The Blue Bistro

10

Dr. Don

TTO: Ade12177@hotmail.com

FROM: kyracrenshaw@mindspring.com

DATE: July 24, 2005, 9:01 A.M.

SUBJECT: To Hell You Ride

The spores you didn’t send me worked! I have officially Met a Man. Thirty-six, divorced, two kids. Sounds like my worst nightmare except I am falling, head over heels. Even worse, he is a landscape painter-but his work sells-some people pay more for his paintings than I paid for my last car. So although my mother is crying out about No Steady Income, he does just fine. In the winters he goes to Telluride and paints there and skis, and he’s asked me to go with him. And I, in turn, will ask you (because I miss you, but also because I think you’d like it). Do you want to join us?

TO: kyracrenshaw@mindspring.com

FROM: Ade12177@hotmail.com

DATE: July 24, 2005, 11:22 A.M.

SUBJECT: It’s July!

Since when do you plan more than one day in advance? You must be in love! I hate to admit it but I am not far from that pitiable state myself-this thing with Thatcher is getting serious. Tomorrow he will meet the other man in my life-that’s right, the good doctor. I’ll let you know how it goes. As for this winter, I can’t bear to think about it, but I’ll keep Telluride in mind.

TO: Ade12177@hotmail.com

FROM: DrDon@toothache.com

DATE: July 24, 2005, 11:37 A.M.

SUBJECT: A quick (don’t) pick-me-up

We fly in tomorrow-US Air flight 307, BWI to Philadelphia, US Air flight 5990 Philly to Nantucket arriving around three. We’ll take a cab from the airport to the Beach Club and we’ll meet you at the restaurant at six o’clock sharp. You’ll eat with us? And what about this Thatcher person? Can’t wait to see you, honey. Love, love, love.

TO: DrDon@toothache.com

FROM: Ade12177@hotmail.com

DATE: July 24, 2005, 11:40 A.M.

SUBJECT: Breakfast and lunch

Dad, I will not be able to have dinner with you. I have to work dinner-get it? As does Thatcher. So reorganize your expectations to include breakfast and lunch. Those are the meals for which I am available. Breakfast and lunch.

You guys are going to love the Beach Club. It’s the best. Please tip generously as they know you’re my father! Love.

“I shouldn’t have invited them,” Adrienne said to Caren on the morning of her father and Mavis’s arrival. She and Caren were at the kitchen table, which, now that the weather was consistently nice, they had moved out into the backyard. They drank tea and espresso in the sun together on mornings like this one-when Duncan went sailing with Holt Millman and Thatcher left for the restaurant to give Fiona extra help. “No one else’s parents come to visit.”

“Mine certainly don’t,” Caren said. She had informed Adrienne early on that she was a casualty of the nastiest divorce in history.

Duncan and Delilah’s parents lived in California and were too old to travel. Fiona’s parents didn’t like to fly. Thatcher’s father was too busy with the stores. Spillman’s parents were divorced like Caren’s and remarried to other people with whom they had had more children (Spillman had a brother in kindergarten). Joe’s mother, Mrs. Peeke, had come once years earlier and spent the whole time back in the kitchen teaching Fiona how to make the corn spoon bread that now was on the menu with the swordfish.

“In general, though,” Caren said, “I think the restaurant business attracts people who, you know, want to escape their families.”

“My father sort of invited himself,” Adrienne said. “I couldn’t tell him not to come.”

“I thought you loved your father,” Caren said.

“I do,” Adrienne said. “More than anyone in the world.”

“So you should be happy,” Caren said. “Does he know about Thatch?”

“I told him we were dating,” Adrienne said. “But there’s a lot I didn’t explain. He’s going to ask why the restaurant is closing. He’ll ask about Thatcher and Fiona. He’ll ask about next year.”

“Thatcher will be rich next year,” Caren said. “That’s an answer any father would love to hear.”

“But what will happen between Thatcher and me?” Adrienne said. “My father will ask.”

“Have you asked?”

“No,” Adrienne admitted. “I’m too afraid.” With Fiona’s illness it seemed fruitless, not to mention unfair, to ask about the future of their relationship.

“Does he tell you he loves you?”

“No,” Adrienne said. This was another thing she tried not to dwell on. “What about Duncan?”

Caren fired off a laugh that sounded like a shrill machine gun. “As far as Himself is concerned, I’ve resorted to desperate measures.”

One desperate measure was this: At three o’clock that afternoon Caren was flying to Boston to meet her friend Tate for the second night of the Rolling Stones concert (they were playing three nights at the Fleet Center). Caren and Tate were then sharing a room at the Ritz Carlton. Tate was gay but Caren had not disclosed this fact to Duncan. Duncan, she said, was seething with jealousy-not only about Tate but about the sixth-row seats that Tate had procured from his very wealthy and influential friends. Duncan did not like being outdone in the wealthy and influential friends department, hence that morning’s sail with Holt.

“It better work,” Caren said. “I’m betting all my chips on this one.” True enough-she had basically sold herself in slavery to Bruno to get him to switch nights off with her.

“Well, you’re going to miss my father,” Adrienne said. “Tonight’s the only night he’s eating at the Bistro.” And that only because he insisted. The other two nights Adrienne had booked him at the Pearl and the Club Car. Thatcher had set Don and Mavis up in a hotel room at the Beach Club, where reservations in July and August had been booked for six months. Thatcher talked to Mack and Mack had a last-minute cancellation and so Dr. Don and Mavis were staying in a room on the Gold Coast. Adrienne had worried about the price, but her father seemed excited about paying six hundred dollars a night for a room. This was a very special vacation, he said, and there would be no skimping.

By the time she got to work, Adrienne’s stomach was churning like Mario’s Hobart mixer. There were 247 covers on the book. Family meal was shrimp curry over jasmine rice and a cucumber salad, but Adrienne couldn’t eat. She begged Mario to make her some of his banana French toast with chocolate syrup-what she needed was some comfort food-and Mario bitched about the two hundred and fifty other people he had to feed that night. Since he had put the writer from Vanity Fair on a plane back to New York without a story, and since he had lost five hundred dollars for breaking his contract with his publicist, Mario had gotten good at bitching. He worked too many hours, he made too little money, he wasn’t treated like the genius he knew himself to be. Still, Adrienne knew that he liked her.

“My father is coming in tonight with his… friend,” Adrienne told him.

“Your father’s gay?” Mario said.

“No,” Adrienne said. “Why do you ask?”

“The way you said ‘friend’ sounded funny.”

“It is funny,” Adrienne said. “But he’s not gay. The woman he’s coming with is his… hygienist. She’s his employee. Just please don’t think it’s my mother. Mavis is not my mother. My mother died when I was twelve.”

Mario crossed himself then held up his palms. “I’ll make the toast,” he said.

But Adrienne couldn’t eat the French toast either-her anxiety level rose to her eyebrows every time she reviewed the reservation book. The circle that stood for table twenty said “Don Dealey.” Her father was coming to the restaurant tonight, stepping into her life for the first time since he’d flown to Tallahassee for her college graduation. Always she went to him. She liked it that way; it gave her control. This feeling she had now was a distinctly out-of-control feeling.

Thatcher joined her at the podium. “I missed you today,” he said. “What did you do?”

“Sat on the beach and stressed.”

“About what?”

“Do I really need to say it?”

“Your father?”

Adrienne nodded. She didn’t want Thatcher to know how nervous she was because she wasn’t sure she could explain why. Her father meeting Thatcher, Thatcher meeting her father. The disastrous dinner with Will Kovak years earlier festered in her mind. Why was her father coming to see her this year of all years? Why hadn’t he come to see her in Hawaii when she was low on friends and spent most of her evenings wallowing in misery over her breakup with Sully? It seemed so much sager to follow the example of her fellow employees and keep family members out of the restaurant. She thought of how morose Tyler Lefroy had looked at the table with his parents and his sister. Tonight, that would be her.

“You haven’t noticed my haircut,” Thatcher said. “I had Pam squeeze me in because your father was coming.”

Adrienne looked at him blankly. “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t notice.” She checked her watch. “Five minutes until post time.” She wandered over to the bar and Duncan slid her drink across the blue granite.

“So what do you think about Caren going to see the Stones with this Tate guy?” Duncan said.

Adrienne shrugged. “She’s psyched about the concert.”

“Yeah, but what about the guy?”

“He’s loaded, I guess. He owns a villa on St. Bart’s.”

“She says they’re just friends.”

“Of course, they’re just friends,” Adrienne said. “You’re not worried about Caren?”

“They’re sharing a hotel room,” he said.

“It has two beds,” Adrienne said. “I’m sure that since the two of you are so happy together, nothing will happen with this Tate person, even if he is rich. And handsome.”

“Handsome?”

Adrienne tried not to smile. “I saw his picture. The guy looks like George Clooney.” She pointed to the row of bottles behind Duncan. “But I’ll bet he can’t make a lemon meringue pie martini.”

“Thanks,” Duncan said. “You’re a pal. Hey, your parents are coming in tonight?”

Adrienne took a long sip of her champagne. “My father,” she said. “And his hygienist.”

Duncan looked at her strangely.

“My father’s a dentist,” Adrienne said. “He’s coming with a woman who works for him. His hygienist.”

Duncan smiled. “Sure.”

Adrienne took another drink. This was more than half the problem-explaining about Mavis. There was no easy way to do it, and yet Adrienne had vowed that she was going to be honest. She would not pretend Mavis was her mother.

She heard Thatcher say, “You must be…”

Adrienne slowly turned around to see her father and Mavis standing by the podium. Dr. Don was a good six foot two, and he looked tan and handsome. He’d lost weight and he was wearing new clothes-a lizard green silk shirt and a linen blazer. Adrienne was suddenly overwhelmed with love for him. It was a love that had lasted twenty-eight years and had solely sustained her for the last sixteen. It was a love that was the ruling order of her life; she was able to exist only because this man loved her.

“Dad,” she said.

He hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head, rocking her back and forth. “Oh, honey,” he said. Adrienne hid her face in the soft material of his shirt. “I forget just how much I miss you.” He held her apart. “Smile.”

She had brushed and flossed when she first got to work because she knew he would ask. He always did. She smiled, but when she smiled she felt like she might cry. She took a deep breath and regarded Mavis, who was beaming at her. No, this was not her mother, but Mavis was, at least, familiar. She had the same haircut, the same frosted coral lipstick, the same minty smell as Adrienne kissed the side of her mouth. She wore a red dress with gold buttons-that was new.

“Mavis, hi.”

“Hi, doll.” The same vaguely annoying nickname: doll. Mavis called everyone by diminutives: doll, baby doll, sweetie, sugar, honey pie. Except for Adrienne’s father whom she called “the doctor,” when she was speaking about him, and “Donald,” when she was speaking to him.

Adrienne felt a light hand on her lower back and she remembered Thatcher. Thatcher, the restaurant, her job.

“Daddy, Mavis, this is Thatcher Smith, owner of the Blue Bistro. Thatcher, my father, Don Dealey, and Mavis Laroux.”

“We just met,” Thatcher said. He glanced from Adrienne to Don and back again. “I wish I could say I saw a family resemblance.”

Don laughed. “Adrienne looks like my late wife,” he said. He turned to Mavis. “Doesn’t she?”

Mavis nodded solemnly. “Spitting image.”

Adrienne plucked two menus from the podium. “Okay, well,” she said. “Since you’re here, you might as well sit. Follow me.” She walked through the dining room to table twenty, wobbling a little in her heels. Something felt off. She tried to think: Her father was definitely at table twenty. She would seat him, give him a menu, and have Spillman get him a drink. Thatcher would put in the VIP order. Fine. The restaurant was sparkling and elegant. Rex played “What a Wonderful World.”

“This place is not to be believed,” Mavis said. “And our hotel room! Adrienne, doll, you are a marvel. It’s the nicest room I have ever stayed in.”

“Good,” Adrienne said. “I’m glad you like it.”

“We don’t like it,” Don said. “We love it.” He pulled a chair out for Mavis, then he sat. Adrienne stood behind them with the menus. Something still was not right; she felt artificial, like she was playacting. But no-this was her job. She was the assistant manager of this restaurant and had been for two months.

When she handed Mavis a menu, she saw the ring. One emerald-cut diamond on a gold band. Immediately, Adrienne thought: Mavis is engaged. And then she nearly cried out. She closed her eyes. Okay, she thought. It’s okay. She pictured her mother’s face-one eyebrow raised suspiciously, the face Adrienne got when she had asked for permission to wear eye shadow. When Adrienne opened her eyes, her vision was splotchy and she was glad she hadn’t eaten anything because suddenly it felt like someone was holding her upside down under water. She wavered a little and her father took her by the wrist.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Sorry,” Adrienne said. In her peripheral vision, she saw Spillman approaching. “I haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“Good evening,” Spillman said. “You’re Adrienne’s parents?”

Dr. Don stood up to shake Spillman’s hand while Mavis smiled at her Limoges charger. Adrienne had lost language. This is my father and his friend Mavis. His hygienist, Mavis. His fiancée, Mavis.

“We’ll have champagne,” Adrienne heard her father say. “You’ll sit and have a glass with us, Ade?”

“Actually… no,” she said. They wanted to tell her. They had come all the way to Nantucket to tell her in person. Meanwhile, Adrienne wished her father had simply sent an e-mail. That way she could have digested the news privately. But no-they were going to make her sit through it here, in front of them, while she was supposed to be working. She turned around-there was a cluster of people at the podium. “I have to go,” she said. “Because remember, Dad, I told you…”

Dr. Don smiled and shooed her off. “Go. I want to watch you.”

Suddenly it was like Adrienne was twelve years old again, in the school play. Peppermint Patty in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Adrienne’s mother had been in the hospital so Dr. Don came to the play with-yes-Mavis. As if to make up for Rosalie’s absence, the two of them had paid extra close attention. After the play was over, they commented on Adrienne’s every gesture; they remembered each of her eight stiff lines.

Act natural, Adrienne had thought then, and now. Leigh Stanford and her husband were in with friends from Guam-where did they find these far-flung friends?-and Thatcher’s hairdresser, Pam, was in with a date. Adrienne sat a party of six women, then a couple celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. When Adrienne glanced over at her father and Mavis, they were sipping Laurent-Perrier, studying their menus. Her father caught her eye and waved. Adrienne went to the bar and reclaimed her second glass of champagne.

Charlie, Duncan’s friend, owner of the gold marijuana leaf necklace, was seated at the bar drinking a Whale’s Tale Ale. He gave Adrienne the up-down, as he did every time he came in. It was one of a dozen things about the man that made Adrienne shiver with dislike. He smelled like very strong soap.

“This is her roommate?” Charlie asked Duncan.

“Yes,” Duncan said. He smirked at Adrienne. “I was just telling Charlie about the stunt Caren pulled.”

“It’s not a stunt,” Adrienne said. “She went to a concert.”

“With another guy,” Charlie said.

“A friend of hers,” Adrienne said. She glanced back over her shoulder at her father. He waved. Scene where Adrienne defends her roommate’s decision to share a hotel room with another man. “You have women in here every night throwing themselves at you. You hardly have a right to get angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Duncan said. “But I’m on to her.”

“What’s the guy’s name again?” Charlie asked.

“Tate something,” Duncan said.

“Tate,” Charlie said. “Goddamned prep school name if I ever heard one.”

“What I don’t understand,” Duncan said, “is why they’re sharing a room. If he’s so rich and well-connected, he should be able to afford two rooms.”

“He didn’t want two rooms,” Charlie said. “He wants to be in the same room with your bitch.”

Adrienne glanced at Duncan to see how he would react to Caren’s being so designated, and Duncan looked at her, possibly for the same reason. Adrienne shrugged.

“You eating tonight?” she asked Charlie.

“I need a menu.”

“Do you want something other than the steak?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Why don’t you bring me a menu?”

Duncan pulled a menu out from behind the bar. Charlie pretended to study it, his brow wrinkled and threatening.

Joe set a highball glass on the bar. “The woman who ordered this asked for Finlandia on the rocks.”

“That is Finlandia,” Duncan said.

“She swore it was Grey Goose,” Joe said.

“It is Grey Goose,” Duncan admitted. His neck started to redden around the collar of his shirt. “We’re out of Finlandia. I can’t believe she could tell the difference.”

“She could tell the difference,” Joe said. “She’s a serious vodka drinker.”

“Tell her we’re out of Finlandia,” Duncan said. “We have the Grey Goose or Triple Eight.”

“You’re making me look bad,” Joe said.

Duncan threw his hands in the air. “What is this? Beat-up-the-bartender night?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said to Joe. “Lay off my friend here. His woman skipped town.”

Thatcher came up behind Adrienne. “The VIP order is up for your dad. Would you let Paco know we need three more?”

“Sure,” Adrienne said. She turned to Charlie and eyed his necklace. It was the dog tag of his stupidity. “Do you know what you’d like?” she asked. “I’m headed for the kitchen. I could put your order in.”

“I’ll have the steak,” he said. “Well-done. If there’s even a little bit of pink, I’ll be sick. I swear.”

“Well, we don’t want that,” Adrienne said. She checked, one more time, on her father. He waved.

The kitchen was ridiculously hot. Fiona was drenched in sweat. “We’re short our dishwasher,” she said. “Jojo went to see the Rolling Stones last night in the big city and hasn’t managed to find his way home. I don’t know why one of these clowns didn’t go with him, but they’ll pay. Paco, when you’re done with the chips, you’re dish bitch. And Eddie, I don’t want to hear one word about the weeds from you.”

Paco and Eddie groaned.

“Save the whining for your cousin,” Fiona said. “Maybe next time you’ll clue him in on how to find the bus station.” She glanced over at Adrienne, who was scribbling out a ticket for the bar: one steak, killed. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” Adrienne lied. She held up three fingers for Paco, who started slicing potatoes, muttering curses about Jojo. There was one order of chips and dip up. Adrienne took it.

“That’s for your parents?” Fiona asked.

“My father,” Adrienne said. The explaining was becoming tedious. “And his girlfriend.”

“His girlfriend,” Fiona said.

“Yes.” There, she’d said it, and it sounded a lot less bizarre than hygienist. Girlfriend, fiancée, did it really matter? Adrienne’s mother had been dead for sixteen years; her father deserved to be happy. Getting upset about this was as adolescent as partying too hard at the Rolling Stones concert and missing work.

“I’ll cook for them myself,” Fiona said. “They’re on twenty, right?”

Adrienne was confused. “Right. But… you don’t have to do that. You have other stuff. The expediting.”

Fiona took a swig from an enormous Evian bottle. “When it’s family, I like to do the cooking myself.”

“Even my family?” Adrienne said.

“Of course,” Fiona said. “Your family is our family.”

Adrienne reentered the dining room slightly cheered. She liked the idea of her father as a shared responsibility. Maybe she could send Fiona to her father’s wedding in her place. Adrienne delivered the chips and dip to her father’s table.

“Hand-cut potato chips with crème fraîche and beluga caviar,” she announced.

“Honey, this is too much,” Dr. Don said.

“No, it isn’t, Daddy,” she said. “We do it for people a lot less special than you.”

“Well, okay, then,” he said, digging in. “Thank you.”

Thatcher materialized at the table. “Everyone’s down,” he said to Adrienne. “You can have a drink with your dad and Mavis here. You can even order if you’d like.”

“I ate already,” Adrienne said tightly.

“You told me you haven’t eaten anything all day,” Dr. Don said.

“Sit and eat,” Thatcher said. He put his hands on Adrienne’s shoulders and pushed her into a chair. “I’m going to order you the foie gras and the club.”

“Please don’t,” Adrienne said. “I want to work.”

“You can work second,” Thatcher said. “Right now you should enjoy your family.”

Enjoy your family: For so many people this phrase was a paradox, as tonight it was for Adrienne. Still, she didn’t want to throw a tantrum or make a scene in the middle of a very full restaurant so she sank into the wicker chair next to her father, and Spillman brought over her drink.

“We should have a toast,” Dr. Don said, raising his glass. “To you, sweetheart. You’ve done it again. This island is beautiful.”

“And the restaurant,” Mavis said. “I always thought restaurants were, you know… a seedy place to work.”

“Risky, derelict, volatile, transient, goddamned make-believe,” Adrienne said. “I’ve heard it all.”

“But this place is special,” Mavis said. “As anyone can see.”

“Thank you,” Adrienne said.

They clinked glasses. Adrienne helped herself to caviar. Across the dining room, she caught Leigh Stanford’s curious eye. The curse of table twenty. Adrienne wished she had a big sign: this is not my mother!

“Thatcher is so charming,” Mavis whispered. “He really seems to like you.”

“He does like me,” Adrienne said.

“Do you have any long-term plans?” Dr. Don asked.

“Long term? No. Right now I’m celebrating my solvency. I paid you back, I paid my credit cards off, and I have money in the bank. You should be happy about that. I am.”

“Oh, honey,” Dr. Don said. “If you only knew how much I worried about you.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Adrienne said. “I’m self-sufficient. Now.”

“Of course you are,” Mavis said.

“I keep your picture in my examining room,” he said. “Everyone asks about you. And I tell them all about my beautiful daughter who lives in… Hawaii, Thailand, Aspen, Nantucket. They always ask if you’re married or if you have children…”

“And you tell them no.”

“And I tell them no.”

“But you want to tell them yes. You want me to be a soccer mom with everything in its place.”

“No, honey.”

“Well, what then?”

“I want you to be happy,” he said.

“I am happy,” Adrienne snarled.

“Good,” Mavis said, and Adrienne saw her hand land on Dr. Don’s arm. As if to say, Enough already, Donald! This was a sad state of affairs. There was no one to come to Adrienne’s defense except for Mavis.

“Anyway, how’s Maryland?” Adrienne asked. “You like it?”

“Oh, yes!” Mavis said, clearly relieved at the shift in topic. “You’re a doll to ask.”

“Business is good,” Dr. Don said. “And the eastern shore is something else, especially now that it’s summer. A few weeks ago we went to Chincoteague to see the wild horses.”

“We didn’t actually see any,” Mavis said.

“I think we might stay in Maryland awhile,” Dr. Don said. “Settle in. I’m too old to keep moving around so much.”

These words had the same effect on Adrienne as a drum roll. Just say it! she thought. She wanted it over with. Spillman approached with the appetizers. Foie gras for Adrienne, corn chowder for Dr. Don, the Caesar, no anchovies, for Mavis. Spillman twisted the pepper mill over everyone’s plates.

“Can I bring you anything else right now?” he asked.

“Kamikaze shot,” Adrienne said. She stared at him, thinking: Get me out of here! Then, finally, she smiled. “Only kidding.”

Spillman’s facade never cracked. The man was a professional. “Enjoy your food,” he said.

The sun was a juicy pink as it sank toward the water. Rex played “As Time Goes By.” The foie gras was good enough to shift Adrienne’s mood from despondent to merely poor. It was deliciously fatty, a heavenly richness balanced by the sweet roasted figs. Who wanted to be married and have children when she could be eating foie gras like this with a front-row seat for the sunset? Adrienne forgot her manners. She devoured her appetizer in five lusty bites, and then she helped herself to more caviar. She was starving.

Dr. Don took soup into his spoon back-to-front, the way Adrienne’s mother had taught her eighty-two years earlier. Adrienne tried to imagine what her mother would think about her father and Mavis getting married. It was impossible to imagine Rosalie feeling betrayed or hurt. Sixteen years, she would say. What took you so long? Adrienne couldn’t stage a protest to the marriage on her mother’s behalf. She would have to claim responsibility herself. She didn’t want her father to get married because then he wouldn’t belong to her anymore. By marrying Mavis, he would be calling an end to their sixteen-year mourning period. Rapping the gavel. Time to move on! Easy enough when it was your wife, but there was no way to replace your mother. Had he bothered to think of that? There was no way to replace your mother. The hole was there forever.

“How are the boys?” Adrienne asked.

Mavis dabbed her coral lips with a napkin. “Good, good. Graham is at Galludet getting his master’s in education. Cole is in California working for Sun Microsystems.”

“Girlfriends?”

“Graham is dating a girl named Charlotte who goes to Galludet with him.”

“She’s deaf?”

Mavis nodded, eyes wide. “And with Cole, I can’t keep track of the girls from one week to the next.”

Adrienne pressed the soles of her fabulous shoes to the floor. “Do they know that you’re engaged?”

Mavis put down her fork slowly as though Adrienne were holding a gun to her head and had forbidden any sudden movements. “Yes,” she said. “They do. We called them last week.”

“Honey,” Dr. Don said.

A few tears fell onto Adrienne’s appetizer plate. Here it was, then: the scene where Adrienne cried at her father’s happy news.

“Congratulations,” she said. She couldn’t look at either of them because she was afraid she’d break down, and so she studied the band of bright pink sky hovering above the ocean.

“Honey,” Dr. Don said. He reached into her lap and squeezed her wrist. “Both Mavis and I have the utmost respect for the memory of your mother. And we have respect for you. We wanted to tell you in person.”

Adrienne could feel the gazes of a hundred and twenty interested guests at her back. She took a deep breath and said, “When’s the wedding?”

“In the fall,” Dr. Don said. “Just Mavis and myself, the boys, and you, if you’ll come. Small church, a nice dinner out afterward…”

Adrienne didn’t have to answer because Roy appeared to clear their plates and crumb the table, and although Adrienne knew she should introduce him, she was silent until he left.

“We’re sorry to spring this on you,” Mavis said. “I told Donald we should give you the news in private.”

“That’s okay,” Adrienne said. “I noticed your ring. It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Mavis held out her hand to admire the ring, then she fidgeted with one of the gold buttons on the front of her dress. “I think I’ll go to the ladies’ room.”

“It’s by the front door,” Adrienne said.

Mavis left and Dr. Don tightened his grip on Adrienne’s wrist.

“Don’t say anything, Dad,” she said. “Please. You’ll make me cry.”

“Even if I tell you how much I love you?”

“Yes. Please stop.”

“And your mother loved you. She loved you, Adrienne, and she was so afraid you would grow up not remembering that.”

Tears splashed onto Adrienne’s charger. She held her napkin to her face. For two months she had watched guests eat dinner at these tables. She had seen guests laugh, cry, argue, declare their love, tell stories, hold hands, kiss, and in the case of Lucy Elpern, go into labor. From the safe distance of the podium, this all seemed well and fine. However, sitting at table twenty was turning out to be a keenly painful experience.

“I remember,” Adrienne said. To avoid her father’s gaze, she turned around. Charlie was waving at her from the bar. He pointed to his steak and gave her the thumbs-up. Out of the corner of her eye, Adrienne saw the red of Mavis’s dress coming closer, and behind her, Spillman with their dinner. Adrienne waited for the table to settle. Mavis sat, and a minute later Spillman served. Did they need anything else? Nothing he could bring them, Adrienne thought. The plates were gorgeous. Mavis had ordered the lamb lollipops.

“They’re adorable,” she said. “Donald, will you take a picture of my dinner?”

Adrienne shifted ever so slightly in her chair.

“We can’t embarrass Adrienne like that,” Dr. Don said.

Adrienne took a huge bite of her sandwich. Guests took pictures of the food all the time, but somehow Adrienne felt victorious about robbing Mavis of this one pleasure. There would be no toast celebrating the marriage and no pictures taken at the table. Adrienne licked a glob of mayonnaise from her lip and thought about Fiona constructing her sandwich. Your family is our family. Yeah, right. Adrienne couldn’t wait to get back to work.

It wasn’t until two o’clock in the morning when she and Thatcher were safely in bed that she told him the news. By that time, she had cultivated the offhand tone she wished she’d had access to at dinner.

“My father and Mavis are getting married,” she said.

Thatcher lay on his back, and Adrienne was sprawled across his chest. Sometimes they fell asleep like this.

“Is this good news or bad news?”

“Bad.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I thought so.”

They lay there in the dark and Adrienne cried, free at last, and freer than ever because Caren wasn’t home. She could make as much noise as she wanted, she could scream and yell, but she just sobbed quietly, wallowing in the childish sadness she felt. Sad, sad, sad-and not even really about the marriage. It was all the old stuff, too. Thatcher rubbed Adrienne’s back and touched her hair and when she quieted and her eyes were burning and her throat ached, he kissed her and her need for him was so deep and overwhelming that when they made love, she batted herself against him furiously. She grabbed his red-gold hair and clung to him, thinking, Can you make this longing go away? Can you fill up the empty spot? Can you help me, Thatcher Smith? You who do so much for so many people night after night, granting wishes, fulfilling dreams, can you help me? She put her hands around his neck while they thrust together and then Thatcher groaned and fell back against the mattress with a soft thud but Adrienne remained upright, even as he softened and slipped from her.

“I love you,” she whispered.

As soon as the words were out, she hoped and prayed that he was asleep-he did that after sex, fell hard and immediately to sleep. But she didn’t hear him breathing; if anything she heard him not breathing. She wondered what had made her say those words, words she had never said to anyone before, except, of course, her parents. Then she thought, stupidly, of a Norma Klein book she had once begged her mother for, a book called It’s OK If You Don’t Love Me, whose plot Adrienne had long forgotten, though it certainly had a moment in its pages just like this one. I’m sorry, she almost said, I’m sorry I said that. Except she wasn’t sorry. She did love him and she didn’t feel like playing games to make him say it first. She was being honest with her feelings; no one would catch her in a room at the Ritz-Carlton with a sham lover. She was brave, like Kyra in Carmel, making plans four months in advance to move halfway across the country with her landscape painter.

And yet, she listened for the catch of his breath. The room was completely dark; they always pulled the shades against the morning sun, which rose at five. So she couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open.

“I…” he said.

Her skin prickled, her sweat drying in the cool night air. Shit! she thought. Shit, shit, shit!

“I love you, too,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the first second I saw you.”

Adrienne tried to speak but the noise she made sounded like water trying to pass through a clogged drain. What was he saying?

Finally, she managed a whisper. “You mean, in the parking lot?”

“My heart fell on its knees in front of you. I thought maybe I could wait tables. Someone told me it was a piece of cake. Your purple jacket. Your rosy cheeks. And then you inhaled that breakfast like you hadn’t eaten in three days. My heart was prostrate at your feet.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’ve loved you since that very first morning.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You can ask Fiona,” Thatcher said. “After you left I went back into the kitchen and told Fiona that I had fallen in love with a woman named Adrienne Dealey and that everyone else would fall in love with her, too.”

“You said that to Fiona?”

“I did.”

Adrienne thought back to her first conversation with Fiona when Adrienne told her the Parrishes wanted her to bring their bread.

Thatcher was right about you, then.

Right about me how? I mean, what did he say…

“Caren loves you. The Parrishes. Mario. Mario wanted to ask you out and I told him if he did, I would fire him. He didn’t speak to me for three days.”

“Stop it,” Adrienne said.

“You think I’m making it up,” Thatcher said. “I am not making it up. I love you…” His voice trailed off and Adrienne sensed the other shoe about to drop.

“But?” she said.

“But,” he said. He rolled onto his side so that he could look down on her. “The reason why I haven’t had a relationship in twelve years is because of Fee. There hasn’t been time to think about anyone else.”

Adrienne was silent.

“And I never met the right person,” he said, quickly. “You, Adrienne Dealey, are the right person. I love you. But I love Fee, too. Differently. She’s my best friend and has been for a long time.”

“I know that,” Adrienne said, trying not to let impatience creep into her voice.

“And sometimes, I don’t know how to handle things. I don’t know who to put first.”

That’s clear, Adrienne thought. She could tell Thatch was at a loss, like a teenager trying to figure it all out for the first time.

“I don’t have to be first,” Adrienne said, then she checked herself. Was she lying? Was she just trying to be brave? What had she learned earlier that night? That being first or second had nothing to do with love, really. Her father loved her, Thatcher loved her. Her father also loved Mavis, Thatcher also loved Fiona. That was okay, wasn’t it? It would have to be okay. “I understand.”

“You do?” Thatcher said. He sounded unconvinced, but hopeful. “Do you really?”

“I do really,” Adrienne said. She lifted her head to kiss him, and then, deciding she didn’t want to talk anymore lest she ruin the moment or change her mind, she closed her eyes, pretending to sleep.

The next morning at nine, Thatcher and Dr. Don went fishing on the Just Do It, Too. Dr. Don had offered the fishing trip up to Thatcher the night before and Adrienne was sure that Thatcher would decline, but instead he’d looked beseechingly to Adrienne. He could only go if Adrienne covered the phone in the morning.

“Go,” she’d said, though, really, the last thing she wanted was her father and Thatcher alone for three hours on a boat when the only topic they had in common was her.

She dropped them off at the docks in the morning. Pulling out of the A &P parking lot in Thatcher’s enormous truck, she almost ran over a family of four. Lack of sleep. Nerves.

She drove out to the airport to pick up Caren, who had called very early on a sketchy cell phone line and begged a ride. I don’t have a dime left for a taxi, she’d said. Adrienne found her standing on the curb in front of the terminal. Caren was wearing the same outfit she’d left in-her white jeans and black halter top. Her hair was down but tangled and messy and her clothes were rumpled. She looked like a half-smoked cigarette. And when she climbed into the cab of Thatcher’s truck, there was a horrible smell: spoiled wine, rotten meat, a bad fart. Adrienne cracked her window.

“So,” she said. “How was it?”

“I drank too much. Smoked weed. Did a line of cocaine. Took X.”

“Does that mean it was good or bad?” Adrienne said.

“The concert was good. Are you kidding me? Sixth row for Mick Jagger? But that was the great beginning of something bad. I never even saw the inside of the Ritz. We left the concert and went to Radius. I had three martinis for dinner. Then we went to Mistral. Then a party somewhere in Back Bay where we all did coke. Haven’t been that stupid in many, many years. Then to Saint.” She eyed the dashboard. “I left Saint at six.”

“This morning?”

“Choked down a ricotta cannoli in the North End. I feel lousy.”

“So you haven’t slept.”

“Half an hour on the plane. I need a shower and a Percocet. My bed. Room-darkening shades. Six cups of espresso before I go to work.”

“That would be a start,” Adrienne said.

“Did you talk to Duncan? Was he upset? He didn’t call my cell.”

Adrienne gnawed her lower lip. Before she’d left the restaurant the night before, she had one more conversation with Duncan as he cleaned up the bar.

“I guess I won’t be seeing you at our house tonight,” Adrienne had said. “It’ll probably feel weird to sleep in your own bed.”

“Who said I’m sleeping in my own bed?” Duncan said.

“Where else would you sleep?” Adrienne asked.

“We’re going out,” Duncan said. He nodded toward Charlie who, after seventeen beers, was staggering near the front door. “Last call at the Chicken Box. For starters. And when you talk to Caren, feel free to tell her so.”

But Adrienne had no desire to tell Caren so. Adrienne had too much emotional work of her own.

“Well,” Adrienne said, “he asked a lot of questions about Tate.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Just about who he was.”

“You didn’t tell Duncan that Tate was gay?”

“Of course not.” Adrienne glanced at Caren. It was a hundred degrees out and the woman was shivering in her seat. “What do you expect from Duncan, anyway?”

“The same thing every woman expects,” Caren said.

“Which is what?” Adrienne was asking because she really wanted to know. Thatcher had said he loved her, but now what happened? Where did they go? What did they do?

“Which is this,” Caren said. She pointed to a white van from Flowers on Chestnut idling in their driveway.

Adrienne parked alongside the van while Caren bolted for the house. By the time Adrienne got inside, Caren had her face buried in what must have been three dozen long-stemmed red roses.

For me, Adrienne thought. Thatcher? Dad?

But the card was addressed to Caren. She held it in the air like a winning lottery ticket.

“He loves me,” she said.

By the time Adrienne was ready to leave for work fifteen minutes later, Duncan was carrying Caren down the hall toward the bedroom.

“Don’t ever take off on me like that again,” Duncan said. “You made me crazy. Wasn’t I crazy, Adrienne?”

“You were crazy,” Adrienne said. She inhaled the deep perfume of the roses. Proof that there was more than one way to skin a cat. Adrienne wondered if her father and Thatcher were talking about her. Two hours left.

At work, the phone rang off the hook. Now that summer was more than half over, she heard a new desperation in everyone’s voice. Or maybe everyone else was the same and it was Adrienne with the desperation.

Jennifer Devlin: I heard you’re closing. For good? How many nights can I get in this week? And what about next week? The week after that? Just book me for any night you have open between now and Labor Day. Party of four. No, six.

Mrs. Langley: Hello, honey. You don’t know me but I am a very good customer even though I haven’t managed to get in once all summer. I’d like a table for ten Saturday night at seven thirty. What do you mean you don’t seat at seven thirty? You always used to before. Well, at six I’m just starting to think about cocktails and by nine I’m half asleep. Can’t you make an exception just this once? We’ll pay double.

Harry Henderson: We need Fiona to come in and sign the purchase and sale agreement. She’s holding the whole deal up, and you know these new parent-types. They’re so sleep-deprived, they’re likely to back out without warning! I don’t suppose Fiona will come to the phone?

Darla Parrish: Sorry, honey, about the scene with Luke. He’s normally such a good boy. And sadly, we have to cancel our reservation for tonight. Grayson has business back in Short Hills. And just so you know, Grayson won’t be coming in on Friday, either. I’ll be in with my sister.

Mr. Mascaro: Five people at nine on Saturday night. Heard my secretary wasn’t allowed to make the reservation, which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you people want to lose all your business?

Kevin Kahla: Hi, hi, hi! I used to be the manager there? Now I work at Craft in the city? I have two very good customers coming to Nantucket this week and I told them I’d get them a reservation for Saturday night, first seating. Last name Gibson. Can you put them at table twenty and VIP them? Thanks, you’re a superstar. Love to Thatch and Fiona, and please, please tell Caren there isn’t a woman in New York as bitchy as she is-and that’s a compliment. Ta!

Lana, personal assistant to Dustin Hoffman: Mr. Hoffman would like a table where he won’t be bothered. Is there a back entrance? And he’d like to chat with the chef after dinner. He’s been trying to do this for three years and since we hear you’re closing forever on Labor Day, it becomes imperative that we get it done this Saturday. Tell me I have your help on this.

Cat: My sister and her husband are coming in for their anniversary on Friday. Would you send them a bottle of Cristal from me? I’ll drop off some cash later. Thanks, girlfriend!

Mack: I need a party of two at six o’clock for Saturday. Name Chang. A party of six for nine on Saturday-name, O’Leary-and a party of two at six on Sunday. Name Walker. Do you want me to repeat that?

Mr. Kennedy: I have to have Saturday and I have to have table twenty. Party of four. Very big clients. Book us for six but we’ll probably be late because we’ll be playing at the golf club all afternoon.

Red Mare: You want to send your father and his fiancée a bottle of Cristal? I see them here-Dealey at six thirty. Consider it done. What’s your credit card number?

Mr. Lefroy: Please tell Thatcher I’ll be in for an official visit one morning next week. This is standard operating procedure-he doesn’t have to tell me it’s stupid. I already know that. In twelve years I’ve never cited him for an infraction and if I did, what would I do? Shut him down? Ha!

Mme. Colverre: I’m calling from Paris, France. Table for six for Saturday at six, s’il vous plait?

Leigh Stanford: Rumor on the cobblestones has it that Thatcher isn’t happy with his attorney on this real estate transaction. Would you, delicately, mention that I’d be happy to take it on in exchange for credit at the restaurant. Speaking of which, we have friends coming in from the Ozarks on Saturday. Can we do an early table of four?

Ms. Cantele: Do you have vegetarian dishes on your menu? What about vegan dishes? Can you just read me the whole menu? That’s right, the whole menu.

Mack: It’s me again. I have to change Simon O’Leary’s party from Saturday to Sunday the thirty-first.

“The thirty-first is Saturday,” Adrienne said. Her brain was a swarm of names, dates, and times, as pesky as gnats.

“No, the thirty-first is Sunday.”

“No,” Adrienne said, checking her reservation sheet. “The thirty-first is Saturday.”

“Reference your calendar,” Mack said. “I’ll wait.”

Adrienne flipped to the front of the book where the calendar was pasted inside the front cover. The hair on her arms stood up. She felt like she was the one on a boat, a boat precariously keeled to one side, threatening to dump her in with the sharks. Her book was all wrong. She had been booking reservations for Friday on Saturday’s page. She flipped to Saturday and was horrified to find it was full-and so all the people who had called that morning asking for Saturday had to be called back. There was no room! Adrienne scrambled with her eraser. This was awful. A hideous mess. How many reservations had she made today? How many really were for Sunday? This was her worst fuckup so far. This was worse than skipping a line on her SATs and not realizing it until the end of the section when she had one more answer than space. Now she had to call back nearly everyone she had spoken to in the past hour to tell them, Sorry, Saturday is booked.

Adrienne hung up with Mack and tried to channel her thoughts. Paris, France. Kevin in New York. Kennedy could eat on Saturday night but not at table twenty, unless Thatcher wanted to move him. Who else? Dustin Hoffman? Adrienne walked away from the podium. The phone rang but she didn’t answer. She went into the ladies’ room and, out of habit, checked her teeth.

The two of them were out on the water, talking about her.

When Adrienne next saw her father and Thatcher, they were walking down the dock like lovers. Adrienne was quaking. She had managed to staunch the bleeding of her massive trauma that morning, but it wasn’t pretty. In the end she gave the three tables she had left on Saturday night to Kennedy, Hoffman, and Leigh Stanford and she called everyone else back to renege with enormous apologies. Mrs. Langley screamed so loudly Adrienne had to set the receiver down. Kevin changed his party’s reservation to Sunday but at the end of their conversation he said, “This kind of thing never happened when I worked there.” Mascaro threatened to call the chamber of commerce.

“It was a mistake,” Adrienne said.

Just as she thought she might fill her pockets with tablecloth weights and walk out into the ocean, Henry Subiaco emerged from the kitchen with a mug of his homemade root beer.

“This is the best root beer I’ve ever tasted,” Adrienne said.

“Next year,” he said, “you work for me.”

Now Adrienne was confronted with her father’s hand on the back of Thatcher’s neck as they strolled toward her. Grinning, faces red from the sun. With his free hand, her father waved.

“Did you catch anything?” she asked.

“Thatch caught a thirty-nine-inch striper,” Dr. Don said. “It was a thing of beauty.”

“Family meal tonight,” Thatcher said.

“Where’s the fish?”

“First mate’s cleaning it for me. How was work?”

“I quit,” she said. “I’m going to work for Henry Subiaco.”

“That bad?”

“Worse than bad.” She looked at her father. “We’re taking you back to the hotel?”

“Can you join Mavis and I on the beach?” Dr. Don asked.

Adrienne checked her running watch. Twelve fifteen, one foot above sea level, and sinking by the minute. “I can. After I go over some work stuff with Thatcher. Say two o’clock?”

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“You don’t have to thank me for spending time with you,” she said.

They waited on the dock until the first mate delivered a huge plastic bag of filleted fish. Dr. Don clapped Thatcher on the shoulder. “This is a great guy, Adrienne.”

Three hours on the water and they were best friends.

“You’re the great guy,” Thatcher said. “I haven’t been fishing in years. Thank you for taking me.”

Adrienne stifled a yawn. Nerves. Lack of sleep.

Thatcher and Adrienne dropped Dr. Don off at the Beach Club and headed back to the restaurant. Adrienne tried to explain the train wreck that was her morning, but Thatcher seemed distracted.

“What’s wrong?” she said. “Did my father say something inappropriate? He’s famous for that.”

Thatcher took her hand. “He wants your blessing. With Mavis.”

“He has my blessing. I sent him and Mavis a bottle of Cristal at the Pearl tonight.”

“That’s my girl,” Thatcher said.

“What else did you talk about?” Adrienne asked.

“Baseball. Football. Notre Dame. My family’s business. I think your dad wanted to get a sense of me. I tried to give it to him.”

“Did my name come up?”

“From time to time. Like I said, he wants you to feel okay about Mavis.”

“Did you talk about… us? You and me?”

“A little.”

Adrienne banged her head against the window. What a morning! “I need you to tell me word for word what was said.”

Thatcher smiled. “That’s not my style and you know it.” He grabbed her knee. “Hey, it’s fine. I had a really nice time. Your father is a quality person.”

They pulled up in front of the restaurant. Fiona was sitting on the edge of the dory, crying into her hands. Thatcher hopped out and went to her. Adrienne stayed in the truck, wishing she could vaporize. Should she walk into the Bistro as though nothing were wrong, or approach them and make herself the most egregious of intruders? Sitting in the car, gaping, wasn’t an option. She got out.

“Harry brought down the purchase and sale agreement,” Fiona wailed. “And I signed it.”

Thatcher sat next to her. “That’s what you were supposed to do.”

“So we’re really going to sell?”

“It was your idea.”

“Yes, but…” She let out a staccato breath. “Mario was right. They’re going to tear it down. Next year it will be a fat mansion.”

“It’s better that way,” Thatcher said. “Think how awful it would be if it were still a restaurant but not our restaurant.”

Fiona nodded with her lips pressed together in an ugly line. She raised her eyes and noticed Adrienne standing there.

“What do you think?” Fiona asked. “Are we making a mistake?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

“If it were your restaurant, would you sell it?”

“If you had asked me a few hours ago…” But now Adrienne regarded the Bistro: the dory filled with geraniums; the menu hanging in a glass box; the smells of the kitchen wafting through the front door; the way the guests’ faces glowed when they walked in and saw candlelit tables and heard piano music; the sound of a champagne flute sliding across the blue granite; the crackers-God, the crackers.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Thatcher is one great guy.”

“So you’ve said.”

Adrienne and her father were sitting under a canary yellow umbrella at the Beach Club eating sandwiches from Something Natural. Mavis was having a massage in the room.

“Your mother would have loved him.”

“She loved everybody.”

“True.” Dr. Don popped open a bottle of Nantucket Nectars and studied the label. “These things are just filled with sugar.” He took a long swill.

“So what did you and Thatcher talk about on the boat?”

Dr. Don leaned back in his beach chair. “Oh, you know. The Fighting Irish. His father’s business. His decision to sell to his brothers. And the restaurant. It sounds like he has quite a friendship with this Fiona person.”

There was an understatement. “He does,” Adrienne said.

“She’s sick?”

“He told you that?”

Dr. Don took a bite of his smoked turkey and cheddar.

“So that’s why they’re closing the restaurant,” Adrienne said. “She’s on the list for a transplant.”

“Thatch seemed uncertain about his next step,” Dr. Don said. “It hinges, I guess, on the girl.”

“Girl?”

“Fiona.”

“Yeah,” Adrienne said.

“Which leaves you in a funny position.”

“I’ve been in a funny position all summer,” Adrienne said.

“In what way?”

“I don’t know,” Adrienne said, though she did know. She thought about it all the time. “Thatcher and Fiona have been friends since they were born. And Duncan has his sister Delilah. And the Subiacos, who work in the kitchen, are all brothers or cousins. And Spillman and Caren and Bruno and Joe have all been at the Bistro since it opened. I was worried when you and Mavis showed up because nobody on the staff seems to have a family. But that’s because they’re each other’s family. And what I realized is that I don’t have any relationships like that. Because we moved.” She looked up to see her father swallow. “We moved and moved and then I moved and moved and so there’s nothing in my life that’s lasted relationship-wise. And that’s strange, isn’t it? I’m twenty-eight years old and there’s no one in my life, you know, permanently.”

“This may be pointing out the obvious,” Dr. Don said, “but you have me.”

“Yes,” Adrienne said. “I have you.”

Two days later when it was time for Dr. Don and Mavis to go to the airport, Thatcher insisted on driving them in Fiona’s Range Rover. Mavis sat up front with Fiona’s oxygen tank at her feet, and Adrienne sat in the back holding hands with her father. She didn’t want him to leave. The Cristal had been a big hit-it brought Mavis to tears-and Adrienne felt saintly, bestowing her blessing.

At the airport, Thatcher stayed in the car while Adrienne walked into the terminal with her father. Mavis hurried ahead to get in line at the US Air counter. Adrienne’s nose tingled. It was the school play again: teary good-bye scene.

“October?” her father said. Dr. Don and Mavis had chosen October sixteenth as their wedding day. Even though it was only two and a half months away, Adrienne wondered what she’d be doing. Would she be staying on this island or leaving?

“I’ll be there,” she said.

Her father put down his suitcase and hugged her. “I probably don’t have to say this, but I will anyway because I’m your father. I want you to be careful.”

“I will.”

“He told me he loves you.”

“Did he?”

“He did. And I took him at his word. But that doesn’t mean…”

“I know.”

Her father scanned his eyes over the scene in the terminal: the people on cell phones, the Louis Vuitton luggage, the golden retrievers. “I wanted you to get married first,” he said. “I wanted you to be settled before I married Mavis. Do you forgive me for wanting that?”

“Yes,” Adrienne said. “But I’m glad you didn’t wait for me. I may never be settled.”

“You will someday.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m proud of you, honey. And so is your mother. You know that?”

“Yes,” she said.

He picked up his suitcase and kissed her again. “Love.”

“Love,” Adrienne said. She watched her father join Mavis in line. Then he turned around and waved one last time, and only then did she let herself cry.