The Gucci influencer is still holding up her phone. Now, it seems, she’s filming Dru-Ann. “We know who you are,” she says.
“You disrespected our girl Posey,” Laura Ingalls says. “As well as the fifty-three million other Americans who suffer from mental illness.”
Dru-Ann nearly drops her champagne. Talk about an ambush. She’s pretty sure these two wouldn’t know a nine-iron from a curling iron—and yet Posey Wofford is their “girl”? Dru-Ann wants to snatch the phone out of Gucci’s hands and smash it. Then she wonders if maybe this is her chance. These women are influencers; they might have hundreds of thousands of followers apiece. They can help her get the word out.
“I’m sure you ladies want the inside scoop,” Dru-Ann says. “Which is that Posey Wofford was faking ‘mental illness’”—here, Dru-Ann uses air quotes—“so that she could duck out of her commitment at the Dow Invitational.”
Gucci drops the phone and gives Dru-Ann a withering look. “If you think I’m going to amplify that garbage, think again.”
“I know mental-health struggles are real,” Dru-Ann says. “I was speaking out on behalf of the fifty-three million Americans who suffer. Posey Wofford was using the excuse because it was convenient for her.”
“Come on, Bex,” Laura Ingalls says. “Let’s go.”
Gucci follows Laura Ingalls out the door, but before she leaves, she turns around. “You were my hero, you know. I watch Throw Like a Girl, I read your pieces in The Cut, I found you smart and insightful, a role model, until I saw that video. It was such a disappointment. You are such a disappointment.” Gucci’s polished facade cracks open for one instant, and Dru-Ann glimpses her authenticity. This woman, Bex, looked up to Dru-Ann and feels that Dru-Ann has let her down. It is, frankly, sobering.
Maybe Dru-Ann should just issue the apology and be done with it.
But the fact remains that Posey’s mental state is just fine.
“I know it seems that things are one way,” Dru-Ann says. “But trust me, they’re the opposite. You have to believe me”—blood is pulsing in her ears, and she’s nauseated from the champagne; she came to Nantucket to lie low, but news of her disgrace is everywhere, even here—“Posey Wofford is the one who’s a disappointment.”
“Say less,” Laura Ingalls snaps.
Gucci’s expression hardens back into an impenetrable mask. “Girl, bye,” she says, and they walk out, shutting the door firmly behind them.
There’s a beat of incredibly awkward silence, then Joey relieves Dru-Ann of her empty champagne flute and whisks the amethyst dress out of the changing room. “I’ll just wrap this up,” he says. “What did you decide about the jacket?” Joey already knows what Dru-Ann will say; being uncomfortable makes people spend more money. His commission is going up!
“I’ll take it,” she says.
23. Rye Toast
Hollis trails Tatum down Centre Street like someone who has read Espionage for Dummies. She stays five or six paces behind, and when Tatum turns onto India Street, Hollis turns onto India Street. When Tatum weaves through the crowd of people waiting outside Black-Eyed Susan’s, Hollis follows—but people are annoyed only at Hollis. “We’ve been waiting!”
Tatum scans the restaurant—it’s bustling as always and smells richly of coffee, butter, vanilla, and bacon—until she sees Kyle and Jack at a four-top with two empty seats next to them. She grabs Kyle by the hair at the back of his head and plants a juicy kiss on his cheek, then slides down next to him.
“I think I was being followed,” she says.
“Really?” Kyle says. “By whom?”
A second later, Hollis plops down in the seat across from Tatum. “Surprise!”
“No surprise here,” Tatum says. “I saw your reflection in the window of Don Freedman’s gallery.”
“No surprise here,” Jack says with a wink. “I always knew you’d come back to me.”
“Oho!” Kyle says. “He went there!”
Hollis laughs. The headache she’s had all morning is suddenly gone. “It’s just breakfast,” she says.
Kyle raises his mug. “The band is back together.”
It’s good, it’s fine, it’s innocent, Hollis thinks. This is the perfect time to catch up with Jack. Kyle and Tatum make this seem normal—she’s visiting with old friends. But does she feel normal? No, she does not. Jack Finigan is here, and Hollis can’t ignore the fizzing inside of her.
Tatum wants to tell Jack to run for the hills. Kyle wants to tell Jack (and possibly did the night before) to get some action and then run for the hills.
Hollis flags their server for coffee. She was so hungover at home that all she could manage was ice water, and now she’s starving. Jack hands her the menu and says, “I know what you’re going to order.”
“Oh, please,” Tatum says. “We all know what Hollis is going to order.”
“Two scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, rye toast, and hash browns—as long as they’re actual hash browns and not home fries,” Kyle says.
“Well, now you stole my thunder,” Jack says.
“And mine,” Tatum says.
What no one eating or working at Black-Eyed Susan’s that morning could know is that, back in high school, these same four people ate breakfast at the Downyflake every Saturday morning after the Friday-night Whalers football game, and whereas Jack, Tatum, and Kyle mixed it up with French toast, omelets, and the Downyflake’s famous doughnuts, Hollis always ordered the same thing. She had been the predictable one.
How do they know I haven’t grown into other tastes? she wonders. Maybe she’d get the huevos rancheros or the spicy Thai scramble.
But she doesn’t want those things.
“That is what I’m getting,” she says, slapping her menu down.
“These boys went out hard last night,” Tatum says. “They went to the Straight Wharf. Then they went to the Gaslight.”
Kyle holds his palms up. “I was just trying to be a good wingman. Jack was searching for some nocturnal companionship.”
Hollis studies her diamond engagement ring, her wedding band. “Did you have any luck?” she asks lightly.
When Tatum hears the phrase nocturnal companionship, the tender spot in her breast starts to throb. “I leave you alone for one night and you go out on the prowl?”
“I’m innocent,” Kyle says. “I stood by while Jack worked his magic with your boss and her sidekick.”
It takes Tatum a minute to figure out what Kyle is telling her. Your boss and her sidekick. Tatum’s boss.
“You saw Irina?” Tatum says. “With Veda?” She grips the sides of the table. She was expecting to hear that Jack chatted up some tourists from Menasha, Wisconsin, named Melissa and Debbie who had ended up at the Gaslight because the line at the Club Car piano bar was too long. It’s far, far worse that Jack talked to Irina and Veda. Yes, they wear too much makeup and their perfume makes your eyes water, but they have sexual confidence—and doesn’t Kyle remember Tatum’s hideous nightmare, the one where Irina and Kyle end up in bed together? “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“I wasn’t talking to them,” Kyle says. He looks at Jack across the table. “Back me up here, bud.”
“They were the only two ladies in the place who weren’t vaping or filming TikToks,” Jack says.
“Did Irina see you?” Tatum asks Kyle. “Did she say anything?” To her knowledge, Kyle and Irina have met only in passing. This past winter when the Pilot was at the mechanic, Kyle would drop Tatum off at work and pick her up, so there had been an introduction—Irina was far more charming with Kyle than she’d ever been with Tatum; no surprise there.
A sweetheart, Irina had commented then. Your sweetheart husband.
What did Irina think about seeing Kyle out alone while Jack chatted them up?
Tatum isn’t sure what to do with her anger. Kyle squeezes her knee and Tatum swats his hand away with so much force that she jostles the table and everyone’s coffee splashes over the rims of their mugs.
Hollis tries to change the subject. “Do you still own a bar?” she asks Jack. But her question is lost in the static coming from across the table. Kyle assures Tatum that he was minding his own business, trying to listen to the band, and Jack was the one who talked to Irina, Jack was the one who danced with Irina and her friend. Hollis feels a strange pang at hearing this, which is completely absurd; Hollis and Jack broke up while Ronald Reagan was still president.
Their server, a longtime breakfast veteran named Naz, appears with their plates, but he can’t quite make the drop because the dark-haired woman at the table shoves her chair back and stands up and—whoa!—she’s crying. (Naz sees more people crying at breakfast than one might expect.) Hollis notices Tatum’s crying as well and she tries to catch her eye but Tatum pushes past Naz and heads for the restrooms at the back of the restaurant.
Naz sets their plates down. “Is there anything else I can bring you?”
Kyle is staring after Tatum. Jack says, “Can we have some orange marmalade, please?”
“Sure thing.” Naz beats a hasty retreat.