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Jack turns onto Summer Street and they wend their way down through the fish lots to Union Street. Caroline has two, maybe three, minutes left. “What was my mom like in high school? I figured she was smart and I know she played sports—”
“Hollis and Tatum were softball stars. They won the state championship junior year and lost in the finals senior year. That game was a heartbreaker.” Jack pauses. “Did you ever know your grandfather?”
“He died when I was little,” Caroline says.
“Well, that’s too bad, but also not surprising because Tom Shaw smoked two packs of Camels a day. Great guy, very well respected, and he raised your mom by himself. He taught her to hunt and to fish, and every Friday night he took her to the Anglers Club. He never once invited me along.”
Fishing?Caroline thinks.Hunting—like, with a gun?Caroline can’t imagine this, and she doesn’t even know where the Anglers Clubis.
“The first day of scalloping season every year, Tom would pull Hollis out of school. She’d put on her waders and grab her rake, and the two of them went to their secret spot up in Pocomo.” He laughs. “They never invited me scalloping either.”
“Sounds like my grandfather didn’t like you very much,” Caroline says.
Jack says, “He loved me. I was the son he never had. But…” He shrugs. “Things didn’t work out the way I thought they might.”
He pulls into the parking lot and Caroline points out her Jeep. “I can’t believe my mom knows how to hunt and scallop,” she says. “It sounds like she used to be a completely different person.”
Jack chuckles. “You can be more than one kind of person in your life,” he says. “But I’ve always been a person who loves Hollis Shaw.”
Caroline rears back. “Ohhhh-kay?”
“That just slipped out, sorry,” Jack says. “I know you lost your dad recently. You didn’t need to hear that.”
Caroline reaches for the door handle; she can’t get out of the van fast enough. “Thanks for the ride,” she says.
19. Child’s Pose
Newly minted yoga instructor Avalon Boone cuts her morning meditation short so she’ll be at Hollis Shaw’s on time—but when she pulls into the driveway on Squam Road, the front door is shut tight and all the shades are drawn. Avalon gets the distinct feeling that the household is still asleep.
Hollis is paying Avalon three hundred dollars to lead this practice, money Avalon desperately needs. She’ll wake everyone up with her gong if she has to.
She pulls her basket of yoga mats, blocks, and straps out of the back of her Camry and approaches the front door.Lightness and nobility,she thinks.First impressions matter.Hollis has never practiced with Avalon before; over the phone, she admitted that she’d seen Avalon’s ad in the back ofNmagazine.
Avalon notices the sea-glass windows on either side of the front door and she whips out her phone to take a picture. If she ever saves enough money to buy a house on this island, she wants windows just like these. She knocks, but there’s no response—no footsteps, no voices. She knocks again. Nothing. She checks her phone. It’s ten minutes to eight. Should she wait in her car until eight o’clock sharp? That seems silly; they have to set up on the pool deck, and Avalon has a vinyasa class to teach on Amelia Drive at nine thirty.
She texts Hollis:Good morning, this is Avalon, the yoga instructor. I’m here!
She waits another minute. There’s no answer and no noise from inside.
The door is unlocked; Avalon cracks it open. “Hello?”
The house is as silent as a crypt. Avalon steps in and eases the door closed behind her.
What a house! Past the gracious entryway, there’s a white brick fireplace and a sitting area—Avalon loves the pale blue silk chaise—and to the right is a bright, white kitchen with cathedral ceilings, white marble countertops, and high-end stainless-steel appliances, including a floor-to-ceiling wine fridge lit from within. Someone has set out breakfast—a big bowl of granola; two carafes of milk, one labeledSKIMand the otherALMOND; glass pitchers of juice—orange and pineapple—and the most exquisite fruit salad Avalon has ever seen, with raspberries, kiwi, blackberries, sliced peaches and plums, and chunks of pineapple and mango. Avalon can’t help herself—she plucks a fat blueberry off the top and pops it in her mouth. The pièce de resistance is a platter of the fragrant cinnamon morning buns from Wicked Island Bakery. These are nearly impossible to get, sosomeonewas up bright and early today.
“Hello?” Avalon calls again.
She’s met with only the distant cries of gulls and the sound of the ocean; the back sliding door has been left open, and Avalon pokes her head out to see a pond with a footbridge, the beach beyond.
This home is breathtaking,she thinks.And that breakfast looks sublime. But whereiseveryone?
Hollis’s alarm wakes her at six o’clock. She’s still in her clothes, lying on top of her covers. Half a glass of sauvignon blanc mocks her from the nightstand. She grapples for her phone; she has to make the dinging noisestop,but she knocks over the wineglass in the process and she thinks,Oh, for heaven’s sake, what is wrong with you?She saves her phone from the wet and squints at the screen. The alert saysMORNING BUNS.
Forget the morning buns,she thinks. She needs sleep.
But she’s the hostess, and this is supposed to be a Five-Star Weekend. She propels herself to her feet and staggers out to her car. She ends up being the second person in line at the bakery, and she makes a very lame early-bird-catches-the-morning-bun joke to the poor teenage girl behind the counter. Then she drives back home in a haze, twice nearly pulling over to throw up. Those tequila shots.
At home, she sets out the breakfast things like a robot, thanking God she prepped everything in advance. It’s only six forty-five; she can squeeze in an hour of sleep before yoga. Back in her room, she climbs into bed naked without realizing she’s left her phone in the car.
