Brenda pul ed into the parking lot. She was stil gnawing her lower lip, debating maybe, if it would seem selfish to . . .

“Just drop me off,” Vicki said.

Brenda sighed. “Oh, Vick, are you sure? ”

“Sure I’m sure. Go write. I’l be fine.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“You’re worried about missing your update on Britney Spears?”

Brenda laughed. “No.”

“Come back at eleven,” Vicki said.

Brenda pul ed up to the hospital entrance and Vicki hopped out. She caught a glimpse of Brenda’s face as she drove away; Brenda looked like she felt as happy and as free as Vicki now did.

Vicki had spent her two stolen hours lounging in the shade of the Old Mil . Although it was a short walk from the hospital—a good arm could hit it with a basebal —it was as far as Vicki could get, and by the time she made it to the top of the hil , she was close to hyperventilating. She lay in the grass, hidden from passing traffic, and stared up at the sky, at the arms of the windmil slicing the sky into pieces of pie. For two hours she did nothing—and how long had it been since she did nothing? Even the hours spent in bed in the cottage felt like work; she was busy recovering, wil ing her body to fight, and she always kept one eye on the activity in the house—Brenda and Melanie, Josh and the kids. She was always trying to summon the energy to read a page of her book or a section of the newspaper so that her day wasn’t a complete waste. But here, on Prospect Hil , in the shadow of what was stil a functioning windmil , Vicki was set free from the rigors of recovery. No one knew where she was, and hence, it was as if she had ceased to exist. This was hooky, plain and simple. She harbored the singular delight of getting away with something. Mamie might cal the house, but no one would be home to answer the phone. On Tuesday, Vicki would say she forgot (forgot chemotherapy?) or the car broke down or one of the kids got sick. Or maybe she would admit that she just didn’t want to come. She needed a break. A personal day. You know what they say about hitting yourself over the head with a hammer, she would tel Mamie. It feels good when you stop.

It was only when Brenda swung back by to pick her up—Brenda getting out of the car to hold Vicki’s arm and help her into the passenger seat because this was what Vicki normal y required—that the guilt set in.

“How was it?” Brenda asked. “How are you feeling?”

These were the standard questions, but Vicki was at a loss for how to respond. What to say? What did she normal y say?

She shrugged.

“The team had a game last night, right?” Brenda asked. “Did they win or lose?”

Again, Vicki shrugged. Did a shrug count as a lie?

On the way back to ’Sconset, Vicki opened her window and hung her elbow out; she tried to absorb the sunshine and the summer air. The bike path was crowded with people walking and cycling, people with dogs and children in strol ers. I skipped chemo, Vicki thought. Suddenly, she felt monstrous. She recal ed Dr. Garcia’s words about the value of neoadjuvant chemo, hitting the cel s hard, in succession. Kil them, clean them out of there, make it that much harder for the cel s to metastasize. The tumor was impinging on her chest wal ; it had to recede in order for the surgeons to operate. Chemo was a cumulative process. The most important thing was consistency. So . . . what was going on here? Did she not want to get better? Could she not endure the pain, the hair loss, and the confusion for the sake of her children?

And what about Dr. Alcott? How had she managed to fly in the face of his reaction? He would be al ready with his usual pep talk— How do you feel? Are you hanging in there? You’re a trouper, a star patient. . . . He would wonder where Vicki was, he would cal the house himself, maybe, and what if Melanie was home, what if she rushed in from the garden to answer the phone? She went to chemo, Melanie would say. I saw her leave. There would be no reason for any further pep talks because Vicki was not a trouper. She was not a star patient at al .

By the time they reached Shel Street, Vicki’s guilt was paralyzing. She could barely breathe—but maybe this was a result of the missed chemo, maybe the cancer cel s were strengthening, multiplying. She was no better than Josh’s mother, hanging herself while Josh was at school. Vicki was committing her own murder.

Now, there was a knock on the front door, and Vicki sat bolt upright. She fingered the wig on her nightstand. It rested on a Styrofoam head that Blaine had named Daphne after the character in Scooby-Doo. Blaine had gone so far as to draw Daphne a face with his markers—two blue circles for eyes, two black dots meant to be nostrils, and a crooked red mouth. The Styrofoam head made Ted uncomfortable—last weekend he’d said he couldn’t make love while the head was on the nightstand because he felt like someone was watching them—and the wig, as badly as she needed it, made Vicki shiver. She had tried to put both the wig and the head on the top shelf of the bedroom closet, out of sight, but Blaine had cried over this. Daphne! So on the nightstand Daphne now sat, like some twisted excuse for a pet. The wig was made from real hair. Vicki had gotten it from a shop in the city that Dr. Garcia recommended, a place that made wigs solely for cancer patients. The wig was blond, approximately the same color as Vicki’s own hair. It didn’t look bad on, but it gave Vicki the wil ies—another person’s hair on her head. She was reminded of her sixth-grade science teacher, Mr. Upjohn, and his toupee. And so when the knock came at the door—meaning Josh had arrived—Vicki cal ed out for Brenda. Brenda came right away, holding Porter, who was dressed in a diaper and bathing trunks.

Don’t forget sweatshirts for the kids! Vicki almost said—but no, there wasn’t time for that, she could remind Brenda later.

“Scarf!” she barked.

“Right,” Brenda said. “Sorry.” She set Porter down and plucked a scarf out of Vicki’s top dresser drawer. Red, gold, gauzy: a very chic Louis Vuitton scarf that El en Lyndon had given Vicki for Christmas two years earlier. Brenda wound it deftly around Vicki’s half-bald head until it was tied tight with two tails flowing down Vicki’s back.

“Thank you,” Vicki said. She climbed out of bed and peeked into the living room. She didn’t give a hoot about the picnic but she was anxious about the moment that Josh met Ted. She wanted Josh to like Ted, to admire him; she wanted Josh to think that she, Vicki, had chosen wel .

Because Vicki and Brenda were in the bedroom dealing with the scarf, however, Melanie had been left to do the introduction. Melanie knew Vicki was nervous about it. It will be fine, Melanie assured her. Who wouldn’t like Josh?

It’s not Josh I’m worried about, Vicki said.

Oh, Melanie said. Well, who wouldn’t like Ted? Ted is a great guy.

He can be, Vicki said.

Now Melanie sounded as perky and confident as a talk show host on amphetamines.

“Hi, Josh! How are you? Come in, come in! Ted, this is the kids’ babysitter, Josh Flynn. Josh, this is Vicki’s husband, Ted Stowe.”

Blaine locked his arms around Josh’s legs in a way that seemed more possessive than usual. Ted would notice this, Vicki thought, and not like it.

Josh extended an arm as far as he could and gave Ted one of his gorgeous smiles. “Hey, Mr. Stowe. It’s nice to meet . . . heard a lot about . . .

yeah.”

Ted regarded Josh’s outstretched hand and took a prolonged swil of his Stel a. Vicki could almost hear Josh thinking, Rude bastard, Wall Street asshole. Vicki watched her husband’s face. Josh was clearly not a pedophile, that would be a relief to Ted; Josh was not so different from the kid that Ted had been fifteen years ago, when he played lacrosse at Dartmouth. But Ted might also be thinking Josh was too much like Ted himself at that age—and what would Ted have done, working al week for three beautiful women who lived alone? He would have tried to . . . He would have done his best to . . .

Oh, come on! Vicki thought. The scarf tickled the back of her neck. It seemed like Josh’s hand was just hanging there; Ted was torturing him. But then Ted set his beer down with a definitive thunk and he stepped forward and shook Josh’s hand with such force that Josh rattled.

“Same here, buddy,” Ted said. “Same here. This guy especial y”—Ted pointed to Blaine—“has nothing but great things to say about you. And my wife! Wel , I real y appreciate the way you’ve stepped in for me in my absence.”

Ted’s voice straddled the line of sarcasm. Was he being sincere? Vicki was suddenly glad that she’d skipped chemo; she felt stronger now than she had in weeks. She marched into the living room.

“That’s right,” Vicki said. “We’d be lost without Josh.”

“I got lost,” Blaine said. “At the beach, remember?”

Vicki glanced at Melanie, who reddened and looked at the ground. “Right,” Vicki said. She was alarmed to see that Ted was stil scrutinizing Josh. “Did anyone remember sweatshirts for the kids?”

Twenty minutes later, squished in the third row of seating between Porter and Blaine in their respective car seats and feeling distinctly like one of the children, Josh chastised himself for not asking to be paid. This was, most definitely, work—as in not something he would ever have chosen to do on his own, for fun. And it was weird, too, driving out to Madaket and then stopping by the ranger station at the entrance of Smith’s Point in the Stowes’ car. The kid working the ranger station had graduated from high school a year behind Josh—his name was Aaron Henry—and under other circumstances Josh would have said hel o, asked how Aaron liked the job, and teased him about his uniform. But tonight Josh was grateful for the tinted windows in the back of the Yukon; he didn’t want Aaron to see him, because how would he ever explain who these people were or what he was doing with them?