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Finally, a text came in:Tatum.
Okay…Caroline thought. She hadn’t realized her mother and Tatum were friends anymore.
Dru-Ann.
Of course,Caroline thought.
Brooke.
Eye-roll emoji,Caroline thought.
There was a pause and Caroline thought,That’s it? I thought there were supposed to be four friends,but then another text arrived.
Gigi Ling.
Who is that?Caroline had never heard of Gigi Ling. She texted:?????
Her mother responded:I met her through the website.
Caroline groaned. The Hungry with Hollis community worshipped her mother, and one of Caroline’s major beefs was how much Hollis seemed to relish their adoration.
It wasveryalarming that Hollis had invited one of these people to the Five-Star Weekend.
Please tell me you’ve met this woman in person,Caroline texted.
Three dots rose, then disappeared.
This,Caroline thought,means no.
Caroline mentally composed a response to her mother:I can’t believe you’re inviting someone you’ve never met IRL to the Five-Star Weekend. It’s probably some scary dude living in his mother’s basement who’s going to murder you all. Or she’s a scam artist, a predator, or, at the very least, someone so needy and friendless that she’s going to a girls’ weekend with complete strangers. Really, Mom, what are you thinking?
Now Caroline tells Isaac, “She wants me to film it.”
“Mon Dieu,”he says. His expression is dubious.
“One of the women my mother invited is someone she’s never met,” Caroline says. “It’s someone from her, you know, foodie website.”
Isaac’s beautiful eyes widen. “So bizarre. This will be a funny little project for you. And maybe not a complete waste? You can practice shooting landscape.”
There was one afternoon in Isaac’s bed when Caroline described Nantucket to him: the stretches of pristine golden beach, the moors dotted with green ponds, the peppermint stick of the Sankaty lighthouse.
“May I please borrow a camera?” Caroline asks. “Either the Red or the Alexa? And one of your Sachtler tripods?”
She watches doubt flicker across Isaac’s face—he never lends his equipment.
“Of course,mon petit chou. And you should take my drone.”
Hisdrone?Whoa. Maybe he thinks Caroline can get some good footage of the island, or maybe he’s patronizing her. Probably a bit of both. It will be a “funny little project,” and Caroline will return to New York twenty-five hundred dollars richer.
On Caroline’s first day at the loft, Isaac had told her that the most challenging part of documentary filmmaking was finding a worthy subject.Look for a chink in the armor,he said,where you can penetrate the surface and discover a hidden truth.
As Caroline packs up Isaac’s precious equipment, she laughs to herself. There won’t be any hidden truths behind a bunch of olds eating lobster rolls, wearing capri pants, and quotingSixteen Candles.
That much is for sure.
4. First Light I
Because it faces northeast, Squam is the best place on the island to watch the sunrise. Hollis carries her coffee out to the deck with Henrietta at her heels, and together they feast on the view—the pond, the footbridge, the sandy path that leads through the dunes to the navy-blue stripe of the Atlantic Ocean.
