“We’ve been here about three weeks and you’re already in love with Wyatt?” Sheila asked.

  “I was in love with him the moment I saw him,” Ariel said.

  “Okay, yeah, it is starting to look like you two are a couple.”

  “Let’s keep it that way, okay?” Ariel asked, smiling, but her eyes were serious.

  “Of course,” Sheila agreed. She wanted to laugh and tell someone that the goddess Ariel thought Sheila was any kind of threat.

  The two girls walked out of the bathroom together. The game room was crowded and noisy.

  Wyatt came up to them. “Sheila, if I offended you, I apologize.”

  Sheila forced a smile. “I overreacted. No problem.”

  Nick emerged from the mob. “I think we should leave. It’s getting kind of out of control.”

  He led the way, cutting a path through couples kissing, guys hooting with laughter, past a bar crowded with empty glasses and, at the far end, several people rolling up dollar bills and snorting white powder. Outside, the air was warm and humid and quiet. They hurried to the old rented Jeep and drove away. Boys in the front seat, girls in the back. Quickly the lights of the party house disappeared behind them.

  Wyatt yawned. “What time is it? I’m beat and I’ve got to work tomorrow.”

  “It’s only one-thirty,” Nick told him. He steered off the Belgium block lane onto the main road leading to town. “Hey, did you see that blonde I was talking to?”

  “I did,” Ariel yelled from the backseat. “She’s out of your league, Nick. Too old, too rich.”

  “She’s smart,” Nick yelled back. “She’s got an MBA from the Wharton School. I could be the vision man, she could be the money, and someone like Sharon Waters could be the tent peg.”

  “You’d be the tent peg,” Wyatt joked.

  “Seriously. I like business. I want to do something big. Own a chain of hotels, malls, whatever, and Carey speaks my language.”

  Ariel laughed. “Ugh, Nick, you’re going to date her?”

  Nick snapped, “Ariel, it is possible to be friends with a woman.”

  “Oh, excuuuuse me,” Ariel said, still laughing.

  They arrived at the Sand Palace and spilled out of the Jeep. Security lights were on at the three exits and in Sharon Waters’s office. All four had a key to the basement door, and Nick, at the head of the group, unlocked the door and, with an Edwardian flourish, bowed the other three inside before entering and locking the door behind him.

  By now it was routine for the guys to wait until the girls had used the bathroom. As Sheila and Ariel padded in their flip-flops back down the hall to their rooms, Ariel said to Sheila, “Tomorrow we’ll have a makeup session in my room. I think we should work on your eyebrows, too.”

  * * *

  —

  Two days later, Sheila knocked on the door of the Grandiflora Room—all the Rose Hotel’s rooms were named after specific roses. No one answered, so she unlocked the door and stepped inside, carrying the fresh pile of sheets and towels in her arms.

  The queen-size bed had been slept in. The covers were mussed. Other than that, the room was surprisingly tidy. Most guests dropped clothes, books, maps, and lotions on the chairs and desk and bedside tables.

  Sheila pulled back the heavy dark green duvet.

  “Hello,” a man said, steam clouding around him as he walked out from the bathroom. He had only a towel wrapped around his hips. His chest glistened with drops of water.

  Sheila bit back a shriek of surprise. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were in the bathroom. I did knock.” She was pleased with her composure and silently grateful that after living in a dorm, she’d gotten used to seeing men in various states of undress. Although this felt different, here in the private room.

  The man smiled. He was broad-shouldered, in his late thirties, with ebony black hair and eyes and a four o’clock beard that accentuated his strong jawline. He looked a little bit like Satan, if Satan were a Calvin Klein model.

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s great to have such a beautiful sight to start the day.”

  Sheila knew she was blushing. “I’ll, I’ll, um, I’ll just come back.” She retrieved the new pile of linens and went toward the door.

  “Could I invite you for coffee?” he asked.

  Sheila was speechless.

  He shook his head. “Forgive me. Of course, you can’t stop working to join me for coffee. Maybe I could buy you a drink tonight?” When she hesitated, he added, “My name is Frank Johnson. I work for a New York ad agency. I’ll give you the phone number. You can call them and check me out.”

  “I’m not sure…” She thought of Hank, steady, reliable Hank.

  “I know it’s odd that I’m at this little B&B. It was the only reservation I could get at the last minute. I’ll be here off and on during the summer.”

  Sheila’s heart thumped with delight and terror. “I don’t finish here until five o’clock.”

  “Well, then. Could you meet me at the Brant Point Grill at five-thirty?”

  That would give her time to hurry home, shower, and change. “Yes. Yes, I could. That would be…lovely.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  six

  This Summer

  Monday morning, Jade-Marie woke early. She threw back her covers, sat up, put her feet over the side of the bed, and suddenly remembered that because of her father’s weeklong reunion, she had today off. She fell back into bed, pulled up the sheet, and snuggled into her pillow.

  Her father had asked her to “entertain” Penny and Jason, as if he thought she could take them for ice cream at Children’s Beach. She hadn’t expected to feel so twitterpated over Jason, and she was irritated by the power of her feelings. She’d fallen in love at first sight, but she couldn’t get a clear read on Jason. He’d held her hand as they walked back from Liam’s boat last night, but when they’d entered the lobby, he’d released her hand and said good night to her and Penny. Then he’d walked off to the elevator alone.

  Still, Jade-Marie’s father wanted her to be hospitable and she would be. Jade-Marie rose from bed, crossed the room, and drew back the curtain. She didn’t have a water view, but the charming eccentric mansions along Hulbert Avenue seemed to glow beneath a clear blue sky. It would be hot today. She’d take Penny and Jason to the beach. For now, she showered, slipped on a pretty sundress and lip balm, and headed downstairs.

  In the morning, until eleven, the bar was turned into a serve-yourself Continental breakfast room with a long buffet table holding urns of hot coffee, hot tea, hot water, and all the accessories. Bagels and muffins were piled on plates, and bananas and apples were in a bowl. They’d had a toast-it-yourself area, but guests had complained that it was hard to use, or they had burned their fingers, so that part was eliminated.

  Jade-Marie found two four-tops pushed together. Penny and her mother sat there, along with Jade-Marie’s father and the Smiths.

  “Good morning!” she said, with a great big smile, and a chorus of greetings answered her.

  Jade-Marie made herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. Her mother wasn’t there, preferring breakfast in her room before preparing herself to meet the day. Francine was so unlike Jade-Marie’s father that Jade-Marie couldn’t imagine why they got married. Although, there was that saying, opposites attract. Nick was sociable, energetic, realistic. Francine was laid-back, dreamy, and not shy but private. Jade-Marie’s mother was as gorgeous as Jade-Marie’s father, but Francine wasn’t as bold. Nick wanted to be charming. Francine didn’t care. She preferred listening to opera while doing needlepoint, and going to the ballet. She did have close friends in New York, and she participated in several charities.

  Francine had not been happy about the week with Nick’s old buddies. The family had been home in their apartment in the city when Jade-Marie overheard them arguing.

  “You expect me to spend a week of my life with people who never liked me,” Francine had said, her voice murderously low.

  “Be fair, Francine. You weren’t exactly friendly.”

  “For twenty-five years, your only contact has been their brag-and-gag Christmas letters.”

  “Which are addressed to me and you.”

  “They visited each other’s homes during the summer. Never once did they invite us.”

  “First of all, you wouldn’t have wanted to go. True?”

  Sullenly, Francine admitted, “True.”

  “Second, oh, the hell with the numbers. You’re right, Francine. I want to show off. It would mean a lot to me to have the people who knew me when I was living in the basement of a destroyed building see me now, the owner of a first-class hotel.”

  Jade-Marie hadn’t heard how they resolved the issue, but last night at drinks and dinner, her mother had been elegantly beautiful, and pleasant to everyone. She hoped her mother wasn’t hiding away this morning.

  Across the table, spreading cream cheese on her bagel, sat Sheila. She was sparkling in the light of day, her auburn hair contrasting with her pale creamy skin, her green eyes bright, and all of her so voluptuous. She wore white clam-diggers and a loose, pale green tunic that dipped in a V at her chest, so that some of her large cushiony bosom was revealed.

  Penny was sipping coffee, and she gave Jade-Marie a brilliant smile.

  “This island is so beautiful,” Penny said.

  “It is. You haven’t been here before, have you, Penny?” Jade-Marie asked.

  “No. My mother raves about it. I’ve always wanted to see it.”

  “I have the day off, and it’s gorgeous weather. I thought I’d take you and Jason out for a day at Surfside Beach.”

  “Is it far away?” Penny asked. “I mean, do they have cell service out there? I mean, in case I get a phone call?”

  “Oh, are you expecting a phone call?” Jade-Marie asked, widening her eyes in pretend innocence.

  Penny blushed. “Maybe.”

  “Good morning, everyone.” Francine appeared, wearing a classic Lilly Pulitzer dress, short and sleeveless. Her blond hair was held back by a headband. Small diamond ear studs. Effortlessly elegant. She slid gracefully onto the empty chair next to Ariel.

  “Mom, want me to bring you some breakfast?” Jade-Marie asked.

  “Just coffee, darling. Lovely, thank you.” Francine smiled at Ariel. “Do you swim?”

  Ariel smiled. “I do. I was like a mermaid the summer we all lived together.” She glanced around the table. “We were all part fish. Tanned as horses, well, except for you, Sheila. You were our little palomino, so pale.”

  “More like a little Appaloosa,” Sheila said, “covered in freckles and spots!”

  Francine asked, “What did you do if it rained on your day off?”

  Ariel shrugged her shoulders. “We all slept in. That was a real luxury. Often, I wrote. Small scenes, ideas for a short story.” A sadness swept over her face. “Haven’t got far with that yet.”

  Sheila added, “And we’d get all our weekly chores done. Laundry. The minimum of cleaning. Men and bathrooms…I have three sons, and I don’t think men are capable of something as challenging as aiming.”

  “Mom,” Penny said reprovingly.

  Wyatt cut in. “Come on, Sheila, you know what our living conditions were like that summer. A pit in the basement. Four bedrooms, one grungy bath. A corridor filled with mold and mildew.”

  Nick nodded. “Right. It’s a wonder we didn’t all get some obscure lung disease.”

  “What’s the basement like now?” Sheila asked.

  “Completely different,” Nick said. “If you want, we can take a tour after breakfast.”

  “Or not,” Francine said bluntly. “It is, after all, a basement.”

  “That’s right. You came to our hovel for dinner one night,” Sheila said, cocking her head to the side like a little bird. “But then you…disappeared?”

  Francine said, “I had to go to Paris for a wedding.”

  Jade-Marie tuned out. She fixed her gaze on Jason. She lowered her eyelids slightly, holding her gaze, willing him to meet her eyes.

  And Jason looked at Jade-Marie. For a few moments, they couldn’t tear their eyes away from each other. Jade-Marie couldn’t breathe. He felt it, too, she knew. The sensation was electric, overpowering. She gave him the slightest smile.

  * * *

  —

  Penny sat quietly at the table, watching the others talk, picking at her croissant, thinking her own private thoughts.

  Penny had gone through her life knowing she was pretty. Not beautiful, and not to everyone’s taste, but sweet and soft. She hadn’t chosen to have the bosom she carried around and she couldn’t imagine why women would purposefully have breast implants, because large breasts were, frankly, such a bother. She couldn’t wear a dress because if it fit over her breasts, it was too large in the hips. She couldn’t walk anywhere without men and boys and women, too, gawking at her chest. She wasn’t a freak. She was just well endowed, and she did everything she could to camouflage her round bosom. As she grew older, she understood that her breasts weren’t necessarily a curse. That she could use them to her advantage.

  Penny and Sheila both looked like the romanticized Victorian Irish washerwoman with ruffles on her low-cut blouse and rosy cheeks and lips. Penny’s mother’s hair had faded from red to auburn, but they still had the same green eyes and hourglass body.

  When the invitation to stay at the hotel in Nantucket arrived, Sheila was thrilled. She took them both shopping for summer dresses and had their hair styled at an expensive salon. She had their suitcases out and packed and repacked them days before the trip.

  Penny couldn’t blame her mother. Sheila’s three sons were like baboons, thudding through the house, shoving everything that even looked like food into their mouths, making fart jokes, knocking lamps and tables over while wrestling one another. Their father was a big, muscular man. He was the athletic coach at the high school, and well aware of the rampant energy his sons carried, never mind the rampaging hormones. He kept his three sons involved in sports, running extra laps, lifting weights, and racing one another in swimming contests, so that when they were confined to the house, they were exhausted and their monkey energy muted.

  Penny knew her mother loved her sons, even though sometimes when Brodie broke a window playing baseball in the house or when Patrick knocked over the pot of stew while he was ladling some into his mouth, Sheila sat down and cried. For a while, then, the boys would be contrite. They’d slump into the family room and murder one another on video games.

  But now, here on Nantucket, sipping coffee at a long table with the others, Penny watched as her mother and Ariel talked about all boys’ clumsy, muddled, crazy adolescence, and Ariel and Sheila were laughing about it until tears fell down their cheeks. They were trying to explain it to Francine, but Francine almost cringed, looking horrified. Francine was elegant, Penny decided. Ariel was elegant, too. But Penny’s mother? She was pretty, but never elegant. Penny slumped at the table.

  Of course, Jason and Jade-Marie were already, so soon, crushing on each other.

  Jade-Marie. What a stupid name.

  A movement caught Penny’s eye. Swiveling in her chair, she watched as Liam Miller strode to the counter, asking a question that made the desk clerk smile.

  Liam turned, saw Penny in the bistro, and waved as he approached the table.

  Penny gave a little wave back. Was he waving at her or at all of them?

  He pulled out a chair and swiveled it around so that he could sit next to Penny. “May I join you?”

  “Sure,” Penny said, her heart jumping madly inside.

  Penny smiled at Liam. He smiled at her. For a moment, no one else was in the room.

  Then Jade-Marie leaned forward. “Hey, everyone, I’d like you to meet Liam Miller. He’s the guy who took us sailing last night. Dad, I think you know his dad from the yacht club.”

  “Of course,” Nick said. “Hi, Liam. Welcome.”

  Sheila leaned forward with a smile. “Do you live here, Liam?”

  “I wish. No, I work for a company based in Florida, and I travel a lot. But my parents have a summer home here, and I come as often as possible.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” Jade-Marie asked. “Or a cinnamon roll? Help yourself.”

  Penny wished she’d thought to offer him coffee.

  “Thanks,” Liam said. “I’m good.” He turned to Penny. “Do you all have a plan for today?”

  “Oh,” Penny said, “didn’t you suggest showing us the island today? I mean, last night…”

  “Yes, I’d love to, if you’re up for it,” Liam said.

  Jason asked, “You’re not sailing today?”

  Liam shook his head. “It’s dead calm out there and supposed to be all day.”

  “Good!” Jade-Marie said. “Here’s what we’ll do. We can use the hotel bikes, and pick up some lunch somewhere, and bike out to Surfside and swim, and—”

  Nick interrupted. “It might be too cold to swim.”

  “We’ll see.” Jade-Marie rose. “I’m going to get ready. Meet you back here in ten minutes.”

  * * *

  —

  Penny thought that this was one of those perfect days a person gets only three or four times in their lives. The four of them sped along on the bike paths, sometimes single file, sometimes two by two. The day was bright with sun, but not too hot, and there was not enough wind to push or pull them in any direction. She’d been nervous for the first few minutes, knowing she could ride a bike but unable to remember when she last had actually been on one. Going over the cobblestones on Main Street was a challenge, and she knew any biker would look ridiculous being wobbled around, but once back on a street or a bike path, she relaxed. It felt good to move, to be in charge of her bike. The island streamed past, now forest, now open moorland, now a flash of blue water, now hedges of arbor vitae and picket fences smothered in clematis. She wore her most daring bikini with a long T-shirt over it. She felt like she was in a movie of herself.