Dutch runs a hand over his shaved head and silently begs the young woman not to disclose how she knows him. It was Dutch Marlowe who grabbed Caylee’s perfect peach of an ass, causing her to unload a Jack and Coke in his lap. She had then been fired by Shorty, the manager at the Straight Wharf. Shorty hadn’t wanted to fire Caylee. She was a tireless worker with a great personality—a winning combination in the service industry, where so often you get either one or the other—and he was 100 percent sure that Dutch had grabbed Caylee’s ass. But unfortunately, Shorty had no choice. He was a regular at the Wednesday night poker game at Dutch’s house, and he was into Dutch for forty-five hundred dollars.
Dutch, as we all know, is a person with absolutely no conscience, but he had felt guilty about getting Caylee fired. He hadn’t meant to pinch her ass, meaning it hadn’t been premeditated, but she had been out from behind the bar a lot that night, waving her tush around in those white jeans like a matador waving a red flag in front of a bull. What could Dutch say? He was a man, horny all the time and lonely besides.
But still, he doesn’t love the idea of Emma hearing that her father is a lecherous jerk.
Caylee snarls. “Your dad?” she says. She takes a deep breath and prepares to tell Emma the truth about her father, but in the end she just shakes her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
MARTHA’S VINEYARD
The island is so crowded in July that we fear it might tip over—down island will nose-dive, upending Chilmark and Aquinnah. The population hits ninety thousand, then ninety-one thousand. The steamship sits so low in the water—weighted down with Jeeps, Land Rovers, Hummers—that it reminds us of a pregnant woman after the baby drops. State Beach is parked out by nine in the morning; the Port Hunter has a two-hour wait for a table. The line at the Bite has 111 people in it at five thirty, which increases to 147 people at six thirty. There is an average of fifteen car accidents a day; six of these involve taxis.
And yet who among us hasn’t longed for these summer days? Indians and IODs tack and jibe in Edgartown harbor, tennis balls hit the baseline at the Field Club, eliciting our best John McEnroe imitations: That ball was in! Chalk flew up all over the place! Daughters of the scions of industry tan their breasts on the shores of Lucy Vincent. Authors come nightly to read at Bunch of Grapes—Charles Bock, Jane Green, Richard Russo. Skip Gates rides his tricycle out to Katama; Keith Richards takes his grandchildren to pick blueberries at the patch off of Middle Road; Noah Mayhew, the reservationist at the Covington, becomes so overwhelmed by calls from demanding and entitled people that he quits and moves to an ashram in Oregon.
Upon hearing this news about her great-nephew, Noah, Indira Mayhew, who has worked as the Chappy ferry master for nearly forty years aboard the On Time II, thinks seriously about following suit, although she has never practiced yoga.
With all this happening, how does anyone have time to figure out what’s going on at Billy Frost’s house? Daggett Avenue is an average, year-round part of Tisbury that falls beneath most people’s notice—and from the curb, the house looks the same. If someone had been staking out the street—selling lemonade on the corner or casing the neighborhood with criminal intent—he might have noticed Franklin Phelps’s truck driving around the neighborhood, and further snooping would have revealed Franklin’s truck parked in Billy’s backyard. But no one is staking out the street.
Franklin has been careful to hire subcontractors from off island: the electrician hails from Falmouth, the plumber from Mashpee. These guys don’t know who from what as far as Vineyard gossip is concerned; they just come in and do the work. The only person Franklin trusts—and, for this project, needs—is Tad Morrissey. Tad is Franklin’s right-hand man. He can do anything—tile, plaster, cabinetry—and he does so without complaining. Also, despite being Irish, he’s a man of few words. A human vault. Franklin doesn’t have to explain the fine print to Tad, but he does it anyway: My sister cannot find out that we are renovating Billy Frost’s house. Do you understand?
Tad nods with mouth full of nails.
Franklin worries that someone saw him with Tabitha that first night at the Ritz and reported back to Sadie, thinking Tabitha was Harper, but by the following day, when he hadn’t heard about it, he figured he was safe. He had been clear with Annalisa at the Outermost Inn: I’m bringing in Tabitha Frost, Harper’s twin sister, and nobody can know. Franklin has known Annalisa since elementary school. He told her he trusted her with his life, hoping that would be enough to ensure her silence.
A few days after Franklin starts seeing Tabitha and working full-time on her house, he is summoned to his parents’ home in Katama for dinner. His mother doesn’t use a cell phone or a computer, so she tapes an index card to the front door of his cottage, on Grovedale Road in Oak Bluffs, that says: DINNER MONDAY 6:00 P.M. Franklin is lucky he even sees this minimalist invitation; he has spent every night with Tabitha at Billy’s house. He stops at home only to get clothes and, finally, to grab his electric razor.
He sighs. He can’t, obviously, take Tabitha to his parents’ house for dinner. All hell will break loose.
All hell is going to break loose anyway, he realizes. But he can stave it off a little while longer.
And in fact things at the Phelpses’ that evening start out fine. Tabitha accepts the news that Franklin is eating with his parents with equanimity. She says she’s going to stay home and paint the powder room a shade of silvery gray called Paul Revere’s Ride. Franklin approves: Tabitha’s taste is impeccable, which is to say, it matches his own.
The elder Phelpses are in good spirits, as ever. Al Phelps is a favorite with nearly all of us because he was such a dedicated and benevolent principal during his tenure at the high school, and now, in retirement, he runs errands to Shirley’s and Mocha Mott’s seemingly just so he can spread goodwill. He is famous for buying his former students a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, Lydia is an active member of the Excellent Point book group, and she volunteers each week at the Island Food Pantry.
Both the elder Phelpses embrace their son. Lydia runs a hand over Franklin’s now smooth face.
“I’m glad you shaved,” she says. “Christine Velman told me she saw you stopped at the Barnes Road intersection and that you were growing a beard.”
“No,” Franklin says. He shakes his head. If Christine Velman reported back to his mother about the state of his facial hair, how long will it be before someone tells Lydia that Franklin is dating the twin sister of the woman who betrayed Sadie—and, worse, is working on their father’s house?
Al Phelps claps his son on the back. “Can I buy you a beer?”
“Please,” Franklin says.