Page 99 of Swan Song

Never in a million years did Sharon imagine she’d be the deciding vote. The good thing is, she doesn’t even have to think about it. “Nay,” she says.

“Sharon!” Busy cries. “You went to all their parties!”

Exactly, Sharon thinks.

“Wait!” Phoebe says. “Is it too late to change my vote?”

The technical answer is yes. Everyone at the table knows there is no changing your vote based on how other people have voted. But Busy says, with undisguised glee in her voice, “Because you abstained, I’ll allow it. What’s your vote?”

“Nay,” Phoebe says. She lifts her plastic cup of Sancerre, and she and Sharon toast their good sense.

As Busy is huffing and puffing about how she just doesn’t understand people sometimes, Phoebe leans toward Sharon. “Would you like to be our fourth in pickleball?” she asks.

“I’d be honored,” Sharon says.

34. Dumped

“We’ll have a big party at the Oystercatcher right after Labor Day,” Andrea says. “But I think we should do something more intimate too. A dinner with just us and the Wheelers and the Drakes. What do you think about that?”

Kacy is at the kitchen island, staring at a text from Isla that reads I’m booking a flight to Nantucket. I have to see you.

“Kacy?” Andrea says.

Kacy looks up. Her mother is waiting for… some kind of answer? Kacy didn’t hear the question. This whole thing with Rondo is real; Rondo is in love with Tami Dunne, he’s leaving Isla. And Isla is flying out to see Kacy. Kacy has been dreaming of Isla realizing that she loves Kacy in a way she will never love Dave Rondo and leaving him despite the inevitable outcry from her family.

But this is a little different.

“Sounds good,” Kacy says to her mother, hoping this is an appropriate answer.

“I’ll let your father pick the place,” Andrea says. “Do you think you’ll bring a plus-one? Maybe Coco?”

“Um… yeah,” Kacy says. Since the horrible scene at the day-drinking party, things between Kacy and Coco have cooled. Kacy texted her a few days after the party: Hey, again, I’m sorry. I hope you don’t hate me. Coco had responded right away: I don’t hate you. So that, at least, was good, but there has been nothing else—no invitations to hang out on the Richardsons’ beach, no more nights out. “What is this for again?”

Andrea swats at Kacy’s arm with a dish towel. “Your father’s retirement dinner. Us, the Wheelers, the Drakes. We’ll do it next Thursday, a week from today.”

“Okay, sorry.” This is the perfect opportunity to make things right with Coco. “I’ll ask her.”

She types: Hey there—Mom wants to know if you can join us for my dad’s retirement dinner, a week from tonight.

Coco responds: Can I let you know? It’s crazy around here right now.

That’s a no, Kacy thinks, and she clicks out of her texts. Her mother is portioning skinless chicken breasts for her father’s sad lunch salads but Kacy feels Andrea watching her. She has to get out of the house.

“I’m going to the beach,” she says.

The south shore is foggy, which turns Kacy’s introspective beach walk into a whole mood. She meanders along the water’s edge as the waves crash, then froth around her feet. Seagulls cry out; sandpipers scurry along in a V formation. There’s a guy surf-casting and when Kacy passes, he gives her an appraising look. If this were a rom-com he might say, Why the long face?

Kacy keeps going. What if she brought Isla as her plus-one to her father’s dinner? That has long been the fantasy, that Isla would show up and declare her love and Kacy could introduce her to her parents, to Eric and Avalon. This is my girlfriend, Dr. Isla Quintanilla. They would be impressed with Isla—a brilliant neonatologist, so well educated, from an important Mexico City family.

Why has Kacy been keeping you from us? Andrea would ask.

Isla was engaged, Kacy would answer. But her fiancé has fallen in love with someone else and taken down his wedding Pinterest page, so… here she is!

It’s wrong. Isla should have left Rondo, not the other way around. Isla wants to come to Nantucket now because she’s been dumped. Kacy is her backup, her plan B, her second choice.

Kacy is getting what she wants, but not for the right reason. And the reason matters.

She pulls out her phone and texts Isla: Don’t come.

---