The Beach Club

4 Summer Solstice

June 20

Dear S.B.T.,

At the risk of sounding ridiculously proud, I will tell you that on June 18, Therese and I traveled to Concord, Mass., where we watched our daughter, Cecily, graduate from Middlesex. She strolled across the manicured lawn like her other classmates, but she stood out, a shining star, a flashing beacon. Cecily is already a young woman, far more mature and sophisticated than her peers. She is our pride and joy and I know you will understand that it is for her sake that I will never sell the Beach Club.

Do you have children, S. B. T? You have never mentioned any. I would be interested to know the answer to that question, if you are willing to disclose it.

Cordially,

Bill Elliott

On the twenty-first of June, summer officially arrived. The sun stayed out longer, the restaurants opened seven nights a week, and the bars were full of college girls who, Vance noticed, favored blue toenail polish and tattoos this year. The weekly edition of the Inquirer and Mirror printed its first five-section paper of the season. The Stop & Shop was such a madhouse that management kept the store open twenty-four hours, which meant Vance could pick up his Cheerios and lunch meat at 3:00 A.M. if he wanted. The cobblestone streets of town were clogged with cars coming off the ferry, bicyclists, and pedestrians, people holding their maps, crossing the street without looking. Who were all these people? The island became inundated with Range Rovers from Connecticut (that sounded like a stereotype, but Vance swore it was true; that morning on Main Street he counted no less than three Range Rovers, all with the telltale blue license plate). The Steamship Authority ran six boats a day in each direction and the Nantucket airport was busier than Logan in Boston. The climbing roses and hydrangeas bloomed, causing more slowdowns; through his open window, Vance heard women cooing, “Look at the pretty flowers!”

It was popular to complain about the tourists and so Vance decided to take the opposite approach. He embraced the tourists. He waved to people in the long lines outside the Juice Bar and the Brotherhood, he gave directions to a family on bicycles-the man turning his map every which way, while the mother, with a baby jammed in a booster seat on the back of her Schwinn and three kids behind her, said, “Honey, why don’t you just ask someone if we’re headed toward a beach? Here, ask this nice man.” Tourists, to Vance, meant one thing: money. Vance had been raking in sweet tips from the hotel guests, especially since Jem was constantly screwing up, making Vance look good.

June 21, summer solstice, was also the day the Beach Club opened. This meant that a hundred Beach Club members would now be crawling over the property like ants on a picnic. The members wanted their specific umbrella in their specific spot on the beach. Some members had been sitting in the same spot for forty or fifty years. (Vance did the math: if a person came to the Beach Club four times a week and stayed for six hours a day during the ten weeks of summer over fifty years that meant they had spent twelve thousand hours sitting in the same place.)

One of the good things about the Beach Club opening was that Vance had two more lackeys to boss around. Mack hired beach boys named Kevin and Bruce who looked just like all the other beach boys Vance had seen over the years-pimply, sarcastic prep school kids who somehow lucked into the cushiest job on the island. That morning, Vance wanted to scare the kids so they would not only respect him but shudder a little when they saw him coming. They waited in front of the lobby at eight o’clock sharp, a good sign. Vance parked his Datsun 300ZX, and the two boys looked it over appreciatively, another good sign. As he stepped out of the car, they nervously eyed his shaved head. Excellent. Vance bit his tongue to keep himself from grinning.

“You the beach boys?” he asked.

“Man, could you call us something else?” the taller, skinnier kid asked. “I don’t want to be associated with some washed-up sixties band.” This kid wore a South Carolina Cocks hat, another popular item at the bars this summer. With a lightning-quick motion, Vance hit the bill of the cap and flipped it off the boy’s head. The boy flinched and stepped back; his hair was matted as though he hadn’t even run a comb through it that morning.

“Are you Kevin or Bruce?” Vance asked.

“Bruce.”

“Bruce, let me tell you something. Beach boys have been called beach boys since the Club opened in 1924. And guess what, buddy? We’re not changing it for you. Got that?”

Bruce bent down to pick up his hat while Kevin, who was chubbier with more pimples, stared wide-eyed at Vance. They were off to a good start.

Vance took the boys past Lacey Gardner’s cottage to the umbrella room.

“These are the beach umbrellas,” he said. “They cost a hundred sixteen dollars apiece. If you break an umbrella because you’re negligent, you get docked that much plus the amount it costs to ship these babies back to the south of France where they were made.” This wasn’t true but Vance found that saying this led to fewer broken umbrellas. “The umbrellas come in kelly green, royal blue, and canary yellow. Sometimes members want a certain color. You’re going to have to memorize who those people are and their umbrella color. I’m not taking any crap from a pissed-off member because they got royal instead of canary. Capiche?”

Kevin picked at his chin. “How will we know which ones?”

“I’ll teach you,” Vance said. He hefted seven umbrellas onto his shoulder. “Follow me.”

The sun was out and already hot. Vance raised his face. He’d picked up some kind of crazy sun addiction in Thailand; he couldn’t get enough of it. But practically speaking, a warm, sunny summer solstice was bad news. The Beach Club would be packed, and because the beach boys were brand-new that meant Vance would have to set up all one-hundred umbrellas by himself.

“Now,” Vance said, “this is how you set up an umbrella. Watch carefully.” He held up the spike, as long as a Louisville Slugger. “This is the bottom of the umbrella, the part that gets driven into the sand. It’s sharp, as you can see, and for this reason you have to make sure you drive it deep. I don’t want to tell you about umbrellas I’ve seen that got loose in the wind because some beach boy did a half-ass plant job. Can you imagine catching this spike in the face?” He lowered his voice. “Or the balls?”

Bruce curled his lip, Kevin looked like he was about to lose his breakfast. Vance bit his tongue again. Then he raised the spike in his arms and blasted it into the sand.

“Pretend the sand is your ex-girlfriend,” he said. “Or hell, pretend it’s me.” Plenty of times, Vance imagined the sand was Mack. “Then wag the spike back and forth until it goes even deeper. When you feel there’s no possibility of it getting loose even in gale force winds, pack sand around it like this. Then you’re ready to put up an umbrella.” Vance slid the umbrella pole over the spike and locked it in. He opened the umbrella triumphantly; it bloomed like a big royal blue flower. “There,” Vance said. “That’s how it’s done.”

“Not bad for a bellman,” a voice said.

Mack walked toward them through the sand. Not bad for a bellman? What the hell kind of comment was that? All of Vance’s good work at getting these Romper Roomers to respect him was down the drain with that remark.

Mack shook hands with the two kids and then he put his arm around Vance’s shoulders. Vance tensed, like Mack’s arm was one of the cobras he’d seen at the Snake Farm in Bangkok.

“Vance was a beach boy himself once upon a time,” Mack said. “So maybe someday you too will be a bellman.”

Bruce scoffed. Vance wanted to flip the kid’s hat off again and make him eat it. Vance had half a mind to quit right then and there, and as long as he was at it, he might as well beat Mack to a pulp in front of these two clowns. If the money weren’t so damn good, he would do it.

Vance picked up another spike. He threw it to Bruce, point first. “Here,” Vance said. “You try.”

Bruce lifted the spike the way Vance had done and brought it down with an “Ooomph!” The spike grazed the sand and shot between Bruce’s legs, like he was hiking a football. Kevin giggled.

“Unbelievable,” Vance said.

Mack clapped Vance on the back. “Keep up the good work, Professor,” he said. “By the way, there’s a twelve-knot west-southwest wind.”

Vance thought briefly about how sweet it would be to set all the umbrellas facing east northeast just so he could watch them pop out of the ground and fly down the beach. He thought of the Beach Club members lying impaled and bloody in the sand. But why should he punish the members when the person he was after was Mack? Vance crunched two Rolaids between his teeth. Then he picked up the spike and tossed it to Bruce.

“Try again,” he said.

By nine-thirty all the umbrellas were up and Vance’s arms ached. Bruce was the crappiest umbrella planter Vance had ever seen, although Kevin wasn’t bad, just a little shallow. Vance showed the boys where the Sleepy Hollow chairs were kept and instructed them on how to properly open and close the chair without snapping their fingers off. He left them out on the beach, practicing opening and closing the chairs like the amateurs they were.

When Vance got back to the office, Mack was in the lobby schmoozing with the guests. Vance went into the utility closet and shoved past the stand of vacuum cleaners. There, in the back of the closet, sat Vance’s locked toolbox. Vance found the key on his ring and opened the box. Inside was his hammer, various nails and screws, a set of adjustable wrenches, a ratty, torn-up copy of “The Downward Spiral,” Vance’s published short story, and Mr. Beebe’s handgun. It was a.38. Vance held it straight out in his arms. Mack was lucky Vance didn’t have the gun when he made his cutesy remark. Mack was lucky Vance didn’t feel like going to jail, otherwise he would be Vance’s first target, no question about it.

“Not bad for a bellman,” Vance said softly. “Pow.”

Within twenty-four hours of summer solstice, two important women in Mack’s life arrived on the island: Andrea Krane and Cecily Elliott. Cecily arrived first, at ten o’clock on Sunday night. Mack was watching TV with Maribel asleep in his lap when the phone rang.

“I’m home. Mom and Dad said I should call. Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“Cecily?” Mack said. Maribel blinked her eyes. “How are you, kid?”

“Butt tired. I partied until seven o’clock this morning, then spent the day trying to get my dorm room clean enough so they would give Dad his security deposit back.”

“Are you happy to be home? We missed you, kid.”

“I’m not a kid. I’m eighteen years old, Mack.”

“I know. How was graduation?”

“Boring. Hot. I was hungover for that, too.”

“How’s the boyfriend?”

“I’ll fill you in tomorrow,” Cecily said. “Can I please talk to Maribel?”

Mack covered the receiver. “It’s Cecily. She wants to talk to you.”

“Of course,” Maribel said. She took the phone from Mack. “Cecily? Hey, girlfriend, how are you? No, you didn’t hurt his feelings. He understands there are some things that can only pass between the lips of women. Now, tell me everything.” Maribel disappeared into the bedroom.

Mack listened to Maribel’s muffled laughter through the wall. The friendship between Maribel and Cecily surprised him. For the past several years, Therese had been trying to light a fire between him and Cecily, insisting that if they got married, the Beach Club would go to them both. Mack loved Cecily like a sister and he supposed Cecily reciprocated, although she was frequently sarcastic with him, and sullen. She’d had a crush on him when she was eleven or twelve, but as soon as the crush faded it seemed as if he’d disappointed her, fallen short of her expectations. This made him feel like doing a better job, so he tried to stay updated about her boyfriends and school, but everything she told him sounded suspiciously like old news, or a lie.

Cecily adored Maribel, and for good reason: Maribel was beautiful, friendly, intelligent, genuine, and all despite the fact that she’d been raised by a single working mother in rural New York. Mack had met Maribel during her first summer on the island, when North Beach Road was part of her daily running route. Mack found himself waiting for her to show up, the blond runner. He volunteered to sweep the parking lot around ten o’clock, hoping she would take off her headphones and talk to him, but she never stopped, except for a brief moment, to drink in the sight of the ocean. One day Mack waited in the middle of the road with a bottle of Evian. She waved him away, but her eyes lingered on the bottle; it was, thankfully, a very hot day, and she gave in. She poured half the bottle down her front and inhaled the other half sloppily, letting it drip down her chin. She gasped, “Thanks,” and was about to run off when he said, “Can I call you?” She readjusted her headphones, and said, “Library, in the afternoons.” Mack remembered his first time walking into the Atheneum, its intimidating white columns, its intimidating quietness. He found Maribel in the stacks, reading a paperback romance, licking her finger as she turned each page. He tapped her on the shoulder and she whipped her head around, narrowed her blue eyes. She couldn’t place him. He said, “I manage the Beach Club. I see you running.” She reddened and quickly replaced the book on the shelf. “You like romances?” he said. “No,” she answered sternly. “I don’t.”

But she did. Her job at the library was a summer position, and when the fall came, she stayed. And stayed, for six years.

This past Christmas Eve, Maribel had the stomach flu and yet she insisted on going to the midnight service at the Unitarian church. No sooner had the choir filed in singing “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful,” then she had to be sick. Mack escorted her out and she threw up all over Orange Street. They sat on the steps in the cold still night, with the clock tower above them as they listened to the faint singing from inside. “The most beautiful night of the year,” Maribel said. “And I ruined it.” Mack almost proposed right then, and what a story it would have been, but no, he didn’t have the courage, if courage was what he was missing. In the end he just held Maribel’s hand, and when she felt well enough, they walked home. After six years, Maribel didn’t pester him about marriage, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he had to make a decision soon. First, he had to decide about the farm and the Beach Club, and then he had to decide about Maribel.

An hour later, Mack went into bed. He found Maribel fast asleep in her clothes, holding the receiver of the phone to her chest. Her lips parted and she gave a sudden kick.

“Jump-starting your motorcycle,” Mack said softly. He kissed her forehead. “Sweet dreams.”

Maribel’s eyes flew open. “What am I doing?” she asked.

“Running in place,” he said. He wasn’t sure if she was awake or not. “What did you and Cecily talk about?”

“Nothing,” Maribel said. Her eyes fell closed again. “Love.”

Mack saw Cecily the next morning after breakfast. He was standing on the front porch of the lobby when she popped out of her house. She was in bare feet, wearing baggy Umbro shorts and a Middlesex Field Hockey T-shirt. Cecily was tall and lanky and had long red curls, two shades darker than her mother. She walked toward Mack gingerly, over the asphalt and the broken hermit crab shells.

“You need to toughen your feet,” Mack said.

“I liked being in a place that had grass, you know. Don’t you ever miss grass, Mack?”

“If we had grass, I’d be mowing it,” he said. He met Cecily on the first step and hugged her. “I missed you, though. And hey, congrats on getting into UVA. We have a bellman here from Virginia.”

Cecily lifted her leg to inspect the sole of her foot. “I know. Mom told me.”

“So when do you leave for college?”

“Geez, Mack. I just got here. Can’t you let a person relax for a minute? College isn’t exactly an exciting prospect for me. I just spent four years in a dorm, okay? We’re talking about more of the same.”

“Sorry,” Mack said. “I thought college was pretty cool and I was only on the Cape.”

“College is college,” Cecily said. She squinted at him. “I can’t believe you haven’t proposed yet.”

“How rude of me.” He dropped to one knee. “Cecily, will you marry me?”

Cecily slouched, hip thrown out. “I don’t know how Maribel puts up with you.”

“That makes two of us,” Mack said. “I’m impossible.”

“Not an excuse,” Cecily said. “When are you going to ask her?”

“I don’t know,” Mack said. “Maybe around the time you graduate from college.”

“You are impossible,” Cecily said.

“So,” Mack said, “tell me about the boyfriend.”

“He’s smarter than you and much better looking,” Cecily said. “But you’re changing the subject. When are you going to ask Maribel to marry you?”

“Did Maribel send you out as her scout?” Mack said.

“No.” Cecily avoided his eyes by inspecting her other foot. “We just want to know.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Mack asked.

“The world,” Cecily said. “When are you going to marry her, Mack?”

“I don’t know,” Mack said. “One of the things you’ll learn as you grow up is that sometimes ‘I don’t know’ is the only answer you’re going to get.”

“Please spare me the growing-up bullshit,” Cecily said. She looked past him into the lobby. “Can you believe Mom and Dad won’t let me work the front desk? Dad’s putting me on the beach. At least I’ll get a tan. Who’s that working?”

“Love O’Donnell,” Mack said. “She’s nice. You’ll like her.”

“I’ll have to like her later. I’m going back to bed.”

“The Beach Club opens today, Cecily. That makes this your first day of work.”

She waved at him and headed back through the minefield of shells to her house. “I’m the owner’s daughter,” she said. “I do what I want.”

Andrea Krane and her fifteen-year-old son, James, arrived on the late ferry, which docked at 10:30 P.M. Mack was working the desk, giving Tiny the night off, and he let Jem go home early. The lobby was quiet. From the front porch, Mack watched the lights of the ferry approach the island. Andrea was on that boat, standing on the upper deck trying to pick out the lights of the hotel from off the dark coast.

I’m right here where you left me. Last July he watched her boat leave from this very spot. It was morning then and Mack waved his arms, although he knew she couldn’t see him.

When the ferry headed around Brant Point and Mack heard the long, low horn announcing the boat’s arrival, he went back inside and sat behind the desk. Twenty minutes later, Andrea walked in the door. She was in sweatpants and a navy blue windbreaker, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She carried a huge duffel across her back and a suitcase in each hand. Mack scrambled to help her.

“I got it,” she said irritably when he reached for her bags. “If you help, you’ll throw me off balance.” She made it to the front desk and let everything drop. “Here I am.” She took a deep breath and looked at the quilts, the wicker chairs, the fireplace, the plants. “God, I love this place. I’d like to buy this place. Do you think Bill and Therese would sell it to me? No, don’t say anything. Just let me take this all in. In a minute, it’s going to feel like I never left.”

Mack hadn’t seen Andrea in eleven months, he hadn’t heard her voice or smelled her scent, and yet here she was in front of him, exactly as she had been when he last kissed her.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

Mack kissed her.

“Do that again,” she said.

Mack kissed her with more intensity, although still not the way he wanted to kiss her. If it weren’t in violation of her rules, he would carry her back to room 18 and make love to her right then and there. Instead, he stepped back.

“How was your trip?” he asked. “And where’s James?”

“He’s in the truck, rocking,” she said. “That should give you some indication of how the trip went. As soon as he gets out of his routine, he starts to panic. I bought him a book about airplanes to keep him occupied. His new thing is planes. We’ve been getting up at six o’clock each morning and driving to BWI to watch them take off.”

“Let’s go get him,” Mack said. “I have his room all set up with the bedspread. That might make him feel better.”

“You’re a doll,” she said. “And remember, don’t let him upset you.”

Mack had known James since he was five years old when he was afraid of toilet seats and he held his hands over his ears and screamed in a strangled voice. Every year Mack hoped James would become cured of his autism. Dealing with James was frustrating and even a little scary. Mack felt a familiar dread as he followed Andrea out to her truck.

James sat in the passenger side of Andrea’s green Ford Explorer with his head bent, rocking back and forth. Andrea opened the door, but the rocking continued. James’s rocking blocked out all other stimuli; it was his way of keeping himself under control.

“Climb out of the truck, James,” Andrea said. She waited a few seconds. “Climb out.”

James stopped rocking and got out of the truck like an automaton. He was such a handsome kid, with Andrea’s honey-colored hair and gray-green eyes. Puberty had come to James this year-he was taller, with faint whiskers above his lip.

“Say hi to Mack,” Andrea prompted.

“Hi, Mack,” James said.

“Hi, James. I’m glad you got here safely.” Mack looked at Andrea. “Are there other bags?”

“I’ll get them,” she said. “You take James to his room.”

“Follow me, James,” Mack said. He took the boy’s arm but James pulled away. James opened the door to the truck and Mack thought he was going to climb back in and start rocking again but all he did was pick up a book.

“Understanding Aeronautics,” James said. “Three hundred twenty-five pages, illustrated, heavy stock laminate paper. Copyright 1990. Reprinted 1992, 1994. This copy belongs to James Christopher Krane.” He tucked the book under his arm and followed Mack through the lobby, out the back door and along the boardwalk to room 17.

Mack stepped into the room and James followed. “This is your room, James.”

James sat immediately down on the bed and started stroking the bedspread. “James’s blanket,” he said.

“That’s your blanket,” Mack said. “Nobody uses it but you.” It was a green chenille bedspread, the kind the hotel rooms had ten years ago. Now all the rooms had hand-stitched quilts, but Mack stored one chenille bedspread in the utility closet for James.

Andrea opened the door that connected with room 18. “Mom’s room is right here, remember, James?”

James turned on the TV.

“James, please put your clothes in the dresser,” Andrea said. “We’re going to be here for three weeks.”

“Twenty-one days,” James said.

“That’s right. Twenty-one days just like always. Let me show you where the bathroom is.” Andrea turned on the bathroom light. “It’s right here. And Mack took off the toilet seat. There’s no toilet seat in here, okay, buddy?”

James stared at the TV. “No toilet seat,” he said.

“That’s right, no toilet seat. No reason to be afraid. You’ve stayed in this room many times before. Do you feel comfortable?”

James stared at the TV.

“James, I asked if you felt comfortable here.”

“Are we going to the airport in the morning?” James asked.

“Yes, we are, we’re going to the Nantucket airport.”

“Okay,” James said.

“Okay. Mom is going to unpack and then go to sleep. Knock on my door if you need anything.”

Andrea beckoned Mack into her room.

“Good night, James,” Andrea said.

“Good night, James,” Mack said.

“Good night,” James said. “Good night.”

Andrea shut the door and fell back onto the bed. “What an exhausting day. Every day with James is exhausting but travel really drains me.” She unzipped her windbreaker. Underneath she wore a red T-shirt. “Do you notice a difference in him?” she asked.

“That’s not fair,” Mack said, plunging into the leather chair. “You know him much better than I do.”

“I’m so close to him that I can’t notice any changes. Tell me what’s different from a year ago. Maybe I shouldn’t ask you until tomorrow. He wasn’t exactly the best version of himself tonight.”

“Well,” Mack said. He wasn’t thinking of James, but of the lobby, which he had left open, and of the phone, which he left unattended. “Let me use your phone.” Mack forwarded the hotel’s calls to Andrea’s room. Then he sat back down in the chair. “He’s taller,” Mack said. “He’s getting a beard in, have you noticed that?”

“I’ve been ignoring it,” Andrea said. She hugged her knees to her chest. “Really, as if it weren’t difficult enough for me to raise a special-needs child on my own, now I have to raise a man? I have parents asking me questions all the time, about toilet training and school and what kinds of vitamins their kids should take, and I give them answers but I feel like such an impostor. Because meanwhile I’m watching James grow up and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know what to tell him about shaving, or about girls and sex. He loves to masturbate, and every time I find him doing it, I hide in my walk-in closet and cry. In a couple of years, I’m going to have to help him find a job and another place to live. There are hurdles in front of me and I can’t even see how high they are.”

“Do you hear from Raymond?” Mack asked.

“I heard his wife just had her third baby. He sends me large sums of money, really enormous sums that I’m simply socking away. But he won’t see James, nothing’s changed there. It’s like the kid doesn’t exist for Raymond, except as some kind of charity case to throw money at. Being rejected by your father is enough to break a normal kid. I don’t know how it’s affecting James.”

“I can teach James to shave,” Mack said. “Later in the week, once he’s gotten used to me again.”

Andrea flashed her green-grays at him and then she started to cry. “Thank you,” she said. “I was hoping you’d offer. It’s so horrible of me to depend on you, but you know what? I like having three weeks out of fifty-two when I know there’s someone I can count on. It’s nice to know I’m not completely alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Mack said. He sat next to Andrea on the bed. He put his arms around her and she pressed her wet face into his chest. Mack closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of her hair. He loved Andrea’s sadness. Her sadness was about the inscrutable mixed-up messages in her son’s brain, and about being left to bring him up by herself, but Andrea’s sadness was generous enough to encompass everything, including an eighteen-year-old Iowa farm boy losing both his parents in a single moment. And somehow she managed to make sadness, her own and everyone else’s, seem necessary, right.

“I love you,” Mack said.

She sniffled. “I know.”

They had never made love. This was Andrea’s rule from the beginning-it would make things too complicated, she said, and there was also the issue of logistics, because of James. There was always James-and long ago Mack suspected that after the ferocity with which Andrea loved James, there was little left over for anyone else. Andrea never told Mack she loved him-always she responded by saying “I know.” She let him hug and kiss her and once or twice a summer when James was asleep in the other room they fell back on the bed groping for one another and Mack ground against her, sweating, crazy, aching. But she never gave in, she never let go.

The phone rang and Mack stood to answer it.

“Who could be calling me?” Andrea asked.

“It’s Maribel,” he said. He checked his watch. “It’s almost midnight.” He picked up the phone. “Nantucket Beach Club.”

“Mack,” Maribel said, “it’s late.”

“I know,” he said. “I had a late check-in. I’ll be home in a little while.”

“I might be asleep.”

“Okay,” Mack said. He paused before he hung up, thinking about Maribel the night before as she lay asleep with the phone on her chest; he thought about the little kicks and twists she made in the night. He knew her so well. She was like another part of him. As Mack replaced the receiver he thought, I love them both. It happened, he supposed; he was just glad he didn’t have to choose between them, not tonight, anyway.

“I should go,” he said to Andrea.

“When are you going to marry her, Mack?”

“I don’t know,” Mack said. “I kind of wish people would quit asking me that.”

Andrea smiled. “Would you like to come to the airport with James and me tomorrow? Normally we leave at six but since I’m on my much-needed vacation, we won’t leave until seven. Want to join us for an hour?”

“Sure,” Mack said. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot, how’s that?” He kissed Andrea, and stepped out onto the deck. “Good night.”

Andrea closed the door behind him, and Mack walked over the boardwalk into the sand. He looked at the stars and listened to the waves rushing onto the beach. He wondered if his parents could see him, and if they could see him, he wondered what they were thinking.

Not only was Maribel asleep when Mack got home, she was asleep when he rose at six-thirty the next morning. He considered waking her to let her know he was leaving early, but she looked peaceful, a strand of blond hair caught in the corner of her mouth, flutters underneath her eyelids.

“What are you dreaming about?” he whispered. But she didn’t waken, and Mack got up to shower. Before he left the apartment, he picked a yellow zinnia from the flowerbed and put it on his pillow, where she would see it when she opened her eyes.

When Mack got to the hotel, Andrea was already behind the wheel of the Explorer with James in the passenger seat, reading his book. Mack hopped in the backseat.

“I hope I’m not late,” he said.

Andrea smiled wearily. “Old habits die hard,” she said. “We’ve been waiting since six.”

“Since six,” James said.

On the way to the airport, Andrea said, “James, the planes at this airport are going to be smaller than the ones we’re used to seeing in Baltimore.” She looked over the seat at Mack. “I don’t want him to be disappointed.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and see a jet,” Mack said.

“I see jets every day,” James said. He paged through his book. “Boeing 747, 767, DC-10. Is there a tower at this airport?”

“I don’t know,” Mack said. “I can’t remember.”

James laughed. “All airports have a tower. It’s where the air traffic controller sits so there are no crashes.” James made an exploding noise and smacked his hands together.

Once they reached the airport, Andrea parked at the far edge of the field so they could watch the planes land. She turned off the ignition, leaned her head against the headrest, and closed her eyes. James, however, became extremely alert and animated; he was a different kid from the one Mack had seen the night before sitting in front of the TV.

“Here comes one!” James shouted. He riffled madly through the pages of his book.

Mack leaned over the front seat. He massaged Andrea’s shoulder with one hand and looked through the windshield. “What kind is it?”

“I can’t tell yet,” James said. The sun was bright and James squinted. Mack offered James his sunglasses and James happily put them on.

“Mom, look!” James said.

Andrea opened her eyes for a second and smiled. “Very handsome,” she said.

The plane landed, its wheels skidding and smoking on the runway. James clapped.

“Turboprop,” he said. “Gets most of its thrust through the propellers.”

“Have we seen those in Baltimore?” Andrea asked.

“Yes, Mom,” James said. Something in James’s tone of voice-(“Yes, Mom, of course, Mom, don’t be silly”)-sounded like a typical teenager. This was what made James so frustrating. He could be so normal-and at other times so impenetrable. Andrea once told Mack that the messages in James’s brain were a code she could only crack randomly, with luck. A code without a key.

“Here comes one!” James said. The plane landed right in front of them, like an actor taking a bow, and James applauded. “Safe landing!”

They watched planes land and take off for forty minutes. James applauded for both occasions and during the lulls he paged through his book, reciting facts about planes for Mack.

“Planes are heavier than air,” he said. “They need wings in order to fly. Planes have three kinds of motion: yaw, roll and pitch.” He moved his hand through the air and made a noise with his lips.

“You sure know a lot about planes,” Mack said.

“Yeah,” James said. “I know it all.”

Andrea was quiet, and finally she turned the key in the ignition.

James’s spine stiffened. “Is it time?” he asked.

“It’s time,” she said.

James pointed to the blue numbers of the digital clock. “It’s not time,” he said. “We have until eight o’clock. This says seven-forty-five. Right here, Mom, see?”

“We have a visitor,” Andrea said. “And Mack has to get the doughnuts so the rest of the people staying at the hotel will have their breakfast.” She pulled away.

“Get the doughnuts,” James said. “Getthedoughnutsgetthedoughnutsgetthedoughnuts.” He rocked back and forth.

“James,” Andrea said sternly, “we’re coming back tomorrow. And tomorrow we’ll stay until eight. Please don’t get upset.”

“Getthedoughnutsgetthedoughnutsgetthedoughnuts,” James said.

Mack leaned forward. “Thank you for letting me come with you today.”

“Getthedoughnuts,” James said. “Airport, then shower.”

“We have to get back to the hotel first, James,” Andrea said. “There’s no shower in the car.”

“Airport, then shower,” James said.

“That’s right, James. When we get to the hotel, you can take a shower.”

James rocked back and forth, saying under his breath, “Doughnuts, shower, doughnuts.” Mack caught Andrea’s face in the side-view mirror. She smiled weakly and shook her head.

When Andrea pulled into the Beach Club parking lot, she said, “Thank you, Mack, for coming with us. James, would you thank Mack?”

“Airport,” James said. “Then shower. Thank you.”

“Sounds like somebody wants to get in the shower,” Mack said,

“How could you tell?” Andrea said. She got out of the car. James was already headed for his room. Mack looked up at Bill and Therese’s house but saw no sign of stirrings and figured they were still in bed. Vance hadn’t arrived yet, nor Love, nor the new beach boys. Mack followed Andrea to her room. Andrea unlocked James’s door and James stripped his clothes on the way to the bathroom, including Mack’s sunglasses, which fell to the floor.

“I thought you had to get the doughnuts,” Andrea said. “Don’t make a liar out of me. James, close the door, please!”

The door closed and the water came on.

“I do,” Mack said. “But I feel bad for throwing off your routine.”

“Flexibility isn’t James’s strong suit,” Andrea said. “I should have thought of that before I invited you.”

“And you were quiet in the car,” Mack said. “Is everything all right?”

She picked up Mack’s sunglasses and fingered them idly. “Going to the airport is good for James but it sure is lousy for me,” she said. “I can’t help thinking that James will never be able to just choose a place off the map and take a trip there. He’s not safe in the world, Mack, and he’s never going to be. I’m the only person who’s going to love him enough.”

Mack hugged her. “You don’t know that.”

“For a while taking care of him was getting easier,” she said. “Now it’s getting harder. And seeing you makes everything worse.”

Mack held her at arm’s length. “Worse? Why’s that?”

“Because you make me remember that I’m not just a mother but a woman, with needs.”

“You’re not saying…”

“No,” she said. “I haven’t changed my mind about that.” She sighed. “I’m having a hard time switching into my vacation mode. I promise I’m going to try and relax, okay? I’m going to sit under my cool blue beach umbrella and read my trashy novels and watch James as he decides if it’s okay to go in the water. I’m going to order a couple of cheeseburgers from Joe’s Broad Street Grill and have one of the darling college boys deliver them right to my umbrella. I’m going to try and have fun, dammit.” She raised her face. “Do I say this every year?”

“Yes,” Mack said. “And every year you succeed.” He kissed her. If Maribel were a yellow zinnia, what would Andrea be? A red rose maybe, something a little more somber, a little more serious. “I’ll see you later.” He slipped from James’s room out the back door and looked both ways. No one was around. It took him a split second to remember about the doughnuts, to remember that he had a hotel to run.

The reason Mack forbade his staff to date the guests was this: It was distracting. It was distracting to work in the same place that the object of your affection lay in the sun, swam, showered, ate breakfast, and slept. Because you wanted to join them, because you wanted to check on them every ten minutes, because you wanted to have fun with them-slip under their umbrella, join them for a nap, share a bagel. But you couldn’t; you were at work. And so, Mack told his staff there would be No Dating the Guests. I’m making your life easier, he said. Trust me.

After all the years with Andrea, Mack had his distractions under control. She and James ate breakfast on their deck and Andrea, true to her word, rarely moved from her place on the beach, so Mack never wondered what she was up to. He did take a few more night shifts on the front desk from Tiny than usual, but he did this every June and Tiny never asked why.

Mack tried, most especially, to pay enough attention to Maribel. Nights he was home he took her out for dinner, he drove her down the beach to see the sunset, he made love to her with the windows open and the sounds of crickets floating around their dark bedroom. He tried not to think of Andrea while he was with Maribel, he tried not to think of Andrea’s sad gray-green eyes, but it was impossible. He wondered if he were acting like someone with a guilty conscience.

One night as Mack and Maribel had dinner at Le Languedoc, Maribel reached over and took Mack’s hand.

“I want to ask you something,” she said.

Instantly, Mack started to sweat. “What’s that?”

Maribel leaned in closer. “It’s less than two weeks until the Fourth of July. The summer is flying by. And I want to know if you’ve thought any more about the profit sharing.”

Mack blew out a stream of air. His body felt cool and tight. “Hmmmm.” Under other circumstances, he might have been angry with Maribel for pushing this issue, but now there was Andrea. Mack had told Andrea about the phone call from David Pringle, and about the farm. He told her he might ask Bill to profit-share and Andrea said, “I’m surprised he hasn’t offered it to you.” Mack felt the same way: that Bill should offer him part of the profits.

“I haven’t asked Bill yet,” he said. “I’m still thinking it through.”

“You have to give David an answer about the farm, Mack.”

“I’m aware of that, Maribel,” Mack said. “It’s my farm. I have until fall anyway.”

“Asking Bill about the profit sharing should make your decision clear. If he says yes, you sell the farm. If he says no, you run the farm.”

“Nothing is clear,” Mack said, although he realized it would seem that way to Maribel, or to anybody else for that matter. “I don’t know if I want to run the farm. And I don’t know if I want to sell it.”

Maribel retracted her hand. “King of the I-don’t-knows,” she said.

She was baiting him, but Mack wouldn’t argue. She was right. He didn’t know a lot of things. For example, he didn’t know how he could possibly be in love with two women. Had he felt this way last year? The year before that? Why was it hitting him so squarely in the jaw this year? Was it part of being thirty? Mack supposed he could confide in Bill, but for Bill, there had only been Therese, and no matter how much poetry Bill read, he wouldn’t understand when Mack said, “I love them both.”

At the end of Andrea’s first week, Mack had his usual Sunday night dinner with Lacey Gardner.

“What do you want to drink, dear?” Lacey asked him. “Dewar’s or a Michelob?”

“I love them both,” Mack said.

Lacey looked at him as though he’d just burped the alphabet. “Would you like me to pour you one of each, then, and you can drink them side by side?”

“I’m sorry,” Mack said. “Michelob. Actually, better make that a Dewar’s.”

“Uh-oh,” Lacey said. “Do we have a problem?”

“A couple of them,” Mack said, taking a seat on the couch. The Sunday dinners weren’t formal; Mack and Lacey each had about nine cocktails apiece and then if they remembered, they ate a sandwich, some cold meatloaf, or Lacey heated up a swordfish potpie.

“How big are these problems?” Lacey asked.

“The biggest,” Mack said. “Love and work.”

“Those aren’t the biggest,” Lacey said. “Health is the biggest. If we have our health, we’re okay. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Mack said, thinking of James. “Agreed. But are love and money the second and third biggest?”

“Definitely top ten,” Lacey said, bringing Mack his drink. She settled into her favorite leather armchair. She always dressed up for the Sunday dinners that weren’t really dinners-tonight in a bright blue pantsuit with a gold Nantucket basket pin on her lapel. She’d been to the hairdresser and her white hair was fluffed and styled.

“You look great tonight, Gardner,” Mack said. “Have I told you that already?”

Lacey waved at him. “You know why I invite you over here, don’t you? Good for the ego. So, where shall we start?”

Mack sipped his drink. All Dewar’s and no water. “I’m thinking of asking Bill to profit-share.”

“You’re speaking to the oldest of women,” Lacey said. “What does that mean, profit-share? It sounds like one of those horrible terms from the 1980s.”

“It just means that I get a portion of the bottom line. So my salary would depend on how well the hotel does. And we know the hotel does very well.”

Lacey nodded. “What does Bill get in return for giving you his profits?”

“He keeps me happy,” Mack said. “I stay.”

“You’re not happy?” Lacey asked. “That’s news to me. And it’ll be news to a lot of other people, I assure you.”

“I’m happy and I’m not. I’m thirty years old, Lacey.”

“And I’m eighty-eight,” Lacey said. She pointed a manicured fingernail at him and smiled. “Gotcha there, didn’t I?”

“Some things are happening back home,” Mack said. “In Iowa. The boss on my father’s farm is retiring and my lawyer wants me to sell the farm or go back and run it myself.”

“I thought you were all finished with Iowa,” Lacey said.

“There’s five hundred acres with my name on it. I have to go back sometime.”

“That’s the argument for Iowa,” Lacey said. “What’s the argument for Nantucket?”

“I love it here.”

“I concur. Where is better than Nantucket in the summer?” Lacey asked. “If there’s a place more desirable than where you already are, Mack, do tell me about it.”

“If I profit-share with Bill it would be easier to stay. I’d feel like the Beach Club is at least partially mine. I’ll feel responsible for it.”

“I thought you liked not feeling responsible for it,” Lacey said.

“I have to grow up sometime.”

“If you want to ask Bill for part of the hotel’s profits, go ahead. Keep in mind that he’ll have a reason for answering just as you have a reason for asking.”

Mack had already given a lot of thought to what Bill might say. Bill might react as Mack hoped, and say, “Of course we can profit-share, I should have thought of that myself.” Or he could simply say no. Or he could say, “Let me think it over. I’ll run some numbers and get back to you.” The worst thing would be if Bill said nothing, if he wrinkled his brow and retreated into himself, hurt that Mack had even asked for a piece of his business.

“We’ll see,” Mack said.

“Now, what about love?” Lacey asked. “But perhaps it’s time for another drink?”

Mack spun the ice in his glass. “I’ll make them,” he said. He took the glasses to the kitchen and fixed two more drinks, adding a healthy dose of water to his own. “My problem is… Andrea’s here.”

“With James?” Lacey asked. “Is he any better?”

“A little bit,” Mack said. That morning, Mack had helped James shave for the first time. Mack started the lesson by cutting his finger and letting the blood bloom to show James how sharp and dangerous the razor could be. Mack lathered up his face and then James’s face. When James saw himself in the mirror, he giggled uncontrollably.

“Santa Claus,” James said, touching his fingers to the shaving cream and tasting them. He grimaced and spat into the sink.

“That’s right,” Mack said. “When you lather up, you’ll look like Santa Claus.”

“Lather up, lather up!” James said.

Mack shaved a path from his own cheek down to his chin. Then he rinsed the razor. He put his arms around James from behind and said, “Now I’m going to do the same to you.” But James raised his hands to his face and sidled away screaming, “Blood! Blood!”

“No,” Mack said. Andrea was in the next room listening. “There isn’t going to be any blood because I’m going to show you how to do it the right way.” Mack knew that if he nicked James even a little bit, the lesson would be over. But Mack shaved smoothly and James giggled.

“It tickles,” he said.

“Give me your hand.” Mack guided James’s hand with the razor along his face until he was completely shaved.

“No cuts this time,” Mack said. “But sometimes there are cuts. And that’s okay because they’re little cuts.” Mack finished shaving himself and then he showed James how to splash his face with water, and apply lotion.

“Some people use aftershave,” Mack said. “But not me.”

“Yeah,” James said, “not me either.”

“Look in the mirror, buddy, you’re all shaved.”

“All shaved,” James repeated. He touched his face. His faint mustache was gone.

“We’ll do it again in a couple days,” Mack said. “Would you like that?”

James nodded.

“Do you want to show your mom?”

James burst out of the bathroom. “All shaved, Mom,” he said. “No cuts this time.”

Andrea, who had been sitting on the bed pretending to read a magazine, stood up. “You look so handsome,” she said. She touched James’s face. “Did Mack teach you how to shave?”

James nodded proudly, perhaps he was so proud that he lost language, because he said nothing. He let his mother hug him and then James turned and kissed Mack on the lips.

“He’s better,” Mack said to Lacey. “And Andrea is great.”

“So you’re back to two women,” Lacey said.

“I love them both,” Mack said.

“Call me crazy, but I don’t think you love either one,” Lacey said.

“Of course I do,” Mack said. “I definitely love Maribel. And with Andrea-well, Andrea is special. I love Andrea. There’s no other word for it, although I feel differently about Andrea than I do about Maribel. But they both feel like love, Lacey.”

“If you were going to marry Maribel you would have done it already. But you haven’t. And who can blame you? You’re already enjoying the party. Now, do I think you’re going to marry Andrea? No! You’ve been fiddling around with her longer than Maribel.”

“That’s not fair,” Mack said. He sometimes thought of showing up in Baltimore to live with Andrea, marry her, shoulder half her burden, and be like a father, or an uncle, to James. But wasn’t Lacey right? Wasn’t that just idle thinking on his part? Still, he couldn’t imagine a life without Andrea, although if he married Maribel he would have to let Andrea go. “The reason it’s a problem, Lacey, is that I don’t know what to do.”

“I stand by my word. You don’t love either one,” Lacey said. “When I spent time with Maximilian I knew I was with the only man for me. There was never another man, Mack, not even when Maximilian was away at the war.”

Mack ran a hand through his hair. “I know,” he said. Maximilian and Lacey had a storybook marriage, like his parents, like Bill and Therese. Meant for each other, born to be together, holding hands every night before they went to sleep-it drove Mack nuts. Imagine being content every hour for forty-five years-surely Lacey was exaggerating. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t love either of them.” When he said this, though, it sounded like a lie. He knew he loved them both.

That night when Mack left Lacey’s, he checked in at the front desk of the hotel with Tiny.

“Anything going on?” he asked.

Tiny looked up from her book, One Hundred Years of Solitude. This was the perfect title of a book for Tiny, who always seemed to be alone in her thoughts. She got her nickname because of her small voice, although her voice wasn’t small so much as distant, as though she were talking to everyone from a faraway place, another dimension that she alone had reached.

“The couple in room four had a row and both room three and room five called to complain.”

“What did you tell them?”

“What could I tell them?” Tiny said. “I can’t be held accountable for other people’s bad behavior.”

“You must have told them something.”

“I told them if it continued, I would call the manager and have him take care of it.” She smiled a rare smile. “That would be you.”

“Okay,” Mack said. Vance poked his head out of the back office and made a face. “I’ll check it out. Then I’m going home.”

Mack tiptoed down the boardwalk with every intention of checking on room 4 but when he passed Andrea’s room, the temptation was too great, and he knocked lightly on the door. A few seconds later, she let him in. The room was dark; Andrea had been asleep. She was wearing a white cotton T-shirt and white panties and her hair was loose around her shoulders.

“It’s late,” she said, putting her arms around his neck. She kissed him.

“Only ten o’clock,” he said. He became aroused by the feel of her body through the T-shirt. She was still warm from bed. He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap, and kissed her. Normally, this was when she pulled away, but tonight she responded with her tongue. She wiggled deliciously in his lap and ran her hands under his shirt. Mack rolled her onto the bed.

“I’ve been wanting this since the second you got here,” he said.

Andrea ran her hand lightly over his erection. Mack groaned and sucked on her neck. He climbed on top of Andrea and rocked gently into her soft thigh. He was going crazy holding back, but he didn’t want to scare her; he could feel himself sweating and he pulled off his shirt. He ran his hands under Andrea’s T-shirt and caressed her full breasts. He lowered his mouth to her nipple and it hardened. Andrea pressed her hips into him.

“Will you let me inside you?” Mack asked. He cupped Andrea’s ass inside her panties. “Will you?” If she said yes, he would go home and tell Maribel tonight, he swore it.

“No,” Andrea said, breathing into his ear. “I can’t.”

“You can,” Mack said. “Please?”

“I’m sorry, Mack,” Andrea said. She pulled away and snapped on a light. “I got carried away. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Mack squinted from the sudden brightness. He flopped onto his back, his erection pushing through his chinos. “Sorry?” he said, trying not to get angry. He lay there for a second, catching his breath. The room spun. Mack reached for Andrea’s hand. “This actually hurts.”

“Shame on you for showing up unannounced,” she said.

Mack looked to the window and saw that Andrea’s shades were up. A figure stopped at the window, then slunk away.

“Turn off the light,” he said. He went to the window and dropped the shades, then he put his shirt back on. “I have to get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Give me a kiss good night,” she said.

Mack kissed her. “I love you.”

“I know,” she said.

Mack stepped off Andrea’s deck onto the boardwalk. He heard the sound of water rushing onto shore, and then, faintly, a woman crying. At first, he tried to convince himself it was a gull, but as he listened closer, he heard breathy sobs, definitely a woman crying. Maribel. Mack ran around the corner to the Gold Coast, trying to imagine what someone would have seen through the window: him lying on his back, shirtless, holding Andrea’s hand, his erection straining through his pants. Oh, God, Maribel.

A blond woman sat on the deck of room 4. Mack cleared his throat and she looked up-it was difficult to see in the dark, but Mack knew instantly it wasn’t Maribel. This woman’s face was streaked with makeup; Mack recognized her from breakfast.

“Mrs. Fourchet?” Mack said. From Quebec, Mack recalled, where her husband owned a Porsche dealership.

“My husband hates me,” she said in a defiant voice.

Another loud voice came from inside room 4. “I do not hate you, Meredith. Now will you please get inside?”

“We’re paying to see the ocean, Jean-Marc,” the woman squawked.

“It’s too dark to see anything,” the man said. “Now get in here.”

“Folks, I’m going to have to ask you to pipe down,” Mack said. He was so relieved that he smiled as he said this. “Could you please be a little quieter?”

The door to room 4 opened and Mr. Fourchet stepped onto the deck. “I paid six hundred bucks for this room. I’ll have a brass band on this deck if I so choose.”

Mack had to wipe the grin off his face. “A brass band?” Mack said. “Ask me in the morning and I’ll see what I can do. Do you like the tuba?”

Mr. Fourchet looked at Mack strangely, then he shrugged and said in a softer voice to his wife, “Come in, Meredith, please?”

“I’m not coming in!” Mrs. Fourchet shrieked. “And if this fellow wants to call the police then so be it! The Nantucket Police Force can take me away. Ha! The Nantucket Police Force, I’m sure that’s an intimidating group.”

“Meredith, stop giving him a hard time,” Mr. Fourchet said. “Will you come inside?”

“No!” Mrs. Fourchet said. “I’m not going anywhere until I see the Nantucket Police Force drive their dune buggy up the beach.”

The door to room 3 opened: Janet Kava, wearing a pair of thick glasses, stepped onto her deck. Janet was a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She and her partner, Eleanor, had brought along their new adopted baby.

“Mack,” Janet said. “Thank God you’re here. These people have been screaming at each other for half an hour.”

Mrs. Fourchet shot Janet a withering look. “Dyke,” she said.

“Excuse me?” Janet Kava said. She poked at the bridge of her glasses with a purposeful finger. “What did you say?”

“Your baby cries all night long, but that’s okay, I suppose,” Mrs. Fourchet said. “That’s okay because she is the love child of you and your lesbian friend.”

“That’s right,” Janet Kava said. “Eleanor and I love each other. We love each other emotionally and physically just like you and your brutish husband love each other. But we don’t have squabbles for all the world to hear.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Mrs. Fourchet said.

“Meredith,” Mr. Fourchet said.

“Ladies, please,” Mack said.

“We are women, Mack,” Janet Kava said. “Not ladies. Especially not one of us.”

“I’ll say,” Mrs. Fourchet said. “The ladies I know like men.”

“I’m ten seconds away from coming over there and demanding an apology,” Janet said. “And it won’t be very lady-like, I assure you.”

Mrs. Fourchet wiped under her eyes. “I must look a mess,” she said innocently. She stood up. “I think you’re right, Jean-Marc, I think it’s time to come in.”

Janet Kava glared at Mrs. Fourchet until she disappeared, then she slammed her own screen door shut.

“Good night,” Mack said.

Mack ran past the side deck rooms. He looked in Andrea’s window but it was dark; she was probably already asleep. All of the lights on the side deck rooms were out and it was difficult to see as he made his way down the boardwalk toward the lobby. When he reached for the back door, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. Mack swung around. Vance.

“How’re you doing, man?” Mack asked. “I had a few words with the people in four. They seem to be settling down.”

Vance’s expression was strained, as though he were lifting a heavy weight.

“Are you all right?” Mack asked.

“I need to talk to you a minute,” Vance said. His hand rested firmly on Mack’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Mack said. Vance was acting even stranger than normal, but this sometimes happened. Lots of little things bothered Vance and they built up once a summer to the point that he exploded and Mack had to placate him with an extra day off or a small cash bonus.

“I need to talk about you and room eighteen,” Vance said. “I saw you in there just now, man. Pretty incriminating.”

Mack’s relief at finding Mrs. Fourchet instead of Maribel drained away. The four drinks he’d had at Lacey’s kicked in; his head swam. “I know it probably looked bad, man, but it’s not what you think.”

“If it’s not what I think, then what is it?”

“We’re friends,” Mack said. “I’ve known that lady a long time.”

“I’ve known her just as long as you have, but you don’t see me lying on her bed with my shirt off, now do you?” Vance asked. His fingertips dug into Mack’s shoulder blade. “How do you explain holding this woman’s hand and she’s not wearing very many clothes herself?”

Mack took a deep breath. He tried to shrug Vance off. “I wish you’d just forget about it, okay? It’s perfectly innocent.”

Vance’s nostrils flared. “You are so full of shit.”

Then Vance raised his hand. He was holding a gun.

Mack’s shoulders froze, except for the spot where Vance’s hand rested, that spot was very hot and bright. “What are you doing?” Mack said.

Vance poked Mack in the chest with the gun. Mack couldn’t move, his knees were locked. Mack was sweating; he felt the cold breeze coming off the water.

“You’re going to tell Maribel,” Vance said. His voice gurgled. “You’re going to tell Maribel what you’ve been doing or I’ll tell her for you.”

“You don’t know the first thing about it,” Mack said.

“I know what I saw,” Vance said. “I know what it looked like.”

“I already told you, that’s not how it is,” Mack said.

“You’re going to tell Maribel,” Vance said. He pressed the gun deeper into Mack’s chest. In the dim light, Vance’s skin looked purplish. “You are such an idiot. You have a gorgeous, perfect woman like Maribel and you screw around on her. Total fucking idiot.”

The nose of the gun stuck into Mack’s chest. He thought about the hot, sharp pain of taking a bullet to his heart. His heart would explode and bits and pieces of Maribel and Andrea would splatter everywhere. He was an idiot, thinking idiot thoughts.

“I could fire you,” Mack said.

“I could fire you,” Vance said. “No dating the guests, remember? Not only breaking the rules, but showing yourself to be the hypocrite I always knew you were.”

“But you have a gun,” Mack said.

“That’s right,” Vance said. “I have a gun. And so I have a choice. I can fire you or I can kill you. Or I can hope you act smart and go home and tell Maribel that you’ve been in another woman’s bed tonight.”

Mack’s mouth was dry. “Why are you threatening me? We work together. We’ve worked together since the beginning. We’re, I don’t know, buddies. Aren’t we?”

Vance laughed, a sharp bark. “You have no idea how much I hate you. You really have no idea. Unbelievable. You step off the boat thirty fucking seconds sooner than I do and all of a sudden you’re the white prince and you assume everyone loves you. Maribel loves you, room eighteen loves you, Bill and Therese and all the guests whose asses you kiss love you. No such luck, buddy. You push me right to the edge, Petersen, to where I can see myself doing something like this. I can see myself taking you out and saying it was an accident, saying I found the gun in a room and was fooling around and oops, it went off. So they send me to Walpole for a year or two. So what? It might be worth it, brother man.”

“You’re crazy,” Mack whispered.

“Are you going to tell Maribel?” Vance asked. “That’s all I’m really concerned about in the here and now. Are you going to tell her?”

Mack nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Vance said. He took the gun away from Mack’s chest and studied it. Mack exhaled and the muscles in his legs tingled. “This baby is fully loaded, ready to go. But if you tell a soul, I’m just going to say I was playing a joke on you.”

“For Christ’s sake, Vance.”

“Hey,” Vance said, pointing the gun in Mack’s face. “I’m serious about Maribel. Either you tell her what’s going on with you and room eighteen or I’ll tell her what I saw. Which was you lying on that woman’s bed, and the woman half-naked and you grabbing at her.”

“I wasn’t grabbing at her,” Mack said.

“Tell Maribel,” Vance said. He lowered the gun. “I would shoot you if I thought I could get away with it.”

“Why do you hate me?” Mack asked. “I apologized for taking your job back when it happened. It had nothing to do with our skin color and you know it. Besides, Vance, that was another lifetime ago.” Mack reached behind him for the doorknob to the lobby. He wanted to be in the warm, bright lobby with Tiny, although for all Mack knew she could be hiding around a corner waiting to club him with a tire iron.

Vance spat at the ground near Mack’s feet. “Get out of here,” he said.

By the time Mack pulled into the driveway, Maribel had finished drying the dishes and putting them away. She had changed out of her white shorts and soft beige half sweater and into a T-shirt and boxers. She had washed her face and her neck with Noxema. By the time Mack walked in the door at midnight-which was late even for a Lacey Gardner night-Maribel was pretty sure she had eliminated all clues that Jem Crandall had been there for dinner.

Or sinner, which was what she started calling it as soon as they arranged the time and the place. Her sinner with Jem. A small, intimate sinner party.

Having Jem over had been the result of two things. The first was that Maribel kept thinking back to the day she spent with Jem at the beach. It felt like they were somehow meant to have run into each other in the parking lot of Stop & Shop. And Maribel instinctively took Jem to the nude beach in Miacomet. Why? They could just as easily have gone to Cisco. But Maribel had wanted to show herself to Jem. And show herself she did-all look and no touch-but the looks Maribel was unable to forget.

Secondly was the fact that, in the past week or so, Mack had pulled out his old Iowa church-social manners. He constantly asked how she was feeling, was she okay? Then at Le Languedoc, he balked when she asked about the profit sharing. Mack had no intention of asking Bill to profit-share, and no intention of marrying her, and this kindness was just a front, just a way of letting her down easy. More than anything, Mack hated when things actually happened-moments like the one when the sheriff told him his parents had been killed. And so he wouldn’t ask Bill to profit-share but he wouldn’t tell Maribel that. He would just keep on saying please and thank you and I don’t know, sweetheart, I just don’t know-forever.

The combination of these two things led Maribel to call Jem and invite him over.

“For Sunday,” she said. She was in her quiet, safe, booklined office at the Atheneum, with the door locked. “Dinner at my house. Seven-thirty?”

“Sunday?” Jem said. A twinge of uncertainty in his voice. “Sunday, you mean, while Mack’s at Lacey’s?”

“That’s right,” Maribel said.

Dead air. Maribel heard the soft murmur of library patrons’ voices on the other side of her door.

“You’re putting me in a bad place,” Jem said. “You’re asking me to lie to my boss.”

“I’m asking you to dinner,” Maribel said. “Mack won’t be there. I won’t tell him you’re coming over unless you want me to. But really, Jem, it’s no big deal. I frequently have people over, friends, you know. They…drop by.”

“Yeah, well, this is more than me dropping by,” Jem said. “This is you calling in advance. And the way my luck has been going, you’ll tell Mack and I’ll end up fired.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Maribel said. “Maybe another time.”

“No,” Jem said. “Not another time. Sunday’s fine. I’ll be there Sunday.”

Maribel’s hands were sweating; she rubbed her palm on the receiver and it made a squeaking noise. “Sunday,” she said, “seven-thirty. For sinner, I mean, dinner. Dinner at seven-thirty. Do you know where I live?” It felt strange to say “I” instead of “we.” “I live at ninety-five Pheasant Road, the basement apartment around back.”

“I’ll find it,” Jem said.

When Mack came home at five on Sunday evening before going to Lacey’s, Maribel nearly confessed to her dinner plans. Mack was in the apartment for about an hour, and Maribel shadowed him from room to room. First, she lay next to him in bed while he napped. Mack was the kind of person who could fall asleep at will, like he was letting go the string of a kite, and this always amazed Maribel. Really, did he have no nagging thoughts? Was his mind such an easy friend that it just set him free? Apparently so. Maribel lay next to him, studying his sandy hair, his sunburned face and sun-cracked lips, her own eyes wide open, unblinking. Thinking, I’ll tell him when he wakes up. I’ll tell him I’m being a good Samaritan, feeding a hungry kid. If he makes the slightest fuss, I’ll call Jem and cancel.

When Mack was in the shower, Maribel sat on the fuzzy toilet seat cover in the steam and thought, I’ll tell him when he gets out. Mack turned off the water, pulled back the shower curtain and Maribel handed him a towel. He dried his face, and scruffed the towel over his head, he dried his chest, his arms, his balls, and stepped onto the bathmat, wrapped the towel around his waist. Mack never concerned himself with how he looked. He was perfectly comfortable in his own body, as though he knew he could drive Maribel absolutely mad by just existing.

Before he left the house, Mack popped open a beer, took a long swallow, kissed Maribel, and said, “Don’t wait up tonight, I might be late,” and he jogged out the door to his Jeep. It was obvious he trusted her implicity. Maribel felt guilty for a second, but then she wondered if he were suffering from plain indifference. He hadn’t asked what she was doing at all.

As soon as the rumble of the Jeep’s engine faded, Maribel called her mother. Sundays her mother slept late, puttered in her tiny vegetable garden, and then sat on the screened-in porch with her friend Rita Ramone and drank vodka gimlets. Maribel knew Rita would be languishing on the chaise longue next to her mother, listening to every word, but Maribel called anyway.

“My little girl!” Tina cried out. “What a surprise! Do you have news for your mama?”

Maribel guessed Tina was on her third or fourth gimlet. “No,” she said.

“Mack’s off at Lacey’s?” Tina asked. “Are you lonely, sweetie pie?”

“Not really,” Maribel said. “I’m having someone for dinner.”

“Well, I hope they taste good!” Tina said. She laughed with abandon and Maribel could hear Rita in the background asking, “What’s so funny?”

“It’s a guy I’m having over,” Maribel said. “A cute guy.”

Tina was still laughing. “How cute?”

“He was Mr. November in some calendar,” Maribel said.

“Not the Christian calendar,” Tina said. “Although a cute guy or two might boost sales.”

“Mack doesn’t know a thing about it, either,” Maribel said.

Tina’s voice sobered. “Oh, my.” The phone was muffled: Tina relayed this news to Rita Ramone. Then she said, “Rita thinks the only way to get a man is to play hard to get. Is that what you’re doing, sweetie? Playing hard to get?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Maribel said.

“Well, that makes three of us,” Tina said. “Here, now I’m going into the house so we can talk serious.” In the background, a door closed. “Okay, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking Mack is a lost cause,” Maribel said.

“You’ve thought that many times before,” Tina said. “Is this time any different?”

“I suggested the profit sharing, but he hasn’t said anything to Bill.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for the right time,” Tina said.

“Maybe,” Maribel said. “Or maybe he thinks it’s okay to string me along forever. But it’s not okay. There are other men in this world who find me attractive, and I just happened to invite one of them to dinner on a night when Mack’s out. That’s not a crime, is it?”

“You know I’m terrible at figuring out men,” Tina said. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself Queen of the Successful Relationship.”

“Mama,” Maribel said. Her mother’s Sunday afternoons with Rita Ramone were half girl talk and half wallowing in self-pity. “Do you think it’s okay that I invited this person for dinner?”

“Yes,” Tina said definitively. “What’s his name?”

“Jem,” Love said. “Jem Crandall.”

“Jem Crandall,” Tina said. “God has blessed Jem Crandall. You know I love you?”

“Yes,” Maribel said.

“Have fun and we’ll talk on Wednesday. I have to get back to Rita before she burns the house down.”

“Okay, Mama.”

“Godspeed, Maribel.”

At exactly seven-thirty, Jem appeared at the door with a bottle of Chardonnay, looking as nervous as Maribel felt. His dark hair was wet and he was wearing a blue chambray shirt and navy shorts. Birkenstocks. He was so handsome. He was tall and broad-shouldered and strong and young and he had wavy dark hair and that beautiful smile and not an ounce of self-congratulation. It was perfectly normal to be attracted to people other than your partner, Maribel reasoned. She was indulging a crush. Flushing it out of her system.

“You brought wine,” Maribel said, taking the bottle from Jem carefully, as though it were a baby. “That was very thoughtful.”

“I know about wine,” Jem said. “My father owns a bar.” He put his hand on Maribel’s arm and bent over and kissed her. The kiss was brief; Maribel was still holding the wine to her chest, but it threw the whole room into disarray.

“Oh,” she said. They looked at each other. Jem had blue eyes that matched his shirt. He was ridiculously, absurdly handsome, and Maribel looked into his blue eyes until it was like too much chocolate cake, and she knew looking another second wouldn’t be good for her. She shifted her gaze.

“I can give you the nickel tour of the place from right here,” she said. “Kitchen, dining room, living room. The powder room is this door here and then the bedroom.” Maribel paused after the word “bedroom.”

“It’s nice,” Jem said. “I rent a room in some old house. I’d kill for my own kitchen.”

“I made some munchies,” Maribel said. “Let’s sit down.”

“Okay,” Jem said. He bounced on the balls of his feet and rubbed his hands together. “Want to open the wine? I could use a drink. I have to tell you, I’m a little nervous.”

“Nervous?” Maribel said. “About what?”

“Not about what you think,” Jem said.

“What do I think?”

“I’m not worried that Mack is going to come home and find me here.”

“Good,” Maribel said. She knew Mack wouldn’t show up before ten-thirty or eleven, even though right now a part of her wanted him to.

“I’m nervous just being around you,” Jem said. “I want everything to go right. That day at the beach…”

“The day at the beach was lovely,” Maribel said. She took the mushroom caps stuffed with Boursin cheese out of the oven and moved them onto a platter with a spatula.

“It was better than lovely,” Jem said. “It changed my whole view of the island. Before that day, I hated it here. But after that day, things got a lot better. It was weird, the way that happened, like you have magic powers.”

Maribel took the shrimp cocktail out of the fridge. “I wish,” she said. She almost added, If I did, I’d start by using them on Mack. She handed the shrimp to Jem. “You can take these to the coffee table. We’ll sit on the sofa.”

They arranged the food on the coffee table and Jem poured the wine. Maribel lifted her glass.

“Cheers,” she said. “Here’s to being nervous.”

They sipped their wine. “Really nervous,” Jem said.

“Eat something,” Maribel said. “You’ll feel better.”

Jem picked up a peachy pink shrimp and dragged it through the cocktail sauce. Maribel watched the muscles in his jaw working as he chewed.

“Delicious,” he said. He sampled a few mushrooms.

“How old are you?” Maribel asked.

“Twenty-three,” he said. “I’m basically still a work in progress.”

“There’s no better place to be a work in progress than Nantucket.”

“I guess,” Jem said, “but I feel like I’m just biding my time here. I feel like this is a resting point for me before my real life begins.”

“Your real life?”

“California,” Jem said. “I can’t be your beach agent forever, you know.” He drained his glass of wine and fell back into the cushions of the sofa. “I’m leaving for the West Coast in the fall. You should come with me.” He picked up Maribel’s hand and kissed her palm.

Maribel closed her eyes, thinking, How refreshing, a man who’s not afraid to admit he’s nervous, not afraid of being a work in progress, not afraid to commit.

“Thanks for the offer,” she said.

“I’m serious,” he said. “I want you to come with me.”

Maribel gently reclaimed her hand. “I hardly even know you, Jem.”

“We can fix that,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything. My father owns a bar, my mother stays at home, and my sister is a whacko with an eating disorder. I graduated from college with a three-point-one GPA, and I was Theta Chi. I played lacrosse in high school. I love going to the movies. And you know who you remind me of? Meg Ryan. I thought that the first time I saw you.”

“Thanks,” Maribel said. “I guess.”

“When I was six years old, my parents belonged to a swim club. One day my sister and I were sitting on the edge of the pool while my parents did laps and when they were both at the other end of the pool, I pushed my sister in. She was only three or four at the time, and she sank to the bottom like a lead weight.”

“Oh, God,” Maribel said.

“A lifeguard noticed Gwennie and he saved her. Nobody ever knew I pushed her, they thought she fell. And Gwennie was too young to understand. Except when she went to therapy for her bulimia, she told the shrink I pushed her.”

“But they don’t think that caused her bulimia?” Maribel asked.

“It made me feel pretty bad anyway,” he said. “But relieved, too, you know, because for a lot of years I was the only one who knew I almost drowned my sister. The worst thing I’ve ever done, by far. So now you know that about me. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Maribel frowned. She thought about getting drunk in high school, a white mouse she bought at a pet store and took to a slumber party to put in Ursula Cavanaugh’s sleeping bag, cohabiting with Mack. This, her sinner with Jem.

“I guess the worst thing I’ve done isn’t something I’ve done, it’s something I’ve felt.” She thought of Tina, who would be sacked out in front of The X Files by now. “There are times when I’m ashamed of my mother.”

“Oh,” Jem said. “Uh-oh.”

“My mother was never married. She was a hippie, I guess, and she had sex with some guy she didn’t know and never saw again and I was born.”

“Wow,” Jem said. His eyebrows shot up. “And she never remarried or anything?”

“She dated some, when I was younger, but there was no one serious and then she lost interest and gave up.” Maribel sipped her wine. “She works in a calendar factory. A Christian calendar factory.”

“Does she like it?” Jem asked.

“Yeah,” Maribel said, “she does. She’s in charge there. But it’s not exactly the life she dreamed up for herself and it’s not any kind of life I would want. She lives her life through me, she has all these hopes for me.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Jem said.

“I just wish she wanted something for herself,” Maribel said. “But she doesn’t. And that makes me angry, and even embarrassed. I feel like such a bad daughter, but I can’t help it. Every once in a while, I think, This woman cannot be my mother.”

“I feel that way about my sister sometimes,” Jem said. “My parents say my sister is giving us all lessons in love and acceptance.”

“I need some of those lessons,” Maribel said.

“We all do,” Jem said. He kissed her hand again.

Dinner was grilled salmon, cold herbed potato salad, some greens dressed with balsamic vinegar. They finished the bottle of wine and Maribel pulled out chocolate mousse, and one of Mack’s beers for Jem. He was telling her stories about the Beach Club. For years, Maribel had been hearing stories about the Beach Club and never once had she enjoyed them. Mack took his job at the hotel so seriously that Maribel hadn’t realized what a funny place it could be.

“There’s one guest, Mr. Feeney,” Jem said, “and he’s staying at the hotel for a week. Every day Mr. Feeney calls the front desk to complain about his toilet.”

Maribel giggled. “His toilet?”

Jem took a swallow of beer. “His toilet.” He burped. “Excuse me. So anyway, Mr. Feeney calls up every day. The tank’s not filling quickly enough, it’s making noises that keep him and the missus up at night, every day something different. So each morning I check it out, jiggle the handle, not knowing what I’m doing, but Mr. Feeney doesn’t realize that. He’s crowding into the bathroom with me, just so damn pleased that someone is taking his toilet problems seriously. And I want to say to him, ‘Mr. Feeney, you might enjoy your vacation more if you stopped worrying about your toilet and started sitting with your wife on the beach, dabble your feet into the ocean, enjoy the salt air.’ But around the fourth day or so, I realize something very profound. You know what that is?”

“What?” Maribel said.

“Some people don’t like being happy. They’re much more comfortable when they have a problem. And such is the case with Mr. Feeney. The guy is on vacation with his wife, in a world-class hotel, but that’s not good enough. He likes worrying about his toilet. It gives him pleasure. It’s like a hobby for him.”

“Mr. Feeney and his toilet hobby,” Maribel said.

“Exactly. And I’m Mr. Feeney’s toilet agent, as you might have guessed. So then, the last day of this guy’s stay, he calls me. And I say, ‘What’s wrong with your toilet today, Mr. Feeney?’ And he says, ‘Well, Jem, it won’t flush.’ So I check it out and it’s true-it won’t flush. We jiggle the handle, we toy around with the floater, nothing. The toilet won’t flush, it won’t gurgle, nothing. I ask him, has he done anything special, anything out of the ordinary? He says no, and I can tell he’s enjoying every second of this because now his toilet really is broken.”

“So what do you do?” Maribel asked.

“Mack shows up and we try the plunger and it’s clear something is clogging the john, something big, but the plunger isn’t helping. So we lift the John right off the floor. Take it outside where we can maneuver it better and look inside and what do you think we find?”

“I don’t know,” Maribel said.

Jem motioned for Maribel to lean in close to him. She put her elbows on her knees and held her face in her hands and Jem did the same. Their noses were practically touching and Maribel could smell his tangy breath.

“What did you find?” she whispered.

“Cantaloupe rinds,” he said. He scooted forward an inch and kissed Maribel once, very lightly. “We found cantaloupe rinds.” He kissed Maribel again, he parted her lips and tasted her. He tasted her like a boy who had been living all summer without a kitchen, he tasted her like someone who wasn’t just hungry but starving. Maribel thought, This feels good, I feel good, I feel delicious. This boy is young, unfinished, he is so handsome and sweet. She thought, What would I do if Mack walked in right now, how would I explain this, Good Samaritan? She thought, Wasn’t this what I was hoping for when I called him? But it’s innocent, just kissing, a crush. She thought, How cantaloupe rinds? Why cantaloupe rinds? She thought, Is this the worst thing I’ve ever done or just the beginning of the worst thing?

Finally, Jem separated from her and his eyes scanned the clock on the wall behind her. “I should go,” he said. “I don’t want to, but I should.”

Maribel walked him to the door. She turned on the outside light and moths beat themselves against the screen.

“What does this mean?” Jem asked. “The whole time I was kissing you I was wondering what this could mean.”

“I don’t know,” Maribel said, and at that moment she felt like Mack. Mack and his infuriating “I don’t knows.” But it was true; she didn’t know what the kissing meant.

“Is this an affair?” he asked. He laughed sarcastically. “God, I’m having an affair with my boss’s girlfriend. This is just great.”

“Jem,” Maribel said, “it isn’t an affair. We just kissed. That’s all we’re talking about.”

“We kissed,” Jem said. “And I’d like to kiss you again sometime. In fact, I’d like to do more than kiss you. How about that?”

“Jem,” Maribel said, “let’s wait and see, okay? Let’s play things by ear.”

“I hope to God you’re not a tease,” Jem said. “I hope to God you didn’t invite me for dinner and tell me all that stuff about your mother and kiss me for so long only to get Mack’s goat. I hope you’re not catching me up in the middle of something, Maribel. Because that would hurt my feelings. I do have feelings about you, you know.”

Maribel nodded.

“Thanks for dinner,” he said huskily. He opened the screen door and stepped out; his blue eyes and blue shirt disappeared into the dark night.

Maribel’s lips felt stretched and blurred. “You’re welcome,” she said.

Maribel covered her tracks in every way she could think of, but when Mack walked in the door of the apartment, he looked confused and uncomfortable. He knows, Maribel thought. She was curled up on the sofa, but when Mack came in, she sat up.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

Mack sat next to Maribel and bent his head, ran his hands through his hair.

“Mari,” he said.

“What is it?” She put her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to tell you something and I don’t want you to get upset. Just hear me out.”

“What is it?” she said.

“I mean it. I want you to let me say what I have to say.”

“Okay,” Maribel said. “I’ll listen. You tell me.”

Mack cleared his throat. “After Lacey’s tonight I stopped by one of the rooms to see Andrea Krane. You remember Andrea? And her son James?”

“I remember Andrea,” Maribel said. Andrea was a pretty older woman, and James, in the few times Maribel saw him, had tugged at her heart. A young boy with autism, whose whole life was a foggy day.

Mack said, “Well, I went to see Andrea and things happened.”

“What kind of things?” Maribel asked. She thought of James flapping his arms and shrieking, she thought about his incessant rocking.

“I kissed her,” Mack said. “I was in her room sitting on her bed and I kissed her.”

Maribel was befuddled; this was some strange, cruel reversal. Was Mack telling her he kissed someone else? The back of her throat soured. He kissed Andrea, James’s mother? Thoughts of Jem were suddenly crowded out of the room; Maribel’s secret guilt and pleasure about Jem were spirited away, gone, replaced by horror, shock. Tears sprang to Maribel’s eyes. I’m a hypocrite, she thought. Mack did nothing worse than what I did tonight. Nothing worse except to speak the truth out loud and that did make it seem a hundred times worse.

Mack stood up and came back with a box of Kleenex. He wiped at Maribel’s face. “I’m sorry, Mari. I’ve known her a long time, longer than I’ve even known you. There’s always been something between us. But this year, I don’t know why, that something just got bigger. I think I love her.”

“Love her?” Maribel repeated. She gathered her breath to speak, to match his brutal blow, but when she tried to find the words to tell him about Jem, she gagged. Maribel didn’t love Jem. This wasn’t a fair trade at all. Oh, God, she thought, what is he doing to me? Love Andrea? A guest? Six years later and it wasn’t the farm or his job or Cecily at all, it was Andrea Krane? Maribel thought of Tina, and how this news would break her heart. It was over, a relationship over, just the way Mack had lost his parents. Boom. Over.

“You have to leave,” Maribel said. “You have to move out, down to the hotel. I don’t want you here.”

“No,” Mack said. “No, wait please, Mari. Maribel, hold on. I know you’re upset. But please don’t throw me out. I have to try and explain.”

“You love Andrea,” Maribel said. “What else is there to explain?”

“It’s this summer, something is happening. The world wants me to grow up. You want me to grow up. And I don’t want to grow up. I feel so childish. I love Andrea, but I love you, too, Maribel. You know I do. Andrea is vulnerable, and her life is difficult, much more difficult than you or I could ever imagine. I feel for that, Maribel. I feel for that and for the fact that she doesn’t give up. I love her for that.”

“Her life is difficult?” Maribel said. “My life is difficult! My life is very, very difficult. Have you forgotten that? Have you forgotten what I’ve gone through to get here, Mack?”

“That’s different, Maribel. I’m not taking anything away from you. But you’re not dealing with what Andrea is dealing with.”

“Go to her then,” Maribel said. Thinking, hatefully, Go to her and her fucked-up son. “Get out of here.”

“But I love you, too,” Mack said.

“Tough shit,” Maribel said.

“I don’t want to leave,” Mack said.

“What do you want?” Maribel asked. “Do you have any idea? Do you want to sell the farm? Do you want to manage that blasted hotel your whole life? You don’t know. Do you want to get married and have kids? You don’t know. You don’t know anything except that you love us both. You want me here at home and Andrea down at the hotel. I’m sorry, Mack. I am so, so sorry.” Maribel was hysterical now, her breathing ragged, her tears hot and salty; her eyes stung. She plucked a Kleenex and tried to blow her nose but she was blocked up, stuck. She thought of the broken toilet. Her life was a toilet.

“I’m going to do something for you,” Mack said.

“The only thing you can do for me is to get out of here,” Maribel said. Her voice was small and nasal.

“I’m going to ask Bill to profit-share. I’m going to ask him right after the Fourth. I swear it, Maribel.”

Maribel tried to snort, but her nose was stuffed up. Her snort sounded like a bleat. “Ha! Why now, Mack? So you can give James and Andrea a good life? So you can show them how important you are? Go ahead and ask Bill for the profits. I hope he turns you down. I hope he fires you and you leave this island.”

“But I’m doing it for you, Maribel,” Mack said. “I’m doing it because you want me to.”

“I want you to marry me!” Maribel screamed. She couldn’t believe how angry, how upset she was. Never in her life would she have predicted the relationship would crumble like this, so suddenly, in one night. “I want you to marry me! I thought the problem was with you. I thought you were just not grown yet, I thought you still had issues with your parents, the farm. And I thought if you asked Bill to profit-share you’d feel better about yourself, you’d feel established, you’d feel ready. What I didn’t realize is that the problem isn’t with you, Mack, it’s with me. I’m not the woman you want.”

“You are the woman I want,” Mack said.

“Then ask me to marry you,” Maribel said.

Mack reached for her again and she surrendered. She buried her face in his chest and cried even harder. His shirt, his smell, her Mack, she loved him so much. He was all she wanted, all she needed to fill the empty space where her father should have been. But she waited five minutes, ten minutes, and he said nothing. He was shushing into her hair, but he wasn’t asking her to marry him. Suddenly her head was heavy, a sandbag, her mouth was dry and scratchy from the wine and the tears.

“You have to go,” Maribel said. Unsteadily, she stood and pointed in the direction of the door. “I’m sorry.”

“Mari, you don’t mean that.”

“I do,” she said. She walked into the bedroom and fell onto the bed. Her eyes closed the second she heard Mack’s Jeep pull away.

Mack spent the rest of the night in the Jeep in the Beach Club parking lot. He considered sneaking into Lacey Gardner’s cottage and crashing on her couch, but he didn’t want to frighten her. And so, Mack wrapped himself in his Polar Fleece, put the seat back as far as it would go, and closed his eyes.

He woke to the sound of talking. He sat up and looked around-it was still dark. He didn’t see anyone near the lobby or on the beach. Mack climbed out of the Jeep, quietly, and he made out the figure of Cecily sitting on the front step of her parents’ house, talking on the portable phone. Mack checked his watch; it was three-thirty.

“I love you,” she was saying. “I can’t stand it here without you. I’m dying of love for you.”

Please, Cecily, Mack thought. Do not fall in love. But from the sounds of it, it was too late. He climbed back into his car.

“I love you, Gabriel.” Cecily’s voice was sweet, pleading. “Can you hear me? I love you.”

What seemed like only minutes later, Mack heard the sound of tapping on the window of the Jeep. He opened his eyes. It was Andrea and James. The sun was up. Mack checked his watch; it was six o’clock. He opened the door.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not here to go with us to the airport?” Andrea said.

“Is Mack coming to the airport?” James asked. “Are we shaving today, Mack?”

“How’re you doing, buddy?” Mack asked. He looked at Andrea. “I told Maribel.”

“Told her what?” Andrea asked. Her green-gray eyes widened. “About us? Why? Oh, Mack, what did you say?” She turned to James. “Get in the car, James. Mom will be there in five minutes.”

“It’s six-oh-three, Mom. We’re late already.”

“Five minutes,” Andrea said.

“Five minutes.” James tapped the face of his watch. “Mom will be there at six-oh-eight.”

Andrea waited until James climbed into the Explorer, then she said, “What happened?”

“I had to tell her,” Mack said. He thought of Vance, pointing the gun at him like it was some kind of toy. But when he got right down to it, Mack hadn’t told Maribel because of Vance; he told her because it was time. He told her because he couldn’t stand lying anymore. Vance was just a manifestation of Mack’s own conscience, like something out of fucking Shakespeare. “I told her I loved you.”

“No,” Andrea said. She put her hand over her heart. “She must be devastated. The poor girl. Ouch.”

“What about me?” Mack said. “She threw me out. I spent the night here in the parking lot.” His mouth felt as if it were lined with flannel, he stank with the four scotches he’d had at Lacey’s, his head ached and his legs would cramps up as soon as he stepped out of the Jeep. He needed five more hours’ sleep, a hot shower, some clean clothes.

“You’re a man, Mack,” Andrea said. “Men will always survive.”

Mack touched Andrea’s hair. “You might see me surviving this winter in Baltimore.”

“Mack,” Andrea said, shaking her head sadly.

“What?” Mack said. “I could help you with James. I could give you the help you need.”

“Go home and take it all back,” she said.

“You don’t want me in Baltimore?”

“Just go home,” she said. “I’m not coming between you and Maribel. She’s much better for you than I am.”

“But I love you,” Mack said. “That’s how I ended up here. I love you.”

“Maybe,” Andrea said. “Or maybe you feel sorry for me. The point is, you should be with Maribel. I’m just a friend, Mack, a summer friend. You have no idea what my life is like the rest of the year. You have no idea what happens once I return to America.”

“I know I don’t. What I’m saying is, I want to find out.”

“I should stop coming here. I’ve depended on you too much, and I made you feel like you can help me. But you can’t help me, Mack. Nobody can help me. James is my lot in life-he’s my blessing, he’s my albatross.” She tried to smile. “Anyway, I hear the Vineyard is nice too. Maybe next year we’ll go there.”

“No,” Mack said. This was too much: to lose them both in one night. “No way.”

Andrea picked up Mack’s wrist and checked his watch. “My five minutes is up,” she said. “Go home.” He listened to her footsteps crunch across the shells and the loose gravel. He heard the soft dinging of her open car door and James saying, “You’re one minute late, Mom.” Then Andrea started the car and drove away, but he didn’t turn to watch her go.

Mack sat back in his seat and looked at the water. Maybe he should just drive into the sound. Then he heard a voice, a low thrumming voice. Home. He bowed his head. Home.

“I can’t believe this,” Mack said. He closed his eyes.