his friends’ money and sunk it into a losing proposition. Layton did eight to ten real-estate closings a week; he dealt with every agency on Nantucket. If word about this got out… no, Eddie couldn’t allow that to happen. He was livid that Madeline had called Layton; frankly, a part of him couldn’t believe she’d actually done it. Lawyers cost money. If she had called, she was serious.

He tried to calculate a way to get Madeline and Trevor at least a portion of their investment back. Once he closed the deal with Glenn Daley (even thinking the man’s name gave Eddie heartburn), he might be able to put aside ten thousand dollars for the Llewellyns.

Maybe?

Yes, he would do that.

Then, Philip Meier had called and told Eddie that he was ninety days behind on the mortgage for his house.

“Wait a minute,” Eddie said. “That’s not right…?”

“Ninety-two days, actually,” Philip said. “You’re in arrears twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and ten dollars.”

Eddie heart went up in flames, a sudden bonfire. “That can’t be right!”

“It is right,” Philip said. “We sent several notices to your office address.”

Eddie eyed the pile of unopened envelopes on his desk-some new, some older, probably as old as three months.

“Am I going to lose the house?” he asked. He pictured Grace and the girls standing out on the front lawn in their pajamas while bank officials barred the front door.

“I need a check by Monday,” Philip said.

Monday? Eddie thought. Where was he going to get twenty-seven large by Monday? Then he remembered that Nightbill was checking in on Monday and that Bugsy Greer had agreed to pay in full, in cash-eighty-four thousand dollars. Thirty-five of that would go to the girls, forty-nine of that would be split between him and Barbie. But Barbie didn’t know that Eddie had upped the price, so he would have to cash her out at only seventeen-five, leaving him thirty-one-five!

Brilliant.

He said to Philip, “I can have it to you first thing Tuesday morning. In cash.”

“Cash?” Philip said. “What are you planning on doing? Robbing a bank?”

They both laughed.

Philip said, “Tuesday morning is fine. Thanks, Eddie.”

Eddie was buoyed by his victory, but he knew it was only a quick fix. He needed something big. He needed something real. Where were all the buyers? Nadia had brought in the man she’d been sleeping with from Kasper Snacks, saying he was interested in buying a house. Eddie had nearly fainted with relief. Here was a benefit to the side business he hadn’t anticipated-the girls would encourage buyers. But, as it had turned out, Nadia’s special friend had been too midwestern, with no clue what investing in the Nantucket real-estate market would cost him. He’d taken one gander at the prices and decided to buy Nadia an ice cream instead.

Eddie spent Saturday in the office. There was nothing going on, and so he finished the paperwork for the deal with Glenn Daley. He stopped for a drink at Lola on the way home, despite the fact that martinis cost twenty bucks. He probably needed to be out more so he could meet people and hand out his business card, but being out cost money that he just didn’t have. On the way home from Lola, he drove past the houses on Eagle Wing Lane. He could practically see himself, crushed like the Wicked Witch of the East, under the foundation of number 9. He couldn’t bear to think of how happy and excited he’d been the day he’d closed on those three lots.

On Sunday morning, Grace was up and out of bed at six o’clock-off to the Hub to grab the Sunday Boston Globe. She was so excited to see the article that Eddie thought she might spontaneously combust. He tried to feel excited as well, but he was too consumed with worry that the beautiful property she loved so much might be repossessed.

He slept until nine thirty, a sure sign that he was depressed. When he woke up, the twins were out by the pool, reading.

“Where’s Mommy?” Eddie said.

“Upstairs in her office,” Hope said. “On the phone.”

Eddie set about making scrambled eggs with dollops of cream cheese stirred in, the one breakfast dish that actually seemed to help his heartburn. He used nine fresh eggs, which was probably too many, but what the hell, the eggs were free.

Grace came down from her study, beaming. “Do you want to see the article?” she asked. “It’s magnificent.”

“Sure,” Eddie said. “Since I paid for it.”

“Okay,” Grace said. “I tried to show it to the girls, but they weren’t interested.”

“Shocker,” Eddie said.

Grace said, “The photographs were all staged, so don’t get jealous.”

“Jealous?” Eddie said.

“Of Benton, silly!” Grace said. She opened the newspaper flat across the sexiest countertop in the world to show the front-page photo of Grace feeding Benton a strawberry. NANTUCKET’S PRIVATE EDEN, the headline read.

“Nice,” Eddie said. The photo was a tad suggestive of… well, exactly what, Eddie wasn’t sure. Maybe he should feel jealous? He looked at the other photos-Grace on the mower, Grace in the pool, Grace and Benton hanging from the elm tree like a couple of capuchin monkeys.

“Go ahead and read it,” she said.

“I’ll read it later,” Eddie said. “I promise.” The article was long, and Eddie didn’t really have the attention span to delve into such an endeavor right then. His brain hurt. He was hungry for his eggs. He was happy that Grace was happy. She’d gotten what she’d wanted. The article was some kind of quest that she’d successfully completed. Eddie wished his life were like that. Instead, it felt as if he were standing nuts deep in icy water, panning for nuggets of gold that he would either spend or lose, necessitating more panning. Endless panning.

He looked at the photograph of Grace feeding Benton again, but instead of feeling jealous, he merely felt intrigued. Benton Coe was a successful businessman. Did he have any money he would like to invest in number 13?

Eddie plated his pillowy, soft eggs and carried them out to the deck. With the first bite, he closed his eyes, and there he envisioned Benton Coe as some kind of prince who might save them all.

MADELINE

When Madeline saw the article in the Boston Globe, she thought to herself, almost involuntarily, Grace and Benton look so happy.

She wasn’t sure if it was the article that inspired her, but for the first time in her writing career, Madeline didn’t have a single hesitation when it came to ending her book. She felt like Gretchen Green, girl hero, swooping in to set things right. First, there was heightened drama and conflict: G’s husband, Renfrew, discovers G’s affair by checking her cell phone records. (As Madeline understood it, this was how most adulterers got caught, but she knew Grace would never get caught this way, because Grace barely used her cell phone.) When the affair is uncovered, G leaves her husband and runs away with B. They move to St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, where B has been commissioned to build an enormous compound of villas overlooking Honeymoon Beach. G takes up bird-watching, which aligns with her newfound sense of freedom. She feels like she has wings.

Madeline set down her pen and took a deep, cleansing breath. The book was done. Not only did Madeline know that Angie would love it-she knew that it was good.

EDDIE

When he walked into the office Monday morning, Barbie was already at her desk, with two coffees from the Handlebar Café and the newspaper open in front of her.

“Sit,” she said.

He didn’t like her telling him what to do, but something about her tone made him obey.

Maybe she was going to confess to her relationship with Glenn Daley.

She handed him his coffee, loaded with milk.

She nodded at the newspaper. “You see this?”

It was the article about the garden, open to the picture of Grace feeding Benton the strawberry.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, shrugging. “Grace said the photographs were all staged.”

“That’s what Grace says,” Barbie said. “But everyone else on this island says that you’re paying this guy to screw your wife.”

“Speaking of screwing,” Eddie said, “how is Glenn?”

“Don’t change the subject,” Barbie said. “You need to get your house in order. I’m serious, Ed. You need to deal with this.”

Eddie eyed his sister and saw the same girl with the bad perm and too much eyeliner fighting with Teresa Maniscalco outside the high school library because Teresa told everyone in school that the girls’ locker room reeked like Barbie’s vagina. Eddie could remember hearing the phrase reeked like Barbie’s vagina and feeling mortified. He wanted to defend his sister’s honor, but he’d never been good at facing up to his problems-he was too scrawny. He’d only ever been good at running away from them.

Barbie, afraid of no one, fought it out with Teresa Maniscalco, busted Teresa’s lip open with one punch, and promptly took a three-day suspension. Eddie had walked past the main office, and he saw Barbie through the Plexiglas window, slumped in a chair, her arms crossed over her chest, glowering with pure steel resolve. He thought, My sister is the toughest person in the world. Way tougher than Eddie himself.

After that, nobody messed with Barbie. She worked her ass off and was accepted to Boston University, where she favored peasant blouses and learned to read tarot. After she graduated, she followed Eddie to Nantucket. Her first job was working as a personal assistant to a very wealthy woman with a summer estate on Abrams Point-and Barbie absorbed the lifestyle like a sponge. Which wine, which fork, which flowers. She learned about crystal and art dealers and the neighborhoods of Manhattan and Paris. Eddie could not believe her transformation. Maybe he didn’t know shit from Shinola, but Barbie presented herself to the world as an elegant and refined woman. And then, of course, she’d always had the sixth sense. That was the thing.

“Okay,” he said. “Fine.”

He reasoned with himself the whole way home. Grace was not having an affair with Benton Coe. It might have been a schoolgirl crush-Grace enjoyed having someone to talk to about her hens and her flowers-but Grace didn’t have it in her to have an affair, Eddie didn’t think. She was too programmed to be good-instilled in her from childhood by her grandmother, her parents, her older brothers. Rebellion for her, Eddie knew, had been drinking tequila and smoking cigarettes-on the same night, on a Tuesday!-during her sophomore year at Holyoke. An affair in adulthood would be unthinkable.

Right?

Eddie’s heartburn ratcheted up from the mellow 3 it had been that morning to a 7 and then an 8. And then, when he pulled into the driveway and saw Benton’s big black pickup truck, it became a 9.

Eddie busted into the house. “Grace!” he called. He raced up the stairs two at a time-Fast Eddie-and barged into the master bedroom. Empty. Then he swung open the door of Grace’s study without knocking-something he was forbidden to do, because that study was her sanctuary, she said-but the study, too, was empty.

Eddie calmed down a bit. He had let Barbie poison his thoughts. Grace and Benton would be out in the garden, weeding and mulching and making plans to build an outdoor shower with doors fashioned out of shutters salvaged from a French farmhouse. And climbing roses. Grace had forever wanted roses in her outdoor shower.

See? He did listen!

Eddie went through the kitchen and out onto the deck.

“Grace!” he called.

The backyard was uninhabited except by butterflies, bees, birds on the feeders. The garden was shimmering as if in some feverish utopian dream. Eddie walked out to the far edge of the property and plunked down in an Adirondack chair. The views across Polpis Harbor at this time of year were dazzling. He was a lucky man. Just like Barbie, he had come a long way since the days of Purchase Street in New Bedford.

He stood up. Where was Grace?

He wandered back over the rolling green lawn, past the hammock and the rose bed, past the swimming pool, past the perennials. He stopped at the five-foot angel statue and said, “Where’s Grace?”

The statue didn’t answer. It just stood there with the same inane, placid half-smile it always offered. Eddie had paid five figures for the statue. For that much money, it should respond when spoken to. He laughed at himself. Barbie was such a pill. She put thoughts into his head, and now he was losing his mind, talking to stone figures.

Then, Eddie saw the shed.

The garden shed.

He heard Barbie’s voice: You need to get your house in order.

He tried the knob. Locked. Why would the door to the garden shed be locked? He pressed his ear to the door. He could hear noises-breathing, he thought, and movement.

He knocked on the door. “Benton, you’re all done here, as of right now.” He cleared his throat. “You’re done, and I will not be paying your final bill. You’ve taken more from me than I owe you. Now, I’m leaving, and you will leave right after me, and you will never come back.”

With that, Eddie turned and headed around the side of the house, into the driveway, past the black pickup, into his Cayenne. He felt preternaturally calm as well as proud of himself for his restraint. He had handled the situation admirably, he thought. Even Grace’s grandmother Sabine might have approved. There was no messy confrontation, no fistfight; there were no screamed accusations or denials.

Down the road a couple hundred yards, Eddie pulled off into the parking lot of Polpis Harbor, and he waited. By the time he counted to ten, Benton’s truck drove past. So Eddie was right. They had been in the locked garden shed together. They had been… Here, Eddie broke down. He didn’t cry, exactly-he never cried-but his breathing changed. Grace, his Grace, whom he had first set eyes on as she served blueberry pancakes at the Morning Glory Café. She hadn’t struck him as beautiful so much as wholesome. She had those big, brown, innocent eyes and a perfect smile. When she got embarrassed, the tops of her ears turned pink. She was the kind of girl Eddie had always wanted to marry, the kind who would put home and family first.

And she had. Until that summer. Or, possibly, last summer? How long had this thing with Benton been going on? Eddie couldn’t bear to know. He realized he wasn’t perfect, he realized he was so obsessed with making money that he’d let everything else fall to Grace. She did the housework and prepared all the scrumptious meals, she did the shopping and took care of the girls. She’d gotten angry once and asked Eddie if he even knew what grade the twins were in. He had become indignant and said, Of course I do, they’re in third grade! But the answer had been fourth grade, and Grace had said to him, I’m never going to tell them you got it wrong, because they will be devastated. But really, Eddie, make an effort!

He had tried harder after that. He showed up at Allegra’s Thanksgiving play and Hope’s flute concerts, even when it meant rescheduling an important showing. He had taken Allegra to New York City for the modeling interview, but Grace had been angry about that, too, saying that Eddie expended energy on the girls only when there was glory to be reflected upon him.

He knew that as a wife, Grace probably wasn’t as happy or fulfilled as she might have been. For a long while, she compared herself and Eddie with Madeline and Trevor-a losing proposition every time. Trevor and Madeline held hands everywhere they went, Trevor bought Madeline flowers, Trevor always referred to Madeline as “my bride” instead of “my wife.” Trevor watched romantic comedies with Madeline, and they had taken ballroom-dancing lessons together. Eddie had sneered at the dancing lessons, which had made Grace cry, presumably because Eddie had let her down in the ways she described, and in other ways he couldn’t even imagine.

But what good would wallowing in his inadequacies do him?

Eddie collected himself, and then he drove back to work.

When he walked into the office, Barbie raised an eyebrow at him.

“Handled,” he said.

Grace called the office an hour later. Eloise said, “Your wife is on line one.”

Eddie said, “Put her through to my voice mail.”

At three o’clock, Eloise approached his desk. Gone was her supersweet and helpful manner; that had vanished into thin air a few weeks earlier.

“Edward,” she said, “I’d like my paycheck.”

“What paycheck?” Eddie said. He paid Eloise every other Friday; she made twenty dollars an hour.

“For last week and this week,” she said.

“It’s only Monday,” Eddie said. “I’ll pay you Friday.”

“I’d like my paycheck,” Eloise said. She was wearing her no-nonsense expression, which scared Eddie a little bit. Eloise’s husband was a Coffin; they had four children and thirteen grandchildren and were related to just about everyone. Eddie couldn’t really afford to piss Eloise off, but he didn’t have sixteen hundred dollars in the office account to give her.

“It’s only Monday,” Eddie said again. “Do you mind me asking why…?”

“I’ve gotten myself into a situation,” Eloise said. “And I’d like the money today.”

“I can give it to you tomorrow,” Eddie said, thinking of Nightbill. “In cash.”

“That won’t work,” Eloise said. “I need it now.”

Eddie couldn’t believe the way the women in his life were taking it to him today. It must have been Poop-on-Eddie Day, but nobody had bothered to warn him. He brought out the company checkbook and cut Eloise her check.

“Thank you,” Eloise said crisply.

Eddie nodded. If she tried to deposit it today, it would most certainly bounce.

When both Eloise and Barbie were out for lunch, Eddie listened to Grace’s voice mail. She said, Hey, the girls are both home tonight, so I’m going to marinate some rib eyes and roast those fingerlings you like and shuck some corn. I was hoping we could have a nice family dinner…

Then she dissolved into tears. She bleated out, I’m so sorry, and hung up.

Eddie worked until six, and then six became seven. Both Eloise and Barbie left for their lovely little lives outside of work. Eloise had her check tucked safely in her purse, no doubt, and was off to deal with her “situation.”

At ten after seven, Eddie’s cell phone rang, and he figured it would be Grace, asking when he would be home for dinner. As lovely as grilled steaks and corn and a good bottle of red wine and the company of his wife and daughters sounded, he couldn’t go that far. He would not be placated by fingerling potatoes when he’d caught his wife sleeping with the gardener! He couldn’t just play through as though nothing had happened, as though nothing had changed.

He needed to talk to someone. He needed a friend. He pulled out his phone and dialed the Chief’s supersecret cell phone number.

“Hey, Eddie,” the Chief said. “How are you?”

“I’m great,” Eddie said, a little too enthusiastically. The Chief had said Eddie could call if he needed a hand. And Eddie needed one now. He didn’t necessarily want to share what had happened; he just wanted another man to talk to. “Are you free tonight? I’d love to meet you somewhere for a drink. How about the Brant Point Grill in twenty minutes?”

“I have plans tonight, Eddie,” the Chief said. “Sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Eddie said. “It’s really last minute. I’ve just had a day. Could you meet me later? Say, around ten?”

If the Chief could meet him at ten, Eddie could grab a burger from Lola and linger until nine fifteen, when he would slip out to 10 Low Beach Road to collect the cash-and then make it to the Brant Point Grill by ten.

“Ten?” the Chief said. “That would put me out past my bedtime. Sorry, Eddie.”

“Are you sure?” Eddie said. “Nothing I can say to persuade you?” It was embarrassing, supplicating like this, but Eddie was near desperate to connect with someone who had nothing to do with his family or work or his diabolical side business.

“Maybe another time,” the Chief said. His tone of voice was verging on irritated, and Eddie didn’t want to be an itch, so he said, “Okay, Chief, no problem.” And hung up.

Eddie sat in the office until the sun went down and the room grew dark. Out on the street, Eddie watched people headed out for their delicious summer evenings. Groups of teenagers loped toward the Juice Bar for ice cream sundaes; parents pushed strollers to the playground at Children’s Beach. Couples held hands on their way to dinner at Oran Mor or the Club Car. How Eddie would have loved to be picking up Grace and taking her to dinner at the Club Car. They could have ordered the caviar, which was served with an icy shot of vodka. Afterward, they could have sung at the piano bar. He would even have sprung for the twenty bucks it would have taken to get Ryan to sing “Tiny Dancer.” He would have done it for Grace. She loved Elton John.

He was so… lonely. But he didn’t have to be. He could go home for dinner. He could go next door to Lola, get himself a martini and a burger and maybe hand out some business cards.

In the dark, the office was downright gloomy. His depleted empire.

Eddie finally turned on a light. He forced himself to go through the pile of unpaid bills on his desk. There, on top, was a bill for twenty-four hundred dollars from Hester Phan. Her success bonus.

That did it. Eddie felt as if he were falling into a fiery pit of anger and indignation. Success bonus, his ass! He picked up the phone and made the call he’d been wanting to make all day.

After Benton left the office, Eddie drove out to Low Beach Road. He was still shaking. Grace Grace Grace. He’d come so close to losing her. Eddie tried not to regret what he’d just done, but a part of him wished he had just gone home. He thought about Grace coating the rib-eye steaks with her magic marinade. He pictured her drizzling the fingerling potatoes with olive oil, sprinkling them with sea salt and coarsely ground pepper, and shucking some Bartlett’s Farm corn. Both Hope and Allegra would still be in bathing suits, lying in chaises side by side at the pool, reading. When Grace called them to set the table, they would dutifully rise to go help. They would even pick up their towels and deposit them in the outdoor hamper, where they belonged. Then Hope would go to the silverware drawer, and Allegra would pull out four plates. Together, they would head out to the deck.

Eddie would pull a great vintage of Ponzi pinot noir from his cellar. Grace would be so happy with his choice that she would raise her face to him for a kiss.

When he got home tonight, Eddie decided, he and Grace would have a talk. They would start fresh. No more Benton Coe. And, for his part, Eddie would give up 10 Low Beach Road. He couldn’t ask Grace to end her affair until he cleaned up his own dirty mess. This week was it. The end. He would meet with his accountant, Frank, and they would decide which of Eddie’s two commercial properties to put on the market. Even with the mortgages, he could probably still clear a decent profit.

Money couldn’t buy happiness-except when it could.

He would figure it out. He just had to take care of this one last thing.

At ten minutes to ten, Eddie was sitting in his Cayenne outside 10 Low Beach Road. The air-conditioning in the car was on, but not the radio. Eddie had a cold bottle of water and a container of cherry Tums in the console. His hands were shaking.

A car pulled up behind his-Nadia’s Jeep-and Nadia and the other girls climbed out. Their hair was piled into high confections, with curled tendrils framing their faces. Their makeup was thick and bright; it reminded Eddie of icing on a cake. They wore short skirts and teetered in stilettos. They were giggling and teasing one another in Russian. They seemed… happy, bordering on joyful, and Eddie tried to let the sound of their voices soothe his hot, aching conscience. These young women were here to prostitute themselves, but at least they seemed to be enjoying it. Or maybe what Eddie was witnessing was bravado or giddy anticipation of what they might consider “easy money.” After all, it was better than cleaning toilets, right? Less demeaning? Eddie had no idea how the girls viewed it. In his heart, he knew this whole business was repugnant. Eddie’s parents would be so ashamed that it pained Eddie to think of it. He wished Barbie had offered to come with him tonight. But she never offered. She just sat at her desk with her pens and notepads from the exotic hotels where she met Glenn Daley, and she waited for Eddie to hand over her portion of the cash.

“I’ll leave my cell on,” Barbie had said before she left work. “In case you need to call me.”

“I don’t see any reason why I would need to call you,” Eddie had said. He wondered if Barbie had had a bad premonition about tonight or if she’d checked the tarot cards or tea leaves or her goddamned crystal ball. But when he asked her, she said, “No, no, I’m saying, just in case.”

Whatever that meant.

When the girls saw Eddie, they erupted in cheerful greetings. Eddie Eddie Eddie hi hi hi. Nadia kissed him on the cheek, leaving, he was sure, fat, juicy lip prints. Elise and Gabrielle linked their arms through his, and, although he desperately wanted to disengage himself, he couldn’t risk offending them or dampening their moods. He tried to tell himself that the girls were merely going to entertain the gentlemen in residence. Nadia would juggle; Julia would sing “Send in the Clowns”; Elise and Gabrielle would be a third and fourth in bridge.

Together, the six of them approached the side door of 10 Low Beach Road. The girls were quiet as Eddie knocked-two raps, then one.

A very tall, lean man with crooked teeth opened the door. This was Bugsy. He was wearing a blue T-shirt, jeans, and a Minnesota Twins baseball hat. He looked slightly less terrifying than he had on the Internet.

“Greetings!” he said. He opened the door wide and ushered them all inside.

Eddie let the girls precede him, and then he, too, entered. The side door led right into the humongous gourmet kitchen, which was lit only by ivory pillar candles. Set out on the Carrara marble countertops were a lavish spread of sushi and ice buckets holding bottles of Cristal champagne. The girls tried to contain their squeals of excitement. This was how it should be done-a proper wooing-although plenty of times this summer, they had walked in on pizza boxes and a tower of empty beer cans. And, one time, on a half-eaten chocolate cake that had been crawling with ants. Nadia had confided that sometimes the mess was so bad, the girls became distracted because they knew they would be coming back in the morning to clean up.

It kill the mood, you know, Eddie? Nadia had said. Thinking we the girlfriend tonight, but tomorrow, we the maid.

Sushi was the girls’ particular favorite, and they loved champagne. Bugsy said to Eddie, “Want to stay for a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Eddie said. He wasn’t comfortable being inside this house. He wanted to get the money and go.

“You wear that hat all the time?” Bugsy asked. “Even at night?”

Eddie nodded.

“You get it in Cuba?” Bugsy asked.

“Ecuador, actually,” Eddie said. He was used to explaining that, although it was called a Panama hat, it was made in the town of Montecristi, Ecuador.

“You self-conscious because you’re bald?” Bugsy asked. Bugsy was also bald. He touched the brim of his ball cap.

Eddie didn’t want to discuss with Bugsy the things about himself that made him insecure, but he feared that to deny the statement would only invite a rebuttal.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “A little, I guess.” He had started wearing the Panama hat in his late twenties, when his hair started to fall out.

Bugsy reached out to bump fists with Eddie. Then he put two fingers among his crooked, ruined teeth and gave a sharp whistle. Instantly, other men appeared in the kitchen, and within seconds, all of the girls were paired up-except for Nadia. Nadia, it seemed, belonged to Bugsy.

Eddie couldn’t bear to watch this strange courtship ritual. Already, Elise was kissing a man with black, slicked-back hair like a vampire’s. Eddie turned to Bugsy but found himself unable to broach the matter of payment. It was Nadia who came to his rescue. She said, “Why don’t you give Eddie money so he can vamoose?”

Bugsy tweaked Nadia’s nose as if she were his precocious niece, and then he indicated that Eddie should follow him out the side door. Eddie was only too happy to leave. He waved at the girls and said, “I’ll see you ladies tomorrow.”

None of the girls responded. They were working. He had ceased to matter.

As soon as they stepped into the mild summer night air, Bugsy produced a padded envelope about the size of a feather pillow. So much money. Eddie did his best not to seem grabby.

“They’ll come every night this week?” Bugsy asked.

“Yes,” Eddie said.

“Well then,” Bugsy said. “For services rendered.” He presented the envelope to Eddie formally, with two hands.

“Thank you,” Eddie said.

“Thank you,” Bugsy said.

There was a sudden strong grip on Eddie’s shoulder and a blinding light in his eyes.

“Whoa!” Eddie said. His Panama hat fell to the ground, and Eddie heard the unmistakable crunch of foot on straw, which made him wince. His third hat this summer. His final hat.

Inside, one of the girls screamed, and a second later, more girls were screaming. Eddie’s hands were wrenched behind his back. He was being cuffed. A man with a salty South Boston accent read Eddie his Miranda rights. He was under arrest.

The girls were screaming. Were they being hurt? Eddie wondered. Suddenly, Nadia popped out the side door and said, “Hello, Eddie, please, we need help inside.” Her voice was calm and casual, as if they had blown a fuse or required his assistance in opening a jar of pickles.

“Miss?” the Southie accent said. “Stop right there, please. FBI.”

FBI, Eddie thought. He wanted to run. He was Fast Eddie, the finest track star to come out of New Bedford High School in thirty-five years. If pressed, he knew, he could still sprint a quarter mile in under a minute. He could be halfway to Sankaty Head Lighthouse before anyone knew in which direction he’d gone. But then what? He lived on an island.

He closed his eyes and waited for the flames to start climbing the walls of his chest. He thought of Grace, asleep in their California king bed with the feather-top mattress. Grace. He pictured her washing the dinner dishes. He pictured lifting up her thick, dark hair and nuzzling the back of her neck, a move from early in their relationship that he had long ago abandoned.

He should have stayed home, eaten the steak and the fingerlings that she had made specially for him. He should have made love to his wife. Tried to make her laugh again. Tried to make her happy again.

But then he reminded himself that the only way he had ever known to make Grace happy was by giving her everything her heart desired.

“That’s why I needed the money,” Eddie said to the man behind him, whom he still could not see. “It was for my wife.”

“Save it for the judge,” the Southie accent said.

“If you let me go, I’ll figure out something different to do for Grace,” Eddie said. “Something better.”

“You can figure it out in prison,” the Southie accent said. “You’ll have plenty of time.”

The girls filed out of the house in a tight line, like they were being marched by Stalin. All of them were crying.

“Eddie!” Nadia cried out.

Instinctively, Eddie tried to free his hands.

“Easy, buddy,” the Southie accent said. He led Eddie toward the back of a black Suburban. Eddie thought of the Chief turning him down for drinks. I have plans tonight. Did the Chief know about this sting? He must have. Eddie had thought they were friends.

You’re a good guy, Eddie. A really good guy.

Realizing just how untrue this was broke Eddie’s burning heart.

GRACE

Something about the article in the Boston Globe changed things for Grace. Seeing the photos of her and Benton and reading the text describing the wonderland they had created together had been so validating. It was a depiction of her private Eden. Grace knew it was crazy, but she felt as if she were the only woman on earth and Benton the only man. When Benton came to the house on Monday, Grace was consumed with a crazy, searing desire. For the first time ever, she pulled him into the garden shed. She kissed him and said, “I’d really like to marry you.”

“One little problem,” Benton said. “You’re already married.”

“I don’t care,” Grace said.

Benton touched her face. “You can’t just up and leave. What about the girls? They need you.”

“This time next year, they’ll be headed to college,” Grace said.

“Yes, but a year is a long time,” Benton said. “You’re not seriously considering leaving Eddie now, are you?”

Was she? If she were in a position to talk it over with Madeline, Madeline would say, You have two children, Grace, and a beautiful home. Are you prepared to give that up? Benton Coe is a talented man, but he has no roots here. He lives in an apartment above his office, he gallivants around the world all winter. He probably doesn’t even have health insurance.

I’m sure he has health insurance, Grace would retort.

She could now picture herself and Benton as a viable couple. Despite what everyone else thought, Grace didn’t require much in the way of creature comforts; she could live out of a backpack. She could handle a winter in Morocco or Palm Beach, someplace warm and exotic, away from her endless responsibilities as a wife and mother.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll leave at the end of the summer.”

“You’re talking crazy, Grace,” Benton said. “But I like it.” He growled and put his lips to the most sensitive part of her neck.

As they had so many times before, they were making love in the garden shed-until Grace heard Eddie’s voice.

“Grace!”

It was all Grace could do not to shriek. She struggled to get back into her sundress and fix her hair while Benton pulled his shorts up, whispering profanities.

Grace put a finger to her lips. They needed to stay quiet. It sounded like Eddie was on the deck. When he went searching for her elsewhere, she and Benton could slip out. But Eddie wasn’t stupid. Benton’s truck was in the driveway, and Eddie had probably already checked the house, and-here was the worst thought-the gardening shed had four windows, although they were high up and Eddie would need a ladder. But if he got a ladder and peered in the window, he would see them. The longer Grace and Benton waited to open the door, the worse it would look. Every second they waited was bringing them closer to destruction. There wasn’t even anything to busy themselves with in the shed. What would she and Benton say they’d been doing?

There was silence for a long moment, and Grace thought, Open the door! No, keep it closed and locked! Maybe Eddie would go back to work. What was he doing home, anyway? Benton was sweating buckets; he looked pale and nauseated, and Grace thought he might vomit in the copper sink. She needed him to be calm, take charge, tell her what to do.

Then there was a sharp knock on the door of the shed, and they both jumped. Please, God! Grace thought. She was an adulterer about to be caught-she had no business resorting to prayer, but that was what she did. She whispered a Hail Mary.

Eddie said, “Benton, you’re all done here, as of right now. You’re done, and I will not be paying your final bill. You’ve taken more from me than I owe you. Now, I’m leaving, and you will leave right after me, and you will never come back.”

Benton nodded sharply. He was shaking. Why didn’t he open the door and stand up to Eddie? Why didn’t he say, You just can’t order me off this job, I’ve done nothing wrong! Or, since that wasn’t quite believable, why didn’t he just tell Eddie the truth: I’m in love with your wife! I’m going to marry her!

Instead, Benton winced, and Grace actually thought he might cry. Then they heard Eddie retreat; they heard the engine of his car. He was leaving, just as he’d said.

Benton looked at Grace. “I’m going.”

“But…?” Grace said. “I thought…?”

Benton said, “When word about this gets around, it is going to be so bad, Grace. Bad for you, but really bad for me. I could lose my business. I will lose my business, for sure. I can’t stay here.” He pulled at hanks of his ginger hair. “I can’t believe I was so stupid! Jesus!”

Grace didn’t like the way he was talking. She said, “Ten minutes ago you said you liked hearing how I would give everything up for you.”

“Ten minutes ago we hadn’t gotten caught!” Benton said. “And when I said you were talking crazy, I meant it. This is make-believe, Grace. I’m not saying it hasn’t been wonderful. It was fun and exciting and sexy-just like a summer romance is supposed to be.”

“It’s more than a summer romance,” Grace said. “I’ve already decided to leave.”

“No, don’t do that. Please.” He opened the door to the shed, and sweet, cool air filled the space, but Grace found she couldn’t breathe. “I have to get out of here,” Benton said, and he strode away, disappearing around the side of the house without a look back at Grace. A few seconds later, she heard the engine of his truck. She thought, He’s leaving me. He’s leaving me.

In the minutes that followed, Grace called Benton’s cell phone seven times and left five voice mails. She sent him four text messages of varying lengths. In return, there was silence.

Grace called Eddie’s office. She needed to tell him that, no matter how angry he was, he couldn’t tell anyone about what he’d discovered. If he did, all of their lives would be ruined-his, hers, Benton’s, and the twins’! But Eloise answered and delivered Grace’s call to Eddie’s voice mail. Grace was afraid that either Eloise or Barbie would listen to the message, and so she talked about dinner plans. Steaks. Potatoes and corn. Then she broke down and hung up.

Eddie wouldn’t talk to her, and could she blame him?

Just then, a text came in from Benton. Grace was flooded with relief until she read it.

It said: I’m leaving the island tomorrow. There’s an opportunity in Detroit I’ve been considering for a while. I’m going to pursue it and let Donovan run the business here. We were careless and impetuous, Grace, and I accept 50 percent of the blame. I wish you well. You will always be my First Lady. XO B.

Grace couldn’t believe how hurt she was by his choice of words. He wished her well? He was moving to Detroit? They had been careless and impetuous? XO?

They had been in love-who cared about Benton’s career or Grace’s reputation? What did those things matter?

He accepted 50 percent of the blame. That was big of him.

Detroit? He had been “considering it for a while”-but this was the first Grace had heard about Detroit. Would McGuvvy meet him in Detroit? McGuvvy was from Ohio, right? And Ohio bordered Michigan, so, safe to say, McGuvvy would probably move to Detroit and teach sailing on the lake. Benton had probably been considering going back to McGuvvy for a while!

She would always be his First Lady, but what did that matter if she didn’t end up with him?

Careless? He made it sound like they had forgotten to wind the garden hose or check the pool filters.

Impetuous? Grace knew what the word meant, but she looked it up anyway. Acting or done quickly, without thought. He couldn’t have said anything that would have made her feel worse. He didn’t love her; the shout-out on Lucretia Mott Lane had been a drunken lie and his subsequent declarations, further lies. He hadn’t stood up to Eddie. He had acted afraid of Eddie, when he could have easily taken Eddie over his knee and spanked him.

He wished her well.

What ensued for Grace was nothing short of total devastation. She couldn’t stand to look at the gardening shed. She would gladly hire someone to come knock it down. She wanted to pour gasoline over the roses and set them on fire. She wanted the whole yard to burn.

She climbed into her Range Rover and drove like a bat out of hell to Benton’s office. It was still not quite noon, and all of the work trucks were gone, including Benton’s black pickup. Where was he? She just needed to see him, she needed a few calm moments to talk this through with him. Eddie wouldn’t say anything to anyone; he didn’t like sharing news that reflected poorly on him. No one would ever know what had happened. Benton could stay here. Or… Grace could go with him to Detroit.

No, she thought immediately. She couldn’t leave the twins like that. There was just no way.

She parked the car haphazardly and raced up the steps to Benton’s apartment. The door to his place opened, and a young, bearded man with glasses and a porkpie hat stepped out.

“Hi?” he said. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Benton,” Grace said. “Is he here?”

“He’s out in the field, I do believe,” the man said. “I’m Donovan, his manager. Do you have a question or a problem?”

“Both,” Grace said honestly. Then she felt like a total fool. “I’m Grace Pancik.”

“Oh, right!” Donovan said. “I thought you looked familiar. I saw the spread in the Globe. That was some great press. We’ve picked up three new clients from that already.”

“Great,” Grace said. She tried to smile, but her face would not obey. “Listen, I really need to get ahold of Benton…”

“Did you try his cell?” Donovan asked.

“I did,” Grace said. She wanted to ask if she could sit in the apartment and wait for Benton to return, but it was also Donovan’s apartment, and Leslie’s, and Grace realized that her behavior now was bordering on psychotic. “Do you know where in the field he is? I really need to speak to him in person.”

Donovan held out his palms as if checking for rain. “Benton is his own man,” he said. “He doesn’t share his schedule with me or anyone else.”

Grace took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“But you might check Edith Allemand’s house,” Donovan said. “He goes there Mondays and Fridays.”

Edith Allemand’s house-Main Street. “Thank you,” Grace said. She hurried back down the stairs, but then she turned around.

“Donovan?” she said. “Do you know anything about Benton going to Detroit?”

Donovan said, “I knew he was considering it, but last I checked, he hadn’t made a decision.”

Grace climbed back into her Range Rover and drove toward Main Street. Sure enough, at number 808, Benton’s truck was in the driveway. And right there in the front yard were Benton and the legendary Mrs. Allemand. Benton was holding both of Mrs. Allemand’s hands, and Mrs. Allemand was talking. If Mrs. Allemand had been any younger than eighty-five years old, Grace would have felt jealous.

Grace pulled up in front of the house, chagrined at her own audacity (the voice of her grandmother Sabine begged her not to make a scene)-but there was nothing else she could do. She had to talk to him.

He noticed the car, and a concerned expression came over his face. He said something to Mrs. Allemand, then loped toward Grace’s car. Grace loved the way he walked. She loved everything about him. She was a total goner.

He poked his head through the open passenger-side window. “Grace,” he whispered. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Do you understand how inappropriate this is?” he asked. “Do you know how this looks?”

“I don’t care how it looks,” Grace said. “And you used to not care. When you kissed me on Lucretia Mott Lane!”

“I have a business to run,” Benton said. “And you have a family. Go be with your family, Grace. Take care of your daughters. Work things out with Eddie. Please, please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Please don’t stalk me like this again, okay? It’s making me a little nervous.”

Stalking? Grace thought indignantly. She wasn’t stalking.

But here she was, in front of Mrs. Allemand’s house, and Donovan was sure to tell Benton that Grace had stormed the office.

Stalking.

“You still owe Hope that list of a hundred books,” Grace said. “You can break my heart-that’s fine-but don’t disappoint a sixteen-year-old girl.”

From the yard, Mrs. Allemand warbled out, “Is everything okay, Benton?”

Benton waved at Mrs. Allemand, then gave Grace one last look. “Please, Grace. Clean break, okay? You’ll be fine. Now… good-bye.”

Good-bye.

Grace drove off.

She wanted Madeline. Madeline was the only person who would understand.

The first thing Grace did when she got home was to resign as a member of the Nantucket Garden Club. In an e-mail to Jean Burton, she cited “personal reasons.” She didn’t care what those personal reasons were interpreted to be. She didn’t care about anything.

She opened her medicine cabinet. She took a Fioricet and tried to focus. Benton was gone-but what about Eddie? Could she still save her marriage? Did she want to save her marriage?

She would go out and get those steaks, she decided. She would light candles and pick a bouquet of fresh flowers, and she would try to set things right. In the meantime, maybe Benton would come to his senses.

Clean break, okay? Meaning what? Should she pretend as if the postcards from Morocco and the mint tea and the pistachio macarons and the ploughman’s lunches and the slow dancing on the deck and the photo shoot with the Boston Globe and all their fiery lovemaking in the garden shed had never happened?

Detroit?

But Eddie didn’t come home for dinner. He had to tend to the rental on Low Beach Road, he informed her in a terse text. Grace ate dinner in silence with the girls, who chattered with each other about the books they were reading. The food was delicious, but Grace couldn’t force down a single bite. She had ruined everything. Her lover was gone, he had proved to be a coward-Considering Detroit for a while now?-and she had trashed her marriage. Just as Madeline had predicted. How do you see this ending?

Grace had four glasses of wine at dinner, then a fifth, because the girls were going to the movies together in town. Grace wandered upstairs in a bit of a stupor. She found her cell phone, read the text from Benton again. She needed Madeline. Could she call Madeline?

Allegra is a cheater, and you, Grace, are a cheater.

No, she could not call Madeline.

As Grace fell asleep, she tried to find a place of gratitude. Her girls were healthy and getting along. And she still had the most glorious property on Nantucket Island. Not to mention her Araucana chickens and a flourishing organic-egg business.

Exotic chickens and pale-blue eggs were all good and fine, but they were no substitute for love.

When Grace woke up at midnight, Eddie was still out. Still at the rental on Low Beach Road? Or possibly tying one on at a bar in town? Grace didn’t even feel she could text and ask him. She crept down the hallway to her study and looked again at the article in the Sunday Boston Globe. There were her hydrangeas, her roses, her Adirondack chairs-all looking perfectly, professionally styled. There was the footbridge and the brook and Polpis Harbor beyond. There was the gardening shed and the copper farmer’s sink, which she now wanted to tear out and deliver to the take-it-or-leave-it pile at the dump. And there were Grace and Benton, seated at the teak table in their accustomed places, raising their champagne glasses and smiling out at all the beauty they had created.

She texted Benton: I miss you.

Silence.

Eleven minutes later (she had meant to wait fifteen but couldn’t), she texted: I know you miss me.

Silence.

There was nothing in the world, she decided, that wounded like silence.

Ever since the night of the séance, Grace had harbored mixed feelings about her sister-in-law, Barbie. Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left. Eddie had been to Grace’s left, Grace had been to Madeline’s left, and Trevor had been to Barbie’s left. Barbie would never be in a position to betray Trevor, and it was pretty clear Barbie wasn’t referring to herself, anyway.

Grace would betray Eddie.

Madeline would betray Grace.

Barbie had been right: Grace had started her affair with Benton Coe six months later. Did Barbie have psychic powers? Or had Barbie’s saying the words influenced Grace’s behavior? Grace went back and forth on the question, but she had never viewed Barbie the same way since. And after the séance, Barbie had stopped joining Grace, Eddie, and the twins at the holidays. She claimed this was because she preferred traveling with one of her mystery men, but Grace always felt like Barbie had discovered something rotten about Grace and wanted to distance herself.

Besides, Barbie Pancik was, by nature, a very private person and hard to get close to. Her loyalties lay staunchly with Eddie and the business and, beyond that, with herself.

Imagine, then, Grace’s surprise to find Barbie Pancik standing over her bed in the middle of the night, shaking Grace awake.

Grace cried out. It was a bad dream, Barbie looming over her, the black pearl swinging like a pendulum, her perfume suffusing the atmosphere of the bedroom.

“Grace, you have to wake up,” Barbie said.

Bad dream. But no, not a dream. For some unfathomable reason, Barbie Pancik was in her bedroom. Bad something, something bad. Grace looked to her right-no Eddie. Eddie was dead. There was no other reason why Barbie Pancik would be here. Eddie had found out about Grace and Benton and had killed himself.

Grace clamped her hand over her mouth and shook her head.

Barbie lowered herself onto the mattress next to Grace and said, “You have to listen to me.”

“No,” Grace whispered. “Nonononono.”

“Eddie is in trouble. There was a misunderstanding at the house on Low Beach Road, and the FBI have him in custody.”

Grace went back to thinking, Bad dream. Because what Barbie was saying, even if she was real-which she did indeed seem to be-made no sense. FBI? What kind of misunderstanding could bring the FBI?

Barbie handed Grace a glass of water from the nightstand. “I want you to drink this, and then I’m going to tell you some things that you are never, ever to repeat. Do you understand me?”

Grace accepted the water and nodded. Barbie would have made a good mother, Grace decided.

Barbie said, “The FBI have Eddie because they suspect him of running a prostitution ring on Low Beach Road.”

Grace blinked, then carefully set the water back down.

Barbie said, “Possibly, he’s admitted to it. He didn’t exactly tell me.”

“Admitted to it,” Grace said.

“Ben Winford is with him now, but I think he may have opened his mouth before Ben arrived. Apparently, Eddie hasn’t watched as much Law and Order as I have.”

“Law and Order?” Grace asked.

Barbie said, “I need you to get dressed. You’re going down to the police station to bail him out.”

“Me?” Grace said. “What about you? Are you coming?”

“No,” Barbie said. “I need to distance myself from this. For business reasons.”

“Is it true?” Grace asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Barbie said. “Unless they can prove it.”

For some reason, Nadia, one of Eddie’s housecleaners, was at the police station. Grace blinked, thinking again, Bad dream, nightmare, the kind where people from different parts of her life showed up in places where they didn’t belong. Why would Nadia be here? It was a mistake. But when Grace was ushered into the back of the station to post Eddie’s bail, she saw Nadia, or a girl who looked exactly like Nadia, sitting in one of the interrogation rooms. Grace was so stunned that she took a step backward and peered in the room to make sure. Definitely Nadia. Grace heard her say, “I just clean the houses…” And then whoever else was in the room wisely closed the door.

Then Grace saw Eddie’s other four cleaning girls sitting on folding chairs in front of the officer on duty. Grace had met them all en masse at one point, but she couldn’t remember anyone’s name except for Nadia’s. The girls were in tube skirts, and they had all removed pairs of very high-heeled shoes. One girl was rubbing her feet, one girl was softly crying. They smelled sharp and antiseptic, like hair spray and cheap perfume. They looked… well, here Grace sighed. They looked like hookers. Eddie had been using his cleaning crew as prostitutes. Grace’s stomach turned.

Grace said to the officer, a black woman striking enough to be a supermodel, whose name tag read Peters, “I’m here to post bail for Edward Pancik?”

There was much whispering from the girls. One piped up and said, “You are Eddie’s wife, yes?”

“No talking!” Officer Peters said.

Grace turned to face the girls. “Yes,” she said.

At that second, the door down the hallway opened, and Nadia came walking out, attended by a square-necked man with a silver crew cut and a navy FBI windbreaker.

“Hello, Mrs. Pancik,” Nadia said.

“What’s happening, Nadia?” Grace asked. It could be a mistake, right? It must have been a mistake. Grace could not fathom that Eddie had actually taken these girls-none of them over twenty-five, she didn’t think-and turned them into hookers.

But Nadia didn’t seem capable of explaining. She turned to the other girls and said something in Russian.

“Enough!” the silver crew cut barked out. “Kat, do you have a place I can put Ms. Nadia here while I talk to the next one? She should be isolated. They all should, really.”

“We can’t do what we can’t do,” Officer Peters said. She smiled apologetically at Grace. “We just don’t have enough personnel when something like this happens.”

Grace nodded, as if understanding what this meant. Officer Peters was talking to Grace as if they were in cahoots somehow, and Grace decided to take advantage. She said, “I’d really like to see my husband. Can I see him?”

“Who’s your husband?” the silver crew cut asked.

“Edward Pancik.”

“Ha!” the silver crew cut said. “Better take a seat. It’s gonna be a while.”

“Let me see if I can find a room for Ms. Nadia,” Officer Peters said.

Nadia said something to the other girls in Russian.

Grace wished she could understand! She said, “Are you… in trouble, Nadia?”

“Ma’am, please,” the silver crew cut said. “I need her isolated! Jesus!”

Officer Peters disappeared down the hall. The silver crew cut eyeballed the five girls. He read names off a clipboard. Elise Anoshkin, Julia Vlacic, Gabrielle Bylinkin, Nadia Roskilov, Tonya Yedemesky. The girls raised their hands one by one.

The only good thing about finding out Eddie had gotten into this kind of heinous trouble was that it kept Grace from obsessing about Benton.

Grace had to triage.

And this was definitely worse.

At seven o’clock in the morning, a very weary version of Eddie’s normally impeccably dressed attorney, Ben Winford, shook Grace awake in her chair.

Ben said, “Eddie’s gotten himself into a real pickle this time.” Ben stared up at the ceiling, which made Grace stare at the ceiling. “Why don’t my clients ever call me before they break the law? I’ll tell them ten times out of ten, it’s not a good idea. What did Richard Nixon teach us? What did the Boston bombers teach us? Criminals always get caught.”

“Is he going to jail?” Grace asked. Her voice sounded like broken crackers after the Fioricet, the wine, and nearly no sleep. She thought of being in the garden shed with Benton. It had been the previous morning, less than twenty-four hours earlier, and yet it seemed like weeks ago.

“Oh, probably,” Ben said wearily. He was, Grace realized, wearing his pajama top with his jeans. “This isn’t exactly my specialty, but I know a guy in Boston who handles racketeering, prostitution, more Mob-type stuff. You know me-I’m basically a real estate-estate planning guy.”

“Mob-type stuff?” Grace said. She felt as if she were going to faint.

Ben patted her knee. “The good news is, you’ll get him out of here today.”

Eddie was released three hours later, at ten o’clock. His bail was set at fifteen thousand dollars. Grace tried to pay using their platinum American Express, but it was denied, so she ended up writing a check. When they finally got out to the car and Grace told Eddie this, he laughed like an inmate at the asylum. He said, “The check will bounce, Grace. We’re broke.”

“What does that mean?”

Eddie shrugged. “I guess as soon as they figure out the check is no good, they’ll come for me.”

“No, what does it mean that we’re broke?” Grace asked. “How can we be broke?”

She listened in silence as Eddie told her: the money was all gone. The spec houses were a financial noose around his neck. He’d sold two of the three to Glenn Daley, of all people, but that had only helped to pay Eddie’s backed-up debts. Number 13 Eagle Wing Lane was still a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand dollars away from completion, and Eddie had exhausted his options. He hadn’t sold a house in nine months; the market was a wasteland. He had managed to keep corporate groups at 10 Low Beach Road, but that had only led him into this mess.

“Yes,” Grace said. “Let’s talk about this mess. What the hell is going on, Eddie? What have you done?”

“I can’t tell you,” Eddie said. “If I tell you, they might be able to get you for conspiracy.”

“They will not get me for conspiracy,” Grace said, “because I knew nothing about it. But you are going to tell me right now.”

“I can’t,” Eddie said.

“Tell me!” Grace screamed.

Eddie held his face in his hands. Grace thought he might cry, and that would have frightened her, because Eddie never cried. He hadn’t cried when either of his parents died, and he hadn’t cried when Hope had been born blue. He hadn’t cried over finding Grace with Benton in the garden shed yesterday morning. Would he cry now, at his own ruin?

No. He raised his head and said, “I needed money, and last year I had a client who had asked about the girls-could they come over and hang out with the guys?-and last year, I said no way.”

“But then…?”

“Then, this year, I got in such deep water, Grace. I can’t tell you how bad things got, moneywise, and I needed cash, and the guys who rent this house, baby, they are just loaded, so loaded that they pay ten grand per night.”

Grace gasped.

“A ton of jack, right? And I needed it, but I wouldn’t have forced the girls. I asked them, just asked what if? And they were all excited. It’s a lot of money for them.”

“They’re immigrant girls that you can exploit,” Grace said. “What did you expect them to say? I think I’m going to be sick.”

“The girls never complained,” Eddie said. “I think they saw themselves as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. They loved the money. The money was ridiculous-for me and for Barbie, too.

“So Barbie is in on this?” Grace said.

“No.”

“Eddie.”

“Yes,” Eddie said. “Yes, she’s in on it. But the authorities don’t know that, and they’re not going to know it. I need Barbie to keep the business afloat while I’m…”

“In jail,” Grace said. The words were incomprehensible, but she had to accept that they might be true. Eddie might be going to jail. Ben Winford had said, Oh, probably. Grace swallowed. Something else was nagging at her. “Did you… I mean, Eddie, did you… sleep with any of the girls?”

“No!” Eddie said. “God, no! I have never been unfaithful to you.”

Grace nodded. She believed him.

“You’re the unfaithful one! You were having an affair with Benton Coe under my nose, in my own house.”

Grace was quiet. “Well, he’s gone. It’s over.”

“You sound sad about that,” Eddie said. “Are you sad? Do you love him, Grace?”

She wanted to scream, Yes, I love him! I love him more than I love breathing!

But instead she said, “I can’t even think about that right now, Eddie! We have bigger problems! We have criminal charges!”

“What do we tell the girls?” Eddie asked.

“We tell them nothing,” Grace said. “They’re children, Eddie. They do not need to know about the nefarious affairs of their parents.”

“They’re bound to find out,” Eddie said, “the way this island talks.”

“We’ll shelter them as long as we can,” Grace said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie said.

When they got home, the girls were reading side by side in chaises by the pool, the two of them lithe and lovely in their bikinis, Allegra’s red, Hope’s black-no, wait, it was the other way around. Grace shook her head; it was the first time since they were infants, practically, that she’d gotten them mixed up. They were both wearing their hair down. Hope had fixed her hair to look like Allegra’s, and it was really fetching. Here was a snapshot of the family life Grace had always wanted but had never quite been able to achieve-because of Allegra’s tempestuous moods, because of Grace’s wild and straying heart, because Eddie had always, always, always been working.

Grace called out, “Are you girls hungry for lunch?”

“Starved,” Allegra said. “Where have you two been?”

“Out,” Grace said.

“Out where?” Hope asked.

“Just out,” Grace said.

“Wow,” Allegra said. “You sound like me.”

Grace made chicken-salad sandwiches, and she brought out a bunch of cold grapes from the fridge. She sliced some hothouse tomatoes, spread them with fresh pesto, then dotted them with tiny balls of mozzarella. She and the girls sat down at the outdoor table in the sun, but Eddie excused himself, saying he needed to sleep. He went up to the bedroom.

Hope said, “Is Dad okay?”

“Not really,” Grace said. She cleared the girls’ plates and stood up, not wanting to say anything else. Eddie was right: the girls needed to learn what was going on from Eddie and Grace before they heard it elsewhere-but she would let them have today.

MADELINE

Madeline read the completed first draft of B/G three times. It was good; it was addictive. The power and the urgency of the affair and the forbiddeness of it made it irresistible, but the genuine love between B and G made it luminous.

She wasn’t going to publish it.

Oh, how she dreaded calling Angie. And yet, call Angie she must.

Angie’s assistant, Marlo, answered. “She’s at lunch.”

“She is?” Madeline said. It was ten fifteen. No one ate lunch at ten fifteen, not even Angie Turner. Maybe “lunch” meant she was meeting her tile guy at a suite at the Warwick Hotel. Madeline decided to just tell Marlo, and Marlo could break the bad news to Angie. “Listen, Marlo, I’m not going to publish B/G. I have to pull it off the list.”

“Please hold,” Marlo said. “I’m putting you through to Angie.”

“I thought she was at lunch.”

“She just walked in,” Marlo said.

“How’s my favorite author?” Angie said when she came on the line. “How’s the Next Big Thing? I’m just going to start calling you Number One, because that’s where you’re headed, Madeline. Straight to the top spot. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today.”

Marlo hadn’t told her.

“Did Marlo tell you?” Madeline asked.

“Tell me what?” Angie said.

“I can’t let you publish the book,” Madeline said.

Silence.

Madeline waited. Maybe that was it. She had spoken the words. Could she just hang up?

But then Angie started to yell. Whippet-thin Angie, in her pencil skirts and Louboutin slingbacks, had an angry voice that nearly shattered Madeline’s phone. Madeline couldn’t make out every word, but the gist was something like, You can’t just… The book, Madeline, you don’t make those decisions, we do… Murder, bloody murder. This is going to be big, so big, so huge, you have no fucking idea how you’re hurting yourself, might as well get a razor and slit your… How you’re hurting me… I’ve bragged about this book to my friends, my actual friends… yoga… my son’s soccer games…

Then she took a breath. She said, “The marketing budget is quadruple what we gave you for Islandia. This is a whole new league for you. You will be right up there with your cousin Stephen.”

Here, Madeline interjected. “He’s not my cousin.”

“You can’t not publish it,” Angie said. “That isn’t a choice.”

“It is, though,” Madeline said. “It’s my choice, and I’m sorry, Angie. I’m sorry I’m taking back the book, I’m sorry I’m disappointing you.”

“You’re more than disappointing me, Madeline,” Angie said. “This isn’t catching my fourteen-year-old daughter smoking on the corner of Bleecker and Sixth Avenue. That was disappointing. This is something far worse.”

“I can’t let you publish it,” Madeline said. “I’m sorry I ever wrote it. I should never have let that story see the light of day.”

Silence. It sounded as if Angie were lighting a cigarette of her own.

She said, “It’s a good book, Madeline.”

“But I don’t feel good about it,” Madeline said. “Listen, I don’t want to keep you from your other work. Nothing you can say is going to change my mind.”

“Oh, yeah?” Angie said. “How about this? You’ll be hearing from our legal department.”

And with that, she hung up.

An hour later, as Madeline was lying on the sofa of the apartment, reading the latest issue of the New Yorker, hoping for another great idea, her phone rang.

It was Redd Dreyfus.

Madeline sighed. He was calling to tell her… that she would have to pay her advance back? That he was firing her as a client? That her career as a novelist was over, and she might as well never traverse a bridge or tunnel to the borough of Manhattan again, because as far as the publishing world was concerned, she was dead?

Madeline steeled herself for the worst. “Hello?” she said.

“Madeline King,” he said. “How are you, my darling?”

Redd sounded relaxed, but he also sounded old. He had been fiftyish when he signed Madeline as a client, which would make him seventyish now.

She said, “I’m so sorry, Redd.” She swallowed. “I can’t do it. The truth is, I blatantly used my best friend’s affair as the basis for that novel. Not everything is the same, but the story is hers, not mine, and I can’t let it see the light of day.”

“Aha,” Redd said. “You do realize it’s not against the law to base your novel on true experiences, even if they belong to someone else, right? I mean, let’s say your friend reads the book and feels you’re trying to pass her real-life story off as fiction. Let’s say she hires a lawyer. Those cases rarely see the light of day.”

“It’s not against the written law, maybe,” Madeline said. “But it’s against my law. The law I have with myself. I wrote the book because I was desperate for an idea, and then one fell into my lap. The timing was uncanny. I convinced myself that it was okay, that I would change the details and no one would recognize it. But the essence of Grace’s story is also the essence of my story, and it’s not fair of me to use it. It’s unethical.”

“Well,” Redd said. He took a long pause. “It sounds like this is the right decision for your soul. I applaud you for that.”

“You do?” Madeline said.

“I do. I know Angie unleashed her holy wrath, but I got her calmed down.”

“She said I’d be hearing from their legal department,” Madeline said.

“She’s trying to scare you. She’s desperate to publish that book-it seems like a personal mission of hers-but it’s your intellectual property. The thing that matters is that you wrote a really good book. And if you did it once, guess what?”

“What?” Madeline said.

“You can do it again,” Redd said. “You’ll come up with another idea, trust me.”

Madeline said, “But what if Angie doesn’t like it as much? Will I have to pay my advance back?”

“Hell no!” Redd said. “I mean, does Angie have to accept it? Hell yes. But I have full confidence that you’ll deliver something even better, Madeline. If not on the next try, then on a subsequent try. And even if you don’t ever deliver, it’s very difficult for a publisher to get advance money back once it’s been paid out. I’ve had authors who have been ten years late on delivery! I’ve had authors who disappeared to South America! I’ve had authors who plagiarized the work of their teenage children!” Redd’s voice was growing animated. Madeline knew he had put on weight in recent years, and she feared his having a heart attack right there at his desk. Thankfully, he calmed down. “My dear, I’ve seen it all. I know you feel like you’re the only author who has ever used the travails of a close friend as fiction fodder, but, I assure you, you are not. What’s the popular phrase? Write what you know. Authors do this kind of thing all the time. And I realize you feel like you’re not going to be able to write something else, but, Madeline, I’m telling you, you are. You don’t even have to believe in yourself. I’m your agent. I’ll do the believing.”

“Thank you,” Madeline whispered.

“I’ll handle Angie,” Redd said. “After all, you don’t just pay me to sit around my office and look handsome.” He let out a great belly laugh. “Now, my darling, get to work.”

Madeline hung up the phone and thought, Yes! She needed to stop worrying about Eddie and the fifty thousand dollars, and she needed to stop vilifying Allegra-she was a narcissistic sixteen-year-old girl-so what? Brick would get over her and move on, and his heart would be stronger in the place where it had been broken. But, most of all, Madeline had to stop missing Grace.

That was the toughest thing. She couldn’t make herself stop missing Grace.

Maybe she could write a novel called Missing Grace, about a novelist who writes about her best friend’s affair and then regrets it. It would be sort of like the woman on the cereal box eating from a box of cereal that has her own picture on it, and so forth infinitely.

Her brain hurt thinking about this.

She picked up her pen and a fresh legal pad.

Get to work!

A little while later, a phone call came to Madeline’s cell phone from Rachel McMann. Madeline had decided to write not a sequel but a prequel to Islandia. She would tell the story of Nantucket before it became submerged under water. She would write a novel about the beginning of the end, her protagonists, Jack and Diane, still in their mothers’ wombs. She would cast a foreboding shadow over everything; it would be psychologically terrifying because readers would know the water was coming.

Brilliant? Or potentially brilliant? Better than a sequel, anyway, Madeline thought.

Rachel McMann. Now what? Madeline thought. She had already had two long phone calls with Rachel about the Allegra-Ian Coburn-Brick situation; that topic was exhausted. And at the end of the second conversation, Madeline had let Rachel know that she was back to living at home. She and Trevor had worked things out. Moving on.

Madeline let Rachel’s call go to voice mail. It was two o’clock-Madeline had only four hours left, and she was still working on an outline.

Rachel called again, and Madeline thought, Really? She picked up.

“Hello?” she said, allowing a tinge of impatience to creep into her voice.

“I need you to sit down,” Rachel said.

“I am sitting down,” Madeline said. “I’m working, Rachel.”

“You aren’t going to believe this,” Rachel said.

Madeline sighed. Gossip, gossip, gossip. If she were smart, she would hang up now. But she wasn’t strong enough.

“What?” she said.

“Grace Pancik was having an affair with Benton Coe,” Rachel said. “Just as we suspected.”

“I don’t think we suspected that,” Madeline said uneasily. “And I’m not sure what would make you think that was true.”

“Oh, come on!” Rachel said. “When we all saw the article, we knew.”

“The article doesn’t prove anything,” Madeline said.

“Okay, let’s say, strictly speaking, the article doesn’t prove anything. But…!”

“But what?” Madeline asked. She wanted to slam the phone down and never talk to Rachel again, but she had to know what Rachel was going to say. Who had found out about Grace and Benton for sure?

“Bernie Wu was the driver for the writer and the photographer of the article, and he said they arrived early, and it was pretty clear they’d interrupted something. Grace and Benton were locked in the garden shed, and they emerged looking very disheveled indeed.”

Oh no, Madeline thought.

“You’re gossiping, Rachel,” Madeline said. “It’s hearsay, and you should be ashamed of yourself for repeating it. It is none of your business.”

“It sounds like you’re taking the moral high ground,” Rachel said. “Which is ironic, since we all know you’re the one writing a book about it.”

“I’m not writing a book about it,” Madeline said. “I threw that book away.”

Rachel gasped. “No!” she said. “Oh, Madeline.” She sounded genuinely upset, like Madeline had told her she’d put her dog to sleep. “It was so good. I was dying to read it. In fact, I already posted about it in my Goodreads profile.”

“I threw it away, deleted the file,” Madeline said. “It was garbage.”

There was a heavy silence on the other line, which was then replaced by Rachel’s usual sparkly energy. “Well, the thing about Grace and Benton isn’t the most scandalous thing I have to tell you, anyway. Because, did you hear what happened to Eddie Pancik?”

“No,” Madeline said, exasperated. “I did not hear what happened to Eddie Pancik, and I don’t want to hear.” Unless he won the lottery, Madeline thought. Or found a pot of gold sitting on the bottom of Miacomet Pond.

“Eddie Pancik got arrested by the FBI last night,” Rachel said. “He’s been running a prostitution ring on Low Beach Road.”

Madeline closed her eyes. She had several thoughts at once.

Poor Grace.

Eddie was far more desperate than I thought.

Poor Grace.

Madeline didn’t trust any information coming from Rachel McMann. “That’s absurd,” she said.

“It’s true,” Rachel said. “I can’t tell you how I know, but I know. Eddie Pancik has spent his summer pimping out a crew of five Russian housecleaners to his clients. His secretary overheard a conversation or two, I guess, between Eddie and his sister, and she put two and two together. She contacted the FBI.”

“His secretary? You mean Eloise?”

“Yes, Eloise,” Rachel said.

The thought of sweet seventy-year-old Eloise busting open a prostitution ring run by Eddie and Barbie was comical. And yet, Madeline could sort of see how it might be possible.

“Was Grace in on it?” she asked.

Rachel laughed, and Madeline vowed that this would be the last conversation-beyond polite small talk-that she would ever have with Rachel McMann. The woman was a pit viper. “Of course not!” Rachel said. “Grace was too busy screwing the gardener!”

“So Eddie’s in jail, then?” Madeline said.

“Out on bail,” Rachel said. “I guess the check Grace wrote bounced, so his sister and Glenn Daley had to come save the day. They’re seeing each other, you know.”

“Barbie and Glenn?” Madeline said. She had thought they were mortal enemies. “How do you know all this?”

“How does anyone know anything?” Rachel said. “I heard it on the street. People are talking.”

Madeline hung up with Rachel, took ten breaths, walked to the window, and gazed down onto Centre Street. People are talking. Sure enough, there on the corner of India and Centre were Blond Sharon and Susan Prendergast, blabbering away.

Madeline wanted to call Trevor, but he would be in the air.

My fifty thousand dollars, gone, she thought. Really and truly gone. Madeline thought she would feel complete devastation, but instead she experienced a kind of relief. The money was gone, and so she was freed from worrying about it.

All she could think about was Grace. Poor Grace! Madeline decided the time had come to set aside her fear and pride.

She called Grace’s cell phone. No answer, but Madeline wasn’t surprised. She hung up without leaving a message.

Next, she called the house. Her heart was hammering, and her temples throbbed. She hadn’t been this nervous since… she couldn’t remember when. Maybe ever.

One of the twins answered. “Hello?” The voice sounded very curious; of course, Madeline’s name would have popped up on the caller ID.

Madeline exhaled. It was Hope.

“Hi, Hope,” Madeline said. She thought about identifying herself, but that seemed awkward and pointless. Hope knew who it was. “Is your mom there?”

“She’s here,” Hope said. “But she told us she doesn’t want to talk to anyone on the phone.”

“Okay,” Madeline said. “Tell her I’m on my way over.”

Grace was sitting on the front step when Madeline arrived. Madeline thought maybe she might be holding a shotgun to ward Madeline off, but she was holding something even more surprising. A cigarette. Grace was smoking.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Grace said. “I used to smoke in college.”

“I didn’t know that,” Madeline said.

“See?” Grace said. “Still things to learn about your best friend.”

The phrase best friend floated between them, a peace offering. Madeline took both of Grace’s hands. “What’s going on?” she said.

Grace stubbed her cigarette out on the front step. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

They assumed the same postures that they had weeks earlier, back when Grace had just kissed Benton for the first time. Madeline sat in the green leather chair, and Grace fell face first across the crushed-velvet sofa. Madeline recalled her words from that night. I’ll point out, Grace, because I’m your best friend and it’s my job, that no good can come of this.

No good.

Madeline thought that Grace might want to start with what had happened to Eddie, but instead, her lower lip wobbled, and she burst into tears. I thought Benton and I were in love; I was making plans to leave Eddie, maybe as soon as the end of the summer. But then Benton and I were in the garden shed making love, and Eddie came home and found us. He didn’t see anything, but he knew what was happening, obviously, and he told Benton to leave and never come back. Grace swallowed. And Benton left. I’ve been trying to get ahold of him, but he’s shutting me out. He sent me a text saying he’s moving to Detroit!

Madeline sat on the floor next to the sofa and rubbed Grace’s back while she cried. Madeline would never say so out loud, but this was probably all for the best.

Or maybe not. Maybe the best ending was the one Angie had described and the one Madeline had written. I want an ending where the woman is happy instead of good.

Madeline reached into her bag and pulled out her manuscript. She had planned on giving it to Grace as a symbolic gesture-Grace could shred it or burn it; Madeline didn’t care.

But now she had a different idea.

“Listen,” she said. “I did write a novel that was based on your relationship with Benton.”

Grace raised her face. “You did not! I thought that was just a stupid rumor. I didn’t think there was any way you would…”

“I did,” Madeline said. “And here it is.” She plopped the manuscript down on the side table. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to publish it.”

“You can’t publish it, Madeline!” Grace said. “Especially not now!”

“I know, I know, Grace,” Madeline said. “I told my publisher to pull it off the list.”

Grace sat up, and her expression turned to one of rage. “I can’t believe you! I told you about Benton because you are my friend! My best friend! And what? You used everything I told you? You promised you would never betray me, but you did. You did!”

“I’m sorry, Grace,” Madeline said. “I wrote it out of desperation. I was so blocked. I spent the money on the stupid apartment, and then, when I sat down to write, the only story that came to mind was yours. I fought the urge for a while, but I was worried about money. I tried to get my fifty thousand back from Eddie, but I couldn’t, and I was angry about that, and frustrated, and scared. But you’re right. I had no business using your story. And that’s why I told my editor I couldn’t publish it. She was really, really pissed off. She loved it.”

“She did?” Grace said.

“It’s a good novel, Grace. It’s a real love story. Maybe you should read it.”

Grace regarded the manuscript skeptically. “I don’t know about that,” she said.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Madeline said. “And, even though you’re angry about my book, and even though I’m angry about what Allegra did to Brick, I am here with you in your study. I am here, Grace.”

Grace looked at Madeline and dissolved into more tears. “What am I going to do now?” she said.

“Take a deep breath,” Madeline said. “Tell me about Eddie.”

“I’ll tell you about Eddie,” Grace said. “But now I don’t trust you! You have to promise me you won’t…”

“Grace,” Madeline said. “I won’t.”

EDDIE

The most important person in his life now was his new attorney, Bridger Cleburne. Bridger worked at a very large, prestigious firm in Boston, but he hailed from Lubbock, Texas, where he had been the star pitcher on the baseball team that won the Little League World Series in 1984. Bridger used his childhood glory days as a point of commonality with Eddie, “Fast Eddie,” the holder of so many track records at New Bedford High School.

Eddie didn’t care about his track records or about Bridger’s role in the Little League World Series. He needed Bridger to get him out of trouble.

But Eddie’s “situation,” as Bridger called it-a very long word, in his Lone Star State drawl-wasn’t an easy fix. It turned out that one of Eddie’s cleaners-teeny, tiny Elise Anoshkin-was still a few months shy of her eighteenth birthday! A minor, an illegal minor! It was all looking dire for Eddie. The FBI had been watching the house since the second week of the “shenanigans”-another long word for Bridger-and a wiretap had been installed. The evidence was damning.

At first, Eddie thought he’d been turned in by Glenn Daley. He was sure Barbie had either knowingly confided in Glenn or had let some hint or clue slip during the heat of passion. Then, crazily, Eddie wondered if Benton Coe was to blame. Possibly, Benton had been looking for a way to get Eddie out of the picture so he could marry Grace. But Bridger had told Eddie that there were two informants, neither of them Glenn or Benton. One was Eloise, Eddie’s secretary! Apparently, she had needed her paycheck so badly because her “situation” was that she had turned Eddie in: Eloise had overheard Barbie on the phone with one of the potential clients early on. Eloise had contacted her son-in-law’s brother, Officer Dixon at the Nantucket Police Department, and the police had started watching the house.

The other, more dangerous informant was the thirty-year-old billionaire owner of the house. He had given the FBI full access to install surveillance equipment.

How had the owner found out? He had bumped into Ronan LNW from DeepWell at the bar at the Bellagio in Vegas. Ronan had been wearing, of all things, a Chicken Box hat, and when the owner asked Ronan about his connection to Nantucket, Ronan said that he rented an unbelievable house on Low Beach Road in Sconset. Imagine the owner’s delighted surprise when he found out Ronan rented his house. What were the chances? The owner bought Ronan a glass of twenty-five-year-old Laphroaig, and from there it wasn’t hard to imagine that Ronan had leaked like a sieve and told the owner just how much fun he’d had in that house.

The owner wasn’t angry about the immorality of the situation. But he was furious-being a cutthroat businessman himself-that Eddie hadn’t given him a share in the profits.

Now, no matter how one looked at it, Eddie was going to jail. The feds had evidence on Barbie as well, but if Eddie made a deal, Barbie would be spared.

And so Eddie received a sentence of three to five years at MCI-Plymouth. Number 13 Eagle Wing Lane was repossessed by the bank, as were both of Eddie’s commercial properties, including the offices of Dr. Andrew McMann, D.D.S.

The house was paid up until the end of the month, but Eddie was going to advise Grace to sell it. She could buy something smaller and use the difference to send the girls to college and pay back Madeline and Trevor.

These decisions were all made quickly, in a matter of days. Nadia and the other girls were on their way back to Kyrgyzstan.

It could have been worse, he supposed. Three to five years could become two years with good behavior. MCI-Plymouth was a far cry from the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. Eddie would have a TV in his cell, which would be a single, and the food was supposedly sourced from a nearby farm cooperative; there were barbecues held once a month in the state forest. There was a gym where Eddie could start an exercise regimen, and an infirmary with a full-time nurse practitioner, who could, possibly, find a way to cure Eddie’s chronic heartburn. Most important, there would be other white-collar criminals, whom he might, someday, sell houses to.

These things only slightly ameliorated the anguish caused by going to jail. The shame of it was enough to kill him. Now everyone knew that Eddie Pancik was an underworld king. He was a pimp. He could barely bring himself to look at the twins. What would their lives be like at school? What would the other kids say? Their senior year would be ruined, when it should have been the best year of their lives. Eddie decided the right thing to do as a father and a man was to formally apologize to them. He did this the morning of his sentencing, in the hours before he was to plead guilty to seventeen charges of sex trafficking, harboring illegal aliens, tax evasion, and corruption of a minor.

The girls were out by the pool, side by side, reading, as they often were now, despite the fact that Eddie had returned Allegra’s cell phone, thereby restoring her access to her social life. Eddie strode out across the grass in his bare feet, head exposed to the sun now that all three of his Panama hats had bitten the dust. It was late July and one of the most glorious sunny days that God had to offer. The yard was blooming in forty different directions. It was so lush, so colorful, so aesthetically pleasing, that Eddie’s overwhelming instinct was to get on his knees and pray-for forgiveness and in gratitude for the beauty of the world that he had taken for granted and that he would now be leaving behind.

He stood equidistantly between the foot of the girls’ chaise longues. His father had managed Ramos Dry Cleaners and had never made more than twenty-five thousand dollars a year, but Charles Pancik never had to prostrate himself in front of his children. He had been a man of honor. Eddie and Barbie still talked about him with reverence.

“Girls,” Eddie said.

They set down their books and regarded him. They were wearing sunglasses, so it was hard to read their expressions. Since they had learned what had happened, they had treated him with a certain pity, almost as if he were terminally ill. But they must have been angry and disgusted with him, too. They must have been.

He said, “I owe you both an apology.”

They stared at him.

“I did an inexcusable thing. I broke the law, and I engaged in a business arrangement that debased five young women, one of them only a year older than you. I used my position of power to make money from these girls selling their bodies. I was wrong, and I want you to know I’m very sorry.”

Hope said, “It’s okay, Daddy.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not okay.”

“It was a business arrangement,” Allegra said. “You got paid, the girls got paid, the men got what they wanted. You didn’t hurt anyone.”

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Hope said.

“Well, that doesn’t make it right,” Eddie said, thinking, Tax evasion, corruption of a minor, sex trafficking-these would be words connected with his name for the rest of his life. “I’ve led by poor example, and as a result of my actions, I’m going to jail, and your mother is going to sell the house.”

Hope shrugged. “It’s just a house.”

Allegra said, “I’d rather live in town, anyway.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. He couldn’t understand why they were being so nice.

“Eddie!” Grace called from the porch. “We have to go!”

The girls stood to give Eddie a hug. “We love you, Daddy,” Allegra said.

“We really love you,” Hope said.

“And I love you both,” Eddie said. “So much.” He was overcome with emotion. “Take care of your mother. Please.”

“We will,” Hope said.

The ride from Polpis Road to the courthouse took twenty minutes, the last free minutes of Eddie’s old life.

He said to Grace, “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“You slept with Nadia?” she said. She kept her eyes straight ahead, but her mouth was a grim, unattractive line. “I know it hardly matters in the scheme of things, but if you did, I want you to admit it.”

“I did not sleep with Nadia,” Eddie said. “What I want to tell you isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

“You’re going to tell me something about myself?” she said.

“It’s about Benton,” Eddie said.

Grace swerved the car at the mention of his name. It was probably the last thing she’d expected to talk about today, and yet Eddie had to get it off his chest before he left.

“What is it?” she said.

“I called him the other night,” Eddie said. “Before I drove out to Low Beach Road, I called him, and I asked him to stop by the office so we could have a man-to-man talk.”

Grace gasped. “Did he show?”

“Yes,” Eddie said. “I asked him what had been going on, and he told me he loved you. I honestly think he was asking me to step aside gracefully so you two could have a life together.” Eddie cleared his throat. “But he was confused, too, maybe not as sure of himself as he thought. He was worried about the effect of such a scandal on his business. Nobody wants to hire a home wrecker. He was afraid for you and the girls. He enjoyed Hope and thought she was a great kid, but he had never even met Allegra. What happened within the confines of the garden shed might have looked a little different once it was brought out into the sun.” Eddie had been struck, however, by Benton Coe’s adoration of his wife. When Benton talked about Grace, Eddie could feel love coming off the man in waves. It had given Eddie pause. “I think he was willing to take the risk if it could be done with my blessing? My permission?” Eddie was pretty sure that was why Benton had agreed to come to the office-he thought Eddie was going to surrender. “But I wasn’t about to just hand you over. You’re my wife, my life, you’re the mother of my children. I’m aware, Grace, that I haven’t been the most attentive, nor the most loving, husband. I realize I didn’t succeed at nurturing your interior life. Most days, I didn’t ask what you were thinking or feeling. You had emotional needs that I was incapable of meeting, which was why I was glad you had Madeline. And, for a while, I was even glad you had Benton. I knew you liked him, I knew his friendship was important to you. I knew you enjoyed having someone to talk about flowers. But I’m not going to lose you to him. I told him, Grace, that if he ever contacted you again, or if he even responded to a text or call that you made, I would have him killed.”

“Killed?” Grace said. “Really?”

“Really,” Eddie said. “I would have found someone to do it for money. I would have, Grace, and he knew it. Or maybe, let’s say, I wouldn’t have actually had him killed. But I would have ruined his life. I would have taken down his business, shredded his good name.”

“He told you he loved me?” Grace said.

“He did,” Eddie said. “And now, I think you should go with him, if that’s what you want. Because I failed. I did this evil thing, and I let you down.”

Grace didn’t respond. Eddie had never been good at gauging her emotions, but if he tried now, he would say she seemed… overwhelmed. It was a lot to deal with-after all, in a few minutes, he would stand before the judge, he would plead guilty, he would be sentenced and would be taken into custody. Two law-enforcement agents would bring him via ferry to the mainland, where a van would meet them and transport Eddie to MCI-Plymouth. Eddie had a duffel bag in the back of the car, packed with sanctioned items. Grace would be able to visit in thirty days.

He was trying to think of it as going away to college, something he had never experienced. He toyed with this delusion-prison as an institute of higher learning-at least until he pulled up in front of the town building. FBI officers were outside, waiting, as was Eddie’s lawyer, Bridger Cleburne, as was a photographer from the Nantucket Standard, as was… the chief of police.

Eddie groaned.

“Oh, Eddie,” Grace said.

Eddie had mixed feelings about the Chief’s role in all of this. The Chief hadn’t known about the prostitution ring on Figawi weekend-no way-nor, probably, when they went out fishing. But at some point the Chief had found out what Eddie was doing, and he hadn’t given Eddie any warning. By then, possibly, the FBI was involved, and the Chief’s hands were tied. Eddie knew he couldn’t have expected the chief of police to help; friends or not, there was the law to consider. Eddie hung his head as he walked up to the Chief.

“I’m so sorry, Ed…”

The Chief held up a hand. “Don’t apologize to me. I told you I don’t judge. But the court does, and I’m sad to see it go down this way.”

Eddie stared at his feet and shook his head.

The Chief said, “You’ve always struck me as the kind of guy who can bounce back. Be careful in there, Eddie. Keep your nose clean, serve your time. We’ll have that drink when you get back.”

“We will?” Eddie asked. The road he had to travel between now and the time he would actually be a free man again, and able to sit on a bar stool next to the Chief, seemed infinitely long and arduous, but Eddie was heartened that the Chief thought he could do it.

“We will,” the Chief said.