“Even in scrubs, you look like Grace Kelly.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I want you to stay, Bun. I’m afraid you’re going to meet someone on Nantucket and I will have lost the only person I’ve ever really loved.”
“So kiss me,” Kacy sings along, “and smile for me.” She folds her silky camisole tops, her white jeans, her floral sundresses. There’s only one thing Isla can do to get Kacy to stay, and she knows it. “Hold me like you’ll never let me go,” Kacy sings.
Isla is crying, and Kacy won’t lie, the moment is gratifying, but an hour later, after Isla has dressed and gone, Kacy wonders if she’s made the right decision or a rash one.
She crawls into bed and checks Instagram. Isla doesn’t have an account but Rondo does; if the man has a fault, it’s that he overshares on social media. Only three minutes earlier, Rondo posted a picture of two glasses of wine side by side on their coffee table with the flames of their gas fireplace flickering in the background. The caption reads Unwinding with my love.
Yes, Kacy thinks, I made the right decision. She’s going home.
4. Meet-Cute I
As soon as Coco’s plane touches down in Boston, she texts Bull Richardson: I’ve landed.
There’s no response and Coco wonders if now is the time to panic. Her previous three texts—one sent yesterday afternoon from the St. Thomas airport, one sent last night from the Orlando airport (where she shoplifted the new Kristin Hannah book from Hudson News because she’d finished her Jesmyn Ward novel on the plane), and one this morning before takeoff—have gone unanswered. She checks her email. There’s nothing new from Bull Richardson but she’s at least able to reread his previous correspondence: We’d love to offer you the job of personal concierge… Errands, light housekeeping, party prep (Leslee throws a lot of parties)… Thirty-five an hour plus room and board… We’re scheduled to close on the house June 11… From Boston, take the Plymouth-Brockton bus line to Hyannis, then the fast ferry to Nantucket… Let us know your travel plans.
Coco had written back that she would be arriving on Nantucket on June 11, and she included her flight itinerary. There had been no response to this, which Coco assumed meant it was fine. Now, however, it feels like she missed a crucial step, which was getting Bull’s confirmation. Was something wrong? Did Leslee change her mind about having another woman around? Did Bull suspect that Coco’s intent was to worm her way into his good graces, make herself indispensable, then use him to get her screenplay produced?
Or is she just paranoid because she’s tired? When she’s off the plane and in the terminal at Logan, she calls Bull; she is jettisoned to his voice mail.
“Hey, Mr. Richardson, it’s Coco. I’m taking the nine o’clock bus, then the eleven o’clock ferry, arriving on the island at noon. I can get a taxi to your house. I just need the address? Looking forward to hearing from you and excited about the summer. Thanks!”
It’s not until Coco has boarded the bus that her phone buzzes with a text from Bull: We closed on the house this morning. Leslee says we need some time to move in and get the place ready, etc. If you could just hang tight, that would be great. We’ll let you know about a start date. Thx!
What? Coco thinks. He does realize she’s in Massachusetts, right? On the bus, headed to the ferry. By noon, she’ll be on Nantucket, where she knows no one but them.
She texts back: Where should I stay in the meantime?
Bull says, We thought you had someone on the island? The librarian?
I said my librarian introduced me to Nantucket, Coco thinks. I never said she lived there.
Bull texts again: We’re at the Hotel Nantucket, which is fully booked, but I think the White Elephant has rooms? Or you could try a B and B?
Coco types, Will you be paying for my room?—but then deletes it, because it’s clear that the answer will be no. She’s on her own until they get the house ready. How long will that take? A few days? A week? Longer? Are they having it painted? Has their furniture arrived?
Coco has to figure on a week. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find anyone to sublet her room in her St. John house-share, so she has to eat three grand in rent and utilities, leaving her with a little over eleven hundred in savings. She owes sixteen hundred bucks on her Visa, which she wants to pay off; she will not be like her mother and Kemp, perpetually living in debt.
Deep breath.
Thirty-five dollars an hour means a gross of fourteen hundred for a forty-hour week, and she won’t have to worry about rent or meals. Then, once she sells her screenplay…
She runs a hand through her hair. She’s getting ahead of herself.
She checks out the White Elephant’s website on her phone. The cheapest room is $1,095 a night. Seriously? The bed-and-breakfasts start at $310 per night. There are no motels, there’s no Holiday Inn Express; there used to be a hostel, but not any longer. Looks like I’m camping, Coco thinks, which is fine; she grew up camping with her mother and Kemp, and she can rough it without a tent or even a sleeping bag. But it turns out Nantucket doesn’t have a campground.
Where do poor people stay? she wonders.
At the ferry terminal, Coco begins to understand what going to Nantucket means. Everyone is preppy and wealthy-looking; the clothes are tasteful; there’s a lot of navy blue and white. One woman carries a woven basket purse on her forearm and holds the leash of a yellow Lab in her opposite hand. Her silver-haired husband wears pinkish pants and loafers with no socks. He bellows, “Larry!” and another gentleman turns around and exclaims in delight. “Ha-ha-ha, Talbot, old pal! How was your winter—Vero, was it? Let’s get a drink at the Field and Oar next week—my first order of business is getting my boat in the water.”
Coco has a recurring nightmare where she’s onstage at the Rosebush Middle School spelling bee and all the words are in a nonsense language. She feels that way now. Can I have the definition for Field and Oar, please?
Coco had had a steep learning curve when she moved to St. John—driving on the left, respecting West Indian culture, realizing that painkiller was a drink, not a pill. But St. John was so low-key it was almost no-key; it was populated by outlaws and renegades, pirates and mermaids. You could go to the grocery store in bare feet.
Nantucket is something completely different. There isn’t a tattoo in sight.
Coco waits in line carrying everything she owns in the enormo canvas duffel Kemp used in the Gulf War. She feels a sharp jab at her back and turns to see the gentleman named Talbot in his pinkish pants scowling at her. “You can’t carry something that big and… unwieldy onto the boat, young lady. It belongs on the luggage rack.”
Coco’s duffel was the last piece of baggage to slide down the chute of the carousel at Logan (Coco had spent anxious minutes certain it was lost and that she was royally screwed). She held the bag on her lap for the entirety of the bus ride and she isn’t exactly eager to let it out of her sight again.
“It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll just hold—”
“I’m telling you, it’s not allowed,” Talbot says so loudly he must be either extremely important here or going deaf.
The chick in front of Coco whirls around. She’s wearing white jeans with a blazer and has really good hair—glossy, the color of honey, cut into a bob, tucked behind one ear. She leans toward Coco and says, “He thinks he’s the chief of police. Just put your bag over there on the blue luggage rack.”
“Thanks,” Coco says. She doesn’t know the rules here; she messed up, and everyone is now looking at her. She trudges over to the luggage rack. Her bag is unwieldy and a part of her is grateful to relinquish it. When she returns, the chick with the good hair is gone. Thankfully, so is Talbot. Coco joins the end of the line, and once she’s on the boat, she takes a window seat in the first empty row. Her mortification lessens somewhat. Talbot is a scrote, she thinks as she pulls out her book. Almost immediately, she closes her eyes.
A few minutes pass. The boat gets under way; there are some announcements over the loudspeaker: life jackets, restrooms, the trip will take about an hour. Coco dozes on and off. She didn’t get much sleep last night on the floor of the Orlando airport. She can’t believe the Richardsons’ house isn’t ready, although, now that she thinks about it, what did she expect? Closing on a house doesn’t mean moving in the same day. She should have waited for Bull Richardson to give her a firm date before she fell prey to a sale alert from Expedia. She can’t afford even $310 a night, so what is she going to do? She could’ve just pitched Bull Richardson her screenplay at the bar. What made her think the long game would work any better?
But it will work. Somehow, Coco knows this.
She hears a rustling near her; someone has taken a seat in her row. Coco likes to be aware of her surroundings and knows she should open her eyes and make sure it’s not some dude creeping on her—maybe old Talbot is a perv—but she’s tired, and her eyelids are heavy…
Suddenly she smells something delicious—briny, oniony, herby. She’s dreaming; she’s just hungry, starving. She wants lunch or a snack but she needs to save her money.
