38. Thursday, August 22, 800 P.M.
It’s Romeo’s turn to plan date night and he chooses karaoke at the Rose and Crown.
Really?Sharon thinks. If he wants to sing, they should go to the Club Car piano bar, but when she mentions this, he says, “It’s going to be a while before I can go back to that place.” Sharon chastises herself for being insensitive. After the whole debacle with Walker, she wouldn’t blame Romeo if he never went to the Club Car again. And so the Rose and Crown it is.
And guess what—karaoke is fun! Romeo and Sharon order beers and a plate of nachos. At the end of the bar, Sharon sees a girl named Woodlyn who used to babysit for the kids. Woodlyn, who has corkscrew curls and is wearing a top that is essentially a bra, buys Sharon and Romeo shots of Fireball. It’s the jet fuel Sharon needs to propel her onto the stage. She and Romeo decide to sing “Reunited” by Peaches and Herb, and they must sound okay because the crowd, urged on by Woodlyn and her bare midriff, chant for an encore, so they sing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee. After the song is over, Romeo sweeps Sharon up off her feet and carries her out of the bar, saying, “Always leave them wanting more.”
They hold hands as they stroll down Water Street toward the car, but then Romeo stops Sharon outside the Pacific Club at the bottom of Main Street. He takes a breath. “I love you, Sharon.”
Sharon, who at the beginning of the summer might have said she no longer believed in love, says, “I love you too.” Then she presses her head against Romeo’s chest and thinks, I love Romeo Scandalous Steamship Guy!
When they get home, Robert is awake playing a video game and Romeo tells Sharon, “I’m going to hang out with him for a little while if that’s okay.”
It’s more than okay. Sharon is only one scene away from finishing the short story for her online class. She sits down at the laptop and the words flow right out of her.
Later, Sharon and Romeo reunite in the bedroom—And it feels so good, Sharon sings to herself. As she falls asleep, she realizes that for the first time in years, maybe decades, she doesn’t know where her phone is and she doesn’t care.
She is, therefore, shocked the next morning when she paws through her bag for her phone—she bookmarked a frittata recipe on Instagram that she wants to try—and finds she has one missed call from Delilah, one from Phoebe, and three from Fast Eddie, the most recent one only two minutes earlier.
She figures Delilah and Phoebe are calling about pickleball—they’re going to play for the first time this week—but what is up with Eddie?
Then Sharon sees the alert from the Nantucket Current on her phone: Fire Destroys House in Pocomo, Woman Missing off Homeowners’ Boat.
Sharon can’t click fast enough. As she reads, she murmurs, “Oh my god, oh my god”—the Richardsons’ house burned to the ground. Their personal concierge has gone missing off their boat! Leslee and Bull apparently hosted a sunset sail, where they renewed their wedding vows. When they received word about the fire, they motored back, and only when they reached the mooring in Pocomo did they realize Coco was missing.
Sharon calls Fast Eddie. He picks up on the first ring, his tone somber. “Hey.”
“Is this a joke?” Sharon says. She realizes she sounds just like her twins. “The Richardsons’ house burned down?” Sharon thinks about the dual grand staircases, the pink lacquered shelves above the Lucite bar in the party room, the iconic octagonal deck. It’s all gone? That’s a minor concern, of course, compared to the missing personal concierge. “What happened to Coco?”
“Nobody knows. Lucy Shields launched a search; a copter flew over from Woods Hole; they had a fleet of ATVs searching the south shore, and they found her clothes washed up out at Smith’s Point. But they can’t find her.”
Tears sting Sharon’s eyes. “I don’t care about the Richardsons’ house…”
“Nor do I,” Eddie says. “As far as I’m concerned, the address of that place should be Six-Six-Six Pocomo Road.”
“Coco has to be okay,” Sharon says. “But what if she isn’t?”