The afternoon sun beats down as Harper sips at her glass of wine and Ramsay does the Times crossword puzzle in his chair. Harper is lying across the blanket reading Valley of the Dolls, a book she found on Tabitha’s shelves that has Eleanor’s name written in pencil inside the front cover. Harper has never read it, but she knows it was splashy and scandalous in its day, and part of the joy of reading it is imagining Eleanor’s shock—and possibly her delight—at the sex and the pills. So many pills!
Ramsay looks up from his puzzle. “Myanmar, to JFK. Five letters.”
“Burma,” Harper says without looking up.
“Look at you!” Ramsay says.
“You’d never know it, but I had a very expensive education,” Harper says. “Winsor, then Tulane.”
“Tulane?” Ramsay says. “Impressive.”
“Not so impressive,” Harper says. “I barely graduated. I pretty much majored in shots at Pat O’Brien’s.”
“You’ve never told me what you do for a living,” Ramsay says.
“Until recently, I delivered packages for a Mickey Mouse operation called Rooster Express,” she says. “Before that, I did it all: ice cream scooper, cocktail waitress, landscaper, drug mule.”
Ramsay laughs, and Harper goes back to her book.
When Ramsay fills his glass with the last of the rosé, he settles down on the towel next to Harper. Harper immediately checks on Ainsley; she’s still snoring away on her towel. Harper has forgotten how long and deeply teenagers can sleep. Fish is dozing in the shade behind Ramsay’s chair.
“I’ve had enough sun,” Ramsay says.
He is too close to Harper. She sits up. “I could actually use some sun, I think.”
“You don’t have to get up,” Ramsay says. He reaches out for her blindly—his glasses are off—and he ends up grabbing her thigh. It takes her by surprise, and she responds by swatting at him. It’s meant to be a get-your-hands-off-me swat, but it ends up being more playful than stern. The little bit of wine she’s had has gone to her head, and the next thing she knows, she and Ramsay are tussling on the blanket. She tries to wrestle away but finds herself with her hands pinned over her head, Ramsay’s face hovering above hers.
“Ramsay,” she says. “Don’t.” She gets purposefully to her feet. Fish barks.
Ramsay holds his hands up. “Whoa,” he says. “Talk about mixed signals.”
Has she been sending mixed signals? If she has, it has been unintentional. She should never have agreed to come to the beach with Ramsay.
Harper stares at him, at a loss for words. Ramsay is a lovely and authentic person. She loves the buttoned-up order of him, the preppy clothes, the horn-rimmed glasses, his soothing manner, and his earnest desire to help. He is Clark Kent and Superman, or he has been until now. Now he’s just a man on the make. There is no way Harper is going to let anyone else get close to her, least of all Tabitha’s ex-boyfriend.
“You said earlier that you don’t know anything about me. And you don’t, really. I realize that I look just like Tabitha, and it must be disconcerting to discover that we’re so different—opposite, even.” She maintains eye contact with Ramsay, though it’s hard; his face is about to crumple with dejection. She looks at Ainsley’s chest rising and falling with breaths of ocean air, then she watches the encroaching and retreating of the waves. This is not her island. This is someplace she is visiting. Borrowing, even. “I need you to believe me when I say that the last thing I need is another boyfriend.”
Ramsay, to his credit, asks the right question. “What do you need?”
Harper gives him a small, sad smile. “A friend friend,” she says. Fish barks. “A human friend.”
“I’m in,” Ramsay says.
AINSLEY
She meets Caylee at the corner of Broad and Water Streets at eight thirty in the morning on Wednesday for breakfast. Caylee greets her with an enthusiastic hug and a kiss on the cheek, as though she is a sorority sister or a soul mate, and Ainsley stands up a little straighter.
She worked with Caylee on Monday, and although Caylee had been civil, even pleasant with Ainsley, there had been a distant reserve—or so Ainsley thought: no chatter, no confidences shared. Ainsley worried that Caylee no longer found her worthy of her friendship or tutelage. Ainsley had let her down. How had she so severely misread Caylee? Caylee was a good person in a cool body, whereas Emma Marlowe was a bad person in a cool body. Caylee had just come from church and wanted to stop by with flowers for Ainsley as a gesture of solidarity; she had been wearing the Roxie because it was appropriate for church and it was promoting the brand she worked for. Ainsley shudders when she thinks of how disappointed Caylee must have been to see Ainsley holding the vodka—which she had, indeed, stolen from Eleanor’s house. And then she had told Caylee to get off her property, which is something you say when you’re five years old.
Ainsley realizes she needs to clean up her act or she’s going to lose everyone close to her. Tuesday was Caylee’s day off, and Ainsley worked with Aunt Harper, but on Tuesday night, Ainsley sent Caylee a text that said: Are we still on for breakfast tomorrow?
Caylee had responded immediately: You bet.
Being “downtown”—and, yes, Ainsley knows that four square blocks of Nantucket hardly qualify as a downtown, but it’s what she has grown up with—used to be fun. Now it’s a place filled with pitfalls. Ainsley could bump into anyone from school at any moment, which is why she has kept her trajectory simple: home, work, home. She hasn’t been into Force Five to try on bikinis; she hasn’t shopped for earrings at Jessica Hicks; she hasn’t gone to the Juice Bar for ice cream. But when Caylee threads her arm through Ainsley’s, it’s like protection. Ainsley lets Caylee lead her across Broad Street and up the stairs of a Victorian house.
“Ainsley?”
Ainsley swivels her head around. Teddy is standing on the porch of the house, wearing a uniform of khaki pants and a white polo emblazoned with the name of the property: 21 Broad.
“What are you doing here?”
Wait. Ainsley is discombobulated. Caylee said they were going to some secret place for breakfast, and now they’re standing on the front porch of the hotel where Teddy works. It’s going to look like she’s stalking him. Ainsley takes half a step back, but Caylee holds her fast.
“We’ve come for breakfast,” Caylee says. “I’ve been invited by the owner.”