Nantucket Blue

Twenty-four





IT WAS ALREADY A ROUGH DAY at ten o’clock, and it was only going to get rougher. Except for the older Australian couple, all the visitors who were here for the Fourth of July weekend were headed home today; all the rooms were turnovers and required bathroom scrubbings, vacuuming, fresh towels and sheets, and, of course, the dreaded duvet covers.

And they’d all decided to eat breakfast at the same time. The backyard, the porch, and even the big wooden table in the kitchen were packed. Liz and I were sweating as we cleared dishes, refreshed coffees, and refilled butters and jams. Gavin was washing the glasses by hand in the sink—no time to run the dishwasher.

“Excuse me,” said a sunburned woman, holding a writhing toddler. “How do I get a cab to the airport?”

“We’ve got cards on the reception desk,” Gavin said. “Pat’s Cabs. Pat’s the best. Normally I’d call for you, but I’m…in up to my elbows.” He laughed because he literally had suds up his arms. Not amused, the woman disappeared into the living room.

I was about to show her where the cards were before I headed outside with the coffees when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, expecting Liz, but instead found a tall middle-aged guy in Nantucket Reds grinning at me like I was his favorite movie star.

“If you aren’t Kate Campbell’s daughter, then my name is mud,” he said, leaning forward, anticipating my reaction.

“I am her daughter,” I said.

“Paul Morgan,” he said, putting out his hand to shake mine. But I just shrugged, nodding toward my full hands. He squeezed my shoulder instead. “I knew it, I knew it.” He rocked back and forth on his boat shoes, shaking his head. “We worked at the Nantucket Beach Club together years ago. I saw you standing across the room and I felt like it was twenty-five years ago. You look just like her.”

“Are you staying here?” I asked.

“No, I just stopped by for one of Gavin’s muffins.”

“Hate to interrupt, but I need these,” Liz said, taking the coffees from my hands and glaring at me. “We’re very busy, in case you didn’t notice.”

Liz was invisible to Paul Morgan. He kept talking. “Is she still a firecracker? She is, isn’t she?”

“She’s a teacher.” I didn’t want to lie, and I also didn’t want to tell him that she more closely resembled a wet sock.

“I bet she’s a great one,” he said. “She was the prettiest, most vivacious girl on the island that summer. Now, don’t look so shocked; us old people were young once, too.” I studied his face. I was having a crazy urge to go check the diary and look at that picture again.

“Cricket,” Liz called. I turned to see her gesturing at a table full of dirty plates and a family hovering nearby, wanting to sit down.

“It was nice to meet you,” I said. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Give your mother my best, won’t you?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, wrote something on a business card and handed it to me: Paul T. Morgan, Esquire. “That’s my cell phone number. If you need anything while you’re on Nantucket, let me know.”

“Thanks.” I slipped his card into the back pocket of my shorts and walked outside, where I made an absentminded, totally unhelpful loop around the yard, imagining my mother’s firecracker self captured and held hostage somewhere on Nantucket, waiting to be shot into the sky.

As soon as we were done cleaning, I flopped on my bed and opened the Emily Dickinson diary. I studied the picture, but it was pointless. You couldn’t see the guy’s face.

I read the next entry, written around a poem about the “majesty of death.” Obviously, Mom wasn’t too influenced by Emily Dickinson.


Dear Emily,

Alarm! Alarm! Call 9-1-1. It’s a LOVE EMERGENCY! On second thought, call the fire department because I am hot to trot! Lover Boy and I talked for almost a half hour today. He stopped to chat with me at the reception desk for his whole break.


Hot to trot? Love emergency? Who was this person?


Emily, from his ice-blue eyes to his cute butt, he’s a head-to-tail fox. If you lived now and you saw him strolling under your window, you might even come out of your house. The attraction is undeniable. Right before a guest arrived and asked him to help with his bags, he leaned over the desk and told me I was making it hard for him to concentrate! I nearly had to wring out my underwear.


Oh, Mom. Disgusting!


He has this smile that made talking to him so easy, like the most natural thing in the world. Oh, I found out that he’s twenty-two and just graduated from college. He was a little shocked when he found out I was seventeen, but I have a feeling it’s not going to stop our love OR our lust.

Love, K. No longer the owner of a lonely heart.


I tried to visualize Paul T. Morgan, Esquire. I could see his big smile with the deep lines on either side of his mouth, the perfect top teeth and crooked bottom ones, the distinguished nose and thick head of graying hair. I don’t know if it was just my imagination fueled by hope, but when I closed my eyes and let the image of his face fill my mind, his eyes were glacial blue. Maybe it was time to close Mom’s Second Glances account after all.