“What song is he singing?” Kelley asks.
“‘The Wedding Song,’” Margaret says casually.
This gives Kelley pause. “The Wedding Song”? The old chestnut sung by Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary that was so in vogue forty years earlier when Margaret and Kelley got married? Hadn’t he and Margaret wanted Kelley’s brother, Avery, to sing “The Wedding Song” at their wedding? Yes, Kelley is pretty sure they had, but then the priest wouldn’t allow it, so one of the choir members had sung the Ave Maria instead.
“But that was our song,” Kelley says.
“It wasn’t our song,” Margaret says. “Our song was ‘Thunder Road.’ ‘The Wedding Song’ was only a song we considered for the ceremony. Don’t be sensitive.”
Is Kelley being sensitive? Probably. What does it matter if Margaret is recycling their first choice of song? This wedding requires adult behavior from everyone.
After all, Kelley will be giving Margaret away.
KEVIN
Quinns’ on the Beach is a gangbuster success, a beyond-his-wildest-dreams moneymaking machine. Kevin hasn’t slept since Memorial Day, but by the end of Fourth of July weekend, he is able to pay Kelley and Margaret back the money they lent him to get the business up and running. From the time the shack opens, at eleven o’clock in the morning, until it closes, at five, there is a line all the way through the parking lot to the road. Quinns’ on the Beach is written up in N Magazine, the blog Mahon About Town, and the Inquirer and Mirror. People are crazy about the striped-bass BLT made with Bartlett’s Farm tomatoes, gem lettuce, and lemon-herb mayonnaise and presented on a soft pumpernickel roll. On an average day, he sells two hundred sandwiches at fifteen bucks apiece.
If Kevin weren’t so bone-tired, he would be ecstatically happy. Finally, finally, finally, at the age of thirty-eight he has done it: found his calling. He is no longer slinging drinks at the Bar. He is no longer working for his father. By the end of the season—he’ll stay open seven days a week through Labor Day, then on weekends only until Columbus Day—he reckons he’ll have enough money that he, Isabelle, and Genevieve can find their own place to live.
There are many things Kevin loves about Quinns’ other than the money. For example, he loves working with Ava. He figures that could have gone either way, but the two of them have turned out to be an outstanding team. Ava is brilliant at taking orders and manning the register. He loves to hear her banter with the kids, especially her students from the elementary school. She also excels at the upsell—lobster tacos instead of beef tacos, frappes instead of sodas. And she has phenomenal taste in music. For the shack, she made a variety of playlists. There’s the Tropical playlist (Buffett, Bob Marley, Michael Franti), the Classic Rock playlist (Stones, Clapton, Zeppelin), and the Acoustic playlist (Coldplay, James Taylor, some long-lost Springsteen tracks).
Kevin sees every person he has ever known, and he meets new people every day. During the week, it’s mostly moms and kids, teenagers, and college students, but on the weekends, the fathers show up.
“I really wish you sold beer,” they all say.
“Me too,” Kevin says. “Next year.” As soon as the place closes for the season, he’ll figure out whose ass he has to kiss to get a liquor license.
Isabelle brings Genevieve every day at four thirty, and Ava takes the baby while Isabelle finishes with the customers and tallies the day’s receipts. Isabelle isn’t as good with people as Ava is but it’s important for Isabelle to get the exposure and practice her English.
One day, Haven Silva comes through the line with her son, Daniel. Kevin flashes back to their conversation that spring about Norah selling pills to Jennifer and he hopes and prays she doesn’t bring it up. If she were to mention it to Ava, Ava would have a cow. She would call Patrick and Jennifer as soon as she got home and demand answers. That’s because Ava likes to deal with problems head-on, whereas Kevin prefers to bury them in his mind at the bottom of the pile known as Quinn Family Dirty Laundry.
Haven orders lobster tacos, a kid’s bacon burger, and two frappes. She grins at Kevin and gives him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “I’m happy for you!”
Phew, he thinks.
But then, sometime during the insanity that is the second week of August—when all the residents of the Eastern Seaboard have crammed themselves onto Nantucket—the inevitable happens: Norah Vale comes through the line. Ava has run to the ladies’ room, so Kevin is a sitting duck.
“Hey, Kev,” Norah says.
The line behind Norah is two thousand people long. Kevin doesn’t have time for any kind of scene or breakdown. If it were legal, he would have a sign on the front of the building reading OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (except Norah Vale).
“What can I get you?” he asks.
Norah scans the menu behind his head but it feels to Kevin like she’s trying to read his mind.
“You got your own place,” she says. “Proud of you.”
“Thanks,” he says. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have the fish BLT,” she says. “Extra mayo. Side of coleslaw. And a coffee frappe. Please.”
Kevin scribbles the order down. Where is Ava? He’s so flustered by Norah’s presence that he can barely do the math. It’s only two fifteen, which is right in the middle of Genevieve’s nap time, so there’s no chance Isabelle will show up and see Kevin talking to Norah. But still.
“How’s your family?” Norah asks.
“That’ll be twenty-one dollars and sixty cents,” Kevin says.
Norah pulls out her wallet and makes a show of flipping through a wad of cash. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars, it seems. So the drug-dealing part is probably true.
“Hey, Kev, I’ll take over here.” Ava is back, thank God! She squeezes his arm. “Hello, Norah.”
“Ava,” Norah says. “I was just asking after your family. Everyone good?”
“Good,” Ava confirms. She takes twenty-five dollars from Norah and gives her change, which Norah stuffs into the tip jar.
“That’ll be eight to ten minutes,” Ava says.
“How’s Jennifer?” Norah asks.
Kevin freezes.
“Jennifer?” Ava says.
“Norah,” Kevin says. “Come on, we’re busy.”
Norah shrugs. “I was just wondering,” she says.
AVA
Nathaniel has been away on Block Island since July 5, and quite frankly, Ava is too busy with her new job at Quinns’ on the Beach to miss him too much. And she certainly doesn’t wish she’d gone with him. Block Island is one-tenth the size of Nantucket; it wouldn’t have provided Ava with the stimulation she requires. If things with her family ever settle down to where Ava feels like she can leave Nantucket, she will go someplace bigger, not smaller. She was right to let Nathaniel go. She had had the world’s shortest engagement.
When Scott got back from Tuscany, he called Ava almost immediately. “When can I see you?”
Apparently, a week in Tuscany with Roxanne hadn’t been as romantic as Ava had feared.
“I was sick of her before the plane landed in Florence,” Scott said. “It was a very long week. I missed you like crazy. Did you miss me?”
“Nathaniel proposed to me on the Endeavor,” Ava said.
Silence from Scott, which Ava savored.
“What did you say?” Scott asked.
“I said yes,” Ava said.
Silence from Scott. The silence was delicious—like vanilla ice cream with hot caramel sauce, like the feel of silk sheets on her skin, like the first ocean swim of the year.
“So you’re getting married?” Scott said. “Really?”
“No,” Ava said. “He asked me to move to Block Island with him because he accepted a long-term job there. I said no. We broke up.”
“Wow,” Scott said. “For a second there, I thought I’d lost you forever.”
Is Ava any closer to solving her quandary? Yes, much. She and Scott see each other nearly every night, although Ava is aware that when Scott isn’t with her, he’s with Roxanne. Roxanne is fragile, Scott says. And especially lately. He can’t break it off completely; he’s afraid of what she’ll do.