Page 111 of Swan Song

No, Sharon thinks, but I need to talk to a certain someone who is.

She drives down to the Steamship just as the noon boat starts loading. She hears her name and sees Busy Ambrose sticking her head out the window of her Subaru. She beckons Sharon over. “Your boyfriend is so influential. I was number one hundred and seventy-seven on the standby list, but Romeo pulled some strings and got me on!”

Sharon waves goodbye to Busy—“Have a nice fall, see you at Christmas Stroll!”—and waits until Romeo has loaded all the vehicles (packed to the tippy-tops with tennis rackets, boogie boards, buckets of candy from Force Five, golden retrievers, and sunburned children in need of haircuts) onto the ferry.

When he’s finished, Sharon lowers her sunglasses and says, “You let Busy on the boat after all?”

“I wanted to get rid of her,” he says with a wink. He gathers Sharon in a bear hug. “To what do I owe this honor?”

Sharon beams. “My short story is getting published in Modern Romance,” she says. “They’re paying me fifteen hundred dollars.”

Romeo picks Sharon up and swings her around. “I’m taking you out to dinner tonight.”

“And then maybe karaoke?” she says.

Romeo kisses her nose. “Of course. I’ll come get you at seven.”

As Sharon pulls out of the Steamship parking lot, she notices the bench where she first spied Coco and Kacy getting off the ferry. She’s so glad she abandoned Coco and Kacy as her characters, because who can keep track of all that drama?

Sharon is going to stick to love stories.

42. Your One Wild and Precious Life

The weekend after Labor Day, the entire island turns out at the Oystercatcher for Chief Ed Kapenash’s retirement bash. The Chief’s family is there—his wife, Andrea; Eric and the newly pregnant Avalon; his daughter, Kacy, and her date, Stacy Ambrose; and Chloe and Finn, back from their summers abroad.

“What’d we miss?” Chloe asks.

“Trust me,” Eric says, “you don’t want to know.”

Carson Quinboro is behind the bar slinging glasses of frozen rosé and Mount Gay and tonics; she fetches the Chief a can of ice-cold Whale’s Tale. There’s a huge raw bar with local oysters and cherrystones; servers pass sliders, fried chicken sandwiches, fish tacos. The band, Cranberry Alarm Clock, plays as the sun begins its descent.

Ed isn’t used to this much attention. For the past thirty-five years, whenever he walked into a party, the chatter and laughter stopped. What Ed would like to tell everyone is that he never judged the citizens of this island; he merely tried to keep them safe. He likes a stiff drink and a good dirty joke as much as the next person. He’s far from perfect.

Ed looks around and realizes he’s surrounded by stories. Fast Eddie and Grace are in attendance, which reminds the Chief of when he had to call the FBI because he suspected Eddie was running a prostitution ring out in Sconset (he was right). When the Chief gets a second beer from Carson Quinboro, he thinks about how the poor girl lost her mother, Vivian Howe, in a hit-and-run accident on Kingsley Road. The tragic stories are the ones that come to mind first—when Penny Alistair drove her Jeep off the end of Hummock Pond Road; when Meredith Delinn was hiding out in Tom Nevers and someone left a dead seal on her front porch; when Chloe and Finn’s parents, Greg and Tess MacAvoy, drowned in a sailing accident—but Ed chooses to focus on resilience. Look, for example, at Coco and Lamont. They’ve seemingly recovered from their strange and eventful summer working for the Richardsons. Right now, they’re sitting in Adirondack chairs next to Kacy, who is holding hands with Busy Ambrose’s daughter, Stacy.

Ed feels a hand on his back and turns to see Zara Washington on the arm of Joe DeSantis, the owner of the Nickel sandwich shop downtown. The last unofficial piece of advice the Chief gave Zara was where to get the best lunch, and he apparently did a nifty bit of matchmaking in the process (Dabney Kimball Beech would be proud).

“This is a nice party, Ed,” Zara says. “Everyone on this island really loves you. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fill your shoes.”

“You’re going to be a huge success, Chief Washington,” Ed says. “This is an island of good people—everyone in the community shows up for one another.”

“Amen to that,” Joe says.

“Just be sure not to miss Joe’s grilled shrimp po’boy special on Wednesdays.” The Chief clicks his beer can against Zara’s wineglass. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dance with my wife.”

The Chief finds Andrea with Phoebe and Delilah. Andrea is trying to pick a grandmother name. Phoebe says, “We’re basically the same age and Reed hasn’t even started high school. I’ll be a hundred before I’m a grandmother.”

The Chief says, “I’m taking Granny for a spin on the dance floor.”

The band plays “Stand by Me,” and Ed holds Andrea close.

“You did it, Chief,” she says. When she looks up at him, her eyes are shining. “Thirty-five years of service, none of it easy.”

“The worthwhile things never are,” the Chief says. He gazes around the dance floor to see Eric and Avalon, Kacy and Stacy, Coco and Lamont, Blond Sharon and Romeo, Delilah and Jeffrey, Addison and Phoebe. Addison raises his cocktail to Ed over Phoebe’s head, and Ed thinks, Is it okay if I get in my feelings now? Even grouchy old Pamela from the Wauwinet gatehouse has shown up to wish Ed well.

When the song is over, the Oystercatcher staff roll out an ice cream cake from the Juice Bar. The top of the cake says Thank you, Chief Kapenash. Andrea whispers, “People wanted to make toasts but I told them you’d hate that.”

“You know me too well,” Ed says.

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