Meghan is the most miserable pregnant person Harper has ever seen. It doesn’t help that the island has been experiencing record high temperatures and that Meghan is four days past due. And yet still the poor creature comes to work at the boutique—because the boutique has air-conditioning and her house does not. She also wants to make sure Harper and Ainsley learn everything about the store before she goes into labor. Harper gets the feeling Meghan is saying a permanent good-bye; she has the giddy air of escape. But maybe that’s just the hormones.
The Nantucket boutique is different from the Palm Beach store because, in addition to selling the Eleanor Roxie-Frost label, it sells Milly, Tibi, DVF, Nanette Lepore, Parker, Alice and Olivia, and Rebecca Taylor.
“This was Tabitha’s idea, and she really had to push your mother to do it,” Meghan confides. “I think Tabitha was growing weary of all ERF all the time.”
“Tell me about it,” Harper says. Working at the boutique is part of the deal, she knows, but she is, quite possibly, the least qualified woman in America to do so. In the twenty years she’s lived on the Vineyard, she has spent a sum total of two or three minutes thinking about what to wear. Now, as she browses the racks and shelves of dresses and skirts, pants, blouses, summer-weight sweaters, halter tops, shorts, blazers, sandals, belts, scarves, and the impulse-buy display of lacy thong underwear and stick-on bras, she sees that maybe she has missed out. The prints, the silks, the sequins, the feathers—it’s all alluring, sexy, chic.
“I’m going to be frank with you,” Meghan says. Meghan’s dishwater blond hair is pulled back in a sweaty bun, and her pale face is puffed like a marshmallow. Her fingers and ankles are swollen. She is wearing a stretch maternity dress in kelly green, which makes her look like a vegetable—a pea or a brussels sprout. “This store has a bad reputation.”
“How so?” Harper says.
“People think we’re snooty,” Meghan says. “Because we are snooty. Your mother and your sister train us to sniff out who’s buying big and who’s not, and we are to treat the customers accordingly. Tabitha doesn’t like browsers, and she positively hates tryer-oners.”
Ainsley nods emphatically. “She complains about them all the time. The people who try on eight or nine different outfits but buy nothing.”
“There are a couple of people she’s banned from the store,” Meghan says.
Harper laughs. “Is that even legal?”
“No,” Ainsley and Meghan say together.
Meghan says, “She doesn’t let men go into the dressing rooms because one time a couple had oral sex in there.”
“The girl was loud. Everyone heard,” Ainsley says.
“Good God,” Harper says.
“Men have to stay in this part of the store,” Meghan says. She points to two leather wing chairs over by the three-way mirror. “These are the appraising chairs.”
“Or they can stand,” Ainsley says. “But not within peeking distance of the dressing rooms.”
“Classical music only,” Meghan says. “I tried Billie Holiday one day…”
“Mom blew her stack,” Ainsley says.
“There is one piece of good news,” Meghan says. Then she places her hands under her prodigious belly and groans. “Braxton Hicks.”
“Oh, dear,” Harper says. Harper is getting a funny feeling about Meghan. She’s like a champagne cork about to pop.
“The good news is that Mary Jo’s son and daughter-in-law have finally intervened. They’re moving her to a retirement community in Maryland, closer to them.”
“Thank God,” Ainsley says.
“So you get to hire someone new!” Meghan says.
“Or we can just do it ourselves,” Harper says.
Meghan groans again. “You can’t possibly do it yourselves,” she says. “You’ll lose your mind—I guarantee it. Place an ad and find someone with retail expertise. It doesn’t have to be in fashion. Someone responsible but relaxed, firm but friendly. That’s what this store needs to become—relaxed and friendly. A place where you’re welcomed and remembered and talked to pleasantly, even if you do come in wearing culottes with Skechers. It’s up to you guys to change the reputation of the Eleanor Roxie-Frost boutique on Nantucket. Before it goes under.”
“Under?” Harper says.
“Sales stink,” Meghan says. “That’s another thing Tabitha seems to have her head in the sand about. This store has been losing money for years.”
For the first time in practically ever, Harper feels a pang of sympathy for her mother and sister. In so many ways, they are their own worst enemies. It looks like it’s up to her and Ainsley to rescue the store. She can just picture Tabitha and Eleanor shuddering at this thought.
“I’ll give it a shot,” she says.
It’s nearly the end of school. Ainsley has only one half day left, which she is already pressuring Harper to let her skip.
“Don’t you like the last day?” Harper asks. “Don’t you all sign one another’s yearbooks?”
Ainsley looks at her feet. She’s wearing a pair of fancy flip-flops decorated with faux jewels—red, turquoise, yellow. The baubles look like gumballs. Harper was excited to see that Tabitha carries more flip-flops like this—Mystique sandals—in the boutique. Harper is going to get a tortoise-shell pair and wear them all summer long.
“Ainsley?”
“What?” Ainsley says. Each day after school she has been more somber and withdrawn than the day before. There have been no rides home with Emma or other friends. Just now, in the shop, she was the most lively she’s been since her trip to the principal’s office. “The half day is pointless. It has something to do with state mandates. No one is going to be teaching. I’d rather be at the boutique.”
“Let me think about it,” Harper says. She squints as she steps out of the cool, fragrant boutique onto the bright, busy street. She misses Edgartown, the Vineyard in general, Reed.
Reed is gone? Harper has done a gut check every day since Rooster told her this. Does she believe Reed has left the Vineyard, and, if so, where did he go? Is he looking for Harper? If he were looking for Harper, where would he go? Where would he think she’d gone?
The circular reasoning addles her.
He would never guess Nantucket. He knows Tabitha lives here, and he knows Harper and Tabitha don’t speak. Furthermore, Vineyarders don’t go to Nantucket and vice versa. It’s like some weird law: you pick one island or the other.
Harper likes caring for Ainsley because it limits the time she has to dwell on such things. “Let’s get ice cream.”
“Pharmacy,” Ainsley says. “Not the Juice Bar. Kids from school will be at the Juice Bar.”
“Pharmacy it is, then,” Harper says.
A bell jingles as they walk in the door of the Nantucket Pharmacy. It’s that kind of charming, old-fashioned place. There’s a Formica lunch counter with vinyl-and-chrome stools. Ainsley and Harper take seats. There’s a man in a shirt and tie sitting at the end of the counter eating a thick tuna-salad sandwich on pumpernickel bread.
“Hey, you!” Ainsley says.
“Hey, Trouble!” The man rises from his seat, and Harper realizes it’s Ramsay, whom she had lunch with the week before. He scoops up Ainsley and hugs her tightly. Ainsley rests her head on Ramsay’s chest and locks her arms behind his back. They are slow to part, and when they do, Harper sees that Ainsley’s eyes are misty.