Hollis looks at her golden-brown rye toast, then at Tatum’s blueberry pancakes, then at Kyle. “I guess it’s nice to know she can still feel jealous.”
“She’s not jealous,” Kyle says. “I mean, she is, but that’s not why she’s upset.” He grinds pepper over his eggs Benedict. “I assume she told you about the biopsy?”
“The biopsy?” Hollis says. “What biopsy?”
“Oh, crap,” Kyle says.
Hollis stares at him.
“Lump in her right breast,” he says. “She missed the doctor’s call with the results on Thursday, and now she has to wait until Monday.”
Hollis exhales. How can Kyle—and Jack, for that matter—be so calm? They all lived through Laura Leigh’s cancer together. Tatum’s mother, Laura Leigh Grover, wore a knit Nantucket Whalers hat over her bald head to their graduation; three weeks later, she was dead. Kyle and Jack had served as pallbearers; they had lowered the woman they all fiercely loved into the ground.
Tatum! Hollis thinks. How had Tatum kept this news to herself? She is so brave but also such a dummy. Hollis is her best friend—or was. It pains Hollis that Tatum apparently doesn’t trust her enough to confide in her. Laura Leigh’s breast cancer was very aggressive; the end was swift and brutal. Tatum must be terrified.
But thirty-five years have passed since Laura Leigh was diagnosed. There has been research; there have been breakthroughs and clinical trials. Tatum will be treated in Boston, maybe even at Mass General, where Matthew worked and where Hollis will be able to get her access to the best doctors in the world. And, too, the lump might turn out to be benign.
But this all feels like magical thinking. A possible cancer diagnosis, especially with a family history like Tatum’s, is frightening. Hollis thinks back to the night before: Tatum eating, drinking, smoking a cigarette, dancing. Before she retired to the Fifty Shades of White guest suite, she’d hugged Hollis and said, “Thank you for having me, sis.”
There was a lot to unpack in that one line, not least of which was Tatum using their old nickname. Hollis could have reminded Tatum that she’d invited her for dinner every summer since she’d built the new house and Tatum had never come—but this would lead other places that neither of them wanted to go, and it was late and they’d both been drinking, so Hollis said, “Thank you for coming, sis.” And they’d stumbled off to their respective bedrooms.
“She didn’t tell me,” Hollis says. “She seemed fine last night. She had fun. We did our dance.”
“Oh, the dance,” Jack says.
Kyle stands up. “I’m going to check on her.”
He leaves the table as Naz drops off a pot of orange marmalade. Jack slides it over to Hollis.
“You got this for me?” she asks.
“You want it, don’t you?”
Well, yes, of course. Hollis’s buttery rye toast wouldn’t be complete without orange marmalade. “I can’t believe you remember.”
“Oh, Holly,” he says and he sighs. “I haven’t looked at a piece of rye toast in the past four decades without thinking of you slathering it with the most revolting of all condiments, orange marmalade.”
Hollis shakes her head, her eyes misting with tears.
Jack puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze. “She’s going to be fine,” he says.
While Kyle and Tatum are having a long kiss goodbye outside Black-Eyed Susan’s, Jack insists that Hollis take his cell phone number. “Call me later if you’re not busy.”
“I’ll be busy,” Hollis says. She thinks guiltily of Brooke, Dru-Ann, and poor Gigi, all of whom she left to fend for themselves. But… wild horses couldn’t keep her away from Jack. When she looks at him, she sees a fifty-three-year-old man but also a seventeen-year-old kid. His smile is like sunshine on her face. “Okay, fine.” She takes his number.
“I met your daughter this morning,” Jack says. “I probably shouldn’t tell on her, but she woke up at the McKenzie household and couldn’t find a Lyft, so I gave her a ride to town.”
“The McKenzie household?” Hollis says. “She was… what? With Dylan?” That must have been who dropped Caroline off yesterday, Hollis thinks. Dylan McKenzie!
Jack holds up his palms. “We didn’t discuss it.”
“What did you discuss?” Hollis says. “Caroline isn’t exactly my biggest fan these days.”
“Well, she seemed surprised to learn that you used to hunt and scallop with the old man.”
“Oh, jeez,” Hollis says. “I haven’t been scalloping in eons.”
“Bet you still remember where your dad’s secret spot is, though,” Jack says.
“I do,” Hollis says. She swats at him. “And no, I’m not telling you.”
Finally, Tatum and Kyle separate; they all say goodbye, and Tatum turns around one last time to wave. Hollis had planned to ask Tatum about the biopsy the second they were alone but she decides she should let Tatum be the one to bring it up.
Tatum stops in the middle of the sidewalk to light a cigarette. “Holly?”
Here it comes, Hollis thinks. “Tay?” she says.
Tatum releases a stream of smoke out of the side of her mouth. “Irina better stay away from my husband,” she says. “Or I’m putting a snake in her bed, and it won’t be rubber.”
24. Shotgun II
There are multiple sightings of Hollis Shaw and her “stars” in town on Saturday morning. We hear from Naz at Black-Eyed Susan’s, from Joey at Gypsy, and from the priest at St. Mary’s, Father John, who spies the women on his way to the church to prepare for a wedding. (Father John knows nothing about the Five-Star Weekend but he does recognize parishioner Tatum McKenzie, and it looks like she’s in some kind of altercation with a woman who might be the host of Throw Like a Girl. Is that possible?)
Blond Sharon is just popping out of Erica Wilson with embroidery thread in a rainbow of colors for her daughter (apparently, friendship bracelets are back) when she sees a scene unfolding by Hollis Shaw’s strawberry-red Bronco. Sharon, who has been hoping to catch a glimpse of Hollis and her friends, gets as close to the Bronco as she can without revealing herself as the shameless eavesdropper she is.
Tatum reaches for the door handle of the front passenger side of the Bronco, and Dru-Ann swats her hand away.
“Nope, nuh-uh, you sat in front on the way here, I’m taking shotgun now.”
Tatum turns to her. “What are you, nine years old?”
“Me?” Dru-Ann says. “You’re the one who put a rubber snake in my bed like we’re rivals in a Disney movie.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tatum says.
“You’re holding this weird grudge against me because of what I said in the bathroom at Hollis’s wedding,” Dru-Ann says. “It was a joke.”
“There were other things that pissed me off as well,” Tatum says.
“Things that happened twenty-five years ago!” Dru-Ann says. “How can they possibly still matter?”
Dru-Ann’s voice is loud enough to draw attention, and Tatum looks around. Main Street is crowded with summer people living their best lives. Out of the corner of her eye, Tatum glimpses Father John from St. Mary’s. (Tatum has known Father John for years and she doesn’t want him to see her acting in a manner unbecoming.) Tatum knows she’s blowing the whole wedding thing out of proportion; probably only 10 percent of her anger is about Dru-Ann—90 percent is about other stuff.
So Tatum huffs and lets Dru-Ann have the front. It doesn’t matter, except now she’ll be squished in the back bench seat with Gigi and Brooke. Brooke offers to sit in the middle, and Tatum is the last one to climb in, which puts her behind Dru-Ann. She pokes Dru-Ann’s shoulder and says, “Slide the seat up, please. I’m chewing on my knees.”
Dru-Ann ignores her. Hollis backs out onto the road. Blond Sharon watches the Bronco buck and bounce up Main Street. Evidently the Five-Star Weekend has its share of drama! Sharon, of course, is dying to know more.
“How was everyone’s shopping trip?” Hollis asks once they turn left onto the smoother surface of Orange Street. “What did you all get?”
Tatum noticed that Dru-Ann was carrying a large matte-black shopping bag from Gypsy, a store where everything costs four figures—not really, but yes, really. Tatum wouldn’t dare set foot in the place but it comes as zero surprise that this is where Dru-Ann shopped.