Tabitha drives down Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs, past a place called the Ritz that advertises LIVE MUSIC TONIGHT and emits the mouthwatering smell of char-grilled burgers.
Burgers. Live music. Tabitha will drop her things off at Billy’s and come back to the Ritz for dinner. Even thinking about this makes her feel like a new person.
Billy’s house really is bad. It reeks of cigarettes and dog—Tabitha shudders, imagining Fish peeing and shedding all over the carriage house—and the whole thing is shabby, stale, outdated, and ugly. Billy always made a good living, but he never invested any of it in his domicile. The furniture would be at home circled around a hobo campfire. The recliner—ugh! The kitchen—ick!
Tabitha is nothing if not organized. She wanders the first floor, making notes about what she would do if Harper agrees: pull up carpet, refinish floors, gut kitchen (despite the fact that she doesn’t cook, it has always been Tabitha’s dream to renovate a kitchen), paint everything, get a new toilet and sink for the powder room, buy new light fixtures (it looks as though Billy has salvaged only the most hideous fixtures from his twenty years on this island and installed them in his own house), and order brand-new furniture. (Houzz! Wayfair! One Kings Lane! Tabitha has scoured these websites late into the night for years, dreaming of the imaginary rooms she would someday curate.)
Upstairs, she appraises the bedrooms—her father’s and the lavender room that used to be Harper’s; the Hootie & the Blowfish poster is still on the wall. The third bedroom, Tabitha’s old room, still has the god-awful beige wall-to-wall carpeting, but the walls have been painted light blue. What color was it when Tabitha used to stay here so long ago? She doesn’t remember. The window over the neatly made full-size bed looks out on the backyard. At this time of day, the room is the recipient of bountiful golden sunlight. Billy could easily have used it as his office instead of the dining table downstairs. Or, as in other homes, the room might have held an underutilized piece of exercise equipment or cast-off furniture. But it’s clean and empty except for the bed, as though it has been waiting for her to come back.
She closes her eyes, and tears leak out. I’m here, Daddy, she thinks. I’m here now.
Tabitha did some research: Billy’s bank account holds ninety-two thousand dollars. To do what she envisions, she will have to use all that and tap into her own reserves. This is a little scary, considering that Ainsley is heading to college in two years, but Tabitha will pay herself back out of the proceeds from the sale, and, since she’s doing all the work, she will pay herself a salary. All she needs is for Harper to agree. Harper is against renovating because Harper is timid and unimaginative. She doesn’t understand what Tabitha is capable of.
Before she heads out for dinner, Tabitha realizes that she needs to call Ainsley and Harper and tell them she’s here.
Ainsley doesn’t answer her cell phone, and neither does Harper. Well, that makes sense. The boutique stays open late on Friday nights, and they should both be at work. She calls the boutique, but no one answers. Tabitha puzzles over this and gets a bad feeling. Then, a second later, Meghan calls from her cell phone. She is in the storage room—Tabitha can tell just by the way her voice reverberates off the concrete floors.
“Tabitha?” Meghan says.
“Can I talk to my daughter, please?” Tabitha says. “Or my sister?”
“Um,” Meghan says. “They’re busy.”
“Busy?” Tabitha says. She assumes this is a euphemism for They cut out of work early so they could have cocktails at the Gazebo. She starts to tremble with anger and frustration. She should never have left Ainsley in Harper’s care.
“They’re with customers,” Meghan says.
“Both of them?” Tabitha says.
“Both of them,” Meghan says. “We’re slammed right now.”
“Slammed?” Tabitha says. This sounds like a snow job. In all the years she has been running the boutique, she would never have described it as slammed. It’s not a slammed kind of place, despite Tabitha’s efforts to diversify the inventory. The ERF boutique is similar to the art galleries in town; it’s for interested and serious buyers only. And Eleanor refuses to put anything on sale. Sale means “dirty” in French, and that’s exactly what Eleanor thinks of the word. It’s dirty. Every ERF piece evokes a classic timelessness, a quality that should never be discounted. Every once in a while, a group of well-heeled women will come in off someone’s enormous yacht and indulge in competitive shopping, but that kind of behavior pretty much petered out when the economy failed in 2008. “So you’re telling me that they’re both there but that they’re too busy to come to the phone?”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Meghan says. “And I was in the middle of helping someone as well when you called the store line.” She pauses, and Tabitha thinks she hears music, voices; she hears a dog bark. A dog? Surely she’s mistaken. “So I’d better hang up…”
“Okay,” Tabitha says. She is still suspicious, but her stomach is rumbling, and she’s thinking about the burgers and live music in her future. She should ask about Meghan’s pregnancy, but she doesn’t want the answer to ruin her night. As long as Meghan is in charge, Tabitha doesn’t have to worry that there’s a dog in the store or that merchandise has been put on sale or that any other protocols are being broken. Once Meghan goes into labor, it will be another story. “Have one of them call me as soon as she’s free, please. Either. Both.”
“You got it,” Meghan says. She sounds eager to end the call.
Tabitha stares at her phone. Should she worry about the store? she wonders. She probably should, but she doesn’t want to. She’s off to the Ritz.
Going out by herself in a strange town is an unfamiliar experience, but rather than being self-conscious, Tabitha is energized. She has tried to dress down—white AG Stilts and a pink-and-orange Trina Turk halter top—and she put her hair in a ponytail and went light on the makeup in an attempt to convey that this is no big deal.
From the outside, the Ritz Café looks like a dive. Does Tabitha care? Is she going to be a snob about the establishment? No. She enters with a smile fastened securely to her face, her best accessory.
The bar is dark and smoky and completely mobbed. Tabitha nearly turns around—back to the safety of her FJ40, back to Vineyard Haven, back to Billy’s house. And then tomorrow, back to Nantucket. But she hears the strum of a guitar, and she turns to see a guy in jeans and a Mocha Mott’s T-shirt sitting on a stool behind a microphone. The blackboard behind him says: THE VINEYARD’S OWN FRANKLIN PHELPS. The Vineyard’s own Franklin Phelps is around Tabitha’s age and incredibly hot. He has dark shaggy hair and big brown eyes, and he rests his guitar casually over one knee. When the Vineyard’s own Franklin Phelps sees Tabitha, he waves, and she thinks, He knows me!
But then she gets it.