As they’re walking to the Nautilus, Tabitha regrets her decision. She has a text on her phone from Ainsley that says: When are you coming home? Ainsley has been grounded for a week after taking Tabitha’s FJ40 for a joyride in the middle of the night without permission and, more egregiously, without having a license. Tabitha discovered the transgression the previous Sunday morning when she had gotten in her car to go to a sunrise yoga class. The gas tank was empty, and the interior reeked of cigarettes. Tabitha had woken Ainsley up and demanded a confession, which Ainsley had handed over without a fuss.
“Yes, I took the car. I drove to Emma’s.”
Emma’s!
Tabitha and Ainsley live in the carriage house behind Eleanor’s grand home on Cliff Road, and Ainsley’s friend Emma—whose photo should appear in the dictionary next to the phrase bad influence—lives at the end of Jonathan Way in Tom Nevers, which is just about as far away as two points can get on Nantucket. Tabitha had shuddered, imagining Ainsley having an accident in the FJ40 while she was driving unlicensed. What if she had hit someone? What if she had killed someone? Tabitha would have been sued, and Eleanor would have been sued. The business would have been sued, their livelihood destroyed. And yet Ainsley displayed no guilt. Tabitha had snapped Ainsley’s phone up off the nightstand. That had gotten Ainsley’s attention. She was up and out of bed in a flash, chasing Tabitha through the house, trying to wrest the phone from her mother’s grip. She had scratched Tabitha’s face in her frenzy, and Tabitha had been so incredulous—struck, basically, by her own child—that she had dropped the phone, and Ainsley had reclaimed it.
“I need this,” Ainsley said. “You may be happy to have no social life, but that won’t work for me.”
“Oh, it won’t?” Tabitha said lamely. She touched the scratch on her face and looked at the smear of blood on her finger. “Well, too bad. You’re grounded.”
“Ha!” Ainsley said. “I’d like to know how you plan on keeping me in the house.”
Tabitha had been infuriated, but she also recognized her own impotence. How would she stop Ainsley from walking out the door? Tabitha could cut off her allowance, but Emma had a steady source of income from her father, Dutch, who ran the restaurant at the airport and was never home, thus resorting to “cash parenting.” Emma would lend or give Ainsley money for cigarettes or weed or beer or whatever else they were buying to enhance their evening hours.
“If you set foot out this door, I’ll have your cell phone service suspended,” Tabitha said. “You’ll have your physical phone but no signal—no texting, no calls, no Snapchat, no Internet. And I’ll change the password on the Wi-Fi here at the house.”
Ainsley had narrowed her eyes skeptically. “You would never do that.”
Tabitha had recalled Ramsay’s “piss-poor parenting” comment.
“Watch me,” she said.
Ainsley had then brokered a bargain. She would stay home for a week as long as she was allowed to keep her phone service.
Fine. Tonight, Friday, is the last night of the grounding—thank God. Ainsley has been verbally abusive and surly all week. She eats whatever she wants but never carries a dish to the sink. God forbid she make her bed. Tabitha has had to ask the housekeeper, Felipa, to work at the carriage house for three extra hours this week to clean up after Ainsley, and Tabitha is just waiting for Eleanor to call and give Tabitha a hard time about adding to Felipa’s load.
Tabitha texts Ainsley back: Home late.
Immediately Ainsley responds: What’s late? Midnight?
Yes, Tabitha texts back. Her daughter thinks she has no social life—ha! Midnight at the earliest.
Then Tabitha worries that maybe Ainsley is lonely. She grew up afraid of the dark; this fear developed right after Julian died. And Tabitha never gave her another sibling to keep her company.
Tabitha always had a companion growing up: Harper.
Weird, Tabitha thinks. Harper has popped into her mind twice in the past hour. When is the last time that happened?
And then even weirder—weird bordering on sorcery—Tabitha’s phone pings, and Tabitha (although knowing it’s rude to keep texting when she’s on a sort-of date but thinking it’s a response from Ainsley) checks her phone. It’s a text that is identified only as Vineyard Haven, MA. It’s Harper.
“There someplace else you need to be?” Captain Peter asks.
“No,” Tabitha says. She tucks her phone into her clutch. She’ll read the text later.
Tabitha picked Nautilus because it’s a place she never went with Ramsay, and what she needs, more than anything, is a fresh start. She has heard only good things about the restaurant—artisanal cocktails, inventive food—and she has always wanted to try it, so why not tonight?
Nautilus is crowded, and the scene is young. Captain Peter hesitates before they enter. “You sure this is where you want to go?” He seems almost… intimidated, which is not an attractive trait. Tabitha feels her temperature being dialed down from lukewarm to cool. She nearly resorts to asking, “Well, where do you want to go?” But she doesn’t want to stand outside hemming and hawing, and she does not want to end up at the Anglers’ Club.
“Yes,” she says, “here.” And she leads him inside.
The music is loud, and the twentysomethings and thirtysomethings are hooting and hollering and ordering drinks at the bar. Tabitha is still a thirtysomething, she reminds herself. She approaches the hostess. “Table for two?”
The hostess says, “Ninety-minute wait for a table. You’re welcome to try your luck at the bar.”
Tabitha strolls to the bar, holding her chin up, scanning for seats. There is one empty seat half hidden among a throng of people. Tabitha wiggles her way in and claims it; she sets her clutch confidently on the bar as if planting a flag and turns to see if Captain Peter has followed her. He has, but he looks miserable, as if she were leading him on a leash.
She beams at the bartender, determined to make this work. “Menu?” she says.
A menu appears. Tabitha peruses it. Normally she orders a vodka gimlet or a glass of rosé, but come to think of it, those are drinks that Ramsay introduced her to. Before Ramsay, she drank a Mount Gay and tonic if she wanted a cocktail, or red wine with dinner, because that was what Eleanor drank.
Tonight she will have something called the Nauti Dog. She hands the menu to Peter and points at the drink. “I’ll have one of these.”
He whistles. “Fifteen bucks?”
Tabitha closes her eyes, dialing down from cool to cold. She’s okay with the fact that Peter isn’t wealthy, but she can’t handle anyone who complains about the price of a drink.