Nantucket Blue

Six





I IMMEDIATELY WANTED TO CHANGE out of my scruffy jeans and hoodie and into one of two nice outfits I’d brought to Nantucket. Maybe I should’ve told Jules I was coming. She might’ve warned me that a different league of people existed here. No wonder she read those beauty magazines all year. Everyone was pretty here. And I could see them all. It wasn’t like walking around Providence, where I didn’t notice much because I was busy doing my own thing. There was something about being alone in a new place that pushed the world a little closer, like when I put on the huge reading glasses from the kiosk in CVS to make Jules laugh.

Even the old lady in the powder-blue sweater carrying one of those basket purses was the prettiest old lady I’d ever seen. She had white-gold hair and eyes the color of a Tiffany box. Nina had given Jules a necklace from there for her sixteenth birthday, and Jules returned it to its original box every night when she took it off. It was a bean-shaped pendant. It was delicate and grown-up, and I liked to try it on when Jules was in the shower.

Nina, I thought, and for a second I swore I smelled her perfume.

I walked passed an ice cream store with a line around the corner, a bookstore, the Whaling Museum, and an inn with three rocking chairs on the porch. Everything was quaint, preserved, one of a kind, looking like it wouldn’t ever change and couldn’t exist anywhere but here. The sidewalks were brick. The fire hydrants were tennis-ball yellow. With my duffel bag slung over my shoulder, I walked past a row of fancy restaurants bustling with a spiffy dinner crowd, and a quiet art gallery where a woman stood ballerina-like in the doorway, smoking a cigarette.

I turned up Cliff Road, which was exactly where the map said it would be. The street sign looked hand-painted. Maybe that’s what they make the prisoners in the Nantucket jail do, I thought. Instead of making license plates, they had to hand paint the street signs. Instead of orange jumpsuits, they were issued fisherman sweaters.

Three guys rode by on bicycles, calling after each other in an undecipherable boy language. None of them wore a helmet, and two were barefoot. The smaller one stood on his peddles, coasted, and gave me a double take. I smiled. The bicycle ticked. Where were they going?

I reached a mailbox with the Lucases’ address on it. Tall hedges surrounded the house, so I couldn’t see it until I lifted the latch of the wooden gate and turned to walk down the driveway. The house was huge. It was definitely bigger than Sophie Toscano’s house, and she was the richest girl in our class. She got dropped off at school in a Rolls-Royce. This place seemed to exceed the boundaries of a house; it was an estate, closer in size to the mansions my parents and I used to see in Newport. We sometimes drove around town on a rainy day. We’d go to Sue’s Clam Shack for bowls of clam chowder and then visit Ocean Avenue, pretending to pick out the house we were going to buy.

“Welcome home,” my dad would say as we slowed down in front of a glorious shingled place with a wraparound porch and a stunning view.

“Honey, why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve brought our suitcases!” my mom would say. I’d laugh from the backseat and point out my bedroom window—always in a turret, if there was one.

This house, this mansion, was alive with the sounds of a party. I heard peels of laughter and music. Jazz—was it live? In the driveway was a Nantucket Catering Company van and a line of SUVs, most of them Range Rovers, just like the old man on the ferry had said, and a few older-looking Jeeps, the bumpers plastered with beach permit stickers. As I made my way up the stone path lined with lanterns, I heard the murmur of adult conversation, the exclamations of dressed-up ladies, the clinks of silverware and glass. I could feel the ocean in the air.

I rang the doorbell. After a few minutes, no one answered. I opened the door and walked inside.

“Hello?” I called into the entryway. All the lights were on. And there was no sign of people living here. There were no family photographs, no kid drawings on the fridge, no tiny stray socks. It was a house-hotel. “Hello?”

A girl in frog pajamas popped up from behind a sofa, clutching a blanket.

“Hi,” I said, and dropped my bags. “I’m Cricket.”

“I’m Lucy,” she said, hiding behind her blanket.

“I’m the new babysitter,” I said.

“Another one?” she asked, peering at me from behind her blanket. I nodded, smiling. She held the blanket over her nose and mouth and narrowed her eyes at me.

“Are you a robber?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said, her eyes widening. “I’m going to rob you!”

“Uh-oh,” I said, and cowered dramatically. She giggled. “Robber, I think we should find your mom so that I can introduce myself.”

“Okay,” she said. “Come on.” She led me through a palatial kitchen and out to a large, crowded patio with a bar and a live jazz band playing “Moondance.” Nearby, a college-age girl in a Nantucket Catering Company apron grilled shrimp kabobs. A waiter passed a tray of fizzing cocktails, each glass topped with an impaled twist of lime. The ocean sparkled darkly in the distance. The sun was gone now, and a band of deep pink glowed on the horizon. The breeze carried the sweet smell of honeysuckle and beach grass.

There was a small rectangular pool bordered by eight trim recliners. A group of women sat on them, looking adoringly at a broad-shouldered blond man. His bold hand gestures seemed to be conducting their laughter like an orchestra. Bradley Lucas! I thought. Telling funny stories! Twenty feet away!

If I’d felt a little messy and underdressed when I stepped off the ferry, I was now officially in Oliver Twist territory. The men wore Nantucket Reds—I recognized the salmon-colored pants because Jules had teased Zack when he wore his to the Spring Dance, even though I think she was secretly proud of him—and the women swished like tropical fish in silky, brightly colored summer dresses.

“Which one is your mom?” I asked Lucy. The only woman with any mom pudge was the one crooning into the microphone in a fringed vest and scuffed flats. Lucy pointed to a tall woman who stood on coltish legs in a short white dress and very high heels, conversing with a man in seersucker pants and a fedora.

“Mommy!” Lucy called. Mrs. Lucas’s head turned. Her ponytail, which looked like it had been gathered and fastened by a professional, brushed the air. Her brow furrowed.

“Lucy, why aren’t you in bed?” Her eyes widened as she took me in and strode toward us. “Caroline Lucas,” she said, and extended a narrow, bejeweled hand. She blinked.

“Cricket Thompson,” I said, and shook her hand.

“She’s the new babysitter,” Lucy said. “Another one!” She smacked her head with an open hand like a cartoon character.

Mrs. Lucas put a hand over her mouth. The band transitioned into “Killing Me Softly.” Usually, I love that song, but for some reason my stomach sank.

“Let’s go inside, shall we?” She gestured to the sliding glass doors I’d left open. “Come on, Lucy. You need to be in bed.”

“But it’s not even dark out,” Lucy said, and hopped inside.

“Who’s your grown-up tonight?” Mrs. Lucas asked.

“Sharon.”

“Go find her.”

“She’s asleep,” Lucy said. “Snoring!”

“Well, wake her up,” Mrs. Lucas said.

“I’m so frustrated, Mommy,” Lucy said as she traipsed upstairs, dragging her blanket behind her.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Mrs. Lucas said to me. I could smell the cocktail on her breath as she exhaled and placed one tan hand on a boney hip and the other on her temple. “I’m completely overstaffed. Mary Ellen was hiring in Boston and I was hiring out here and we didn’t communicate very well and now I’ve got babysitters up to my eyeballs. They’re packed to the rafters in the cottage,” she said, laughing. “I’ve got one on an air mattress above the garage.” Her laughter trailed off as she took in my expression. “Mary Ellen didn’t call you, huh?”

“No.”

“Well, I apologize. I’ll talk to her about that. But I can’t keep you. I just don’t need another babysitter. I have backups for the backups.” She tilted her head. “But you can still catch the last ferry back. Those things run until ten o’clock, at least.” She checked her watch and tapped it with her perfect red fingernail. “Oh yeah, you’ve got plenty of time.”

“But I’d still need to catch a bus back to Providence,” I said. “There won’t be another bus by the time I get back to Hyannis.” As if this were my biggest problem, as if disappointment weren’t hovering over my heart like a bee over a slice of watermelon, as if my dream weren’t fading into nothingness, a Polaroid picture in reverse—there goes Jay in the lifeguard chair, there go my rainy afternoons watching movies with Jules, my morning runs on the beach, my eight hundred dollars a week.

“Right, how stupid of me,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll need a taxi.” She walked to the kitchen island and opened a drawer. She swayed a little as she counted out some cash. She handed me three stiff hundred-dollar bills. “That ought to get you home with a little extra.” She hiccupped. “Now, do you want me to have someone drop you at the ferry, or can you walk from here?”