The notebook contains addresses, phone numbers, and the hours of operation for Pip and Anchor, Born and Bread, Dan’s Pharmacy. Following that is a log of sorts with dates lined up neatly on the left followed by notes on the errands Coco ran that day. July 8: Nantucket Meat and Fish (they’re out of Bull’s pretzels, shipment coming Tuesday), Bartlett’s Farm, post office. On another page, there’s a record of what packages came to the house and what they contained: Amalfi lemons, box of Bridgewater chocolates (thank-you gift from Rachel McMann), three bottles of Guerlain Double Vanille perfume from Neiman’s, copper mugs engraved with the letter R, strings of white lights.
Kacy pages forward until she finds August 22. Sunset sail, it says. Print out Google vow renewal, Zoe A. will drop off appetizers 5:00 p.m., ice, change sheets in primary suite on Hedonism, twenty-five champagne flutes. There’s even a note for August 23: Drop boxes at Hospital Thrift Shop, India Street, open 9 to 4.
The rest of the notebook is all blank pages, or so Kacy thinks until she gets to the back and finds a… diagram. In the center are the words The Personal Concierge, and radiating out like spokes on a wheel are lines that end in circled names: Bull, Leslee, Lamont, Kacy.
Kacy flushes at seeing her own name. What does this mean? She doesn’t think twice; she slides the notebook into her bag.
She realizes she hasn’t checked the second bedroom. She opens the door slowly, feeling like a girl in a horror film, half expecting Coco to jump out at her, soaking wet and bedraggled, seaweed in her hair. The room is dark; Kacy wants to turn on the light but they’ll see that outside, so she makes do with the glow from her phone.
The room is filled with cardboard boxes. Okay, Kacy thinks, these must be the boxes Coco was going to take to the thrift shop. Kacy opens one of them and finds jeans and cashmere sweaters; underneath that is the pink ombré Hervé Léger dress Leslee wore to the first party. This dress is going to the thrift shop? It belongs in a museum. The next box is filled with shoes—stilettos, platform sandals, Manolo Blahniks, Louboutins. Leslee is giving these away?
Kacy’s phone dings with a text and she jumps, thinking that somehow the text is from Coco: Stop snooping. But the text is from her father: Where are you?
Kacy is busted. Bathroom, she types. Be right down.
Kacy’s phone rings. It’s her father. She declines the call and rushes out the door. The Chief waits at the bottom of the stairs. “You didn’t touch anything up there, did you?”
“No,” Kacy says. “I had to go. We’ve been here for hours.”
The Chief has a roll of yellow police tape in his hands; he cordons off the entry to the stairs. “The Coast Guard is concluding its search for the night. They’ll start up again at dawn. Lamont took the Richardsons’ boat and went out to look for Coco on his own.”
“He did?” Kacy has more faith in Lamont finding Coco than the Coast Guard.
“We’ll stay until he gets back,” the Chief says. “Then I’m taking you home.”
Home? Suddenly Kacy feels like she’s going to vomit. Should she turn over the notebook or offer to put it back? It could be evidence.
“Let’s wait for Lamont on the beach,” Kacy says. She strides across the Richardsons’ lawn and the Chief follows. They hear a commotion and see Bull and Leslee down by the water; in her long white dress, Leslee looks like some kind of ghost bride.
“This is all your fault!” Leslee shrieks at Bull.
“Everything okay down there?” the Chief says.
“Fine, fine,” Bull says. “Leslee’s just upset. I was hoping to take the dinghy since we’re going to sleep on Hedonism tonight, but it’s already at the mooring.”
“Lamont took the other boat to go look for Coco,” the Chief says.
“Oh,” Bull says. “Good, good.” The Chief gets the feeling Bull only now realizes his other boat is missing. How did the Chief and Andrea get mixed up with these people? Part of it was Kacy befriending Coco and part of it was Addison. A perfect storm of sorts.
The Chief hears a motor and sees running lights. A boat pulling in. Lamont is back. Please, he thinks, let him have Coco with him.
Coco! Kacy thinks.
Bull wades into the water, cups his hands around his mouth: “Did you find her?”
Lamont heads for the mooring, not the shore. The Chief’s heart sinks. He didn’t find her.
Lamont cuts the motor, turns off the lights. As soon as the Chief’s eyes adjust, he can see that Lamont is alone in the boat. They all wait in silence for Lamont to row in. When he reaches the beach, he looks at Ed. “Do you have any news?”
“No,” Ed says.
“I covered every inch of water,” Lamont says. “She’s not out there.”
33. Kill Your Darlings
The membership committee of the Field and Oar Club is Nantucket’s own version of a secret society. There are nine members on the committee, each serving a nine-year term with three terms allowed. Some of the members on the committee—Busy Ambrose, Lucinda Quinboro, and Penny Rosen—are in their third term, and one, Talbot Sweeney, is in his final year of service (much to his dismay). Blond Sharon and Phoebe Wheeler are at the start of their second term, which makes them relative newbies. The committee is rounded out by Helen Dunsmore, Larry Winters, and Rip Bonham.
They meet on the second Wednesday in August to vote so that the newly elected members can be welcomed at the Commodore’s Ball on Labor Day weekend. The meeting is held, not up in the Governor’s Room, as many believe, but in the club’s snack bar at the unusual hour of eleven p.m. By that time, service has ended and the staff are gone, leaving the club deserted, dark, and locked up. The members gather around Busy Ambrose on the front porch like they’re teenagers on a caper; as commodore, Busy is the only member with a key.
Blond Sharon has always loved the rituals of the membership committee meeting: the late hour, the hushed passage through the front hall and the ballroom to the snack bar, where they push two tables together and sit in white molded chairs. The meeting is BYOB. The past few years, Phoebe has brought a bottle of Sancerre, Talbot a bottle of Bushmills, Rip a cooler of Cisco beer. Busy traditionally serves as short-order cook (she learned a few tricks from her long-ago summer love). She prepares chicken strips and French fries that she serves in plastic baskets lined with wax paper.
Once Busy has served the snacks, she sits down to conduct the meeting. “Has everyone read the applications, the nominating letters, and the seconding letters?”
Everyone nods yes, though they all know Larry Winters never does the reading and Rip does maybe half (he recently took over his father’s insurance business and has three little kids at home). Talbot does the reading but can’t remember any of it. (Is it surprising that the weak links are all men? Not to Sharon.)
This year there are spaces for six couples, and there are five legacy couples at the top of the list. Legacies are always admitted unless there are problematic issues, and this year all five couples are from wonderful families in good standing at the Field and Oar; they all sail and play tennis and have three or four children apiece, ensuring a solid, vibrant future for the club. These applicants breeze through and are unanimously accepted.
Then it’s on to the rest of the list. The list has long been misunderstood by club members and nonmembers alike, and the committee prefers it that way. It’s common knowledge that the Field and Oar has a “ten-to-twenty-year” wait list—but the truth is, as soon as couples submit their full applications, they’re eligible for admission. In fact, the committee does not start at the bottom of the list, with the people who have been waiting the longest, but at the top.
Busy clears her throat. “The first couple up for our consideration are Bull and Leslee Richardson.” Busy beams. “I like them so much, I wrote their nominating letter. And Phoebe wrote one of their seconding letters.”
Helen Dunsmore says, “They live out in Pocomo? Do they sail or play tennis?”
Does Helen Dunsmore live under a rock? Sharon wonders. Has she not heard about the Richardsons’ parties this summer?
“Sail,” Busy says. “They have a yacht called Hedonism.”
“Hedonism!” Larry Winters says. “Now, that’s something I can get behind.” Larry used to own a popular nightclub in Key Largo. He’s the kind of eighty-year-old who always makes a point of checking out Sharon’s cleavage.
