“Here you go,” Coco says, handing him the bourbon.
“You’re an angel.” Bull downs the entire drink in one swallow and gives Coco the empty glass. “If Leslee ever gives you trouble, if she makes you… uncomfortable in any way, I want you to come to me. Do you understand?”
Coco blinks. This isn’t the guy she remembers from the Banana Deck; that guy was all bluster and baloney, all Look at how rich and important I am. This Bull is stripped down, travel-weary, and way more human. It sounds like he wants to be her ally, which is exactly what Coco hoped for. She wants him to like her, to care about her enough to champion her script. But Coco has learned that in this life, nothing worth having comes easily. This feels too easy.
She nods. “I understand.” At that second, her phone buzzes. ICE! Where are u???
“I have to go,” Coco says.
“I’ll go with you,” Bull says.
“I have to get the ice.”
“Let me help,” Bull says. He follows Coco to the laundry room and together they scoop ice into the crystal buckets. It’s a pleasant moment—the ice cubes clink against the glass, there’s a smell of detergent and dryer sheets in the air, and it’s nice to have help, however unnecessary.
“How was your trip?” Coco asks. “Did everything go okay with the meeting in Jakarta?”
Bull looks up. “Leslee told you?”
Oops, she thinks. She’s not sure how to backtrack.
Bull whistles out a breath. “Yeah, it’s bad. I have to downplay it for Leslee because she immediately jumps to the worst-case scenario and we’re living in a van down by the river.” His phone dings. He checks the screen, then sighs. “I’ve been found out.” He sets his shoulders back and says, “How do I look?”
Coco is close enough to pin a boutonniere on him.
“You look very handsome,” she says truthfully, patting the front of his shirt.
He eyes her mischievously for a second. “I’m tempted to change into some blue and orange. That would make Leslee spit the dummy.”
“Yes, it would, mate,” Coco says.
Bull chuckles. “You’re okay by me, Coco.” He disappears down the hall.
Coco takes an ice cube and rubs it against her forehead. Her phone dings: ICE!!!
A spoon chimes against the side of a glass and we gravitate to the pink-and-white-striped tent, where the grazing board has been replaced by a dinner buffet: pyramids of lobster rolls and beef tenderloin sandwiches, platters of fried chicken, a colorful assortment of fresh salads. Standing before the food is Bull Richardson. Where did he come from? Has he been here all along?
He waits for us to quiet, then says, “Leslee and I would like to thank you all for coming to our new home. We look forward to making… well, at least a few summers’ worth of memories before this place falls into the sea.”
We laugh—the forbidden topic has been addressed. As the sun sets over the water and the waves lap up onto the Richardsons’ sugar-cookie beach, as we reach for our second (or third) cocktail or bite into buttery lobster rolls while Sean Lee serenades us with “Pink Houses,” even those of us who thought that buying the place was foolish have to admit that, on a night like tonight, it feels priceless.
Fast Eddie has been wondering all evening how he and Addison are going to manage to get a moment with Bull Richardson to discuss the Jackson property without anyone else around (for Eddie, anyone else means Grace). But Eddie needn’t have worried. Addison Wheeler, whose nickname has long been “Wheeler Dealer,” is as smooth as they come. He approaches Grace and Eddie just as they finish eating, puts a hand on Eddie’s back, and says to Grace, “Can I borrow your boyfriend for a moment?”
“Of course!” Grace says. A flush the same color as her Laurent-Perrier rosé starts on her cheeks and cascades down her neck into the cleavage displayed by her dress. “I’ve been wanting to mingle.” Grace heads over to the table where the landscape architect Benton Coe is sitting. Normally this would send Eddie into an apoplectic fit of jealousy because of Grace and Benton’s long-ago affair, but tonight, this is exactly what he needs. Grace will be occupied long enough for Addison and Eddie to talk to Bull.
There’s more good luck—when Bull sees them coming, he excuses himself from a conversation with his boat captain, Lamont Oakley.
“Hello, gentlemen, good to see you,” Bull says. They all shake hands and pound backs, and Addison comments on how beautiful the spot is, incomparable, really. Then, wasting no time, Addison goes on to say that Bull obviously recognizes a good business deal when he sees one, which is why he and Eddie are coming to him with an opportunity that recently fell into their laps: six waterfront acres on the southeast shore, the last parcel of its kind, and the owner is fine with dividing it into three lots.
“She’s priced the lots ridiculously low,” Eddie says. “We were going to advise her to raise the price—”
“But then we thought we’d buy them ourselves, build, flip, and make buckets of money,” Addison says. “Now, we could go to the bank—”
“Or I could be the bank?” Bull says. His tone of voice and facial expression are inscrutable and Eddie worries they’ve come on too strong. But it turns out there’s no such thing with the Richardsons, because Bull says, “The idea intrigues me. Let’s talk on Monday, shall we? Come up with a plan of attack?”
Yes! Eddie thinks. He practically skips back to the party, where people have started dancing. Eddie finds Grace still at Benton’s side.
Eddie says, “Hate to interrupt, but I’d like to dance with my wife.”
As Eddie leads Grace on to the dance floor, he says, “What did you and Benton talk about?”
“Oh,” Grace says. “Nothing, really. What did you and Addison and Bull talk about?”
“Oh,” Eddie says. “Nothing, really.”
When Sean Lee slows things down and plays “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd, Romeo asks Sharon to dance. He’s been by her side most of the night and she’s learned a lot about him. Such as he was in the Merchant Marine for twenty years before coming to Nantucket to work for the Steamship Authority. He’s never been married though he does have one son, age twenty-five, who works on one of those fishing boats in Alaska that you see on the reality shows. Sharon is intrigued; everyone in her hometown of New Canaan worked in tech, VC, or private equity. It’s arousing to talk to a man who knows about engines and water draw and weather patterns. He considers himself an amateur psychologist—half the battle of loading and unloading cars from the Steamship is dealing with the personalities behind the wheels.
Romeo is also an entrepreneur; he owns a whale-watching charter business up in Provincetown. It has made him enough money that he was able to buy his own twenty-two-foot Grady-White.
“It’s nothing like that sexy beast,” he says, pointing to the Richardsons’ speedboat, Decadence, which has been hiding behind Hedonism. “But I’d love to take you out for a boat day sometime.”
“Anytime!” Sharon says. “I’m free as a bird this summer.”
Romeo spins her around—on top of all his other charms, he’s a skilled dancer—and Sharon is left literally and figuratively breathless.
When Lee finishes the song, he says, “That’s a wrap for me for tonight, folks. The Richardsons would like everyone to enter the door of the summer porch and head upstairs to the party room for dessert and dancing.”
A murmur ripples through the crowd as we gather our things; it’s time to see the inside of Triple Eight.
