Swan Song

12. Triple Eight

“I’m sure you’ll love the job,” Kacy says to Coco as they drive out to 888 Pocomo Road. “If you need anything, text me; if it’s an emergency, call. Just because these people have money doesn’t mean they own you. Stand up for yourself. Ask about your days off.” Kacy raises her aviators to the top of her head. “Why do I feel like a helicopter parent dropping her only child off at a faraway college?”

Coco is glad Kacy is doing all the freaking out; it means she doesn’t have to. There’s a version of this summer where she just stays in the Kapenashes’ guest room and bums around the island, jobless, with Kacy. The night before, as they ate fish tacos at the Oystercatcher, their feet in the sand, Kacy made a list of the Nantucket summer things they still had to do: There were at least a dozen beaches to lounge on, afternoons at Cisco Brewers with live music and food trucks, rainy days at either the Whaling Museum or the Dreamland Theater, oysters at Cru, a sunset cruise on the Endeavor, singing around the piano at the Club Car, and dancing at the Chicken Box, followed by a late-night Stubbys run. Of course, living that kind of life required an endless stream of cash, and Coco can’t lose sight of her purpose: her script. She wants—needs—Bull to read it, to believe in it, then give it to the people who can green-light it. Every night before she falls asleep, Coco imagines the announcement in Deadline: “Newcomer Colleen Coyle’s First Script ‘Rosebush’ Sold in Competitive Three-Way Auction.”

Kacy lets Coco play her music as they drive; she chooses Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out” and sings along under her breath.

When Kacy pulls into the long white-shell driveway of 888, Coco feels like she’s standing on a precipice. What is it going to be like, not only working but living with the Richardsons? Will she hate it? Will she love it? She has no idea.

Once they park in front of the house, Kacy unloads Coco’s army-green duffel and hands her the white eyelet dress from the Lovely, which is on a hanger, sheathed in protective plastic.

“Do you want me to stay until you get settled?” Kacy asks.

Yes!Coco thinks. “Oh, I should be fine,” she says. She holds her arms out. “How can I ever thank you?”

“I’ll see you in a couple days,” Kacy says. “Just keep me posted.” She gives Coco a hug, then gets in her Jeep, turns around, and heads back out the driveway, blaring “Summertime Sadness” by Lana Del Rey. Coco smiles. She must have planned that.

Coco climbs the steps to the front porch, feeling like a street urchin straight out of Dickens. She knocks on the door with a conviction she doesn’t feel. She bluffed her way into this job by invoking the name of poor Ms. Geraghty; she’s pretty sure the Richardsons are going to figure out she’s a fraud. Coco might be calling Kacy within the hour to come pick her up.

Coco hears footsteps. She prays that it’s Bull; Coco is better at handling men.

The door swings open—Leslee.

Shit,Coco thinks. She beams. “Hey!” she says. “I hope I’m not too early?”

In Coco’s nightmares, Leslee responds in one of the following ways:

Who are you and what are you doing at my twenty-two-million-dollar home?

Or The cutoffs–T-shirt–and–Chuck Taylors look is appropriate if you’re working as a roadie for the Dirty Heads, but you’re a personal concierge—you should be wearing a pencil skirt, heels, pearls.

Or Bull was drunk/just being polite when he offered you the job; neither of us dreamed you’d take it, but you snapped it up like a half-starved tiger with a T-bone, didn’t you?

Or I saw right through your I’m spending the summer on Nantucket too, actually ploy. You’re a scammer, Colleen. You’re a parasite who lives off people who have money and connections.

Or I’m so sorry but we’ve offered the job to someone who knows the island a little better.

But in reality, Leslee radiates serenity. She’s wearing a white tank and white yoga pants; her long chestnut hair is piled on top of her head; her skin is dewy and glowing; her expression is placid. Coco must have caught her just after child’s pose and a green smoothie. “Good morning, Coco, you’re right on time. Just leave your bag on the porch for now. In a little while, we’ll bring it over to the garage apartment where you’ll be staying. But I’ll hang your—dress?—in the hall closet so it won’t get wrinkled.”

Coco steps inside, closes the door behind her. The air-conditioning feels divine; it’s a hot morning already.

And wow—this house.

The foyer is two stories with a sweeping staircase on either side and a view straight through the house to a screened-in porch and the water beyond. The floor is black-and-white checkerboard; the staircases have curved white railings, and the runners are printed with bright pink peonies and green leaves. In the center of the foyer is a round pedestal table that holds a huge arrangement of actual peonies in every shade of pink. Their scent suffuses the air. Coco stands for a moment, taking it all in, and Leslee says, “Welcome to Triple Eight.”

Coco follows Leslee up the left staircase to the famous party room. It looks like the setting for a Slim Aarons photograph; every detail is midcentury perfection. There’s a lounge area with a low serpentine white sofa that’s scattered with throw pillows in candy colors; mirrored cigar tables; gooseneck lamps; an honest-to-god jukebox; and a parquet dance floor. But the showstopper is a fifteen-foot-long Lucite bar backed by bright pink lacquered shelves. The bar seems to float over the chrome-and-pink-leather stools. Behind the bar is a glass-fronted wine fridge filled with Laurent-Perrier sparkling rosé. Coco does a quick tally—there are forty-two bottles of champagne on display. Nice flex.

Wineglasses in a rainbow of colors line the pink shelves. The overall effect is “Willy Wonka after three martinis, but make it tasteful.” Coco laughs. She can’t believe she met these people at the Banana Deck.

Leslee leads Coco out to an octagonal deck that has views across Nantucket Harbor. Sweeping views, Coco supposes one would say. The golden stretch of Great Point is to the right, and the church steeples of town are in the distance. There’s a majestic yacht on a mooring in front of the property’s narrow beach, a sleek motorboat alongside it. Most of the speedboats Coco has seen are white, but this one has a navy hull and a gleaming mahogany deck. “The big one is Hedonism,” Leslee says. “Bull thinks sailing is elite, but I prefer to go fast, so over the weekend, I bought Decadence.” She points to the speedboat. “It’s an Aquariva Super with dual two-fifties.”

Coco nods like it’s totally normal to impulse-buy a speedboat as though it’s a lip balm by the register at Target. “I mean, yeah, you deserve something of your own.”

Leslee swats Coco’s arm. “You get me!” she says. “I knew it would be good for me to have another woman around! Come on, let me show you the rest of the house.”

Off the other side of the deck is the living room, which Coco can only think of as fifty shades of blue. There’s Delft-blue grass cloth on the walls, a blue-and-white rug patterned to resemble the designs on a Chinese vase, a blue-and-white leopard-print bench, throw pillows in a dozen complementary blues, and an unexpected pop of color—an apple-green lacquered coffee table. Adjacent to the living area is a dining-room table big enough to seat thirty people, with a very cool glass-orb chandelier hanging above it. Finally, they enter the kitchen, and Coco jumps.

Sitting on a stool at the kitchen island drinking coffee is Lamont Oakley.

“Hey!” Coco says. She feels herself flush, partly from the surprise and partly because of Lamont himself, who’s looking all hot and captain-ish in a white button-down and navy shorts. Coco loved her hang with Lamont at Great Point, even if she’d turned out to be the world’s worst surf caster. On his final cast of the day, Lamont caught a striped bass. It wasn’t big enough to keep, but it was his first bass of the season, and Coco was happy to witness it. She took twenty-two million pictures on her phone, then offered to send some to him, and he gave her his cell number. On the drive home, instead of appreciating the view like she probably should have, Coco went through the photos and chose the five best, which she texted to him the second she got a signal. He’d responded a while later with Thanks, it was fun hanging out, see you at 888. This had made Coco so happy that even Kacy noticed. “Why all the smiles?” she asked.

Coco had wanted to ask Kacy about Lamont, but she worried that would be insensitive since Kacy was going through a breakup. Kacy had given Lamont’s bass only a cursory glance, then started packing up.

Coco is about to tell Leslee the story of their serendipitous meeting and describe what a lifesaver Lamont was (Thank god he came along or I might still be out at Great Point) when Lamont strides over to her, hand extended, and says, “Lamont Oakley. Nice to meet you.”

Coco stares at him for a second. Is he kidding?

Leslee tells Lamont, “This is Coco, our new personal concierge.”

Coco shakes Lamont’s hand more aggressively than she typically would have. “Yes, hi there. Lovely to meet you, Lamont.”

“Lamont is our boat captain!” Leslee says. She slips her arm around Lamont’s shoulders and squeezes. “I can’t believe how lucky we got!” The tranquil, centered woman who greeted Coco at the door has vanished, and in her place is the person Coco remembers from the Banana Deck. Coco pictures Leslee’s hand resting on the WAPA dude’s thigh.

Lamont widens his eyes to telegraph, she supposes, that she should keep her mouth shut.

Fine,she thinks. Weird, but fine.

“Coco and I have some business to tend to this morning,” Leslee says. “Would you like to get the boat ready?”

“Of course,” Lamont says. “Pleasure meeting you, Coco.”

Coco can’t help rolling her eyes.

As Leslee takes Coco down to the primary suite, Coco lags a few steps behind, afraid that she’s going to come across Bull in his boxer shorts. Leslee shows off the bedroom: It’s bigger than Coco’s entire house in Rosebush and has sliding glass doors that lead outside to the front lawn and the beach beyond. Leslee opens a door that turns out to be a walk-in closet. There are more clothes in this closet than there were in the Lovely. And there’s an entire wall of shoes—sandals and ballet flats, pumps and strappy stilettos. Has Leslee seen the cobblestones on this island, the brick sidewalks, the deck boards that surround her own house?

Leslee opens a door next to the shoe racks and they step into a dressing room with a bench and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. “I haven’t had sex in here yet, but that is definitely happening,” she says breezily, and Coco thinks, I did not need to know that, thanks. On the other side of the dressing room is Bull’s closet. He has so many beautiful colorful shirts, it’s like that scene in Gatsby. “I’m showing you the closets so you’ll know where to put the dry cleaning.”

The last room Leslee shows off in the primary suite is the bathroom, which is as nice as a spa in a hotel. There are dual vanities, a two-person shower, a soaking tub, a water closet, a steam sauna, and a special area for Leslee to do her hair and makeup, on the counter of which are jars, pots, and tubes from La Mer and Valmont and an ornate bottle of Guerlain perfume. The fattest curling iron Coco has ever seen rests in its own ceramic stand; that must be the secret behind Leslee’s impeccable barrel curls.

Out in the hallway, Leslee stops in front of a digital keypad. “This is the alarm system. Fire, flood, and there’s a chime that goes off anytime someone crosses the threshold of the driveway. You can disarm the alarms with the code eight-eight-eight. I’d like you to turn them off whenever we have a party, of course. If the caterers are making cherries jubilee, I don’t want the fire department showing up. Then after our parties, you’ll have to remember to turn them back on.”

“Very important,” Coco says. She makes a mental note to look up cherries jubilee.

Next they poke their heads into Bull’s study, which has a maritime-museum feel; there’s an enormous model ship in a glass case. Coco peeks at the plaque under the ship: J-BOAT SHAMROCK.

“Is this boat special to Mr. Richardson?” Coco asks.

Leslee laughs and waves a hand. “All this stuff was here when we moved in. The only shamrock that’s special to Bull is the one in his Lucky Charms.”

This gives Coco an opening. “Where is he this morning?”

“Indo,” Leslee says.

Indo?Coco thinks.

“Indonesia,” Leslee says.

“Oh.” Coco had expected Leslee to say he was with his trainer or in town picking up breakfast. “How long will he be away?”

“He has stops in Bali, Lombok, and Irian Jaya, then a big meeting in Jakarta. They’re trying to pass all this new legislation, which would be very bad for Bull’s business, but I doubt it will ever come to fruition.” Leslee winks. “I told Bull he had to get his ass home by Saturday. We can’t let work get in the way of our social life.”

“Obviously not!” Coco says. She’s been here fifteen minutes and already she feels like she needs a shower.

Leslee leads Coco through yet another door into what turns out to be the at-home gym, complete with side-by-side Pelotons, a treadmill, and a full rack of free weights; the room smells like the rubber floor and is as cold as a meat locker. Then Leslee says, “Time to get down to business.” Coco follows her along the hall and they enter a tiny jewel-box library with a fireplace made entirely out of seashells. This could look cutesy and crafty but here it’s a work of art, a showpiece that belongs in a magazine. Coco immediately spies some of her favorite titles on the shelves—This Is How It Always Is, Beautiful Children, Luster.

“Are these your books?” Coco asks. She plucks Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff off the shelf. “How much did you love this?”

Leslee stares at her blankly and Coco puts the book back. Okay, never mind. The books must have come with the house too.

Leslee sits behind an antique escritoire and invites Coco to take the chaise in front of the fireplace.

“I have some things for you,” Leslee says. She hands Coco a white paper shopping bag from, yes, Murray’s Toggery. Coco pulls out a stack of peony-pink polo shirts, size small. Beneath the shirts are several pairs of white linen shorts. Coco blinks. She has never worn shorts made of anything other than denim. She has never voluntarily worn a polo shirt.

“I’m sorry about the uniform,” Leslee says. “It was Bull’s idea. He feels… well, he wants our household staff to wear uniforms. So people know who you are.”

Coco is no stranger to jobs that require uniforms. She had to wear a green gingham dress and a white apron when she worked at Grumpy Garth’s Diner. But for some reason, Coco is caught off guard. She assumed her own clothes would be fine (though who is she kidding; they wouldn’t have been fine at all). While they were standing in Leslee’s closet, Coco had a brief fantasy that Leslee was going to invite her to borrow anything she wanted—after all, Leslee has more clothes than a person could wear in a lifetime. Coco supposes it’s the phrases household staff and so people know who you are that irk her. But what did she expect? She works for the Richardsons; she isn’t their friend.

Leslee pulls a Moleskine notebook from the escritoire’s drawer and hands it to Coco. The moss-green cover is embossed with the initials CC. “I didn’t know your middle name.”

“It’s Marie,” Coco says. She accepts the notebook—the monogram is a thoughtful touch. Leslee hands Coco a slender box that turns out to hold a Montblanc pen.

“Your database,” Leslee says. “Bull and I are hopelessly old-fashioned. We love pen and paper.”

Coco appreciates the heft of the pen; it is, she thinks, a writer’s pen. The gifts have improved her mood.

“Write everything down, please,” Leslee says. “Take notes, make observations, create lists, and check things off. Understood?”

“Understood,” Coco says. “Do you have forms for me to fill out?”

“Forms?”

“Like a W-two?” Coco says. “For my paycheck?”

“No,” Leslee says. “This is a cash job.”

Coco nods slowly, considering this. Part of her is, naturally, thrilled. Cash! But another part of her worries about the IRS. Will they come after her for tax evasion? If Kacy were sitting here acting as Coco’s counsel or conscience, she would disapprove. If the Richardsons aren’t paying Coco properly, how can she be sure they’ll treat her properly? They could, in theory, fire her at a moment’s notice, and she would have no recourse. Does their failing to play by the rules with her salary indicate more widespread improprieties? Everything from the at-home bar to the mahogany deck of the Aquariva appears slick and glossy, but are the underpinnings rotten?

Coco fears that the answer is yes. She’s about to open her mouth to protest when Leslee says, “I know Bull told you thirty-five dollars an hour back in St. John but we’ve decided that the complex and discreet nature of this job deserves a more robust salary, so we’re bumping it up to fifty dollars an hour.”

Coco feels faint. She immediately thinks of her favorite line from the movie Blue Jasmine: “It’s not the money, it’s the money.”

It’s the money,Coco thinks.

“I’d like you to start each day at eight,” Leslee says. “Mornings will typically be busy with errands, afternoons a little lighter. We’ll ask you to work in the evenings when we entertain, and for that, we’ll bump you to time and a half.”

Seventy-five dollars an hour! Coco struggles to keep a straight face, though the imaginary Kacy sitting next to her would like Leslee to clarify what she means by “complex and discreet.”

“A cleaning team will come on Mondays and Fridays,” Leslee says. “But we’ll need you to do light housekeeping. You’ll make our bed every morning, fold our pajamas, put dirty clothes in either the hamper or the dry-cleaning bag. You’ll set up an autopay account at the dry cleaner; I’ll give you my card to do that. You’ll take care of all the provisioning: groceries, produce, alcohol, pharmacy, bakery, florist. You’ll make our dinner reservations—and we always like to have a plan B, because our mood or the weather might change—you’ll pick up our mail from our post office box, open our packages, and make regular trips to the dump with the cardboard because apparently our trash service won’t collect it.”

Coco is madly scribbling in her new notebook: Make bed, pajamas, dry cleaning, alarm code 888, cardboard. But in her head, there’s a different kind of scribbling: Make the Richardsons’ bed? Fold their pajamas? Eww! They’re two grown adults; can’t they fold their own pajamas, and haven’t they heard that making the bed when you wake up is one of the habits of highly successful people?

“Which days will I have off?” Coco asks.

Leslee glances up. “You know, you remind me of myself when I was your age.”

“Seriously?” Coco says. She takes in Leslee’s polished countenance, her ease in this giant, beautiful home on the water. Coco thinks about the house she grew up in: vinyl siding the color of margarine, wall-to-wall carpet, the pond out back with its skin of green algae.

“Seriously,” Leslee says. She studies Coco’s face as though searching for something—traces of her younger self, perhaps. Coco is so unsettled that she forgets what they were just talking about. Something important… it was…

“Days off?” Coco says. The imaginary Kacy sitting next to her approves. Stand up for yourself!

“You won’t have any days off, per se,” Leslee says. “After all, we don’t take days off from living. But I assure you, you’ll have plenty of downtime. You can lie on the beach here, I’m having a hot tub installed in the new garden—”

“I’ll be free to leave the property, though, right?” Coco has a vision of herself chained to Triple Eight like the Rawleys’ Doberman back in Rosebush. “I’d like to see my friends.”

“You’ve made friends here already?” Leslee says. “Are we talking about ‘Susan Geraghty, the librarian’?” She uses air quotes and Coco breaks into a light sweat. Does Leslee know that Ms. Geraghty never set foot on Nantucket?

“I’m friends with Kacy Kapenash,” Coco says. “Her father is the chief of police.”

“How funny!” Leslee says. “I had lunch with her mother yesterday.” She pauses. “How well do you know the Kapenashes?”

“I’ve been staying with them this past week.”

Leslee’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rise almost imperceptibly. “You have?”

There’s a knock on the library door. “Entrez!” Leslee calls out like a character in a play.

Lamont pokes his head in. “The boat is ready to go,” he says. “We have time to zip around for a while before our reservation.”

“Wonderful,” Leslee says. She beams at Coco. “I thought we’d go for a boat ride, then up to the Wauwinet for lunch on the patio.”

“That sounds amazing!” Coco says. The Wauwinet is the bougie place she and Kacy passed on the way to Great Point. Coco doesn’t have anything to wear to a lunch like that… except for her new dress. She hadn’t planned on wearing it so soon, but oh, well. It might not be so bad not having a set day off if her job entails going on boat cruises and having elegant lunches.

“Just let me finish with Coco and change my clothes and I’ll be right out,” Leslee says.

“Take your time—I’m at your disposal,” Lamont says, then closes the door.

Leslee looks at Coco and all but smacks her lips. “I love it when he says that.”

Oh god,Coco thinks. She’s not sure she can stomach watching Leslee throw herself at Lamont all morning.

“I should probably change as well,” Coco says, looking down at her cutoffs.

“Absolutely,” Leslee says. “I hope the shorts fit. I had to guess at sizes.”

Is Coco supposed to wear her uniform to lunch?

Leslee pulls a cardboard box from behind the escritoire. “Your first priority today is to get these delivered.”

Coco peers into the box. It’s filled with peony-pink envelopes. (The pink is becoming a lot, Coco thinks.) The top one is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Addison Wheeler on Polpis Road.

“I thought…” Coco nearly says, I thought we were going on a boat ride and to lunch, but suddenly she understands that the we doesn’t include her. The we is Leslee and Lamont only. “I’ll take these to the post office, then. I’ll need stamps. How are we handling money for things like this?”

“For provisions, you’ll have one of my credit cards,” Leslee says. “I don’t check the statements—I could care less—but of course Bull does.”

Coco nods. “Of course.” Does Leslee think Coco might take her credit card and go on a spending spree around town?

“If you want to buy yourself lunch while you’re on the clock, please do,” Leslee says. “That means a sandwich from Something Natural or a quick stop at NanTaco, not rosé and oysters at Cru.”

Coco can’t keep herself from giving Leslee a look. “I understand reasonable expectations for lunch.”

“Of course you do!” Leslee says, holding her gaze. “It’s just… we don’t really know you. Bull said he checked the references you gave him, but sometimes he tells me he’s done things just to make me feel better when he’s really let them slide. It would be very easy for someone like you to take advantage of us.”

Coco is glad Leslee has just come right out and said it, and what can Coco think but Yes, I am hoping to take advantage of you. Just as the Richardsons will take advantage of Coco: No days off! No reporting of taxes! She would love to tell Leslee that Bull never even asked her for references.

Coco is relieved when Leslee turns her attention back to the box. “No to the post office and stamps, though. I’d like you to deliver these invitations by hand.”

“By hand?” Coco says, thinking, How very Edith Wharton. Coco will knock on doors in her uniform and hand the envelope to the lady of the house or someone on the staff. “All of them?” There must be a hundred envelopes in the box.

“Yes, all of them,” Leslee says. “The party is on Saturday and I don’t trust the U.S. Postal Service to get them anywhere in a timely fashion. People need to clear their calendars. So I’d like it done this morning.” She stands up and Coco follows suit, picking up the box of invitations. “Come with me. I’ll show you your apartment and your car, then you can get going.”

My apartment. My car. This job is like a seesaw,Coco thinks. The lows: no days off, wearing a freaking uniform, and delivering a hundred invitations by hand like she’s a character in The Age of Innocence. The highs: cash money (as long as she doesn’t get in trouble with the IRS; do they bother with poor folks like her?) and the view.

Coco’s new apartment—which is located above a separate two-car garage—is also a high. It’s not as grand as the main house, but it is light and bright and has a coastal-grandmother vibe. The kitchen appliances are stainless steel, and there’s a fresh bouquet of cosmos and black-eyed Susans on the counter. In the living room, there’s a deep sofa in front of a huge television, and Coco has her choice of bedrooms. She takes the one with the water views instead of the one with the walk-in closet. Both rooms have a king-size bed (Coco has only slept in a king-size bed during one-night stands). They’re sheathed in white linens and have a million pillows, like beds in a Nancy Meyers film.

“Who will be in the other bedroom?” Coco asks. A part of her wills Leslee to say “Lamont,” but she’s even happier when Leslee says, “Nobody. This place is all yours.”

Coco can’t believe her luck. She can spread out; stay up all night fine-tuning her script and watching Housewives; no one will bogart her hummus or finish her bag of pita chips; she won’t be subjected to anyone else’s stink in the bathroom or cooking smells or lovemaking noises. Coco has never lived alone. This, she thinks, is the definition of luxury.

She follows Leslee downstairs to the white-shell driveway. Off to the left, a backhoe is clearing out scrub brush. That must be the new garden where the hot tub will go. Leslee presses a button on a remote control; the door to the right garage bay opens, and honestly, it’s like one of the reruns of Let’s Make a Deal that Coco’s mother used to watch on her days off. What’s behind door number one?

In this case, it’s a Land Rover Defender, probably early 1980s, baby blue with a tan top. Coco peers in the open driver-side window. The steering wheel is wood and chrome, the seats are buff leather, and in the back are two sets of jump seats facing each other. It’s the most beautiful vehicle Coco has ever seen.

“Do you drive stick?” Leslee asks.

“I do,” Coco says. She’s afraid to ask if this is her car because this could be a fake-out like the boat ride and lunch.

“In that case,” Leslee says, “meet your new baby.”

If Coco is on a seesaw, this is the highest of highs. She knows all about vintage cars from living with Kemp. He kept issues of Classic Motorsports and Auto and Design the way other men did Playhouse and Penthouse. Coco wants to take a picture of the Rover and send it to him: Look what I’m driving this summer! He’d think she was bluffing or that she had a sugar daddy or that she’d stolen it.

“Hello, Baby,” Coco says, and Leslee laughs.

“Bull told me we had to buy an ‘island car,’ but I didn’t realize it would be so… basic.”

Basic? Well, it’s over forty years old and has a canvas top and the back seat is impractical unless you’re looking for cheetahs on the Serengeti, but the vehicle is in pristine condition, and Coco wonders where Bull found it. He must have an auto broker with outstanding taste. This car is best in class, which should reflect on its owners, but it’s clear Leslee doesn’t get it. Coco turns around to check out the other car in the garage, a flashy black G-Wagon, brand-new.

“The keys are in the console,” Leslee says. “Can I count on you to get those invitations delivered?”

“You can count on me,” Coco says with new enthusiasm.

“Please change into your uniform before you go,” Leslee says. “Oh, and there is one more thing.”

Of course there is.Coco steels herself. “Yes?”

“Bull and I have a strict rule about our staff dating one another. We don’t allow it. Work romances don’t always end well, and a bad breakup will make it disruptive for everyone in the household, as I’m sure you understand.”

“Yes,” Coco says. “Who else is—”

“It’s just you and Lamont, officially. Lamont has hired two part-time crew members, but they’re teenagers.”

So… Leslee is telling Coco she can’t date Lamont. Which is why he pretended not to know who she was.

“Okay,” Coco says. “I get it.”

“Do you?” Leslee holds Coco’s gaze and Coco tries not to let her disappointment show.

“I do.”

“Good, great, perfect. Because we’re strict about it. You’d both be replaced”—she snaps her fingers—“like that.” She waits a beat for these consequences to sink in. “Have fun with the invitations. I’ll check in with you later.”

Coco heads back upstairs, her elation about the room of her own and the Rover popping like an overinflated balloon. The only person on Nantucket she’s not allowed to date is the only person she might want to date. Is she bothered enough by this to quit? No—she’s here for a reason, and it’s not to find a boyfriend.

Coco changes into her uniform; she tucks her shirt into the high-waisted shorts that make her look like Steve Urkel. Through the window, she watches Leslee wade out to the speedboat holding a striped beach bag over her head. Lamont reaches out a hand and helps her aboard. He guns the engines and the boat careens away in a huge sweeping arc. It’s almost like he knows I’m watching, Coco thinks. He’s showing off.

She eyes the box of invites and calls Kacy, thinking that Kacy will at least know where all these addresses are.

Kacy answers on the first ring. “Is everything okay?”

“You busy?” Coco says.