18. Whale Island
When Romeo leaves Blond Sharon at her house on Saturday night after the Richardsons’ party (and after they dragged Robert home from the Candyland that is Baxter Morse’s house), he tells her he’ll call her about going out for a ride on his boat.
“I’d love it!” Sharon says.
Sunday he doesn’t call—it’s too soon anyway. Monday he doesn’t call—he’s probably working at the Steamship. On the way to the Field and Oar Club for her tennis lesson with Mateo, Sharon is tempted to swing through the ferry parking lot just to say hello. She can’t stop thinking about how handsome Romeo looked in his bow tie and madras pants. Images of all the times over the years that Romeo directed Sharon’s car on and off the ferry come flooding back. How had she never noticed his animal magnetism? Well, most of those times she was in the car with Walker and her children. Of course she wasn’t going to lust after Romeo from the Steamship! In the end, she doesn’t turn into the Steamship parking lot, though it pulls at her like a magnet.
Tuesday he doesn’t call, and Sharon tries not to pine—but once Sterling and Colby are at their internship and she’s dropped Robert off at Strong Wings bike camp, she thinks, Of course he won’t call. Romeo can have any woman he wants on this island. Why would he choose Sharon, who has three children and a fussy lifestyle? Still, Romeo was so sweet and attentive at the party. He’d insisted on coming with Sharon to the Morse house and he was so cute and funny with Robert in the car, talking to him about MrBeast, who apparently they both watch on YouTube (should Sharon be concerned about this?), that Sharon became what can only be described as enamored.
On Wednesday morning, Sharon is awoken by a text. It’s Romeo: Boat this afternoon? I finish work after the noon ferry leaves.
Ahhh! Sharon jumps out of bed. Should she answer right away or play it cool and wait?
She answers right away: I can make that work.
Great! Let’s meet at the town dock at 12:30. I’ll grab sandwiches.
Sharon shrieks with joy. Suddenly she’s the heroine in a story about second chances!
Speaking of stories… Sharon realizes that if she goes with Romeo, she’ll miss her online writing class. Is she going to sacrifice her newfound interest in the literary arts for… a man? Didn’t she do enough of that in her marriage?
Sharon has printed out the last two lines of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day” and once again taped it to her bedroom mirror. Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?
The lines taunt her. Would this day be better spent sitting in front of her laptop discussing Nancy’s character study set at the Registry of Motor Vehicles—or going boating with Romeo?
No contest,Sharon thinks. She hurries to her closet to pick an outfit.
There have been no more texts from Isla, and Kacy worries that she’s pushed things too far. She wants to make Isla jealous enough to leave Rondo; she doesn’t want Isla to give up because she thinks Kacy has moved on.
She won’t text Isla, but she does indulge her second-worst impulse and checks Rondo’s Instagram. There, she finds a picture of Isla and Rondo in Napa Valley at the Round Pond Estate vineyard. They’re seated at a rough-hewn wooden table with a grand charcuterie platter in front of them and rows of grapes behind; they hold their wineglasses as though they contain liquid gold. Isla is breathtaking in a simple black tank dress that deepens her summer tan. She’s wearing red lipstick; her diamond ring glitters on her finger.
Kacy aches with love.
The caption reads: We’ve decided on Round Pond sauvignon blanc for our reception! Followed by the wineglass emoji.
The Round Pond sauvignon blanc is Kacy’s favorite, as Isla well knows.
Now Kacy just aches.
Her mood sinks even lower when she learns that Coco can’t come out on the fishing boat—but it’s a gorgeous day, and Kacy won’t waste it.
Eric’s fishing boat, Beautiful Day, is nicer than Kacy expected (she’s never been on it; it’s amazing how much you miss when you live on the opposite coast for seven years). She heard fishing boat and thought of a floating piece of machinery with rigging and nets. But Eric’s boat has a glossy green hull and white leather cushions. There’s a fighting chair up front and outrigger lines, but there’s plenty of space to lounge as well, which is what Kacy wants to do. She strips down to her bikini and lies across the long bench in the stern next to Avalon.
“Please make yourself at home,” Eric jokes. “I take it Coco couldn’t come?”
“She has to detail Leslee’s car today,” Kacy says.
“Does she ever say what it’s like working for the Richardsons?” Avalon asks as she tears open a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. (Avalon eats like a stoned frat boy—her favorite foods are meat lovers’ pizza and anything you find in a vending machine.)
“Don’t you know what it’s like?” Kacy asks. “Aren’t you Leslee’s masseuse?”
“Was,”Avalon says. She pops open a Gripah, which is Cisco Brewers’ idea of a breakfast beer. Kacy helps herself to one as well and tries not to let her mind wander to the NICU, to all the preemies fighting for their lives while Kacy is in the sun drinking before noon. “She called me to do an at-home massage, but I said no.”
“I thought you did at-home massages all the time,” Kacy says.
“Oh, I do!” Avalon says. “But the Richardsons give me the creeps. This one night, Eric and I were at the Box and Leslee Richardson started grinding with me, and then in the ladies’ room she asked if Eric and I wanted to come back to their hotel room.”
“Whoa!” Kacy says. Eric is standing at the ship’s wheel, his expression inscrutable behind his wraparound sunglasses. Eric is cut from the same cloth as their father—he’s a man of few words, but steady, straight, and true. “You mean to tell me you aren’t the swinging type, E?”
“That,” Eric says, “I am not.” They cruise out of the harbor, and he cranks up the horsepower. “Billy told me the stripers are biting over by Tuckernuck, so that’s where we’re going. Not that either of you care.”
“So anyway,” Avalon says, licking nuclear-orange cheese dust off her fingers, “that’s why I won’t work on her.”
“Wow,” Kacy says. These are the first negative words she’s heard about the Richardsons. Everyone else on the island is hopelessly in love with them.
Lamont appears on the deck of Hedonism. He waves at Coco on the shore and calls, “What’s good?”
“I have the afternoon off,” Coco says. “Finally.”
Lamont gives her a thumbs-up. Oh, come on, Coco thinks. Don’t make me beg. Coco has learned that Lamont gets paid regardless of whether the Richardsons use the boats. Lamont keeps them clean and maintained and performs safety and equipment checks. When all that is finished, he’s allowed to do whatever he wants.
He disappears below deck. She must have misread what happened when they were skinny-dipping; he’d been drinking, it was just horsing around. She heads back up to the house thinking she’ll drive Baby out to one of the ocean beaches, Cisco or Surfside. But then she hears the putter of a motor and she turns to see Lamont coming to shore in the dinghy.
Coco squints at him. “Do you want to hang?”
He moves his Wayfarers to the top of his head so Coco can see his eyes—brown with flashes of copper. “Didn’t Leslee tell you the rule? We aren’t allowed to date.”
“But we’re allowed to be friends,” she says.
Lamont eyes the house. “Where are…”
“Leslee went to play pickleball and Bull is in his office, working. Bull gave me the rest of the day off. He said they’re going for dinner at the Field and Oar tonight.”
“Leslee will be home between pickleball and dinner?”
“I mean, yeah, but I doubt they’ll need the boats.”
Lamont checks his phone. “I’ll take you out,” he says. “But this has to stay under the radar. I have a very sweet situation here and I don’t want to jeopardize it.”
“I feel exactly the same way.”
He still seems hesitant, and Coco thinks about how she’s never been with anyone she would describe as principled. It’s sexy.
She crosses her heart, locks her lips, tosses an invisible key over her shoulder. Finally, he smiles. “Do you want to sail or speed?” he asks.
“Speed,” she says.
Blond Sharon waits on the town dock, smoothing her blue eyelet cover-up from Cartolina and adjusting her straw hat. She checks her phone: 12:28. Her heart is bouncing around in her chest like a hyper child on a trampoline. She ended up dashing off a quick email to Lucky Zambrano: I’m sorry I have to miss class this week. Unexpected plot twist.
I have a date!she thinks.
At that second, she sees a boat approaching. Yes, it’s a Grady-White with a cute bimini top over the back. Romeo is behind the wheel, shirtless, in a pair of striped board shorts. Gah!
He pulls up to the dock, and one of the kids working catches his line and wraps it around a cleat. The name of the boat is written in script on the side in glittering letters: Golden Girl.
Sharon removes her flip-flops and accepts Romeo’s hand as she steps down into the boat. She sees an open cooler filled with ice, seltzers, and a bottle of Domaines Ott rosé, which happens to be Sharon’s favorite. There’s a bag of sandwiches from Provisions. Did Romeo read her mind and order her a Turkey Terrific?
“Who’s Golden Girl?” Sharon asks teasingly.
Romeo doesn’t miss a beat. “You are,” he says.
Coco has been on her share of boats, from flat-bottomed pontoons on the Lake of the Ozarks to catamarans in the Virgin Islands, but none of these compare to Decadence, the Aquariva 33. Coco has googled it—the deck is grain-matched maple with twenty layers of varnishing, sanding, polishing. It’s floating elegance.
Coco sets her disintegrating straw bag on the leather banquette in the stern and picks at the strings of her cutoffs. She probably should have taken the afternoon and gone shopping for new clothes. On Monday, Leslee had handed Coco her week’s pay in an envelope: thirty-six crisp hundred-dollar bills.
“Come on up here,” Lamont says, patting the seat next to him. Coco moves up. She’s officially a Bond girl.
“Hold on,” he says. They navigate out of Pocomo Harbor and then he pulls back the throttle and they go flying. There are twin 380 Yanmars hiding beneath the aft; it’s a Lamborghini on the water.
“Woo-hoo!” Coco says, raising her hands over her head. But then they hit the crest of a wave and she’s jolted clear out of her seat. Okay, okay, she thinks. She’ll hold on. She doesn’t want to end up overboard.
Lamont slows down. Coco bumps her thigh against his and he presses back and she thinks, Forget the rule, this is on. This is happening.
They cruise along the north coast of the island. Lamont names each beach and adds some color commentary: Steps is where his mother taught him to swim, 40th Pole is where he went to bonfires in high school. They reach the western tip of the island and Lamont shows Coco Esther’s Island and Smith’s Point. Their thighs are still touching.
People on the beaches wave at them but Coco looks away. She doesn’t want to call attention to herself.
“Where are we going?” she asks. “Do you have a plan?”
“I always have a plan,” he says.
A second later, they’ve left Nantucket behind, but there’s land ahead.
“Another island?” Coco asks.
“Tuckernuck,” Lamont says. It’s privately owned, he says; there are thirty-two houses run by generator. Lamont used to spend one weekend every August at a place called the Tate House—his mother babysat for the children of the caretaker, Barrett Lee, and they worked out a barter. Those Tuckernuck weekends were all about riding a rusty no-speed Schwinn around the sandy roads, surf-casting, grilling striped bass over a fire on the beach, taking rainwater showers.
“I would like that,” Coco says, although who is she kidding? She’s gotten used to six-hundred-thread-count sheets, central air, and four kinds of sparkling water ice cold in the fridge.
Looking at the stars on Tuckernuck, Lamont says, was how he became interested in celestial navigation. “Yes, I know the names of all the constellations. Yes, I can figure out where I am on planet Earth just by looking at the night sky. I am that nerd boy.”
“Well, Nerd Boy, I am Nerd Girl. I can survive in the wilderness for a week with just a workman’s tool and a canvas tarp.”
“Were you a Girl Scout?” he asks.
“No,” she says. “I had parental figures with a weird sense of fun.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “You have layers!”
Coco laughs and feels brave enough to let her hand land lightly on Lamont’s thigh.
He covers her hand with his own just long enough for her to know it’s okay, then he grabs the wheel and directs them to a spit of golden sand.
“I thought you said it was privately owned.”
“All except this beach, which is called Whale Island,” he says. “It’s the only part of Tuckernuck open to boaters. No one is ever here during the week.”
Ten minutes later, they’re lying on a blanket pulled from the cabin of Decadence. Lamont brandishes a couple of champagne flutes—Decadence is the kind of boat that comes with crystal stemware—and Coco slides into bartender mode.
“French Seventy-Fives,” she says. The drink is a relic from the bartending course she took back in Arkansas; she remembers the recipe only because her instructor told the class they would probably never have the occasion to make one. They’re highfalutin, he’d said.
Now here she is, living her best highfalutin life.
Coco makes the drinks—gin, champagne, sugar, the exquisite lemon juice—and they toast to Coco’s first afternoon off.
Lamont takes a sip. “This is banging.”
It’s the best cocktail Coco has ever made and maybe ever tasted. The first round goes down quickly, and she makes another. “These aren’t just regular lemons,” she says. “They’re Amalfi lemons. They arrived at the house in a straw-filled wooden crate wearing little white robes. Guess how much they cost?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Two hundred and eighty-four euros,” Coco says. “It’s not like I expect the Richardsons to buy their produce on sale, but you have to admit, that’s outrageous.”
“I think Leslee probably just likes the fact that she can afford them,” Lamont says. “She comes from a pretty modest background.”
“Leslee, modest?” Coco says. “Don’t tell me—she’s from Connecticut.”
“Nope.”
“Do you actually know where she’s from?”
“I do,” Lamont says. “But you can’t let her know I told you. It isn’t something she shares about herself.”
“I won’t tell.”
“She’s from a town called Pahrump, Nevada,” Lamont says. “Her family owned a gun range and an ammunition warehouse. People would go there to shoot AR-Fifteens.”
Coco knew some folks from Rosebush who would have loved that kind of place. “I have a pretty good imagination but I can’t picture Leslee on a shooting range in Nevada.”
“She moved to Vegas after she graduated from high school,” Lamont says. “She worked as a crepe chef at the Bellagio to put herself through UNLV. Then she got a job on the casino floor serving cocktails. She said she did that for almost ten years, good money, but she hated it. She finally got a regular bartending job at what she said was the coolest place in Vegas. She told me the name but I forget. Pepper something? And that’s where she met Bull.”
You remind me of myself when I was your age,Leslee had said. Leslee also grew up in a place she wanted to get the hell out of. Leslee was also a bartender. Maybe that’s why Leslee agreed to hire her.
“How do you know all this?” Coco says. “Obviously you two are… close? Is there something going on between the two of you that I should know about?”
“Leslee likes attention,” Lamont says. “When Bull offered me the job, he told me I’m supposed to treat her like the only woman in the world. She talks; I listen.”
“Why can’t Bull just give her attention?” Coco says. “She’s always all over you. It’s weird.”
Lamont studies his champagne flute. “I need this job, Coco. My mom is losing her eyesight, we have medical bills—and for someone with my skill set, this is the best job on the island. I’m capable of being Leslee’s friend.”
“Is that all you are?” Coco asks. “Friends?”
“It sounds like you’re jealous,” Lamont says. “Are you jealous?”
She lies back on the blanket. “I might be.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Coco swats his arm. “Remember the night of the party? In the water? I had you in a leg lock.”
“I do remember that,” he says. “Fondly.” He reaches over and traces one of Coco’s ribs, which tickles. Coco squirms away and a second later, they’re wrestling on the blanket. Lamont moves above her so that his knees are on either side of her hips and they stare at each other. Coco’s entire body is vibrating with desire. Then he bends down and kisses her. His lips taste like sugar, his tongue like the finest lemons in the world. Coco can’t get enough; she wants every part of her body touching every part of his body. Has she ever in her life been this aroused? She used to laugh when people came into the Banana Deck and ordered sex on the beach shots. What, she wondered, could be worse than sex on the beach? Nothing about it sounded appealing; even the scene in From Here to Eternity made it appear scratchy and uncomfortable. But right this second, sex on the beach is all Coco wants. She wants Lamont to untie the strings of her bikini, lightly brush her nipples, then bring them to his mouth while he pushes his erection into her quivering thigh.
Is this going to happen?
Coco hears the purr of an approaching motor and looks up to see not one but two boats headed their way. One is a white runabout with a couple aboard; the other is a fishing boat. Coco quickly sits up and puts on her sunglasses. “I thought you said nobody ever comes here during the week.”
She hears a woman is calling her name. It’s Kacy—she’s on the fishing boat with Eric and Avalon, the same boat Kacy invited her on, an invite Coco turned down because she told Kacy she had to detail Leslee’s car, only now here she is making out with Lamont Oakley on Whale Island.
“No,” Coco whispers. “No, no, no.”
Lamont grabs his head and groans.
“Looks like someone beat us to it,” Romeo says with a chuckle. He’s directing Golden Girl toward the shore at Whale Island, and Sharon is thrilled. In all her years on Nantucket, she has never once been to Tuckernuck.
“Beat us to what?” Sharon says, then she sees the couple on the beach kissing. That’s exactly what Sharon wants to be doing! She’s so distracted by this idea that it takes her a moment to notice the boat—it’s Decadence, the speedboat that belongs to the Richardsons. Sharon blinks. Who is that on the beach? Once she gets closer, she sees it’s the Richardsons’ assistant, Coco, and their boat captain, Lamont Oakley.
Ahhhhh!Sharon thinks.
An instant later, Sharon hears shouting. There’s a third boat approaching, a fishing boat called Beautiful Day—and the person yelling is none other than Kacy Kapenash. “Coco!” she says. “Coco!”
Sharon can’t believe that she is once again stumbling across these two. It’s almost as if some unseen force keeps bringing them together. Sharon’s notebook is in her beach bag and she’s tempted to reach for it now. What is going to happen?
When Kacy sees Coco and Lamont making out on the beach at Whale Island, she thinks, Is this a joke? Has another woman Kacy trusted lied to her so she could be with a man? And why? Coco could have said she had plans with Lamont; Kacy would have understood. This is… disappointing.
“I thought you told us she had to work,” Eric says.
Avalon says, “Looks like she’s working on Lamont.”
Kacy hands Avalon her beer and dives off the side of the boat.
“Whoa!” she hears Eric say. “A little warning would be nice.”
A little warningwould be nice, Kacy thinks as she swims to shore.
Romeo seems indifferent to the scene taking place on the beach. He’s all business as he drops the anchor and makes sure Sharon climbs down the ladder safely into the thigh-deep water. Sharon holds her bag over her head; she can’t let her notebook get wet.
“You pick a spot,” Romeo says. “I’ll bring the towels and the picnic.”
Romeo is handsome and thoughtful—and seafaring. Sharon loves watching him move around the boat, testing the lines. But Sharon can’t shed her natural curiosity. When she chooses a place on the beach, it’s close enough to Coco and Lamont that she can eavesdrop.
Sharon drops her bag, unbuttons her cover-up, and wades back into the water, acting like a person who is interested only in the vista of Nantucket in the distance.
“It’s fine,” Coco says. “She didn’t see anything.”
Lamont’s mouth is set in a grim line as he watches Kacy swim ashore. Coco throws back the rest of her French 75 as though the situation is casual. Friends bumping into friends. What a happy coincidence!
Kacy emerges from the water, squeezes out her hair, and smiles at Coco and Lamont.
Coco exhales. It’s fine.
“Hey, guys,” she says. She looks at Coco. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I know,” Coco says. “I unexpectedly got the afternoon off. I know this probably looks bad…”
“Bad?” Kacy says.
Coco swallows. “I told you I had to work, and I did, but then Leslee went to play pickleball—”
“In a dirty car?” Kacy asks.
Coco deserves that. She lied; she got caught. Kacy is the first real friend she’s had in a long time and she’s out of practice at friendship.
Kacy looks at them. “You know it’s fine with me if you guys hang, right?”
It should be fine. But Coco broke the girl code. She almost wishes Kacy would be angry so she could accuse her of overreacting, but of course she’s as cool and gracious as ever.
“Would you like me to make you a French Seventy-Five?” Coco says, holding up the remaining Amalfi lemon. “They’re really good.”
“Actually,” Lamont says, “we have to go.”
“But—” Coco says.
“Now,” Lamont says. He tosses what’s left of his cocktail into the sand, and Coco nearly cries out for the wasted lemon juice. To Kacy, he says, “We were never here.”
“Understood,” Kacy says. “Rain check on the cocktail.”
“Why don’t I just go with Kacy now?” Coco says. She puts all the drink ingredients back into her bag, then looks at Lamont. “That would be best, right?”
“Yes,” he says, and he visibly relaxes. “That would be best.”
Romeo wades ashore carrying the cooler, the sandwiches, and a stack of towels. He cocks his head. “Hey, Golden Girl,” he says. “What do you say we head farther down the beach so we have some privacy.”
“You read my mind,” Sharon says, but she lingers to watch Kacy and Coco wade back to the fishing boat.
Farewell, my darlings,she thinks.