The Rumor

HOPE

As much as everything had changed, everything had stayed the same. Her father went to jail-he was gone-but he had never been around much before. Grace seemed subdued, but she got this way sometimes, especially when she had a migraine. She still did the gardening and cared for the hens, only now she gave Allegra and Hope chores. Allegra was to mow the grass every four days, and Hope was to skim the pool and deadhead the lilies each morning.

One day, Allegra asked Hope if she wanted to go to the beach.

Hope considered this. The beach. Could she and Allegra reasonably make an everyday summer outing to the beach when their father had just been sent to prison?

“Are you sure you want to go to the beach?” Hope said. She had envisioned sitting by the pool in a bubble of reclusive sadness all summer. She hoped that collective memory was short and that by the time their senior year started, people would have forgotten about Allegra and Ian Coburn, and about their father, the pimp.

“I’m sure,” Allegra said. “We can pack sandwiches, take our books, jump in the ocean.”

It did sound appealing. Eddie was in jail, but they weren’t. “Where are you thinking? Steps? Dionis? Sconset?”

“I was thinking Nobadeer,” Allegra said.

“Nobadeer?” Hope said. Nobadeer was where the entire high school hung out. Allegra’s former friends would be there. “Have you made up with Hollis, then?”

“God no,” Allegra said. “But just because she might be there doesn’t mean I can’t be there. I like Nobadeer. It’s my beach.”

It was your beach, Hope thought. But the photo of Allegra in her underwear had knocked her name off the top of the Nobadeer masthead. Hope herself never hung out at Nobadeer-not because she didn’t like it but because her sister and Hollis and their friends congregated there.

Hope said, “Let’s try another beach for starters.”

Allegra said, “Let’s try Nobadeer for starters.”

Hope sighed. They were still Alice and the Dormouse. She didn’t have the energy to fight. She wondered if Allegra was planning on using Eddie’s incarceration as some kind of social currency. Maybe she thought her old friends would find running a prostitution ring of illegal girls cool, or maybe Allegra thought they would feel sorry for her. Hope couldn’t predict. Despite the fact that she was one, she did not understand teenagers.

Grace packed them sandwiches. She seemed happy they were getting out. “There’s no reason to hide,” she said. “Your father made a bad decision, and now he’s paying his dues. It doesn’t reflect badly on the rest of us.”

She sounded as if she were lying. Because she was lying. Eddie’s downfall did reflect badly on the rest of them. Their lives-Allegra’s Italian leather jacket, the red Jeep Wrangler, the chemicals that cleaned the pool, the groceries required to make beautiful sandwiches such as the ones Grace was now making-had been financed by a prostitution ring. Or at least partially so.

It did reflect badly.

Nonetheless, Allegra and Hope put on their bikinis and cover-ups and packed up towels and lotion, bottles of cold water and Diet Coke, and their most precious commodity-the novels they were reading-and accepted the picnic hamper from Grace.

They were off.

The day was bright and blue skied. Allegra insisted they take the top off the Jeep so that sun flooded the front seat as they drove down the sandy roads to the dunes of Nobadeer.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Allegra said. “This is a beach day. This is a gift from God-I mean, look at it.”

They walked over the dunes, onto the golden sands of Nobadeer. The ocean seemed vaster here than anywhere else on the island. There were long breaking waves; the green-blue water sparkled. Tons of kids were surfing and boogie boarding and stand-up paddle boarding. The scene was picturesque, and for a second, Hope thought they were right to have come.

Then she saw Bluto.

Bluto was impossible to miss. He weighed 250 pounds and was as pale as the moon. He wasn’t ugly; he had the sweet, round, blue-eyed face of a baby and nice, thick light-brown hair. But he was crass, and he specialized in the mean exploitation of other people’s worst flaws in order to keep people’s attention off his own. Bluto was lying on a towel next to Hollis, Kenzie, and Calgary-and there, set a little bit apart, were Hannah and Brick. It was an all-star lineup of Allegra’s worst enemies.

Hope turned to look at her sister. Allegra zoomed right for her former friends, beaming. She was wearing a straw hat, her Tom Ford sunglasses, a black bikini, and a black pareu around her hips. She was dazzling.

“Hey, guys!” she said.

Hollis snorted. Bluto said, in his high tenor voice, “Move along, Zippy.”

“Zippy?” Allegra said.

“Your ankles are in different zip codes,” Bluto said.

Calgary McMann laughed maniacally at this. Hope wanted to kick sand in his face. Her foot was less than a yard away from his towel. She then saw that Calgary and Kenzie had their legs entwined. Gross.

Allegra said, “You find that funny, Calgary? Have you told Kenzie how many times you’ve tried to kiss me?”

“That’s not true,” Calgary said.

With one finger, Allegra lowered her sunglasses. “The last time was when you waited for me outside the bathroom at your house earlier this summer. When I almost had to kick you in the nuts.”

Kenzie stared at Calgary. Hope thought, Yes. Calgary had pretended to like Hope, but only because Hope looked like Allegra. Hope thought Brick might be interested in this news, but he and Hannah were in a world of their own. They hadn’t even seemed to notice Allegra and Hope. Brick looked as fit and tan as ever, and his hair was growing blonder. Hope’s heart lurched in his direction, although she realized he and Hannah were having some kind of love conversation, and she also recognized that this was a positive thing. Hannah and Brick were a good match. Hannah was an A student, she played ice hockey, she had ambition: she wanted to play Division I in college and make the Olympic team. She wasn’t as gorgeous as Allegra, but Brick was probably all finished with gorgeous.

Hope tore her attention away from Brick in time to see Kenzie jump up from her towel and lay into Calgary. “Did you try to kiss that slut? Did you?”

“Oh, please,” Hollis said in her sly voice that always reminded Hope of the cobra Nag in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. “This is hardly news. Everyone knows Calgary has had a hard-on for Allegra since the sixth grade.”

“Shut up, Hollis!” Kenzie said.

Hollis rolled lazily onto her back. “Watch who you’re speaking to like that.”

Bluto said, “Leave it to Allegra to stir things up.” He mugged up at them. “Just so you know, I’m not mad at you for screwing Ian Coburn. I think he’s cute. I’m only mad because you didn’t tell me.”

“Well, I’m mad because you screwed him,” Hollis said.

“Because you wanted to screw him yourself,” Bluto said. “Admit it.”

Hollis gave Bluto a withering look. “You’re fat.”

“And you’re a bitch,” Bluto said. “I’m sorry we’re not friends with Allegra anymore, because I liked her better than I like you.”

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Hollis said.

“And, you know, it was a really evil thing, you forwarding that photo,” Bluto said. “You’re a backstabber, Hollis Brancato. I’m sure you’ll do it to me someday.”

Allegra gently took Hope’s arm and led her away from the squabble she’d created. No one had mentioned Eddie. Maybe they hadn’t heard about what had happened. Or maybe they didn’t care. Nobody their age noticed their own parents, much less other people’s parents.

Allegra and Hope passed the towels of Brick and Hannah.

“Hi, Hannah. Hi, Brick,” Allegra said. She smiled at them in a warm and genuine way but didn’t break stride.

They looked up.

“Hi, Allegra,” Hannah said. “Hi, Hope.”

“Hey, Hope,” Brick said. He paused. “Hey, Allegra.”

Hope was too stunned to respond. Stunned at what, however, she wasn’t quite sure. Maybe at the ability of people to be their normal selves, no matter what the circumstances. To keep calm and carry on, as the popular sentiment went.

When they were out of earshot, Allegra said, “They make a pretty cute couple.” She linked her free arm through Hope’s, and, despite every instinct that told Hope not to trust the friendly advances of her sister, she filled with a feeling of warm friendship and more-sisterhood, twinship. Her and Allegra, against the world, from birth until death.

“You think?” Hope said.

“Well,” Allegra said. “Not as cute as us.”

MADELINE

At ten o’clock in the morning, there was a knock on her apartment door. Madeline had just written the first page of her new novel, The Before, on her legal pad. Angie liked the new title and was encouraged by the premise of a prequel to Islandia. She wasn’t quite as frantic as she had been about the popped bubble of B/G. If anything, she seemed almost exhilarated by having something to hold over Redd Dreyfus’s head. “I’ve been indebted to him for so long,” Angie said, “it was time for the tables to turn.”

“Do you mind me asking?” Madeline said. “What happened between you two?”

“I’ll tell you sometime,” Angie had said.

Madeline didn’t want to stand to open the door. The whole point of taking the apartment was to avoid random interruptions. But the knocking was insistent.

Who? Madeline thought.

If it was Rachel McMann “stopping by” to invite Madeline out for coffee, Madeline would lose her temper.

It might be Trevor. He was off today, working around the house and yard. He had threatened to come by and kidnap Madeline for a summertime adventure-a drive up to Great Point, lunch on the deck at Cru, a harbor sail on the Endeavor. “Chim-chiminey, chim-chiminey, chim-chim-cheroo!” Madeline would have a hard time turning her handsome husband down.

It might be Brick, with Hannah Dromanian. Brick and Hannah had started hanging out together in the aftermath of Allegra’s deception. Madeline was worried Brick would fall right into another all-consuming relationship, but it did seem like the two were primarily friends. Hannah was one of those kids whom Madeline thought of as a natural-born achiever. She wanted to succeed, go places, see things, do things, and Madeline thought she might be a good influence on Brick.

Madeline was relieved to know it would not be Eddie Pancik at the door.

The knocking continued. Madeline’s Mini Cooper was in the bricked spot. Whoever this was knew she was here, probably knew she was writing, and didn’t care.

Grace?

The thought occurred to Madeline only as she pulled open the door. Madeline called Grace every day and had invited her ten or twenty times to come into town and see the apartment. But Grace said she felt safer at home. She didn’t want to come into town and bump into anyone-and Madeline couldn’t blame her.

Madeline would have expected that, with all Grace had been through, she would have looked haggard or wrung out, much as she used to after a three-day migraine. But Grace looked radiant. She was wearing white shorts and a blue gingham halter top; she was the picture of summertime. Her eyes were shining, her skin glowed, her smile was warm and peaceful.

Peaceful? Madeline thought. How was that possible?

“Hi?” Madeline said.

“You did it,” Grace said.

“Did what?” Madeline said.

“You wrote this book about me and Benton!” Grace said. “It’s all in there-the mint tea, the pistachio macarons, the Rolling Stones singing ‘Loving Cup.’”

“I know, Grace. I’m so sorry,” Madeline said. “I told you, I’m not going to publish it…”

Grace started shaking and crying, and Madeline thought, She’s going to sue me anyway. Defamation of character. Libel. But then Grace took a step forward and wrapped her arms around Madeline.

“That was the ending I wanted,” Grace said.

“Living in the Virgin Islands?” Madeline said. “Bird-watching?”

“Happiness,” Grace said. “Peace.”

EDDIE

He thought about feeling sorry for himself. He thought about falling into despair. He thought about crying. He thought about listing all the things he would miss about being free.

But what Eddie ended up thinking about on the drive to MCI-Plymouth, a drive that couldn’t last long enough, as far as he was concerned, was the day the twins were born.

Allegra had popped out easily, as if from an ATM spitting out money. Here you go, everything you asked for!

Hope, however, had her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and before Eddie could process the arrival of his first baby, Grace was being raced to the emergency room for a cesarean section. Eddie left Allegra with the nurses and followed, pulling on scrubs as he was directed, hurrying to keep up.

He couldn’t watch the surgery-he didn’t have the stomach for that, his head was down between his knees so he didn’t faint-but he did remember seeing Hope’s tiny light-blue body, covered in blood, and he remembered his terror, his naked screaming fear.

She’s dead, he thought.

Grace called out in a voice he could barely stand to summon, She’s dead, Eddie, she’s dead!

She had a grip on his fingers-she was going to break them all cleanly in half-and he didn’t care.

He wouldn’t, he realized, care about his own self, his own person, ever again.

It turned out the baby wasn’t dead. Somehow the doctors, the nurses, the wizards and angels, got Hope breathing-but she couldn’t stay on Nantucket. She had to be MedFlighted to Boston, and Eddie was going with her. Eddie was in charge. Eddie was her father.

There was a lot of procedure that happened very quickly. Paramedics in blue jumpsuits, who struck Eddie as ridiculously calm and competent, strapped Hope onto a tiny stretcher. They applied heart monitors the size of dimes and an oxygen mask the size of an egg. Eddie went into the back of the helicopter with a human being small enough to nestle comfortably inside his Panama hat.

One of the paramedics was a woman with copper-colored corkscrew curls. Her name was Kristin, and she was stationed in the back to monitor Hope’s vital signals. She handed Eddie a pair of large over-the-ear headphones to muffle the noise of the chopper, and she put a miniature set of headphones, headphones for a doll, over Hope’s delicate ears.

Before the world went at once loud and silent, Eddie said to Kristin, “Do people ever die in this helicopter?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “All the time.” She smiled at him. “But your daughter is going to be fine.”

The helicopter had lifted seconds later, and so had Eddie’s spirit.

Kristin the MedFlight paramedic had been right: Hope was fine, better than fine. Occasionally over the years, Eddie would look at his slightly younger twin-when she licked her finger and turned the page of one of the books she was always reading (she was like Grace in this way), when she played the flute (how did she do it? Eddie had picked up the instrument once and had blown into the mouthpiece but had heard nothing but his own hot air)-and he would marvel at just how fine she had turned out to be, that small, pale-blue baby.

The last time Eddie had felt this way had been when he took Hope to the Summer House for dinner, just the two of them. He had been returning from the men’s room to the table when he saw Hope lean over to taste his martini. His first instinct was to call out, Hey, there, what are you doing, Hope? Come on. But he stopped himself. He recognized Hope’s natural curiosity about the adult world, beyond the edges of her own, and applauded her courage to explore it in a safe way. What he’d thought was, Good for you, Hope. Good for you.

These memories sustained Eddie all the way to exit 6 off Route 3 south, which was, unfortunately, Eddie’s exit.

Eddie Pancik had never been much for self-reflection, but as the van pulled up in front of MCI-Plymouth, and as the uniformed guards stopped them at the gate to check Eddie’s name off their list, Eddie tried to identify exactly how he was feeling.

The word that came to his mind was blessed.

NANTUCKET

There was so much chatter on Nantucket that we were surprised they couldn’t hear us on Martha’s Vineyard.

Russian prostitution ring, Low Beach Road, Edward Pancik arrested: this made the papers in Boston and beyond. We all had to suffer through people from off island asking us: How could this happen on Nantucket?

Nantucket was a place of men and women, of business and commerce, just like everywhere else. The more hard hearted and seasoned of us asked: Do you not think there were prostitutes on Nantucket back in the whaling heyday? It was the world’s oldest profession. Eddie Pancik had hardly invented it.

Certain people benefited from the scandal. One was Eloise Coffin, Eddie’s secretary. She had quit her job at Island Fog Realty-obviously-and was secretly hoping for a call from the local news station. One “investigative reporter” from an Internet blog named Jared’s Apartment called and asked to hear Eloise’s story. And so Eloise told this reporter, Jared, about how she’d been placing her cartons of organic Greek yogurt in the office fridge when she overheard Barbara Pancik on the phone, proposing the unthinkable for their five Russian housecleaners. Eloise had been completely aghast-and then she caught wind of how much money Eddie, Barbie, and the girls would be making.

Eloise did not tell this Jared fellow that there had been a week or two when she had tried to get in on the action. She had been sweet and accommodating, she had bought Eddie a potted snapdragon with her own money, she had complimented Barbie on her green-and-white-print wrap dress, even though Eloise felt that kind of dress had gone out in the 1970s. She had tried to be one of the team, hoping that either Eddie or Barbie might confide in her and cut her into the profits.

But they had chosen to be selfish-the selfish, greedy Panciks-and Eloise had had no choice but to call her son-in-law at the Nantucket Police Department and tell him what she’d heard.

The “investigative reporter,” Jared, never published the story anywhere that Eloise could find. She had her daughter-in-law, Patrice, check the Internet, but Patrice couldn’t find a blog called Jared’s Apartment. Eloise craved public acknowledgment of her do-gooding, and, falling short of that, she simply told her tale to anyone who would listen-friends, neighbors, her children and grandchildren, and her husband, Clarence.

But Clarence was six years older than Eloise, and he wore hearing aids that seemed to pick up sounds coming only from the television. Clarence had spent most of his retirement watching television-the Red Sox in summer and the Patriots and Bruins in winter, and, if not sports, then the Food Network. Eloise knew that Clarence was secretly in love with Giada De Laurentiis.

Eloise said to Clarence, “I’m surprised more reporters aren’t calling.”

“It was the FBI who caught the guy, El, not you,” Clarence said.

“Oh, I know,” Eloise said. She had been a bit disappointed when she found out there was a second informant, one with more clout than Eloise. “But you’d think, I don’t know, that they’d offer me some kind of reward.”

“Reward?” Clarence said.

“Yes, you know-like money,” Eloise said. “Or a plaque.” Even a plaque would be fine, as long as it was presented to her on a stage, in front of an audience. Eloise would stand before photographers with the chief of the Nantucket police, each of them holding one side of the plaque, smiling for the cameras. That was sure to make the evening news: EMPLOYEE UNCOVERS PROSTITUTION RING.

But Clarence had stopped listening, and there was little hope of her getting his attention back. Giada De Laurentiis was on the tube, making homemade gnocchi with sage and brown butter.

Eloise sighed. Reward. Then she retreated to the kitchen table, where she would scour the classified ads. She needed another job.

The third house that Eddie Pancik was building on Eagle Wing Lane was bought immediately by Glenn Daley of Bayberry Properties, who, we later learned, had bought the other two spec houses from Eddie in a private deal. Rachel McMann begged Glenn for the first crack at selling the three houses once they were finished. But Glenn Daley had other ideas. He hired a new real-estate agent to join his agency-none other than Barbie Pancik! On the day that Barbie moved into her new desk-as it happened, the desk right next to Glenn’s-Glenn pulled a diamond ring out of his drawer and proposed marriage.

“Will you be my wife?” he asked.

Barbie Pancik, too overcome for words, placed her perfectly manicured hand over her mouth and nodded an emphatic yes. All the other agents and associates in the office clapped and cheered, Rachel McMann a little less enthusiastically than some.

Grace Pancik put her Wauwinet Road house, “with three acres of gardens designed by renowned landscape architect Benton Coe,” on the market for $3.5 million. In less than a week, Barbie Pancik (soon to be Barbie Pancik-Daley) had sold the place for full listing price. Grace and her two daughters moved into a charming cottage on Lily Street with a postage-stamp yard. It was hard to give up the hens, Grace said, but it would be nice to live in town and be able to walk to coffee, and to the post office to mail Eddie’s care packages.

Jean Burton happened to see Grace at the Federal Street post office one morning, nestling a brand-new Panama hat in straw to send to Eddie, along with three bottles of cherry Tums and an index card with her lip prints on it.

“She’s standing by her man,” Jean said. “I really admire that.”

We all agreed that it was laudable. What, after all, was to keep Grace from following Benton Coe to Detroit? The two of them had been madly in love. We had NOT been wrong about that.

Jody Rouisse said to Susan Prendergast, “Well, if she isn’t going to Detroit to chase him, then I just might.” But Jody Rouisse, as we knew, was all talk. The most she would ever do would be to follow Benton on Twitter, using the hashtag #belleislepark.

Speaking of Panama hats, rumor had it that Philip Meier, a longtime loan officer at Nantucket Bank, ordered a Panama hat online, a cheap imitation one that cost him $19.99. Philip then approached the bank employees who worked at the teller desk, all of them women.

He said, “I know it’s only August, but how many of you want to dress up as prostitutes for Halloween and come with me to the Chicken Box? We’re sure to win first prize. I’m going as Eddie Pancik.”

The tellers laughed nervously. None of them wanted to go anywhere with Philip on Halloween. He was too touchy-feely; even the office holiday party was trying.

Finding he had no takers, Philip Meier went back to his computer and ordered an orange prison jumpsuit. He didn’t need five girls; he could win Best Costume all by himself.

But still, it would be better with the girls.

He would work on them, he decided. He still had plenty of time.

Madeline King and Grace Pancik were back to being friends. We would see them side by side at Steps Beach; we could find the two of them, plus Trevor Llewellyn, out to dinner at Le Languedoc and the Straight Wharf on Saturday nights. We had all figured out by then that the “involvement” between Eddie and Madeline had been financial, not sexual, and we learned that Grace had paid Madeline and Trevor their fifty thousand dollars back only hours after she closed on her house.

It was rumored that the photograph of Allegra Pancik and Ian Coburn sitting on the hood of Ian’s red Camaro in their underwear had gone viral and that both teenagers had been offered modeling contracts, with shoots in New York, London, and Hong Kong.

That rumor was quashed when Blond Sharon took her children to the Weezie Library and found Allegra shelving books from a cart among the babbling young children playing with wooden trucks on the braided rug, and mothers and caregivers reading in hushed tones. Allegra was certainly beautiful enough to be a model, Blond Sharon thought. Her long dark hair was loose over her shoulders, and her skin was a golden tan against the white eyelets of her sundress, which was a more modest garment than Blond Sharon could ever remember seeing her wear.

“Allegra!” Blond Sharon said in surprise, her voice several decibels louder than was appropriate for a children’s library. “What are you doing here? I thought you were on your way to fame and glory!”

“Fame?” Allegra said quizzically, as she slid Bear Snores On back into place on the shelf. “Glory?”

Blond Sharon blinked. Who had told her that Allegra Pancik was going to be a model for Lucky jeans, replacing Gisele Bündchen? Now she couldn’t remember.

She left the Weezie library hand in hand with her two children, Sterling and Colby, who were late for their sailing lessons anyway. She felt a little deflated that the glamorous story she’d heard wasn’t true.

But then she perked up. It was, after all, a beautiful day on Nantucket; the sun was shining, and Blond Sharon knew that it would be only a matter of time until this island gave her something else to talk about.