The ice cream truck from Island Kitchen arrives at nine o’clock, and the ladies go out front to choose their flavors.
This isn’t your average Good Humor man, Dru-Ann thinks. She orders Snickers cheesecake in a cup. Brooke picks cherries jubilee in a waffle cone. Tatum can’t decide between French lemon custard and peach and biscuits. She wants peach and biscuits but her mind is back to doing that thing again: If I get lemon custard, the tumor will be benign. She gets a scoop of lemon custard in a sugar cone. Gigi gets banana cream pie. She just has to make it through the fireworks, then she can excuse herself and go to bed. She’s booked the first flight off the island, which leaves at 6:45 a.m. She’ll be gone before anyone else wakes up. The other women might feel sorry or slighted that they didn’t get to say goodbye. Maybe Hollis will tell them then, and they can all trash her over their morning coffee.
Hollis materializes next to Gigi and says quietly, “Funny, the banana cream pie was Matthew’s favorite too.”
Hollis spreads blankets out on the beach and places ice buckets for the wine in the sand along with bowls of truffled popcorn. Hollis has curated every single detail of this weekend—and yet nothing turned out like she expected.
Caroline walks Malik, the fireworks guy, around the pool deck. “This place is fire,” he says. “I’ve lived on this island since sixth grade, but I’ve never been out this road.”
“Welcome to Squam,” Caroline says. She and Malik go over the dunes to the beach; he needs to set up a certain distance away from the women, the dunes, and the house, otherwise the place will be literal fire. “Do you mind if I take some video footage of you?”
“Is this my fifteen minutes of fame?” Malik says with a grin.
Malik is kind of cute, Caroline thinks. And a little while ago, James, the first mate from the Endeavor, requested her on Snapchat.
I’m still standing, she thinks, then she groans. She’s becoming one of her mother’s playlists.
Although Caroline is the only one who learned the names of the fireworks—silver pistil to red peony, coconut pistil to blue peony—their effect is appreciated by everyone on the beach. Dru-Ann notes that Brooke has returned to form; she claps and whoo-hoos for each display. She’s especially enthusiastic about the “fireflies”—the strobe lights that pop all over the sky. Dru-Ann prefers the whistling rockets that shoot up super-high, then drip down like the branches of a weeping willow.
If the next one is blue, Tatum thinks, I’ll be okay.
The next one is purple. Purple, she reasons, is practically blue.
Gigi has always loved watching fireworks shot off over the water—lights in the sky, lights reflected off the surface of the ocean. She pours herself some more wine, eats the buttery truffled popcorn. What would Matthew think if he could see her here, sitting three people away from his wife? Would he be angry with Gigi for stalking Hollis or angry at himself for creating a situation where Gigi would want to stalk Hollis? Would he be amazed that Gigi is still here? Matthew, Gigi would like to tell him, you were married to a remarkable woman.
Malik is proud of the grand finale. He heard that the lady who hired him was some kind of famous food blogger—Malik’s mother follows her—so he threw in a couple of extra kits for free. He lights them with precision not only for safety but for perfect timing until there’s one sustained blowout of light and color, spirals and blossoms, rings and crowns, whistles and bangs. Pop-pop-pop-pop! Malik loves the sounds, he loves the smell of cordite, but most of all, he loves hearing people ooh and aah—and seeing their briefly illuminated expressions of wonder.
That’s it, Brooke thinks, Dru-Ann thinks, and Tatum thinks when the sky goes dark. It’s over.
They head inside, carrying empty popcorn bowls and wineglasses.
Tatum shakes the blankets out and folds them. In less than twelve hours, she’ll know.
On the deck, Gigi starts stacking dirty plates and tossing pizza crusts into the empty guacamole bowl.
“No!” Hollis shouts at her. “Stop it!”
Hollis’s voice is so sharp, so fierce, that Gigi nearly drops what she’s holding. Very gently, she sets the plates down.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
The other women have frozen in place. Brooke takes in Hollis’s livid expression; her eyes are clamped on Gigi.
“Holly?” Dru-Ann says. “Are you okay? Gigi was just trying to help.”
Gigi’s guts turn to liquid. Here it comes, she thinks. The big dramatic confrontation at the end of the weekend. The real fireworks. The grand freaking finale. Don’t defend Gigi! Hollis will say. She was screwing my husband! She was his mistress! They met in Atlanta! San Francisco! Madrid! Rome!
Instead, Hollis seems to snap back to her senses; whatever force was holding her loosens its grip. “Forgive me,” she says. Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m just not ready for this to be over.”
“I don’t know about everyone else,” Brooke says. “But I’ll remember this weekend for the rest of my life.”
“You spoiled us, sis,” Tatum says. “Thank you for letting me live like a summer person for a few days.”
“It was exactly the escape that I needed,” Dru-Ann says. “Thank you, Holly.”
Gigi wants to offer her own tribute to Hollis, but she’s too afraid to speak. When it’s clear she’s not going to say anything, Brooke jumps back in. Thank God for Brooke, Gigi thinks, and her aversion to awkward silences.
“You must be so proud of yourself, Hollis,” Brooke says. “It all went so smoothly!”
The ladies drift off to their rooms in the opposite order that they came into Hollis’s life. Gigi excuses herself first. (Hollis can’t deny the relief she feels when Gigi says good night.) Brooke retires soon after. Then Dru-Ann hugs both Hollis and Tatum good night, and Hollis blinks. What kind of magic happened aboard the Endeavor? she wonders. Those two seem almost like… friends?
This leaves Hollis and Tatum alone.
We end where we started, Hollis thinks. She and Tatum dry the wineglasses and set them back in the cabinet; Hollis wipes down the countertops and sets up a fresh pot of coffee to brew in the morning.
She says, “Kyle told me about the biopsy, Tay. When you went to the bathroom during breakfast yesterday.”
Tatum nods slowly. She isn’t surprised, Kyle McKenzie hasn’t managed to keep a secret once in his entire life. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I just… I’m scared… I don’t want to end up like my mom. The diagnosis, the chemo, and then… well, and then I’m dead.” She looks at Hollis; she’s frankly too terrified to cry. “I don’t want to die, Holly.”
Hollis gathers Tatum up in her arms. “You aren’t going anywhere, Tatum McKenzie, do you hear me? I know you’re scared, but you won’t be alone. I’m staying on Nantucket through the fall this year. I’m thinking about selling the house in Wellesley and moving back permanently.”
Should Tatum let herself get excited about this? She imagines calling Hollis to go see a movie at the Dreamland in the middle of February. She envisions Downyflake breakfasts and afternoons lying by Hollis’s bougie-ass pool. Hell, Tatum will even take up yoga if she can have the greatest friend of her life returned to her.
“Really?” Tatum asks.
“Really,” Hollis says. “Does Kyle have any room for me on the McKenzie Heating and Cooling softball team?”
“As a matter of fact,” Tatum says, “we need a pitcher.” She laughs and shakes her head. “I’m going to bed. I find out the biopsy results in the morning.”
“Will you be able to sleep tonight?” Hollis asks.
“Hell yes,” Tatum says. “I’m exhausted.”
Hollis kisses Tatum on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, sis.”
The person who has a hard time sleeping is Hollis. At midnight, Henny comes strolling into the kitchen—she can be a night owl—and plops at Hollis’s feet as Hollis opens her laptop and goes to the Hungry with Hollis website. She has promised her subscribers a full accounting of the Five-Star Weekend, but how does she begin to describe what happened? A part of her, of course, would love to tell everyone the truth: Gigi Ling, the woman Hollis chose from the site’s very ranks, turned out to be her husband’s mistress. What would Molly Beardsley or Bailey Ruckert say to that? There would be outrage, indignation. Only a very few among Hollis’s followers would even understand forgiveness; no one would expect it. They would expect Hollis to kick Gigi out on her perfect ass.
Hollis recalls Brooke’s words. She types: It all went so smoothly!
As she’s deleting this line—she can’t lie like that; the weekend was so filled with drama someone could write a novel about it—her phone buzzes with a text. Henny raises her head.
“I know, right?” Hollis says. “Who’s texting me at midnight?”
It’s Jack: I just made it back home. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. It was good to see you, Holly berry.
Hollis writes: It was good to see you too.