Page 10 of Swan Song

Coco had had a steep learning curve when she moved to St. John—driving on the left, respecting West Indian culture, realizing that painkiller was a drink, not a pill. But St. John was so low-key it was almost no-key; it was populated by outlaws and renegades, pirates and mermaids. You could go to the grocery store in bare feet.

Nantucket is something completely different. There isn’t a tattoo in sight.

Coco waits in line carrying everything she owns in the enormo canvas duffel Kemp used in the Gulf War. She feels a sharp jab at her back and turns to see the gentleman named Talbot in his pinkish pants scowling at her. “You can’t carry something that big and… unwieldy onto the boat, young lady. It belongs on the luggage rack.”

Coco’s duffel was the last piece of baggage to slide down the chute of the carousel at Logan (Coco had spent anxious minutes certain it was lost and that she was royally screwed). She held the bag on her lap for the entirety of the bus ride and she isn’t exactly eager to let it out of her sight again.

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll just hold—”

“I’m telling you, it’s not allowed,” Talbot says so loudly he must be either extremely important here or going deaf.

The chick in front of Coco whirls around. She’s wearing white jeans with a blazer and has really good hair—glossy, the color of honey, cut into a bob, tucked behind one ear. She leans toward Coco and says, “He thinks he’s the chief of police. Just put your bag over there on the blue luggage rack.”

“Thanks,” Coco says. She doesn’t know the rules here; she messed up, and everyone is now looking at her. She trudges over to the luggage rack. Her bag is unwieldy and a part of her is grateful to relinquish it. When she returns, the chick with the good hair is gone. Thankfully, so is Talbot. Coco joins the end of the line, and once she’s on the boat, she takes a window seat in the first empty row. Her mortification lessens somewhat. Talbot is a scrote, she thinks as she pulls out her book. Almost immediately, she closes her eyes.

A few minutes pass. The boat gets under way; there are some announcements over the loudspeaker: life jackets, restrooms, the trip will take about an hour. Coco dozes on and off. She didn’t get much sleep last night on the floor of the Orlando airport. She can’t believe the Richardsons’ house isn’t ready, although, now that she thinks about it, what did she expect? Closing on a house doesn’t mean moving in the same day. She should have waited for Bull Richardson to give her a firm date before she fell prey to a sale alert from Expedia. She can’t afford even $310 a night, so what is she going to do? She could’ve just pitched Bull Richardson her screenplay at the bar. What made her think the long game would work any better?

But it will work. Somehow, Coco knows this.

She hears a rustling near her; someone has taken a seat in her row. Coco likes to be aware of her surroundings and knows she should open her eyes and make sure it’s not some dude creeping on her—maybe old Talbot is a perv—but she’s tired, and her eyelids are heavy…

Suddenly she smells something delicious—briny, oniony, herby. She’s dreaming; she’s just hungry, starving. She wants lunch or a snack but she needs to save her money.

Coco opens her eyes and there, on the tray table in front of her, is a bowl of clam chowder with two packets of oyster crackers. Coco turns her head to see the chick with the good hair. She’s taken the aisle seat, leaving the seat between them open. She too has a bowl of chowder in front of her.

Coco straightens up. “You got this for me?”

“One little-known fact about Nantucket is that ferry chowder is the best chowder.” The chick blows on a spoonful and smiles at Coco. “I take it this is your first time to the island?”

Not at all, Coco thinks. I’m a regular at the Field and Oar. “Is it that obvious?” She opens a package of crackers, dumps them into her soup, and watches the fragrant steam rise. “Thank you for this. You’re very kind.”

“I hope Talbot Sweeney didn’t freak you out. He’s the old guard, the kind of person who gives Nantucketers a reputation for being snooty. I’m Kacy, by the way.”

Coco offers her hand, a gesture that feels hokey and old-fashioned but also like what’s maybe expected? “I’m Coco. Do you live on the island?”

“Born and raised,” Kacy says. “But I’ve been living in California for years. I’m just going back for the summer. My family is there.” She pauses. “How about you? Are you… visiting? Going for work?”

“Work,” Coco says. “A couple who just bought a house on Nantucket hired me to be their ‘personal concierge.’” She uses air quotes so Kacy won’t think she’s a total douchebag.

“Nice,” Kacy says. “Where’s the house?”

“On Nantucket,” Coco says. Did she forget to mention that part?

Kacy laughs. “Right, but where on Nantucket? Squam? Monomoy?”

Squam? Coco thinks. Monomoy? Can you use that in a sentence, please? “I’m not really sure.” She takes a spoonful of soup; it’s so delicious, her eyelids flutter closed. “I feel like such a charity case.”

Kacy laughs. “It’s just soup.”

The best and worst thing about Nantucket, Kacy thinks when she gets to the ferry, is that it never changes. She spies the summer people with their battered boat shoes, needlepoint belts, and natural ease and the day-trippers in CAPE COD T-shirts and Keen sandals.

Kacy is surprised to find an outlier behind her in line, a young woman with retro-punk-rock hair, piercings, and tattoos. Kacy immediately thinks of that old jingle from Sesame Street: One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong. Talbot Sweeney gives the girl a hard time about her bag; she seems uncomfortable, disoriented, or, at the very least, uninitiated. Kacy decides to do the welcoming thing and buys the girl a chowder.

Coco is shy at first, or maybe just hungry. She devours her soup and both packets of crackers, down to the dust. But then she loosens up and tells Kacy that the personal-assistant job she’s accepted comes with housing, but just that morning, her employers told her the housing wasn’t available yet.

“What?” Kacy says. “So where are you going to stay?”

“I’m not sure,” Coco says. “A hotel, I guess. Unless you have any friends with a flophouse? I’m kind of on a budget and I didn’t anticipate this…”

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