If Kelley never sees a leaf of kale again, it will be too soon.
KEVIN
After breakfast most days, Kevin takes his daughter, Genevieve, to Children’s Beach and pushes her on the baby swing. It’s his favorite hour of the day. As soon as he releases Genevieve from the straps of the stroller, she starts kicking her legs and making hoots of anticipation. Then, once she’s buckled into the swing and Kevin pushes her, she starts to belly-laugh. The other parents at Children’s Beach are all mothers and they comment on what a gorgeous baby Genevieve is and what a devoted father Kevin seems to be. On the one hand, this makes Kevin feel like a superstar—the mothers anticipate his arrival at the park and compete for his attention—but on the other, it makes him feel like a loser. He’s here at the park with the mothers. Their husbands are at work. Kevin, too, should be at work.
For over a year, Kevin and Isabelle have been running the Winter Street Inn. Kevin assumed Mitzi’s duties when Mitzi left, and then when Kelley got sick, he took over Kelley’s duties as well. But two weeks earlier, Kelley was given a clean bill of health. He and Mitzi are back together and, suddenly, there are three jobs for four people. Isabelle is indispensable—she is the cook and the housekeeping manager. All Kevin has proved useful for is taking the heavy loads of dirty linen down to the basement.
Kevin needs another job. He toys with going back to the Bar, but the day shift doesn’t bring in any tips, and if he works at night, he’ll never see Isabelle. A few weeks earlier, Margaret and Ava went to Anguilla on vacation and Ava texted Kevin a photo of a beach shack where they ate lunch every day. She said: You could do this at home! Quinns’ on the Beach! Kevin had studied the menu. Grilled-fish sandwiches, tacos, rice bowls, flatbreads, salads, frozen drinks, ice cream. Ava’s right; Nantucket needs a place like this. There is the Jetties on the north shore—and what a gold mine that place has turned out to be—but the south shore, which is where all the teenagers and college kids hang out, is a lunch wasteland. The shack on Surfside Beach used to sell hamburgers, hot dogs, and ice pops but it shut down a few years ago. Could Kevin take over the lease and turn it into something better than it had ever been?
It wouldn’t hurt to find out.
His thoughts of striped-bass BLTs are interrupted by Haven Silva, a girl Kevin went to high school with and who is now one of the Children’s Beach mommies. Haven has gained a lot of clout with the other mothers because she knows Kevin from another life. The two of them are in a private club, of sorts; they both grew up on the island. Haven really grew up here—was born and raised—as opposed to Kevin, who summered on Nantucket from infancy to age fourteen, when he moved here year-round. Kevin marvels at how his fellow islanders feel like family to him. He remembers Haven with braces; he remembers that she left for boarding school at Tabor in their sophomore year but was back by Christmas because her younger brother, Danny, had had a seizure during recess and died. Kevin had gone to the funeral; the whole island had gone to the funeral. After college, Haven returned to Nantucket. She waitressed at the Lobster Trap for a while, then took the office-manager position at Don Allen Ford. Her mother died, and Haven moved back in with her father—and in this way, Haven and Kevin were in similar boats. But in recent years, they agreed, the gods have smiled upon them. Haven married a mechanic and had a little boy she named Daniel, after her brother. Kevin got together with Isabelle and had Genevieve.
“Kev,” Haven says. “Do you have a second?”
“What’s up?” Kevin says.
Haven positions herself just behind Kevin’s right ear, out of the way of the trajectory of Genevieve’s swing. Kevin does a daddy-scan of the playground. He sees the other mothers—Deborah, Rebecca, Wendy—sneaking glances at him and Haven. Haven’s son, Daniel, is in the sandbox playing with his front-end loader.
“I heard a rumor about someone you know,” Haven says. “And I think it’s legit. Something Norm heard at the shop.”
Kevin is, admittedly, a part of this little mom clique but he draws the line at gossiping with them. He doesn’t want to hear any rumors. However, his immediate next thought is: What could it be? In general, the Quinn family has combated rumors by just coming out and telling the truth. Yes, Patrick went to jail for insider trading. Yes, Bart has been taken prisoner in Afghanistan. Yes, Mitzi left their father for George the Santa Claus. Yes, Ava is dating both Nathaniel Oscar and Scott Skyler. Yes, Kelley has prostate cancer. Yes, Mitzi came back to Kelley. Yes, Kelley’s cancer is in remission. What else is there? Kevin wonders if the rumor is about Isabelle. She has never once brought Genevieve to the park. He realizes the other mothers wonder about this.
“Do I even want to know?” Kevin says.
Haven twists her mouth. “Probably not. I’ve sat on this a couple days already. If you don’t want to hear, tell me to go away.”
“What is it?” Kevin says. He pushes Genevieve and she coos with delight. Nothing Haven Silva tells him can ruin this moment.
“It’s about Norah Vale,” Haven says.
“Oh, come on,” Kevin says. Norah Vale is Kevin’s ex-wife, the person he cares about least in the world. He wouldn’t give her a second’s attention except that Norah has moved back to Nantucket for a seemingly indefinite period, so every time Kevin leaves the house—to go to the grocery store or the gas station—it’s like a game of dodgeball. He can’t bump into her, even accidentally. Isabelle will kill him. Every so often, Kevin will see Norah’s black pickup on the road, but he keeps his eyes straight ahead. He won’t bother to lift two fingers from the steering wheel in greeting.
“I guess she’s got quite a drug-dealing operation going,” Haven says. “Pharmaceuticals.”
Kevin shakes his head. “That’s so unsurprising, I can’t believe it even counts as gossip.”
“She has a bunch of high-end clients,” Haven says. “Apparently the ladies-who-summer are washing Vicodins down with those bottles of rosé when they have lunch at the Galley.”
“Good for Norah,” Kevin says. He doesn’t even like saying her name out loud. “She found a niche market.”
“The story gets worse,” Haven says.
Kevin closes his eyes.
“I guess. And this is only what I heard, Kev…”
“What?” he says impatiently. He can guarantee he doesn’t want to hear the next sentence out of Haven Silva’s mouth.
“One of her clients is your sister-in-law.”
“My…” It takes Kevin a second. His sister-in-law? Which sister-in-law? No, wait, there is only one: Jennifer. “Jennifer? Patrick’s wife, Jennifer?”
“That’s what I heard,” Haven says. “I thought you’d want to know.”
Kevin finds Haven’s tone so irritating that his first instinct is to tell her that she’s part of the problem. Probably she has shared this juicy nugget with all of the other mothers here at Children’s Beach. Norah Vale, his ex-wife, is purportedly selling pills to his sister-in-law, Jennifer. Jennifer hates Norah. Even when they were part of the same family, Jennifer didn’t have a nice word for Norah. And vice versa.
But Kevin applies his verbal brakes. He can’t lose his temper with Haven Silva. First of all, she’s telling him only because he should know the rumor is out there. Second, and far more important, Haven’s uncle Chester Silva is one of Nantucket’s five selectmen, and if Kevin wants to lease the Surfside shack, he’s going to need Chester’s support.
Kevin smiles at Haven and the smile is sincere. She named her son after her beloved younger brother, taken from them too soon. She is a good person.
“I doubt it’s true,” Kevin says. He lifts Genevieve out of the swing and she squawks in protest. “But thank you for letting me know.”
SUMMER
JENNIFER
Patrick’s release from jail is delayed by three weeks.
Why? Why? Jennifer wants to know why.
“I’m not sure why,” Patrick says over the phone. “Maybe I understood it wrong to begin with? Janine in Processing was adamant. I get out the twenty-first, not the first.”