At eight o’clock sharp, market manager Lily Callahan (who happens to be a frequent visitor to the Hungry with Hollis website; she knows what Hollis is doing here!) flips the sign to OPEN.
Just inside the front door, Hollis stops at the display of fresh flowers. There are galvanized-metal buckets of lilies in white, yellow, peach, and something called “double pink.” Hollis selects five stems, then chooses four mixed bouquets that were picked earlier that morning, their petals still damp from the sprinklers. Then it’s on to the corn. The ears are snugged into the crib side by side and end to end like a neat puzzle. (Lily Callahan loves to look at the corncrib first thing in the morning. By late afternoon, the corn will be ravaged by people stopping by after the beach, ears flung willy-nilly and half stripped despite the sign that says PLEASE DO NOT SHUCK THE CORN!) Next, Hollis selects hothouse tomatoes, organic butter lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, and summer squash. She moves on to the herbs: fresh dill, fresh basil, a bunch of chives, and what Lily and the rest of the staff refer to as “porn-star mint” (it’s very well endowed). Hollis glides her cart over to the cheese case, where she chooses Taleggio and a clothbound cheddar (five-star cheese; Lily approves!), fancy crackers, a couple sticks of Italian salami, Marcona almonds, a can of salt-and-pepper Virginia peanuts (they’re ridiculously addictive), and Alfonso olives.
She holds the olives out to Lily (who has been trying to keep her distance but who is obviously stalking Hollis) and says, “No one ever eats olives, but I love this purple color.”
“Oh!” Lily says, feeling caught. “Me too!”
A short hop from Bartlett’s is Hollis’s favorite fish market, 167 Raw. Maria, who manages the counter at 167, worships Hollis Shaw, but she won’t do the obvious thing and ask for a picture. She fills Hollis’s order—four pounds of harpooned swordfish—and throws in a container of 167’s legendary guacamole “on the house.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” Hollis says.
Maria nearly suggests that Hollis serve the guacamole as an appetizer on Sunday evening before the pizza party, but she won’t be that person. Will she? She opens her mouth to speak but all she ends up saying is “Have fun this weekend!”
Hollis’s expression is inscrutable. “I’m going to try!” she says.
Hollis’s final and, she would argue, most important stop is Hatch’s, the liquor store. There’s no way Hollis can host this weekend without wine. Lots of wine.
Store owner Ethan Falcone isn’t a follower of the Hungry with Hollis website but he recognizes Hollis the second she walks in because she went to high school with his wife, Terri (Prentiss) Falcone. They were on the same softball team; they won the state championship their junior year, then lost it in their senior year in a game so heartbreaking that Terri still gets upset about it. And hasn’t Terri recently brought up Hollis’s name for some reason? Ethan could swear the answer is yes but he can’t remember why. Terri runs a small haircut place on Old South Road and she tells Ethan so much gossip about so many people that he can’t keep track of it all.
Ethan watches Hollis choose midrange bottles of pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, and rosé. She also picks up two bottles of Casa Dragones tequila (Ethan approves), two bottles of Triple 8 vodka, and a bottle each of Hendrick’s gin and Mount Gay rum. She gets in line, then swings her cart around and heads for the champagne aisle. She plucks two bottles of Veuve Clicquot off the shelf and goes back to the register.
When she reaches the counter, Ethan says, “Hey there, Hollis.”
“Hey…” Hollis says in a way that reveals she’s forgotten his name. That’s okay; Ethan doesn’t mind. He really only knows Hollis because of Terri’s (unnatural?) obsession with her high-school softball team. Still, Ethan likes to chat; it’s his favorite part of the job. People come into the liquor store in both good times and bad—job security!—and from the looks of it, Hollis is hosting a big party.
“How’s everything?” Ethan asks.
“Oh, just fine, thanks,” Hollis says.
“How’s the good doctor? I haven’t seen him once all summer.”
The smile falls off Hollis’s face so quickly, it should have a sound effect, and in that instant, Ethan remembers why Terri brought up Hollis’s name. Her husband, the big-shot doc at Mass General, died.
Hollis regards Ethan and says, frankly, “Matthew died in December.”
I’m such a squid, Ethan thinks. But he’s always been good with people, so he will salvage the moment. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” he says. “He was a very personable guy and I always enjoyed chatting with him. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Hollis whispers.
Ethan starts ringing up her purchases, sliding the bottles into the cardboard slots of a large box. He wants to tell Hollis her purchases are on the house but… she’s bought a lot of stuff, and he’s trying to run a business. “That’ll be five hundred and eleven dollars.”
While Hollis inserts her card into the machine, Ethan tries to think what else he can do. “Let me help you get this out to the car.”
Hollis leads Ethan to her vintage Bronco, and after Ethan loads the box, he opens his arms for a hug. She quickly embraces him and says, “Thank you, Evan.”
“It’s Ethan,” he says and they both laugh. Then Ethan remembers something else. “You know what Terri used to call your husband?”
Hollis blinks.
“Your husband would go to Terri for a haircut every once in a while.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Hollis says. “What did she call him?”
“Mr. Wonderful,” Ethan says. “She called him Mr. Wonderful.” He raps on the tailgate of the Bronco, proud of himself for remembering this. “Enjoy your weekend.”
Once Ethan is back inside the store, Hollis presses her forehead to the steering wheel. Mr. Wonderful, she thinks—and one of her favorite memories plays in her mind with such clarity she could be watching it on a movie screen.
Hollis and Matthew have moved out of the city to a center-entrance Colonial on a wooded lot on Livingston Road in Wellesley. Hollis has left Boston magazine, and now she’s a stay-at-home mom to Caroline, age three. However, Hollis needs “something else,” so she agrees to chair the gala benefit for the hospital’s heart center. The development office has never seen a chair as organized and capable as Hollis Shaw. The tickets sell out immediately; they have corporate sponsors, and they book a musical guest who may or may not be Boston’s own Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band—and rumor has it, Steven Tyler will join him onstage.
The night of the benefit, Hollis gets ready, then sits down at her dressing table to put in her diamond stud earrings. Her hair is in a chignon, and she’s wearing a slinky purple dress (it’s the first slinky thing she’s been able to fit into since she got pregnant, and it required a lot of hours at the gym and three months without dessert).
Matthew walks in wearing his tux and holding two flutes of champagne. He hands one to Hollis and smiles at her reflection in the mirror. “To my beautiful wife,” he says. “Everyone at work is talking about what a wonder you are. I’m so proud of you.”
They touch glasses and drink. Matthew bends down to kiss the back of Hollis’s neck. Down the hall, Hollis hears Caroline chattering with the babysitter about what book she wants to read. Hollis closes her eyes and thinks, I am so lucky. She thinks, This is what I’ve wanted my entire life. A moment just like this.
Back at the house, Hollis moves at double speed; her Fitbit can barely keep up.
She wants each bed to be as luscious as a bakery confection. She stuffs the duvet covers with two down inserts for extra fluffiness. She arranges an assortment of pillows—some feather, some firm—at the head of each bed and places a farm bouquet on each nightstand next to a water carafe and a stack of new magazines. Hollis uses a TikTok hack to arrange the flowers: She crosshatches tape across the top of the vase so the flowers stand up straight, and she adds vinegar, sugar, and ice to the water to keep the flowers fresh. She recognizes this absurd attention to detail for what it is: a way to control the few things she can control. She can’t believe she had to tell poor Ethan at Hatch’s that Matthew was dead. For a second, she’d considered pretending that Matthew was at home working in the garden, tending their tomato plants. He used to prune them back, his surgeon’s hands confident and adept in the cutting.
She folds pristine white Turkish cotton towels in every bathroom, then unwraps bars of wildflower soap from Nantucket Looms.