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Tatum can’t speak; she’s holding her breath. She hears Dr. Constable shuffling papers. Files? She’s looking for the results? She can’t remember?
Dr. Constable breathes out in a long stream. “Well, the results weren’t what we’d…”
Tatum’s thoughts spiral. It’s the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two runners on, Nantucket is up by one run. If she had it to do over, she would not have dropped the damn ball.
She would have taken lunch shifts at the Lobster Trap and spent every night with Dylan when he was growing up.
She would have come out to Squam Road the past however many years for dinner when Hollis invited her.
Kyle,she thinks.Dylan. O-Man. And Holly.Her best friend, whom she’s just gotten back. Tatum has never let a lot of people get close to her, but she’s had the best people.
And she’s had the best place: Nantucket Island. Tatum’s mind rolls over her favorite beaches—Steps and Ladies and Smith’s Point. It cruises over the moors; she loves the hike through the woods to Jewel Pond and the view from Altar Rock. Every Fourth of July weekend, Tatum makes Kyle drive around Sconset so she can get pictures of the cottage roses; the entire village blooms with them, it’s like something from a storybook. Tatum thinks about sitting on a bench on Main Street in April when the town emerges from its winter hibernation—the trees are budding, storefronts are opening, but it’s still just locals. Tatum knows every single person who passes by.
Nantucket, too, has been the love of her life.
“… feared,” Dr. Constable says. “The biopsy was negative.”
“What?” Tatum says. She’s confused.Negativein this context is good, right?
“The biopsy was negative. It’s just a cyst, nothing to worry about,” Dr. Constable says. “Though due to your family history, we have to be vigilant. Keep an eye on things. But for today, good news.”
Tatum hangs up the phone, and as she exhales, tears fall. Without thinking, she pulls on her cutoffs and her Tretorns and runs out to the front porch.
“Holly!” she calls out. “Holly!”
Hollis and Henrietta have only made it past the first few hydrangea bushes, and when Hollis hears Tatum call her name, she drops Henny’s leash and runs back to the house.
Tatum comes charging down the steps. She’s crying, but it’s the right kind of crying, Hollis can tell. Hollis grabs her friend and they hug and jump up and down. Anyone who saw them might think they’d just won ten million dollars in the lottery.
But, oh,Tatum and Hollis think,it’s so much better than that.
Epilogue: Nantucket
By midweek, chatter about Hollis Shaw’s Five-Star Weekend has subsided, although those of us who follow theHungry with Hollisblog are still patiently waiting for Hollis to post the recipes like she promised. The sour cream and roasted onion dip! The cilantro-and-lime-marinated swordfish! The Paloma sugar cookies!
Although Blond Sharon is very busy—finding a parking spot at Nobadeer Beach, shepherding her reluctant teens to the Maria Mitchell Observatory so they can witness the once-in-sixty-years viewing of Neptune, and trying to secure reservations at the back bar at Cru—she finds that thoughts of Hollis’s Five-Star Weekend still linger in her mind.
“You’re starting to frighten me,” Sharon’s sister, Heather, says. “You’re completely obsessed.”
Sharon isn’t sure how to explain it. She has heard stories about many a girls’ weekend (college reunions in Tulum, Moms do Coachella)—but somehow this one hit different.Your life story in friends. Sharon doesn’t know Hollis well (or, truthfully, at all), but even so, a part of her wishes she’d been included.
“There’s a solution to that,” Heather says. “Host a Five-Star Weekend of your own!”
Of course!Sharon thinks. That’s what she’ll do. All she has to do now is figure out whom to invite.
Oh, what a difference a year makes.
Hollis Shaw sells her home in Wellesley and permanently moves to First Light out on Squam Road. We are overjoyed to have her back among us where she belongs. But is this enough of a happily ever after for Hollis?
No—we can do better.
Hollis Shaw and Jack Finigan have, slowly, started dating, though Jack still lives in Western Massachusetts. The distance is good for them both; they can each have their space and take their time, though they occasionally talk about Jack buying a small place on Nantucket.
Hollis’s daughter, Caroline, graduates from NYU with honors and is offered a dream job—assistant producer at KeepItReal Films in Los Angeles. The glowing letter of recommendation from Isaac Opoku doesn’t hurt, but the execs at KeepItReal are more impressed by Caroline’s short-film submission,The Five-Star Weekend.
With Caroline successfully launched, Hollis and Jack decide they want to take a trip. They do the some might say predictable thing and book a Viking River Cruise in Italy. During the welcome cocktail hour, they’re asked how long they’ve been together, and Jack tells everyone they’re “high-school sweethearts.” Neither of them feels the need to explain further. Let’s say Tatum and Kyle McKenzie are on the cruise as well—after all, they have a lot to celebrate—and while we’re at it, what about Dru-Ann Jones and her fiancé, Nick Wofford, and Brooke Kirtley and her new girlfriend, Trinh Nguyen? (Trinh is the Wellesley College professor who runs the book group that Brooke used to find so intimidating; now Brooke is an avid reader and offers the most insightful opinions during the discussions.)
It’s a five-star reunion—or nearly.
