That kiss, she thinks. If Kevin Dixon hadn’t come patrolling, she might have wished she’d read that “Sex and the Widow” article.
But what she had with Jack this weekend was just enough. She can now go back to stalking him online.
Guess what? he texts.
What? she thinks. A part of her wants him to say he’s actually outside on their beach, waiting for her to grab a blanket and meet him.
She types: ????
I’ll be back on Nantucket the first week in October. We could go scalloping together.
You just want me to show you my dad’s secret spot, Hollis types.
I’ve waited a long time, Jack says. So is it a date?
Hollis smiles. Wild horses, she types.
Then she tells Henny good night and goes to bed.
51. Happily Ever After
Gigi wakes up with the first birdsong, though it’s barely light out. She gets dressed, packs her final things, strips the sheets off the bed, and piles them with the towels. No one will say she wasn’t a considerate houseguest.
She gets an alert that her Uber is five minutes away, and she decides she’ll wait at the end of the driveway. More than anything, she wants to make a clean exit; she can’t manage any kind of goodbye.
To that end, she very quietly leaves her room and tiptoes past Brooke’s door to the kitchen. Gigi gets lucky; the dog is nowhere to be seen.
She smells coffee and notices that Hollis has left out to-go cups, along with almond milk and raw sugar. The woman thinks of everything. Just as Gigi is securing the top on her coffee she hears the whisper of bare feet on a wooden floor. Hollis appears from down the hall.
Gigi’s heart free-falls. She was so close.
“Hey,” Gigi says. Hollis is wearing a Harvard Medical School T-shirt. Her enormous diamond engagement ring sparkles in the light coming through the window.
“Are you leaving?” Hollis asks.
“Yes,” Gigi says. “My Uber is nearly here.” She pauses, wondering how to make this not-agony for both of them. “Thank you, Hollis. For everything.”
Hollis stares at Gigi, then shakes her head. “I wish I didn’t think you were so cool,” she says. “That would make this a lot easier.”
Gigi nods. “I feel the exact same way.”
The Fifty Shades of White suite is closest to the kitchen, so Tatum hears Hollis, Brooke, and Dru-Ann as they chatter away: The coffee is ready; Take a to-go cup; Does anyone want granola?; This is the fruit salad that refuses to die; Is Gigi gone already?
Henny barks.
Dru-Ann says, “You know what was so funny? Henrietta definitely had beef with Gigi.”
“I don’t understand why, though,” Brooke says. “Gigi was just so great. And you didn’t even really know her, Hollis. She could have been some wacko.”
This is met with a beat of silence.
Then Tatum hears Caroline join the fun. “I booked the earlier flight. I can’t wait to get back to New York and edit the footage; I think it’s going to be really good, and the interviews are the best part.”
“Am I going to see these interviews at some point?” Hollis asks.
This, too, is met with silence.
“I’ll send it to all of you once I finish,” Caroline eventually says. “Is anyone headed to the airport?”
“Me,” Dru-Ann says. “My driver is here. Get your things, sugar.”
Tatum checks her phone; it’s ten minutes to eight. She has a text from Kyle: Should I wait at home so I can be here when you call the doctor?
No, Tatum says. I’ll call when I know. And I’ll see you after work.
But you are calling, right?
Yes, babe.
I love you, Mrs. McKenzie, he texts.
Tatum hears footsteps and the thumping of luggage on the front porch. There’s the sound of car doors closing, a trunk, the crunch of tires over the shells of Hollis’s driveway. Goodbye to Caroline and Dru-Ann. Tatum closes her eyes and tries to achieve some kind of Zen, but her mental clock is ticking. In a few minutes she’ll know.
Tatum hears Brooke say, “I never gave you your hostess gift. It’s a scented candle from the Christmas Tree Shop. I think my gift is going to be not giving it to you.”
Hollis laughs and Tatum thinks, Good move. Irina gave all her employees off-brand scented candles for the holidays last year, and Tatum’s powder room still smells like coconut tanning oil.
Brooke says, “There’s something else I want to tell you, Hollis.”
“Please don’t worry about what happened with Electra,” Hollis says. “She was just seeking attention, as usual.”
“It’s not that,” Brooke says. “I wanted you to know that I’ve realized…” She laughs, nervous. “I mean, this is going to come as a huge shock, but yeah, I’ve realized… that I’m gay.”
Whoa! Tatum thinks. This weekend has had no shortage of zingers. Brooke is gay!
Hollis stammers for a second. “W-wow, okay, not what I was expecting… but Brooke, you know I have only ever wanted you to find happiness.”
There’s some more conversation. Brooke is a little weepy; she’s going to tell her husband and kids when she gets home. Tatum is tempted to go out to the kitchen to give Brooke a hug herself; this is a major thing to come to terms with at their age, good for her, she should leave the jerky husband, find some hot new chick, and start over.
Brooke has a ferry to catch, her Lyft is pulling in; she and Hollis say goodbye and then the house is quiet. Tatum hears Hollis ask the dog if she wants to go for a walk.
Tatum gets out of bed, creeps to the window, and watches Hollis and Henrietta head down the hydrangea-lined driveway.
It’s now three minutes past eight.
Tatum sits on the edge of the bed. Her stomach makes a squelching noise. Should she try to use the bathroom? No, just call already, she thinks.
The call is picked up on the first ring. “This is Dr. Constable.”
“Good morning, this is Tatum McKenzie?” Tatum clears her throat. “You left a message on Thursday morning saying my biopsy results were in?”
“Oh, hello, Tatum, yes, sorry I missed you.”
Tatum can’t speak; she’s holding her breath. She hears Dr. Constable shuffling papers. Files? She’s looking for the results? She can’t remember?
Dr. Constable breathes out in a long stream. “Well, the results weren’t what we’d…”
Tatum’s thoughts spiral. It’s the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two runners on, Nantucket is up by one run. If she had it to do over, she would not have dropped the damn ball.
She would have taken lunch shifts at the Lobster Trap and spent every night with Dylan when he was growing up.
She would have come out to Squam Road the past however many years for dinner when Hollis invited her.
Kyle, she thinks. Dylan. O-Man. And Holly. Her best friend, whom she’s just gotten back. Tatum has never let a lot of people get close to her, but she’s had the best people.
And she’s had the best place: Nantucket Island. Tatum’s mind rolls over her favorite beaches—Steps and Ladies and Smith’s Point. It cruises over the moors; she loves the hike through the woods to Jewel Pond and the view from Altar Rock. Every Fourth of July weekend, Tatum makes Kyle drive around Sconset so she can get pictures of the cottage roses; the entire village blooms with them, it’s like something from a storybook. Tatum thinks about sitting on a bench on Main Street in April when the town emerges from its winter hibernation—the trees are budding, storefronts are opening, but it’s still just locals. Tatum knows every single person who passes by.
Nantucket, too, has been the love of her life.
“… feared,” Dr. Constable says. “The biopsy was negative.”
“What?” Tatum says. She’s confused. Negative in this context is good, right?
“The biopsy was negative. It’s just a cyst, nothing to worry about,” Dr. Constable says. “Though due to your family history, we have to be vigilant. Keep an eye on things. But for today, good news.”
Tatum hangs up the phone, and as she exhales, tears fall. Without thinking, she pulls on her cutoffs and her Tretorns and runs out to the front porch.
“Holly!” she calls out. “Holly!”
Hollis and Henrietta have only made it past the first few hydrangea bushes, and when Hollis hears Tatum call her name, she drops Henny’s leash and runs back to the house.
Tatum comes charging down the steps. She’s crying, but it’s the right kind of crying, Hollis can tell. Hollis grabs her friend and they hug and jump up and down. Anyone who saw them might think they’d just won ten million dollars in the lottery.
But, oh, Tatum and Hollis think, it’s so much better than that.
Epilogue: Nantucket
By midweek, chatter about Hollis Shaw’s Five-Star Weekend has subsided, although those of us who follow the Hungry with Hollis blog are still patiently waiting for Hollis to post the recipes like she promised. The sour cream and roasted onion dip! The cilantro-and-lime-marinated swordfish! The Paloma sugar cookies!