“Are you sure?” Vicki said. “Did you check everywhere?” Despite the fact that Brenda’s missing book fel squarely onto Vicki’s List of Things That No Longer Matter, she tried to summon sympathy in the interest of getting things off to a good start. And crises of this nature were Vicki’s specialty. With the kids, her day was spent hunting for things: the other shoe, the bal that rol ed under the sofa, the pacifier!

“Everywhere,” Brenda said. It was amazing how quickly her demeanor had changed. She had been a bitch al day, but now that her book was missing, she was turning into the cake that someone left out in the rain. Her cheeks were blotching, her hands were twitching, and Vicki sensed tears weren’t far off.

“What if I lost the book?” Brenda said. “What if I left it at”—the next word was so awful, it stuck like a chunk of carrot in the back of her throat

—“LaGuardia?”

Vicki shut her eyes. She was so tired she could sleep like this, sitting up. “You carried it off the plane with you, remember? You had your little purse, and . . .”

“The briefcase,” Brenda said. She blinked rapidly, trying to fend off the tears. Vicki felt a surge of anger. If Brenda had been the one to get cancer, she wouldn’t have been able to deal. God never gives you more than you can handle—this saying was repeated with conviction at Vicki’s cancer support group—and that is why God did not give Brenda cancer.

Somewhere in the house, the baby was crying. A second later, Melanie appeared. “I think he’s hungry,” she said. She caught a whiff of Brenda’s desperate mien—the hands were stil twitching—and she said, “Honey, what’s wrong? What’s wrong? ”

“Brenda lost her book,” Vicki said, trying to sound grave. “Her old book. The antique.”

“That book is my life,” Brenda said. “I’ve had it forever, it’s priceless . . . okay, I feel sick. That book is my talisman, my good-luck charm.”

Good-luck charm? Vicki thought. If the book real y had supernatural powers, wouldn’t it somehow have kept Brenda from sleeping with John Walsh and ruining her career?

“Cal the airport,” Vicki said. She took Porter from Melanie and latched him onto her breast. As soon as the chemo started on Tuesday, he would have to be weaned. Bottles, formula. Even Porter, at nine months old, had a more legitimate crisis than Brenda. “I’m sure they have it.”

“Okay,” Brenda said. “What’s the number?”

“Cal information,” Vicki said.

“I hate to ask this,” Melanie said. “But is there just the one bathroom?”

“Quiet!” Brenda snapped.

Melanie’s eyes grew wide and Vicki thought for an instant that she might start to cry. Melanie was sweet and self-effacing to a fault, and she hated confrontation. When the whole ugly thing with Peter happened, Melanie didn’t yel at him. She didn’t break his squash racquet or burn the wedding photos as Vicki herself would have. Instead, she’d let his infidelity quietly infect her. She became sick and fatigued. Then she discovered she was pregnant. The news that should have caused her the greatest joy was suddenly a source of conflict and confusion. Nobody deserved this less than Melanie. Vicki had given Brenda a direct order— Be nice to her! —but now Vicki saw she should have been more emphatic. Really nice!

Kid gloves!

“Sorry, Mel,” Vicki whispered.

“I hear you,” Brenda said. Then, in a businesslike voice, she said, “Nantucket Memorial Airport, please. Nantucket, Massa-chusetts.”

“Anyway, yes,” Vicki said. “Just the one bathroom. Sorry. I hope that’s okay.” Vicki hadn’t poked her head into the bathroom yet, though she was pretty sure it hadn’t changed. Smal hexagonal tiles on the floor, transparent shower curtain patterned with red and purple poppies, toilet with the tank high above and an old-fashioned pul chain. One bathroom for a woman about to be served up a biweekly dose of poisonous drugs, a woman in the throes of morning sickness, a four-year-old boy unreliably potty trained, and Brenda. And Ted, of course, on the weekends. Vicki took a breath. Fire. She switched Porter to her other breast. He had milk al over his chin and a deliriously happy look on his face. She should have started him on a bottle weeks ago. Months ago.

“I’m going to unpack,” Melanie announced. She was stil wearing her straw hat. When Vicki and Brenda had arrived in the limo to pick her up that morning, she’d been in her garden, weeding. As she climbed into the Lincoln Town Car, clogs caked with mud, she said, “I should have left Peter a reminder to water. I just know he’l forget, or ignore it.”

“Your husband is stil living with you?” Brenda had said. “You mean to say you didn’t throw him out?”

Melanie had glanced at Vicki. “She knows about Peter?”

At that minute, Vicki’s lungs had felt like they were fil ing with swamp water. It went without saying that Melanie’s situation was confidential, but Brenda was Vicki’s sister, and the three of them were going to be living together all summer, so . . .

“I told her,” Vicki said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Melanie said softly. “So I guess you know I’m pregnant, too?”

“Yeah,” Brenda said.

“I’m sorry, Mel,” Vicki said.

“I’m a dead end,” Brenda said. “Real y, I am. But if you want my opinion . . .”

“She doesn’t want your opinion, Bren,” Vicki said.

“You should tel the man to fuck off,” Brenda said. “Twenty-seven-year-old adventure girl, my sweet ass!”

“Brenda, enough!” Vicki said.

“Just please don’t tel anyone I’m pregnant,” Melanie said.

“Oh, I won’t say a word,” Brenda said. “I promise.”

A few minutes later, after enough time had passed for everyone in the limo to reflect on this exchange, Melanie had started vomiting. She claimed it was because she was sitting backward.

Vicki propped Porter up over one shoulder, and he gave a healthy belch; then he squirmed and let out a wet, vibrating gush from his rear. The tiny bedroom smel ed funky and breadlike.

Brenda poked her head back in. “They have the book at the airport,” she said. “Some kid found it. I told him I wouldn’t have a car until Friday, and he said he’d drop it by on his way home from work.” She grinned. “See? I told you the book was lucky.”

Josh Flynn didn’t have a mystical bone in his body, but he wasn’t insensitive, either. He knew when something was meant to be, and for some reason as yet unclear to him, he was supposed to be involved with the three women and two smal children he had singled out earlier that afternoon.

They had left behind a very important piece of luggage, and because Carlo had to leave early for a dental appointment, Josh was the one who fielded the phone cal and Josh was the person who was going to deliver the goods. A briefcase with a fancy dial next to the locks. If Josh had been writing a certain kind of novel, the briefcase would contain a bomb, or drugs, or money, but the other students in Chas Gorda’s creative-writing workshop found thril ers “amateurish” and “derivative,” and some nitpicker would point out that the briefcase never would have made it through security in New York. What was in the briefcase? The woman—and Josh could tel just from her voice that it was Scowling Sister—had sounded unnerved on the phone. Anxious and worried—and then relieved when he said that yes, he had the briefcase. Josh shifted it in his hands. Nothing moved; it was as though the briefcase were stuffed with wadded-up newspapers.

It was four-thirty. Josh was alone in the smal , messy airport office. He could see the evening shift getting to work out the open back door, other col ege kids who had arrived on the island earlier than he did. They were waving the fluorescent wands like they’d seen it done on TV, bringing the nine-seater Cessnas on top of their marks, staying clear of the propel ers, the way they’d al been taught in training. The evening shift was the best

—it was shorter than the day shift, and busier. Maybe next month, if he did a decent job.

Josh fiddled with the briefcase locks just to see if anything would happen. At the mere touch of his fingertips, the locks sprung open with a noise like a gun’s report. Josh jumped out of his chair. Whoa! He had not expected that! He checked the office. No one was around. His father worked upstairs through the evening shift. He always got home at eight o’clock, and he liked to eat dinner with Josh by eight-thirty. Just the two of them with something basic that Josh put together: burgers, barbecued chicken, always an iceberg salad, always a beer for his father—and now that Josh was old enough, a beer for Josh. Just one, though. His father was a creature of habit and had been since Josh had bothered to take note of it, which he supposed was at the age of twelve, after his mother committed suicide. His father was so predictable that Josh knew there was no way he would ever come down to the office, and his father was the only person he feared, so . . .

Josh eased the briefcase open. There, swaddled in plastic bubble wrap, was a heavy-duty freezer bag, the kind of bag fishermen down on the wharves fil ed with fresh tuna steaks. Only this bag contained . . . Josh peered closer . . . a book. A book? A book with a brown leather cover and a title in gold on the front: The Innocent Impostor. A novel by Fleming Trainor . After three years of literature courses at Middlebury, Josh’s knowledge of important writers was growing. He had read Melvil e, Henry James, Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac. He had never read—nor heard of—Fleming Trainor.

Josh stared at the book and tried to put it together in his mind with Scowling Sister’s panicked voice. Nope, didn’t make any sense. But Josh liked that. He closed the briefcase, locked it tight.