Page 26 of The Book of Summer

“Sorry,” she says. “I know it’s your job.…”

“Itismy job,” he says. “And thank God for people who need more than one home. But I hear you. It used to be that this island was a place for escape. Now it’s a place to be seen and it’s losing more character by the day. Sconset started so modestly—a cluster of huts for the fishermen. They weren’t even homes, really, just shelters to protect against the weather while the men caught their cod and bluefish. They had no floors. No kitchens. At least until the wives came for a visit and decided to stay for good.”

“Really?” Bess turns back toward him. “I never knew Sconset was a down-and-gritty, boys-only kind of place.”

“Of course you didn’t. You’re an off-islander.Feed me,” he says in a first-rate Cookie Monster voice.

Bess thinks that he must have kids. He’s not married, she knows that much. Or, at least, he doesn’t wear a ring, a detail Bess hadn’t realized she’d noticed.

“‘Feed me’? I don’t recall demanding food.”

As soon as she says it, Bess’s stomach growls as if it’s pulverizing gravel. That body of hers, betraying her once again.

“What happened after that?” Bess sputters, pressing into her stomach to shut it up. “With the fishermen and their shacks?”

“Well, like I said, the women showed up and complicated everything,” Evan says with a wink. “As expected.”

“Or, they made life inhabitable.” Bess winks back. “As expected. Well, don’t tell Cissy I didn’t know that tidbit. I’ve worked hard to become the second-favorite child. She’d demote me in a blink.”

“Aw, don’t fret. You can’t be expected to know Nantucket’s rich history. You’re an off-islander, here to rape and pillage.”

“Oh, Christ.” Bess rolls her eyes. “Lest you forget, I graduated from Nantucket High, same as you. And there was never a shack on our land, so my ancestors didn’t contribute to the degradation of fair Sconset.”

“Obviously there wasn’t a shack on your property. Locals aren’t dumb enough to build on that bluff.”

“Wow! That hurt!” Bess says, though he’s not wrong. “At least buy me a drink if you’re going to fuc—Never mind.”

She shakes her head and snickers to herself.

“Come on, you have to finish the joke. Buy you a drink if I’m going to, what?”

“You know what.”

“Rhymes with ‘duck’?”

“You were right about the memories.” Bess shakes her head again, laughing, trying to move on. “Suddenly I’m back in high school getting teased and harassed by you. I’m curious. Did the Husseys ever actually own this land? Or is it something some doofus concocted because it seemed apt?”

“It really was in a Hussey’s hands. Back in the 1800s, Ebenezer Hussey bought the place for thirty pounds of cod.”

“I’d sell Cliff House for less if I had any faith in my ability to get Cissy out of it.”

Bess exhales and sits on a nearby stack of wood. She is suddenly dead tired, bone-dragging spent. Cod or no cod, her head feels like it’s swimming with it.

“Are you okay?” Evan asks. “You look a little peaked.”

“I’m peaked all right.” Bess braces herself against both knees. “It’s been a helluva few months.”

“Oh yeah? Anything specific?”

“I’m getting divorced.”

“I heard something along those lines.”

“That’s why I feel like total shit,” she says. “One of the reasons anyway.”

Evan’s head moves to some imperceptible degree. Bess studies him for a solid twenty seconds, waiting. He gives her nothing, which is exactly what Bess would predict. Evan f’ing Mayhew. Aged sixteen years but hasn’t changed a day.

“Any day it should be finalized,” Bess goes on, suddenly hot and sticky beneath her arms. “We’re just squabbling over investments and furniture now. I’m letting him keep the house. Seems easier that way.”