Page 63 of Swan Song

“If anybody sees us…” Lamont says, and Coco realizes he’s right. The Richardsons know everyone now.

There is one place Lamont is willing to take Coco: to his house to meet his mother, Glynnie. At first, Coco can’t believe it. “You’re sure?” she says. It feels like they skipped a step.

“She wanted to know why I suddenly seemed so happy all the time. And I can’t lie to my mama, so I told her about you. She asked to meet you.”

Coco and Lamont arrange to go to his house at nine o’clock on Saturday morning. Coco has a little more leeway with her errands on the weekends because the Richardsons tend to sleep in even later than usual. Lamont lives in a saltbox cottage on a cul-de-sac over by the Miacomet Golf Course. The house is neat and tidy, with hydrangeas on either side of a yellow front door. As they approach, Coco hears a dog barking.

Lamont opens the door. “Molly!” he says to an English cream golden retriever who is as white and fluffy as a polar bear. “Molly, meet Coco. Coco, Molly.” He ushers Coco inside to a mudroom that is giving Martha Stewart vibes—there’s a rainbow of foul-weather jackets hanging on wooden pegs, and beneath a tastefully weathered bench are a row of boat shoes and flip-flops. They step into a bright kitchen with white glass-fronted cabinets and a white marble island with a bouquet of lilies in a green glass vase and a bowl of peaches and plums sitting on it. There’s a pie underneath a glass-domed cake stand. On the far side of the kitchen is a breakfast nook with windows that open to the backyard. And at the round table sits a petite woman wearing earbuds with her phone in front of her. Her eyes are closed behind the lenses of her glasses, but her posture is as straight as a ballerina’s.

“Mama?” Lamont says.

Lamont’s mother opens her eyes in surprise. She presses the screen of her phone and removes her earbuds. “Darling!”

“I brought Coco,” he says. “Coco, this is my mother, Glynnis Oakley.”

Coco steps forward and offers her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Oakley.”

“Dear girl, call me Glynnie,” she says. She scoots out from behind the table and gets to her feet. She’s wearing white capris and a blue-and-white-gingham sleeveless blouse with a ruffled collar. Her skin is the same light brown as Lamont’s and she has a few pronounced freckles on her cheeks. Her nails, Coco notes, are perfect ovals polished to look like milk glass. “My eyesight isn’t what it used to be so I can’t get a good look at you, but you sound just beautiful.”

“Thank you for inviting me over,” Coco says.

“Lamont will make coffee. I was just listening to my audiobook—it’s quite gripping.”

“What’s it called?” Coco asks.

“Oh…” Glynnie says. “I forget the title, it’s one of those… you know. You sit down here next to me and tell me all about yourself and about this crazy couple you’re both working for. All the girls at church want the inside scoop. You wouldn’t believe the rumors that are flying around this island. All anyone wants to talk about is the Richardsons, but Lamont won’t tell me a thing about them.”

Coco looks to Lamont, who shakes his head. Coco takes the seat next to Glynnie. “Well,” she says, “I’m from a place called Rosebush, Arkansas.”

“Rosebush, Arkansas!” Glynnie says. “That sounds made up.”

If only, Coco thinks.

The best way to avoid gossiping about the Richardsons (though Coco is tempted to tell Glynnie about the Amalfi lemons; that would incite a spicy riot among the girls at church) is to ask questions about Lamont. Once Glynnie gets talking about him, she can’t stop. She tells Coco that Lamont nearly quit sailing after his first lesson at age seven because there was a bully on his boat. Coco mentions that she’s friends with Kacy Kapenash, and Glynnie leads Coco into the living room so she can show off Lamont and Kacy’s pictures from the junior prom and senior banquet. Coco wants to scream, it is just so cute; they’re so young, they’re babies. She studies Kacy’s dresses: a dusty-rose sheath for the junior prom, a black strapless gown for the senior banquet. Kacy had impeccable taste even then.

“I always secretly hoped something more would happen between them,” Glynnie says. “But for some reason, it never did.”

From there, Glynnie shows Coco Lamont’s school pictures starting in first grade, when he was missing his two front teeth, all the way to his senior portrait in his cap and gown. Next, it’s on to his sailing trophies and the collections of postcards he’s sent her from around the world. Coco keeps turning to see how Lamont is taking all of this, but he’s just chilling on the sofa with his coffee, playing with Molly, smiling and rolling his eyes.

Finally he stands up, washes out their mugs, and fixes Glynnie a ham and cheese sandwich that he covers with plastic and puts in the fridge. “We have to get back to work, Mama,” he says. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Can’t you leave Coco behind?” Glynnie says. “We’ve barely gotten started.”

Lamont walks Coco out to Baby. “She loved you.”

“I loved her. She’s so proud of you. I know you take that for granted, but…” But what? she thinks. Should she tell him that her mother never ordered Coco’s school pictures because she thought it was a rip-off? “You shouldn’t.”

Lamont takes a step closer to Coco, and Coco stage-whispers, “Are you going to kiss me in broad daylight?”

“I’m not,” Lamont says. “But I want to, very, very badly.” He comes in even closer; his hips bump against hers and she moans softly. Then he steps away and says, “I’ll see you back at the base. Thank you for doing that with me.”

Lamont gets into his car, and Coco takes a moment after he drives away. She desperately wants to text Kacy and say, Lamont just took me to meet his mother. He must like me! But she’s not sure she can trust Kacy to keep it secret. What if she slips and tells her mother, then her mother tells Phoebe, and Phoebe tells Leslee? It would be all over.

Coco is eager to give her screenplay to Bull, but Kacy has had it for weeks and hasn’t said a word about it. When prompted, Kacy admits she hasn’t read it. But she will, she promises. She will!

At dinnertime the same day, Kacy calls to say: “It’s brilliant. You’re a genius.”

It’s brilliant, Coco thinks. I’m a genius.

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