Andrea turns off the light, the Chief closes his eyes. A part of him thinks Coco did set the fire and then run—and that same part hopes she gets away with it.
37. For as Long as We Both Shall Live
Coco and Lamont lie naked and spent across the crisp white sheets of Coco’s bed. Lamont’s leg, which is maybe the finest she’s ever seen on a man—long tapered thigh, defined calf muscle—is intertwined with Coco’s leg, his tawny, hers alabaster. Sunlight streams in through the blinds; Coco hears birdsong and the gurgling of the coffee machine. It’s set for six a.m., a fragrant alarm, but it means Lamont has to leave. Leslee has new friends, and Coco is afraid that might mean unexpected kinks in Leslee’s daily routine; she might meet Celadon for sunrise yoga or Marla for a morning bun at Wicked Island Bakery.
“Before you go,” Coco says, “I have to read you the renewal vows I got off the internet for Bull and Leslee. You’re going to vomit.”
“Exactly how I was hoping to start my day,” Lamont says. He leans back into the pillows while Coco recites various lines: “‘I find myself falling more in love with you each day’… ‘You are my best friend, my confidante, my one true love’… ‘I promise to continue to practice patience, kindness, understanding’… ‘For as long as we both shall live.’” Coco shakes her head. “I don’t think I can keep a straight face. It’s a good thing no one coming on this sail knows them.”
“Leslee, I promise to keep you in Amalfi lemons for as long as we both shall live,” Lamont says. “I will turn a blind eye when you throw yourself at any available man in your vicinity—”
Coco pokes Lamont in the ribs, where she knows he’s ticklish. “You can cut the word available—she doesn’t care if a man’s available.”
At that second, they both hear it: a key turning in the lock, then the rubbery sucking sound of the apartment door opening.
“Coco!” Leslee calls out. “Are you awake?”
Lamont seemingly turns to liquid and oozes himself over the side of the bed and onto the floor without making a sound. He starts pulling on his clothes. Apparently, he’s scripted precisely what he would do in these circumstances, but Coco, who considered this moment inevitable—Leslee was going to catch them at some point—is at a loss.
“Coming!” she says, though her voice cracks like someone is strangling her. She pulls on her shorts and tank, picks up her water glass and a book so she has something to do with her hands, steps out of the bedroom, and closes the door behind her with a definitive click.
Leslee is holding a huge cardboard box with DONATE written on the side in black marker. “I went through my closet last night,” she says. “I have twelve boxes for you to take to Goodwill on Friday. Wait until then, please—this is just the preliminary load and I don’t want you to make two trips.”
“I’m not sure there is a Goodwill,” Coco says. “But I can take them to the Hospital Thrift Shop.”
Leslee drops the box in the second bedroom. “Whatever.”
“If you leave the boxes at the bottom of the stairs, I can bring them all up,” Coco says. She needs Leslee to leave. When she goes to pour herself coffee, her hand is shaking.
“That would be wonderful, thank—” Leslee stops suddenly and Coco whips around. Leslee is four feet from the front door, her eyes on the ground. Coco follows her gaze—and sees a pair of boat shoes, size ten and a half, with leather laces tied into corkscrews. Unmistakably Lamont’s.
In what feels like slow motion, Leslee turns around. Her eyes stop briefly at Coco’s bedroom door and Coco thinks: Here it comes. Leslee will search her room, find Lamont, there will be a scene, and they will both be fired.
However, instead of being afraid, Coco feels defiant. Yes, Coco thinks. We’re together. He hasn’t said so yet but I know he loves me. He’s mine, not yours.
Leslee faces Coco head-on in a way that feels melodramatic. “Do you remember when I told you that I wasn’t sure why people here haven’t accepted us?”
Coco presses the soles of her feet into the wood floor.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Leslee says. “Bull and I are solid. People liked us; our parties were the most coveted invitations of the summer. Remember how that camel turd Rachel McMann and her skeevy dentist husband tried to throw a party of their own when they were cut from our list?”
Of course Coco remembers. It’s a good thing Leslee and Bull haven’t had a dental emergency because she’s certain they’re blackballed from Dr. Andy’s practice.
“But Bull and I made some tactical mistakes. The first one was hiring you. You’re a hick, Coco. Everything about you is shabby. You defiled your body with those budget tattoos, you dress like a hill-jack—that was the reason for the uniform, if I’m being honest—you reek of poverty. The reading you do is a valiant attempt at self-improvement, though it hasn’t lent you even a shred of refinement. You lucked out befriending Kacy—if it weren’t for that connection, I would have fired you in week one. Also, Colleen, I checked at the Nantucket Atheneum and nobody by the name of Susan Geraghty has ever worked there, so the little story about the librarian inviting you to Nantucket was a lie. You scammed your way into this job, and if you think I don’t know why, you’re wrong.”
Leslee pauses long enough for Coco to wonder if she should respond. The litany about how baseborn and unwashed Coco is doesn’t faze her; she’s been waiting for it all summer. But Coco would like to claim at least some integrity: She never said Ms. Geraghty invited her to Nantucket; she said Ms. Geraghty introduced her to Nantucket, and she had, in the form of Moby-Dick, one of the novels that has apparently not made a dent in Coco’s inherent inferiority.
But Leslee isn’t finished. “We also made a mistake in hiring Lamont. He came highly recommended, and Bull was charmed by the local-boy-makes-good story, but trying to show how woke we were backfired. We should have hired a more… traditional captain.”
Coco blinks. “Do you mean white?” She suddenly feels a rage that’s so pristine, she considers tackling Leslee or backing her out the open door and watching her fall down the stairs. “Is that what you mean, Leslee?” Is Leslee, on top of everything else, a racist? Or is she just so angry about Coco and Lamont’s relationship that she reached into her bag of tricks and plucked the filthiest scrap from the bottom?
“I meant older,” she says. “Thanks for your help with the boxes.” She leaves the apartment. She wasn’t brave enough to fire Coco, but then again, Coco wasn’t brave enough to quit.
In the bedroom, Coco finds Lamont fully dressed, shirt and khakis somehow without a wrinkle—he irons every night before bed—his brass anchor belt buckle polished. Coco doesn’t care what Leslee says or thinks about her; in a way it felt good to have her impostor syndrome confirmed. She did con her way into his job; if you’re using the metric of pedigree, education, or sophistication, she isn’t good enough for either this job or this island. But to malign Lamont, who has talent and a strong work ethic and so much basic human decency, is to incur Coco’s fiercest wrath.
“I heard,” Lamont says. “She didn’t mean any of it, Coco, she’s just angry. It’s less than two weeks until Labor Day. We can tough it out.”
Coco would like to call Lamont weak for taking Leslee’s abuse, but she knows it’s strength. He would never let something Leslee said in the heat of the moment bother him.
“Sure, yeah,” Coco says. She has been nurturing an idea for revenge against the Richardsons, but it always seemed outlandish and beyond the scope of what she’s capable of doing. Until now.
38. Thursday, August 22, 8:00 P.M.
It’s Romeo’s turn to plan date night and he chooses karaoke at the Rose and Crown.
Really? Sharon thinks. If he wants to sing, they should go to the Club Car piano bar, but when she mentions this, he says, “It’s going to be a while before I can go back to that place.” Sharon chastises herself for being insensitive. After the whole debacle with Walker, she wouldn’t blame Romeo if he never went to the Club Car again. And so the Rose and Crown it is.
And guess what—karaoke is fun! Romeo and Sharon order beers and a plate of nachos. At the end of the bar, Sharon sees a girl named Woodlyn who used to babysit for the kids. Woodlyn, who has corkscrew curls and is wearing a top that is essentially a bra, buys Sharon and Romeo shots of Fireball. It’s the jet fuel Sharon needs to propel her onto the stage. She and Romeo decide to sing “Reunited” by Peaches and Herb, and they must sound okay because the crowd, urged on by Woodlyn and her bare midriff, chant for an encore, so they sing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee. After the song is over, Romeo sweeps Sharon up off her feet and carries her out of the bar, saying, “Always leave them wanting more.”
They hold hands as they stroll down Water Street toward the car, but then Romeo stops Sharon outside the Pacific Club at the bottom of Main Street. He takes a breath. “I love you, Sharon.”
Sharon, who at the beginning of the summer might have said she no longer believed in love, says, “I love you too.” Then she presses her head against Romeo’s chest and thinks, I love Romeo Scandalous Steamship Guy!
When they get home, Robert is awake playing a video game and Romeo tells Sharon, “I’m going to hang out with him for a little while if that’s okay.”
It’s more than okay. Sharon is only one scene away from finishing the short story for her online class. She sits down at the laptop and the words flow right out of her.
Later, Sharon and Romeo reunite in the bedroom—And it feels so good, Sharon sings to herself. As she falls asleep, she realizes that for the first time in years, maybe decades, she doesn’t know where her phone is and she doesn’t care.
