Belinda films in Vietnam for so long, Deacon forgets what she looks like. He is very busy at Raindance, but he manages to wrangle ten days off in August to go to Nantucket with Angie, who is six, and Hayes, who is fourteen. Deacon is under the delusion that Hayes will be able to watch Angie and earn some pocket money. But this notion is quashed in an email from Belinda.

Hayes is not a suitable babysitter, she writes. If he goes chasing a girl down the beach or gets wrapped up in his skim-boarding, Angie will drown.

Take Scarlett, please, Belinda writes. I implore you. It will put my mind at ease.

And so, the four of them go on vacation together-Deacon, Scarlett, Hayes, and Angie. Everyone on Nantucket assumes Scarlett is Deacon’s mistress; he grows weary of explaining that he is still married to Belinda, but she is on location overseas, filming. Scarlett is just their nanny, like Mary Poppins. Eventually, he stops bothering.

Hayes is fascinated by Scarlett and follows her around as night follows day. Deacon can only imagine that Hayes is entertaining some pretty impure thoughts about Scarlett, which serves as a distraction from Deacon’s own impure thoughts. Deacon sleeps in the master bedroom, and Scarlett takes the bedroom right next door. She is so close, he can hear her turning over in bed at night, which leaves him with an aching erection.

And then one evening, Deacon is lighting the grill on the back deck while Scarlett is in the outdoor shower. He hears her squeal as the water goes cold. She shuts the water off and says, “Deacon?”

He freezes. He feels caught.

“Yes?” he says. He’s trying to figure out where the kids are. Angie is upstairs, he guesses, playing with her dollhouse, a pastime that occupies her for hours on end.

“Is there anything I can do to get the water hot again?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he says. “Except to wait forty-seven minutes.”

She peeks her head over the shower door. “You could come in here and wait with me,” she says.

Here it is: the invitation. Inevitable, he supposes. Belinda is far away, and he and Scarlett have been masquerading as husband and wife, going grocery shopping together and sharing an ice cream cone when they take the kids to the Juice Bar-he licks first, then she says Gimme some sugar and she licks.

Plus, they are on vacation, on an island thirty miles out to sea; they have been plucked out of their usual roles. They feel removed, safe.

“Scarlett,” he says. His tone hits halfway between stern (How dare you!) and pleading (Please don’t).

She smiles at him. She is so, so pretty! So sweet! So helpful! But Deacon will not be that guy. He heads inside and decides to cut the vacation short. They leave Nantucket the next day.


Fluffy White Champagne Cake with Champagne Candied Strawberries

MAKES ONE 8 × 8-INCH CAKE

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup unsalted butter

1½ cups white sugar

1 whole large egg plus 2 large egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup whole milk

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease an 8 × 8-inch baking pan with butter, then pour some flour in the pan and shake it around until the bottom and sides are covered. Dump the excess flour out.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy. Add in the sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and egg whites in one at a time, beating for a minute after each addition. Add in the vanilla extract, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl if needed. Add in half the dry ingredients, mixing on low speed, then add in the milk. Finish with the rest of the dry ingredients, beating until the batter is combined and smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 27 to 32 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

CHAMPAGNE FROSTING

½ cup unsalted butter

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

4½ cups powdered sugar

3 to 5 tablespoons champagne

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place the butter and cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium speed until creamy. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the powdered sugar, beating until combined. The frosting will look crumbly, but continue to scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl until it’s somewhat combined. Slowly drizzle in the champagne, 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time. You can do this in between additions of the powdered sugar if needed, but I find it works best at the end. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Beat the frosting on medium to high speed until it’s thick and creamy and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes. If it becomes too runny, add more powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time. If it becomes too thick, add in more champagne 1 tablespoon at a time. Once the cake cools, frost it!

CHAMPAGNE CANDIED STRAWBERRIES

1½ cups sugar

¼ cup water

⅔ cup champagne

1 pint strawberries, hulled, some sliced, some kept whole

Place the sugar, water, and champagne in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture starts to simmer, then cook for 2 minutes. Add the strawberries to the mixture and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the strawberries with a slotted spoon and place them in a bowl-they will be sticky! Additionally, you can store the strawberries in their syrup in the fridge until you’re ready to serve the cake. I like to keep the syrup for drizzling and serve the strawberries on the side of the cake.

ANGIE

When she heard the hammering, she hurried to the window. JP’s silver Jeep was in the driveway. He was downstairs, fixing the wonky board on the porch, just as he’d promised. At least he was reliable.

Unlike Joel Tersigni.

Angie pulled on clothes and headed downstairs.

The sun was in her eyes as she opened the door. “Good morning,” she said. “Coffee?”

JP was on his knees on the porch with a jigsaw and a toolbox, a baseball hat on backward, his Blues Brothers sunglasses resting on the railing. Angie hadn’t noticed his eyes before. They were brown-not deep brown like Angie’s, but more like a reddish brown. He grinned at her. “I’d love some.”

“You’re here awfully early,” she said.

“I have ranger duties today,” he said. “But you were right: this board is an orthopedist’s dream.”

Angie nearly told JP that there was no point in fixing the board, or anything else, because they were going to lose the house. But JP didn’t need to know about the miserable inner workings of the Thorpe family. He thought Deacon was a superhero; Deacon would remain a superhero.

Angie headed to the kitchen for coffee; she hadn’t been able to eat anything after the conversation with Dory the day before, but she had set up the coffee because it was the one thing she couldn’t live without. A house was a house was a house, she thought. People lost houses all the time, just like her mother had said. She could live without this house.

But she couldn’t look at the door frame where she and Hayes and Ellery had all been measured. She wondered if the new owners of the house would paint over the hash marks or keep them. She took three deep breaths, then headed out to the porch with the coffee.

Just as she was about to step outside, Belinda descended the stairs.

This is not happening, Angie thought. It had been a long time since Angie had woken up in the same house as her mother, but she recalled that one of Belinda Rowe’s trademark behaviors was sleeping in.

Apparently not today, however. Maybe the hammering had woken her, although she didn’t appear disgruntled, merely a bit disoriented. She was in her white lace nightgown and white silk robe, and she had her sleep mask pushed off her face; it rested messily in her famous strawberry-blond hair. She had washed off her makeup. Angie was always surprised at how regular her mother looked with clean skin.

“Good morning, darling,” Belinda said.

“Good morning,” Angie said. “There’s coffee.”

“Wonderful,” Belinda said, but instead of heading into the kitchen, she followed Angie out the front door, onto the porch. “Oh, hello,” she said to JP, who was still on his knees. “No wonder I was dreaming about a giant woodpecker.”

Angie rolled her eyes. JP jumped to his feet and offered Belinda his hand. “I’m JP Clarke,” he said. “I was a friend of Deacon’s.”

“Hello, JP,” Belinda said. “I’m Angie’s mother.”

Angie hadn’t heard Belinda introduce herself as “Angie’s mother” in more than ten years, since Angie was a student at Chapin. She had to admit, she was almost flattered that Belinda had identified herself as such. She just as easily could have said, I’m Belinda Rowe, and let JP think: Academy Award-winning actress, former face of Chanel, and cover girl of Vogue (five times), Vanity Fair (twice), and Time magazine (in character, as Vietnamese heroine Mai Hanh).

“It’s nice to meet you,” JP said. “I’m sorry for the ruckus. I wanted to get here first thing this morning to fix the board before somebody hurt themselves.”

“Thank you,” Belinda said. “I assure you, that would have been me. I brought very impractical shoes.”

This caused both JP and Angie to stare at Belinda’s feet, which were bare. Her toenails were painted baby blue.

Angie handed JP his coffee, which he accepted gratefully. Angie said, “There’s coffee in the kitchen, Mother.”

“So, JP, do you live on Nantucket year-round?” Belinda asked.