Page 28 of Swan Song

“Sharon,” Lucky said. “Have you ever heard the phrase kill your darlings?”

“Attributed to William Faulkner,” Nancy said. Nancy was turning out to be kind of a pill. “It means you should delete anything that’s not working in your writing, no matter how fond you might be of it.”

“But my characters?” Sharon said. “Both characters?”

“Kill your darlings,” Lucky said.

Sharon, dramatically, drew an X through her handwritten page.

“Let’s move on,” Lucky said. “Willow, you may read.”

After class ended, Sharon called her sister, Heather. “I thought Walker leaving me for Bailey from PT was a hit to my self-esteem,” she said. “It was nothing compared to the beating I just took in my creative-writing class.”

“Mmgmmghbmm,” Heather said. She was eating while they spoke, which they’d been brought up never to do, but Heather was so busy at work that the only time she could talk was during her desk lunch.

“You read it,” Sharon said. “Did you think it was predictable?”

Heather slurped something through a straw.

“They told me to start over,” Sharon said.

Heather swallowed. “So start over,” she said. “If they thought it was predictable, then look around until you find something… unexpected.”

What kind of crazy advice was that? If it was unexpected, how would Sharon know where to look for it?

The meaning of Heather’s words lands on Monday at the Field and Oar Club. Sharon has just finished a tennis lesson with the new instructor, Mateo, who came to the Field and Oar from Buenos Aires. Mateo has the cheekbones and eyebrows of a luxury-brand model and he thought nothing of wrapping his strong arms around Sharon in an attempt to fix her backhand. A stranger comes to town, part three? she thinks. However, even Sharon knows that lusting after her hot tennis instructor isn’t exactly “unexpected.”

In the ladies’ lounge after her lesson, Sharon is mindlessly emptying her bladder when she hears a woman cry out. Not in fright or pain, Sharon doesn’t think, but in frustration. Sharon pokes her head around the corner to find out what’s going on—expressions of genuine emotion are rare at this club—and sees Delilah Drake squashed into one of the club chairs like a pea smashed into a rug.

“Delilah?” Sharon says. She doesn’t quite consider Delilah a friend, though they’ve known each other forever and are connected through various filaments of the Nantucket web. Delilah is married to Jeffrey Drake; they own Sea View Farm, where Sharon buys her tomatoes and her corn. Delilah is close with Phoebe Wheeler and Andrea Kapenash, and their friend group has a name—the Outcasts? The Commitments? Sharon is guilty of making fun of the name, whatever it is, but that’s just because she’s envious. They are three smart, fun, accomplished women and Sharon has always wanted to know them better.

The other unexpected thing about finding Delilah here is that Delilah isn’t a member of the Field and Oar Club. Sharon sits on the membership committee, and although she always votes to admit the Drakes, the motion never carries.

“Is everything okay?” Sharon asks. The answer is obviously no, but will Delilah spill the tea? Delilah sinks farther into the chair, her green dress billowing around her like a parachute.

Sharon sits on the sofa and props her sneakered feet up on the white wicker coffee table, pretending she needs to take a load off after an exhausting tennis lesson. Sometimes the best way to get people to talk is to be quiet.

Delilah says nothing for a moment and Sharon thinks, Fair enough. Sharon isn’t exactly known for her discretion. She wonders how to describe the color of Delilah’s dress. It’s not lizard or haricot vert; she considers kaffir lime, shamrock, and emerald, but all of those make the color sound more appealing than it is. Traffic-light green, maybe?

Finally, Delilah exhales. “Have you met Leslee Richardson?”

“No,” Sharon says. Cautiously dropping her voice to a whisper, she adds, “But I’ve heard some things.”

Delilah leans forward. “What have you heard?”

Delilah is turning the tables, but as Sharon knows, you must often give information to get information. “She and her husband bought Triple Eight Pocomo, and then a few days later, a yacht, Hedonism.” Sharon laughs. “Sounds like the name of a nudist colony. And I did hear… I can’t say from whom… that she considers herself a ‘party animal.’” The term is so ridiculous, Sharon uses air quotes. “I also heard she’s very eager to become a member here.”

Delilah takes a breath to speak, then hesitates. “This has to stay in the vault.”

Surely she’s being ironic, Sharon thinks. Everyone on Nantucket knows she is constitutionally unable to keep a secret. But maybe this once, to preserve the integrity of her character study, she’ll try? “In the vault!” Sharon agrees.

Delilah starts to talk: Leslee Richardson is here having lunch with Phoebe, Andrea, and Delilah. She has managed to completely ingratiate herself with Phoebe, even offering to help Phoebe’s son, Reed, get into his first-choice boarding school.

“Have you ever heard of anything so transactional?” Delilah says. “She offered because Phoebe is apparently writing the Richardsons a nominating letter to join the club.”

“What?” Sharon says. She is offended on Delilah’s behalf. “There’s a long wait list.” She nearly adds: As you of all people know.

“Leslee strikes me as one of these silky-smooth operators,” Delilah says. “She’s talking about all the parties she’s going to throw at her house and on the yacht. She wants to be our fourth in pickleball.”

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