“Oh,” Angie said. She didn’t know what else to say.

“Now I have to ask you something,” JP said. “You said before that you wanted Joel to call. Who’s Joel?”

Angie looked out her side window as they passed the Wauwinet. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She had only seen her hair look this frizzed and crazy when she got off the Cyclone on Coney Island. Her cheeks were pink, which either meant she had gotten some sun this morning or she was embarrassed. “Joel Tersigni.” God, it felt good to say his name. “He’s this man I’ve been seeing, a married man, who was going to leave his wife for me, he said. But something backfired, or he changed his mind. Anyway, Joel is gone. He bailed out at the exact moment I needed him most.”

JP took a long, steady look at Angie. “Well,” he said, “Joel is a fool.”

She felt herself blushing. “And, listen, that thing I said about the house…”

“I know about the house,” JP said.

“You do?”

“Deacon told me,” JP said. “When he came up here the last time… he wanted to pack some things up. The clamshell his dad gave him, and your dollhouse. I was going to help him after we went fishing.”

“Oh God,” Angie said. The clamshell, the dollhouse, that stupid mirror in Hayes’s room, the old map of Nantucket, the wooden cutting board with the half-moon burn where they always used to slice Bartlett’s Farm tomatoes, the black, speckled enamel lobster pot, the picture frame made from scallop shells that she and Scarlett had hot-glued one rainy afternoon, the deck of naked-lady cards in the side-table drawer under the ugly lamp-Deacon would have wanted all of that. Most of the furniture had originally belonged to the Innsleys, and none of it was special, but there was something about the atmosphere of that house that Deacon would have wanted to bottle up and take with him. The way it smelled of sunblock and wet towels, the sounds it made when it settled at night, the view of the lighthouse as the sun was coming up. “My father didn’t really die of a heart attack, did he? He died of heartbreak.”

“Probably something like that,” JP said.

They drove down the road in silence until JP turned left onto Hoicks Hollow Road, and Angie felt their time together coming to a close. “Thank you for the field trip,” she said.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said.

“Target practice was probably exactly what I needed,” she said.

“I could come pick you up tomorrow morning, and we could try again?”

Angie was alarmed by how quickly her spirits rose at the invitation. She wasn’t doing the predictable thing and falling for the very next man who showed her any kindness, was she?

“I’d like that,” she said.

JP said, “Great, then, it’s a date. I’ll come get you at eight thirty?”

Date, Angie thought.

Angie was so distracted that it took her a moment to notice the woman in the straw hat strolling down the side of the road.

“Oh God,” she said. “There’s my mother.”

JP pulled up to Belinda. “Can we give you a lift back to the house?”

“No, I’m fine, I’ll walk,” Belinda said. She looked upset. If Angie wasn’t mistaken, there were tears in her voice.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Angie asked.

“Nothing,” Belinda said. “You kids run along. I’ll see you at home.”

“You’re sure?” Angie said.

Belinda nodded and waved them off.


JP pulled into the driveway. “Looks like you have visitors,” he said.

“What?” Angie looked up to see a strange black car in the driveway. Her first thought was that they had been discovered by the paparazzi, which might explain why Belinda was upset and meandering along the road like a hobo. But the car didn’t seem to be holding a ragtag band of scrappy tabloid photographers. It looked more dignified than that. Maybe it was the president, come to pay his respects? Deacon had cooked for both Bush and Obama. Or was it some elder statesman of the culinary world-Jacques Pépin, perhaps?

The driver of the black car stepped out wearing a black suit. He opened the back door, and Angie watched one long, shapely leg emerge, then another.

She gasped. Scarlett was here.

BELINDA

On Sunday morning, Belinda put on her wide-brimmed straw hat and her Tom Ford sunglasses, and she slipped her feet into Laurel’s truly hideous turquoise flip-flops. She set off down the road in search of cell phone service so that she could call Bob.

She opted to wander toward town, even though the view in the other direction was more picturesque. She needed bars on her phone, not views of the rolling, green golf course and the peppermint-stick lighthouse. She trudged down the road, feeling every pebble and shell beneath the thin foam sole of Laurel’s pathetic shoes.

Belinda’s mind was swarmed with problematic topics, so many that she didn’t know where to start.

Number one: the house. Deacon had gotten himself into a hole he couldn’t climb out of, and they were going to lose the house. No one had come right out and asked her, but obviously they were all thinking the same thing: Belinda should offer to save the house. Angie loved that house, possibly more than everyone else put together. Belinda should save it and restore herself to her daughter’s good graces. But Belinda had a big, fat issue with paying for Laurel’s portion-and never mind that she would not for any reason pay Scarlett’s portion. But Belinda couldn’t leave Angie without a house on Nantucket, so she had to come up with a plan.

Number two: Buck. Belinda had all but forced herself on Buck the day before. Really, what was wrong with her? She had noticed Buck looking at her, and she’d thought, Why not? Her self-esteem needed a boost. It was arduous being in the house with Laurel assuming the throne, even though Laurel was the empress of a nation overthrown long ago. But then again, so was Belinda. Laurel had made the strategic move of arriving first. She had assigned Belinda the least desirable bedroom-saving the “good” guest room for someone who wasn’t even coming! Then she had said that Belinda was beneath her consideration. Well, Belinda wouldn’t stay beneath her consideration now that she’d been intimate with Laurel’s potential boyfriend. Belinda knew she was acting like a vindictive sorority girl, an even worse version than she’d played in her second movie role, Taffy in Sophomore Slump. Belinda had almost told Laurel all about it; she had wanted to prove that she wasn’t so irrelevant after all. But, thank God, the matter dropped. Buck would get over it. Belinda needed to start setting a better example for…

Number three: Angie. Angie had, apparently, plopped herself in the middle of someone else’s marriage. However, instead of breaking up the marriage, Angie had ended up getting broken. This came in addition to losing her father and the house. In some ways, Angie was very strong. She was smart, talented, mentally tough. She kept getting more and more beautiful-her skin was creamy, her eyes were bright, her hair was wild in its bushy ponytail, her body was lean and sculpted. She had full lips and long, graceful fingers and a little sexy rasp to her voice. But Angie wasn’t confident the way other girls her age were. She didn’t care about clothes or shoes or makeup or how to make a man do what she wanted. She was easy to hurt because she loved with her whole heart. She held nothing back.

Number four: Bob. Buck had said to Belinda yesterday, I thought you were married. Yes, Belinda was married. To Bob Percil, who was widely held to be the finest Thoroughbred trainer in the country, if not the world. Belinda had met him at the Breeders’ Cup the October after she’d separated from Deacon. Bob was a ruggedly handsome, bourbon-drinking, cigar-smoking, Kentucky-born-and-bred good ol’ boy who handled horses better than humans. He was gruff and occasionally humorless and intensely focused on his work, immune to most of Belinda’s Hollywood charms and intolerant of her theatrics-and for all these reasons, Belinda had fallen in love with him. For years, Deacon Thorpe had served as the epitome of manhood for Belinda, but upon meeting Bob, Belinda realized that Deacon was as needy as a teenage girl.

Belinda had been happy to marry Bob and leave the emotionally fraught nonsense with Deacon behind. She moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and then she got pregnant, something she had thought was physiologically impossible. She took a year off filming, sat tight on the horse farm, and nursed her baby, Mary. Her very own baby! Belinda hired Mrs. Greene, and she got pregnant again. It was only after giving birth to Laura that Belinda realized Bob couldn’t control himself around his young, female stable hands.

The first girl Belinda caught him with in the tack room was Carrie. That, when Mary was two and Laura nine months old. Since then, there had been Jules and now Stella. Were Bob and Stella screwing in the master bedroom? Belinda wondered. She hadn’t spoken to Bob once since leaving L.A.

No reception.

Belinda saw a vehicle approaching, a faded forest-green Jeep Wagoneer with woody sides and a row of colorful stickers on its bumper, a car Belinda recognized. It was Mrs. Glass. Was it possible the woman was still alive? Still driving? She had been an old lady back when Belinda used to come to Nantucket, years and years ago. The Wagoneer slowed down from ten miles an hour to five, then came to a rolling stop in front of Belinda.

Mrs. Glass cranked down her window. She was wearing cataract sunglasses.

“Excuse me,” the woman said. “Who are you?”

Belinda offered Mrs. Glass her most winning smile. “Mrs. Glass? It’s me, Belinda Rowe.”

“I’m sure I don’t know you,” Mrs. Glass said.

“I’m Belinda Rowe,” Belinda said in a louder, clearer voice.