24. Big Swing
Delilah and Andrea are in the car headed to the pickleball courts. “I’m not sure how much longer I can bite my tongue,” Delilah says. “Every single time we play, she volleys from the kitchen. It’s like she doesn’t know the rule.”
“It’s a game, Delilah,” Andrea says.
“A game with rules,” Delilah says. “When you break the rules, it’s cheating.”
“You know what annoys me about Leslee?” Andrea says, and Delilah perks up. Andrea rarely says a negative word about anyone. “She doesn’t put her hair up. It’s always down and always perfectly curled. How is that even possible?”
Delilah has less than no interest in Leslee Richardson’s hair. “Basically the only rule in pickleball is that you can’t volley from the kitchen.”
“Think of it as exercise in the fresh air and sunshine,” Andrea says. She pauses. “If it weren’t for Leslee, we wouldn’t be able to play at all.”
The teams are always Delilah and Andrea versus Leslee and Phoebe, though when they arrive at the courts today, Delilah suggests mixing it up. “Phoebe could be on my team.”
Leslee scoffs. “Why mess with perfection?”
Exercise,Delilah thinks. Fresh air. Sunshine. It’s nice for the first twenty minutes or so; the game is evenly matched, Leslee doesn’t commit any egregious fouls, and at one point, the four of them have a spectacular rally, the kind you see on Instagram. It eventually ends with Delilah hitting a shot that gets past Leslee, but they’ve all played so brilliantly, they give a collective cheer.
Andrea’s right,Delilah thinks. It’s a game, it’s fun, and we’re all becoming better players, even Phoebe. We’re lucky we found a fourth. Delilah will stop complaining.
Delilah and Andrea win the next point, and the next. Delilah’s relaxed attitude is paying off—they might actually win!
The very next point, Leslee volleys from the kitchen; it could not be more blatant. Delilah looks at Andrea, but Andrea just wipes sweat off her brow with the bottom of her shirt. The serve goes to Leslee. It is annoying how perfect her hair is, Delilah thinks. It’s long and shiny with round barrel curls; her visor keeps the front pieces out of her face and the rest cascades down her back.
Leslee serves; Delilah returns; Leslee hits it to Andrea; Andrea hits it to Phoebe; Phoebe smacks it to Delilah; Delilah hits it to Leslee, who charges into the kitchen to volley it back. Delilah drops her racket to her side and lets the ball go.
“Our point,” Leslee says.
Finally, Andrea speaks up. “You know it’s a rule that you can’t volley from the kitchen, right?”
Leslee looks astonished. “Obviously. Why, was I in the kitchen when I returned that?”
Delilah waits for Andrea to say, You were, actually, yes. But Andrea says, “It doesn’t matter, it’s all in good fun,” and she returns the ball over the net so Phoebe can serve.
The next point, Leslee volleys with one foot squarely in the kitchen, and Delilah keeps playing because she realizes that protesting is useless; Leslee is never going to play by the rules. Delilah considers volleying from the kitchen herself—but no, she won’t sully the game that way. Instead, she’ll transform her fury and indignation into skill and power. She doesn’t care about exercise! She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about fresh air and sunshine! She and Andrea and Phoebe could easily find someone else to be their fourth. Why does it have to be this woman?
She has good hair,Delilah thinks. So what? She has the house, the boat; she throws parties, she’s fun. She is probably the most popular woman on Nantucket right now. In record time she has somehow become an integral part of the community.
It’s match point and Delilah doesn’t have to guess what will happen because she knows. Andrea serves; Phoebe returns; Delilah volleys from well behind the line, and Leslee charges into the kitchen and volleys back. Delilah lets the ball go and briefly closes her eyes.
“That’s game,” Leslee says.
Both Andrea and Phoebe are still, waiting for Delilah to react.
Delilah jogs to the net, smiling even though sweat is dripping into her eyes. “Good game!” she says, tapping Leslee’s racket.
“I think that was our best game yet,” Leslee says. “You played well, Delilah.”
“Thanks,” Delilah says. “You were incredible, as always.”
“And I sucked!” Phoebe says, which makes everyone laugh.
Delilah zips up her racket and drinks deeply from her water bottle, thinking, I’m not walking away empty-handed. “Hey, Leslee,” she says. “Are you free tomorrow at ten?”
“Free as a bird!” Leslee says. “What do you have in mind?”
“Do you remember I told you I sit on the board of the food pantry?”
“I do!” Leslee says. “I’ve been meaning to make a donation.”
“Well, you’re in luck. I’m meeting with the executive director tomorrow morning and I’d love for you to join me.”
“It’s a very important nonprofit,” Phoebe says. “There’s a lot of food insecurity on this island.”
“Forty-four percent of school-age children on Nantucket qualify for a school lunch,” Delilah says.
Andrea says, “That’s a lot of hungry children.”
“Say no more!” Leslee says. “I’ll be there tomorrow at ten. What’s the address?”
Delilah is curious to see what Leslee is like one-on-one. Leslee pulls in right next to Delilah on Main Street and Delilah feigns joy: What a coincidence, now they can walk to the food pantry together! Leslee has dressed simply in khaki capris, a white T-shirt, and, hmm, Chanel slingback flats that retail for more than it costs to feed a family of four for a month. But even so, Delilah grudgingly approves; at least there’s no ostentatious Hermès or Goyard bag.
Does Delilah catch the faintest whiff of cigarette smoke masked by the mint that Leslee is crunching and her usual miasma of exotic vanilla perfume? Delilah matches her steps to Leslee’s as they stroll down the brick sidewalk. Yes, definitely cigarettes. Delilah flashes back to her own era of secret smoking when she worked at the Scarlet Begonia. She was so overwhelmed back then with her late-night job and two little kids to entertain all day that she would smoke on her way home at two or three in the morning, blasting Amy Winehouse. She put the car windows down even in the winter, but Jeffrey could always tell and would bow his head, conveying his deep disappointment.
“Are you a smoker?” Delilah asks.
Leslee whips her head around and gives Delilah an incredulous look that melts into a conspiratorial smile. “I sneak one from time to time.”
“Me too,” Delilah says. “Or I used to, anyway.” This could be what bonds them, she thinks. Phoebe and Andrea put cigarettes in the same category as heroin and Miracle Whip: bad.
Delilah wonders why Leslee smokes—is it a habit left over from a misspent youth or is it to combat stress? What, Delilah would like to know, does Leslee have to stress about? Nothing, that’s what. Must be the misspent youth, then, Delilah thinks. But before Delilah can explore the topic further, Leslee changes the subject to… the weather. “It’s been beastly hot for the past ten days,” she says, plucking her T-shirt away from her body. “And yet it refuses to rain.”
Delilah says, “I have to pay more attention to my perennial bed than I do to my husband.”
“Oh, are you a gardener?” Leslee asks. “I’m having a circular garden installed on our property, but it’s taking forever. Benton promised it would be done by now, but it’s not even close to finished. The custom octagonal hot tub I ordered is collecting dust at the storage center. I want to have a crazy hot-tub party once the garden is completed, but Benton never shows up. It’s almost like he’s avoiding me.”
He wasn’t avoiding you on the Fourth of July sail,Delilah thinks.
They reach the food pantry, where the executive director, Corwin Moore—one of the kindest, most thoughtful human beings Delilah has ever known—is waiting for them.
There was a moment, right before Delilah left the house, when she wondered if this meetup was a good idea. Corwin does god’s work. Delilah imagined Leslee ignoring him—checking her phone, filing her nails—or making the organization seem cute or quaint. Or, worse, hitting on Corwin because he’s tall and quite attractive.
Delilah needn’t have worried. The second Leslee steps into the food pantry, she transforms into someone else. She greets Corwin warmly and listens earnestly as he explains that the need on Nantucket has increased from sixteen thousand bags of groceries per year to twenty thousand. Then he tells her about the food pantry’s relationships with local farms (“Delilah and her husband, Jeffrey, provide a farmers’ market bounty as well as fresh eggs to our clients”).
Leslee says, “I had no idea there was such a large underserved community here. I thought Nantucket was all rich people.”
“A common misperception,” Corwin says. “We have lots of families in need.” He pauses. “Lots of children in need.”
“I want to make a substantial donation,” Leslee says. “I’m thinking a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Delilah and Corwin exchange a quick glance. In their text conversation, they had bandied about a five- or ten-thousand-dollar ask.
“That’s incredibly generous,” Corwin says. He passes Leslee the annual report and the information packet for donors.
“In fact, make it a hundred and seventy-five,” Leslee says. “Any more than that and my husband might curtail my shopping budget.”
“You’re an angel,” Corwin says. He takes Leslee’s hand. “How can I ever thank you?”
Leslee inspects his thick black wedding band. “I could think of some ways,” she says. “But it looks like you’re taken.”
Maybe Leslee isn’t acompletely different person, Delilah thinks.
“I am,” Corwin says. “My husband, Nick, and I are celebrating our one-year anniversary tomorrow.”
“Well, Nick is a lucky man,” Leslee says. “I’ll drop off a check this week.”
Thank you, goodbye, goodbye.Delilah and Leslee leave the food pantry. Delilah—who feels like she just stood in a tornado of hundred-dollar bills—says, “Do you want to go up to Lemon Press and get a coffee?”
“I’ve had three cups already,” Leslee says. “Bull is going overseas tomorrow, so I should get home.”
Delilah feels rebuffed but also relieved. “Thank you for that pledge. It’s incredibly generous.”
Leslee studies Delilah for a moment, then half smiles. “Anything for you,” she says.
After Delilah watches Leslee get into her G-Wagon and head up Main Street, she gets a text. It’s from Corwin: Job well done!
Sharon turns in a second character study. This one is so personal that she’s not sure what she’ll do if her class tears it apart. But it turns out she didn’t need to worry about that.
“It’s so much better,” Nancy says.
“Agreed,” Willow says. “These two people are intriguing.”
“I think you’ve found your muse,” Lucky Zambrano says. “Go with these two—they feel vulnerable and authentic.”
The second Sharon clicks Leave Meeting, she shrieks with joy. They liked it! She has found her muse! The first person Sharon wants to tell is Romeo, but she worries that he’ll ask to read it, and she can’t let that happen, so she calls her sister, Heather.
It’s three o’clock on a weekday and Heather is working a big case, but Heather’s assistant, Melodie, says, “She’s been wanting to talk to you,” and she patches Sharon through. That, Sharon thinks, is the definition of sisterhood.
“I have the greatest news!” Sharon says. “My online creative-writing class loved my character study. They called it intriguing and authentic.”
Heather doesn’t respond right away. Sharon hears her shuffling papers, so she decides to embellish a little. “My instructor said it was brilliant and that I’m on my way to becoming a published writer.”
“The next Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” Heather says, and Sharon thinks that, no, this is the definition of sisterhood—the older sister showing off. (Sharon isn’t sure who Charlotte Perkins Gilman is, and Heather knows it.)
Heather says, “She wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ a story about a Victorian-era housewife who slowly loses her mind because her life is so boring and purposeless.”
Sharon hopes Heather isn’t insinuating that Sharon’s life is boring and purposeless. It’s definitely time to change the subject. “Melodie said you’ve been wanting to talk to me?”
“Yes,” Heather says in a serious tone—and Sharon’s guard immediately goes up. “Are you still hanging out with the Richardsons?”
“I’ve seen them in passing,” Sharon says. The other day, she spied Leslee Richardson having lunch at the Field and Oar Club with Busy Ambrose, but Sharon was so miffed at Busy for how she’d treated Romeo that she did not go over to say hello.
“But you haven’t been to any of their parties or gone out to dinner with them?”
“No,” Sharon admits. Every time the pool-cleaning crew pulls into the driveway, Sharon wishes it were Coco in her baby-blue Land Rover with another hand-delivered invitation. As for dinner, Sharon has heard the Richardsons prefer to go out alone and eat at the bar, where they can introduce themselves to even more people. “Why do you ask?”
“I didn’t tell you this earlier because it’s really none of my business, but I recognized the name Bull Richardson because…” Here, Heather draws out a long pause as though she’s the writer creating suspense. Sharon has to admit her interest is piqued. She knows nothing about the Richardsons, really, which is odd, since she’s been inside their home and aboard their boat.
“Yes?” Sharon says.
Heather sighs. “Well, we investigated him for a whistleblower complaint about some environmental fraud.”
Oh my god, how dull,Sharon thinks. But what was she expecting? Heather works for the federal government. “I didn’t realize you investigated private companies.”
“Of course we do,” Heather says. “Theranos. Ring a bell?”
The know-it-all comments are starting to irritate Sharon. “And that’s what you wanted to tell me?”
“I mentioned the name to Skip,” Heather says. Skip, Heather’s longtime (dare Sharon say long-suffering?) boyfriend, has a job that’s even more boring than Heather’s: He works for the IRS. He’s pretty high up—not the top-top job, but close.
“And?” Sharon says.
“He intimated—because of course he can’t come right out and tell me—that Bull Richardson and Sweetwater Distribution might be in their crosshairs as well.”
Environmental fraud and taxes. Sharon is practically asleep.
“I know you’re enamored with the Richardsons,” Heather says.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Sharon snaps. “Leslee throws fun parties.”
“You said she’s shaking up Nantucket and that she and Bull have basically become the grown-up version of prom king and queen.”
Did Sharon say that? She’d had at least three firecracker cocktails on the Fourth of July as well as some champagne, so she was pretty tipsy when she got home, but did she use that phrase—the grown-up version of prom king and queen? She might have.
“Just be careful, please, Sharon,” Heather says.
Sharon doesn’t like it when her older sister tells her what to do; she has never liked it. Sharon is about to toss a snide-adjacent Will do! when she hears a beeping. Heather has already hung up.
She considers what Heather told her. She would never betray her sister’s confidence by going into specifics, but the old Sharon would have called Fast Eddie and intimated that maybe the Richardsons weren’t quite what everyone thought—and Eddie might have mentioned this to his brother-in-law Glenn Daley, and Glenn might have called Rachel McMann, and Rachel would naturally have said something to Dr. Andy, and Dr. Andy would tell his dental hygienist Janice, and the next time Sharon bumped into Celadon Morse at Sea View Farm, Celadon would ask her if it was true that Bull Richardson was a drug lord with connections to the Mob.
Sharon doesn’t call Fast Eddie; Sharon doesn’t repeat what Heather said to anyone. Has the world turned upside down? Sharon has no interest in speculating about Bull and Leslee Richardson. Sharon has become the kind of woman she never understood before—someone who doesn’t need to talk about other people to make her days more interesting because her days are interesting enough as it is.
When Coco gets home from her errands in town, she lugs bags of groceries and a handle of Tito’s up the stairs without crushing the loaf of sourdough and finds Leslee and Lamont in the kitchen; Leslee is making crepes with whipped cream and peaches.
“Oh, hello,” Coco says. There’s a bottle of Laurent-Perrier lounging in an ice bucket. Lamont has a full flute in front of him; Leslee is drinking hers at the stove.
“Hey,” Lamont says.
“Did you remember to get the bread sliced thin?” Leslee asks as she pours crepe batter into a pan sizzling with butter.
“I did,” Coco says. There are so many things assaulting her senses that she’s not sure where to start. First off, Leslee never cooks, yet here she is, whipping up crepes? (Then Coco remembers: Leslee used to be a crepe chef in Vegas. Apparently, a true story.) Second, why are she and Lamont day-drinking together on a weekday? Third, Coco has never failed to get the sourdough sliced thin, so why must Leslee check? “Are you two celebrating something?”
“I just dropped Bull off at the airport,” Leslee says. “He’ll be gone for a week.”
“He… what?” Coco is confused. Neither Bull nor Leslee mentioned another trip.
“That thing in Indo is blowing up,” Leslee says. “He needs to be there in person. Then he’s going to the Philippines afterward to try and drum up some new business.”
Coco made the Richardsons’ bed this morning and folded their pajamas, and she didn’t see a suitcase. It feels like this trip was kept secret from her.
“What about all the dinner reservations I made?” she says. “The tickets for the White Heron Theatre? The passes for the silent disco at the Dreamland? I thought you guys wanted to go to that. Should I cancel?”
Leslee slides a golden-brown crepe onto Lamont’s plate. “Cancel?” she says. “Why would you do that?”
Coco hopes this doesn’t mean what she thinks it means. She tries to catch Lamont’s eye but he’s intent on the bowl of sugared peach slices and ignores her, just as they agreed to do.
Coco puts the groceries away with military precision; she tucks the sourdough into the bread box, folds the reusable shopping bags, and takes the vodka into the party room. Who is Coco kidding? Of course it means what she thinks it means. Bull is away; Lamont will slide into his place. Did Lamont know Bull was leaving? He made love to her earlier that morning; he ran his thumbs over her eyelids, nibbled her earlobe, fell asleep for a few precious minutes spooning her. He’d been extra-sweet, she noted, extra-attentive. He knew he was about to be called in from the bullpen. Or maybe, Coco thinks, he just walked into a full-on champagne-and-crepes ambush.
Coco needs to vent her anger. Should she do a shot from the bottle of vodka? Two shots? Should she take the cue ball off the pool table and hurl it through the plate-glass window?
She wanders over to the jukebox, searches the selections. One song jumps out at her. She presses J12 and after the record drops, it’s as though Linda Ronstadt is there in the room. You’re no good, you’re no good, you’re no good, baby, you’re no good. Coco sits on the curvy white sofa and belts out the lyrics; in her mind, she’s a karaoke queen, perfectly in tune. Can Lamont and Leslee hear her, and if they can, do they care? When the song is over, Coco goes back out into the hall and hears Lamont and Leslee’s easy banter and Leslee’s laugh, extra-girlish today.
Coco hurries down the stairs and enters Bull’s study. Where is her screenplay? It’s not on his desk. Is she brave enough to venture behind his desk? Yes. She checks the piles on either side of Bull’s desktop computer—financial documents, loads of them. Taped to the top of Bull’s keyboard is a slip of paper that says Email password: SweetH2O888. What kind of idiot leaves the password to his email taped to the computer? No, it’s not stupidity, Coco thinks. It’s that he feels safe here. It’s his home, his office. He trusts anyone who might see it—Leslee, the cleaning staff, Coco.
She’s almost chastened enough to leave without checking his desk drawers. Almost. She rifles through them but doesn’t find her manuscript. She checks the trash. It’s (thankfully) not there either.
She sneaks into the primary suite. Her manuscript isn’t on Bull’s nightstand or on his dresser or in his closet. The library? She looks, but it’s not on the escritoire, the chaise, or any of the shelves; it’s not in the hidden bourbon bar.
He took it with him,she thinks.
Coco imagines Bull at that very moment, tucked into his luxurious pod on Singapore Airlines. He’s got a glass of Dom Pérignon, a tiny bowl of warm, salted nuts. The flight attendant has hung up his sports coat; he’s removed his loafers and put on his slippers. He peruses the menu, chooses the black cod in ginger sauce, then scrolls through the movies on offer. Does he want to watch Oppenheimer again? What about Caddyshack? Both feel like a waste of time. He reaches into his briefcase and pulls out Coco’s script.
He begins to read.
Coco keeps track of how much time Leslee and Lamont spend together. The crepes and champagne are followed by a ride on Decadence. Coco watches them zip off as she washes the frying pan and their whipped-cream-smeared plates; she is Cinderella before the fairy godmother shows up. When they return in the late afternoon, Leslee is golden from the sun; her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She strolls past Coco, who is in one of the beach chaises reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and says, “We had such a magnificent day. Lamont took me to a place called Whale Island over on Tuckernuck.”
Coco, who has been visiting the English manor of Fox Corner in her mind—thank god for books!—opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.
“Did you confirm at Proprietors?” Leslee asks. “I’d like a table for two tonight, not the bar, and not that communal table, please. Something tucked away.”
“Confirmed,” Coco says, though she feels a snarky satisfaction because she did confirm for two at the bar and she won’t change it. “Who’s joining you?” She holds out a filament of hope that it’s Benton Coe, though Benton hasn’t shown his face around Triple Eight since the Fourth of July sail.
“Who do you think?” Leslee says. She gazes back at Decadence, where Lamont is wiping down the upholstery.
My boyfriend,Coco thinks. You’re taking my boyfriend out for dinner.
Later, after she watches Lamont and Leslee drive away in the G-Wagon—Lamont in a striped button-down and jeans and his boat shoes, Leslee in a long lavender jersey dress that shows off her smoking body—Coco is tempted to text him: Bull is gone, so now you’re the husband? She wants to call him a gigolo. But then she thinks about his mother, how Glynnie has to feel her way from the kitchen to the living room, how she has to listen to books rather than read them, how Lamont makes her lunch. He needs this job, and Leslee is his boss; this is work, there’s nothing going on. Coco needs to take the high road, conduct herself with quiet dignity.
But the next morning at a quarter to five when Coco hears Lamont’s tapping, she doesn’t rise from bed. She hears him trying the knob; for the first time, she has locked the door.
He texts: You awake?
He texts: Coco?
Leslee and Lamont go out on Decadence every day; Leslee even skips her pickleball game. At night, they go to Languedoc, to Oran Mor, to the freaking Galley, where Leslee asked Coco to reserve them a table out in the sand. They go to the White Heron Theatre to see a production of The Bald Soprano.
A dozen roses are delivered to Triple Eight from Flowers on Chestnut. Coco assumes they’re from Bull for Leslee—but the name written on the envelope is Colleen Coyle. Coco blinks. For me? She reads the card, which says, I miss you. It’s unsigned.
Coco hasn’t texted Lamont or left her door unlocked all week, but as she carries the roses up to her apartment, she considers relenting. This is the first time a man has sent her flowers (Carnation Day in high school, she decides, does not count). The roses are the color of ripe apricots or, more relevantly, of the sunrises that normally accompany her and Lamont’s lovemaking.
But when Coco returns to the kitchen for a vase, she finds Lamont and Leslee preparing to go out on the boat—only this time, they both have overnight bags.
“Coco!” Leslee says. “We’ll need you to hold down the fort until tomorrow.”
High road,Coco thinks. Quiet dignity. Princess Diana, Grace Kelly, Sidney Poitier. “Are you taking a trip?”
“We’re sailing Hedonism over to the Vineyard,” Leslee says. “I’ve never been!”
“And you’re spending the night?” Coco asks. She feels her coffee threatening to come back up in a hot, stinky stream.
“Leslee is staying at the Charlotte Inn,” Lamont says. “I’ll stay on the boat.”
“I might stay on the boat too,” Leslee says.
“Are the boys going?” Coco asks. “Javier and Esteban?”
“They can’t get away overnight, unfortunately,” Leslee says. “They’re breakfast servers at Black-Eyed Susan’s and can’t miss a shift on short notice.”
Behind her, Lamont shakes his head. The expression on his face is one of abject misery, but Coco doesn’t care.
“You two have fun!” she says, then she marches out of Triple Eight and over to her apartment. She opens the window in the second bedroom, the one that looks down on the future circular garden but that is still just furrows of dug-up earth, hillocks of pea gravel, and pale slabs of granite awaiting placement. Coco holds the roses out the window, but she can’t bring herself to dump them.
She ducks back inside, closes the window, sets the roses in the sink, and texts Kacy: We’re going out tonight.