Now, Laurel smiled. “I remember how nervous you were. I thought you were just excited to sign your first client.”

“It was you,” Buck said. Laurel had belonged to Deacon-she was his wife-but Buck had been overwhelmed just by sitting across the table from her. He could remember wanting to sound professional, confident, impressive. “So anyway, the run-in with Belinda…”

“Yes?” Laurel said. “Did the two of you have an argument?”

“An argument?” Buck said. He wished they’d had an argument. They should have had an argument. “No.” He sighed. “She, well… she hit on me. Do people even say that anymore? She came on to me… while you were in town this afternoon… and I let it happen.”

“You slept with her?” Laurel asked.

“Not exactly,” Buck said. “But close enough.”

“You…?” Laurel waved a hand as if she were trying to erase him. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. But you’re saying something happened between the two of you? Something sexual?”

Buck nodded. He could picture Sister Mary Agatha, her pasty, white face strained in her wimple. “I had a weak moment.”

“A weak…? Okay, wow.” Laurel pushed her glasses up her nose. “Wow. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m… frankly, I’m disgusted.”

“Laurel,” he said.

“I understand you’re grief stricken,” Laurel said. “And maybe that’s clouding your judgment. But I thought you and I had a connection. You almost kissed me on the deck, right? Or was I imagining that?”

“You weren’t imagining it,” Buck said. “I was about to kiss you. I wanted to kiss you. I’ve been thinking about kissing you all day long. Like I just said, Laurel, I’ve been half in love with you ever since I can remember.”

Laurel picked up her book, and for a second, Buck thought she was going to throw it at him, but instead she flung it across the room. So much for euphoria. “I’ve always thought you were different from everyone else, Buck. Better than everyone else. You’re like a man from another age, with the suits and the handkerchiefs and the elegant manners. But, as it turns out, you’re just like your friend Deacon. You have no self-control! Belinda bats her eyes at you, and you surrender? You know why she came on to you, right? She wanted to prove she could steal you from me. It’s a sport for her, Buck!” Laurel’s voice was quiet but furious. “This morning, when we went to the beach together, she told me I should date you. And then… what… a matter of hours later, she’s unzipping your fly? She can’t help herself, I guess. She has to steal what might be mine. And I’m supposed to sit back and let her because I’m the nice one. Do you know what happens to nice people, Buck? They lose. They lose every time.”

“Laurel, no-” Buck said.

“I’ll state the obvious,” Laurel said. “I won’t have Belinda paying for my part of this house. I will not allow it.”

“Laurel, please…”

“Get out of here, Buck. I don’t want to be part of a game where you sleep with every woman in this house!”

“Laurel, that isn’t what I’m doing,” Buck said.

“Belinda this afternoon, me tonight,” Laurel said. “I know you didn’t come in here to play Scrabble or have a discussion about Papua New Guinea. You came in here hoping to get lucky.”

“No, I-”

“If Scarlett shows up, you’ll go after her, too, I’m sure,” Laurel said. “Hat trick.”

“No, I-”

“And do you know why?” Laurel said. “Because all these many years, you were jealous of Deacon. You wanted everything he had. Admit it!”

Laurel’s hair was falling in her face; her cheeks were pink. The awful thing was that Buck had never seen her look more beautiful than she did at that moment, when she was confronting him with the truth. Yes, he had been jealous of Deacon. It had been impossible not to be jealous of Deacon. The man had a talent and a magnetism and a raw power that was unparalleled in anyone Buck had ever met.

“I was jealous of Deacon, yes,” Buck said. “But that’s not what this is about…”

“Get out of my bedroom, Buck,” Laurel said. “Please.”

Buck stood up to leave. This was officially the last time he would tell the truth to anyone. From now on, it would be all deceit and subterfuge.

Laurel’s phone rang on the nightstand. Buck turned.

“Go on,” Laurel said. “It’s probably just my other lover.” She looked at the display, then answered the phone. “Hello?”

Buck lingered at the door in case Laurel needed him, although it was doubtful that he would be able to do anything other than mess things up further.

“Oh God,” Laurel said. “Buck?”

Buck swung around.

“It’s the police,” Laurel said. “Hayes is at the hospital.”


Laurel wanted to drive, but Buck insisted. “You’re too upset,” he said. “Just tell me where I’m going.”

“He’s not dying,” Laurel said. It sounded as though she was trying to convince herself. “He was assaulted, the police said. And robbed.”

“Here on Nantucket?” Buck said. “I didn’t know there was any crime.”

“I read about a prostitution ring busted here last year,” Laurel said. “It was run by a local real estate agent, and his clients were high-end businessmen here on vacation. Further proving to me that all men are depraved.”

Buck pulled into the hospital parking lot, and Laurel rushed into the emergency room entrance without waiting for him. Should he go in? If Deacon were here, Deacon would go in, but Deacon was the father. Buck was a paltry surrogate. Was he anything more than a buzzard feasting on his best friend’s leftovers?

Yes, goddamn it! He loved Laurel. He loved her more than he could remember loving any woman, including his two wives. How spectacularly he had blown it! He should have told Belinda to leave him alone. He should have pushed her away. Of course Laurel was hurt! Why had he expected otherwise?

At that second, the Jeep door opened and Laurel climbed in and Hayes crawled into the back with a groan. His face was swollen and bruised; his nose was bandaged, and he had a black eye.

“He won’t cooperate with the police,” Laurel said. “He won’t tell them who did this.”

“Mom,” Hayes said in a nasal voice, “I don’t know who did this.”

“I don’t understand what you were doing out,” Laurel said. “I thought you went to bed, like the rest of us.”

“I got antsy,” Hayes said. “Cabin fever. I’m used to nightlife, Mom. That’s how I roll.”

“How did you get to town?” Laurel asked. “You certainly didn’t walk.”

“I took a taxi because I was drinking at dinner,” Hayes said. “The driver and I had an argument about the way he was taking me into town, so he stopped, and I got out. And then, I guess, I got mugged. I don’t remember anything else.”

“The police found him in the state forest,” Laurel said to Buck. “All his cash is gone, and his credit cards and his driver’s license.”

“What did the doctor say?” Buck asked. “Anything broken? Concussion?”

“No,” Hayes said. “My face is going to look like a Halloween mask for a while, and it’s going to hurt, but it’s okay. They gave me a bunch of painkillers.”


Intermezzo: Deacon and Belinda, Part I

Los Angeles is all swimming pools and vodka martinis. When Belinda introduces Deacon to her friends and colleagues as a chef, they all, to a person, say, “Oh, like Wolfgang Puck?” Puck has the town locked up. Everyone eats at Spago. Is there even room for another chef?

In their new life in Los Angeles, Belinda pays for everything. She buys Deacon new clothes. She buys him Gucci loafers that pinch, but she insists they will stretch and conform to Deacon’s feet. He doesn’t tell her that he’s never owned a real pair of shoes before. He has made it through life in Chuck Taylors, flip-flops, and kitchen clogs.

Belinda is renting a house in Beverly Hills that has a heated pool and a gym with a steam sauna and a screening room. The kitchen is bigger than Deacon and Laurel’s entire apartment on West 119th Street. This makes Deacon feel guilt at first, intense, piercing guilt that brings him down. He was busy in New York, but here in L.A., he has hours of unstructured time. When Belinda is busy or away-which is more often than he anticipated-he is at loose ends. There is a whole city to explore; he could go to the Getty Museum or to the beaches of Malibu or to Disneyland. He has never been anywhere Disney before, and it intrigues him. But instead, Deacon lies in bed watching TV, and then, when he gets up, he goes out drinking. He can’t go anywhere stylish-not the Wilshire or the Beverly Hills Hotel-because someone will recognize him, and it’ll get back to Belinda. And so, he seeks out dive bars. He goes to Compton and South Central. He goes to Anaheim.

When Belinda is around, Deacon is happier. They watch movies in the screening room and always end up making love in the extra-wide reclining seats. They lie by the pool-Deacon in the sun, Belinda under an umbrella. Deacon swims laps, but Belinda won’t even dip her feet. Deacon teases her about this. It’s like drinking decaf coffee or nonalcoholic beer, he says. The point of coffee is caffeine, the point of beer is alcohol, and the point of having a pool is swimming in it! Belinda won’t budge.

They go to a Dodgers game; they ride the Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier. Belinda takes Deacon to a party on Mulholland Drive at the house of James Brinegar, who directed her in Between the Pipes. Jaime is a super-cool guy, intellectual and erudite, but fun, too. He’s a huge fan of the Clash, and he takes Deacon to his man cave to show him his collection of memorabilia, including a picture of Jaime with Joe Strummer on the beach in Ibiza, and Deacon thinks he may have found a friend.

Jaime brings out a mirror and taps out two long lines of cocaine. Deacon starts shaking just looking at it.