BELINDA

Belinda read Ellery a picture book called A Penny for Barnaby. In the book, Barnaby Bear is on Nantucket and doesn’t want to leave… so he follows the old tradition of throwing a penny off the side of the ferry as it passes Brant Point Lighthouse, to ensure his safe return.

Belinda was Barnaby: she didn’t want to leave.

She lay next to Ellery in the gathering dark and tried to recall her own self as a little girl. She had been skinny with red hair and freckles, intent on learning how to do a one-handed cartwheel and then an aerial; she had practiced after school in the field behind her backyard. She had been obsessed with TV, which her mother called “the boob tube.” Belinda watched I Dream of Jeannie, and That Girl, and The Partridge Family, and she dreamed of being like Barbara Eden, Marlo Thomas, Susan Dey. Then, in high school, she and her girlfriends Judie and Joanne Teffeteller, identical twins, used to spot one another for backflips. It was their dream to become cheerleaders for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Belinda worked the soda counter at Pearson’s Drug Store after school. She wore a polyester dress and a name tag and a hairnet. The soda counter served sandwiches-tuna salad, ham and pickle, chicken salad, and egg salad-and single-serving Campbell’s soup cans that came shooting out of a dispenser when Belinda pulled on the arm. She worked every day except for Thursday; on Thursdays, she and the Teffeteller twins went to the movies. It had been raining, she remembered, on the afternoon they went to see Ordinary People. It had been the first movie to break Belinda’s heart, and she had sat in the theater long after the twins had left to have burgers at the Fieldhouse, reflecting on what she’d just seen.

The summer after they graduated from high school, Belinda and the twins had driven out to California, and Belinda had stayed, using her Pearson’s savings on a motel room on Santa Monica Boulevard and showing up at the ICM offices without an appointment. It could easily have gone the other way; Belinda could have been forced to hitchhike home, or call her parents for bus fare, but she had been lucky because Sally Bloom had been on her way to lunch as Belinda was standing at reception, and Sally had stopped to take a closer look at Belinda. Within a week, Belinda had been cast in Brilliant Disguise. And that, as they say, was that. Belinda had spent her entire adult life pretending to be other people.

Once Ellery was asleep, her breathing deep and steady, her pretty face at peace despite the tumultuous adult day, Belinda slipped from the room and down the hall to Clara’s pathetic excuse for a room. Belinda owned a 750-acre horse farm in Louisville, on which sat the sprawling 5,600-square-foot residence, as well as six barns, four outbuildings, three rings, and a racetrack. She kept a penthouse suite at the Standard in New York and the presidential suite at the Beverly Wilshire. But somehow, she felt more comfortable here in the spartan quarters of Clara’s room, which had nothing to offer but the view from the window. Simplicity, Belinda thought as she lay down on the bed. It’s underrated.

LAUREL/BELINDA/SCARLETT

Laurel couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed next to Buck-he had been wonderfully supportive and, with a few phone calls, had gotten Hayes admission to Eagleville Hospital, about two hours south of New York City, for a twenty-eight-day rehab program-but even after Buck descended into slumber, with snores as regular and soothing as rolling waves, Laurel fidgeted. Legs under the sheet, one leg under and one leg over, pillow one way, pillow the other way, left side, right side, back. She ordered herself to put her concerns about Hayes aside. He would get help. They were leaving tomorrow; he would be in professional hands by the evening. There was nothing more she could do, but still the question lingered: why? Had it been her fault? Had she not given him enough love or attention? He told her he’d first smoked opium on his trip to inner China a year ago, and from there it had gotten out of hand. Was it Deacon’s fault? Was it a result of Hayes growing up in a broken home? Laurel knew she was being ridiculous, but the questions presented themselves. Stop thinking about it, she told herself. It was nobody’s fault.

She decided to go down to the kitchen. She needed a cup of chamomile tea or a shot of Jameson-or maybe both.


Scarlett had been in love with Bo Tanner for most of her life-ever since she saw him across the room at Miss Louisa’s etiquette classes when she was in fifth grade.

But that was a story for another time.

At ten o’clock, Scarlett checked on Ellery: fast asleep. Scarlett slipped onto the back deck, tiptoed through the yard, and rolled a bike out of the shed. She pedaled down Hoicks Hollow Road by the light of the stars and half a moon, then turned left onto the Polpis Road. The night air was warm enough that she could ride without a jacket, and it was filled with cricket chatter.

Bo was staying at the Wade Cottages in Sconset. When Scarlett pulled into the shell driveway, she saw him standing in the moonlight, waiting for her. Ever the gentleman. He led her inside.


Scarlett was so distraught about losing the Nantucket house that she nearly asked Bo if he might loan her the money to save it. But she had asked quite a lot of him recently. She had asked him to leave Anne Carter-who had been Scarlett’s friend since her earliest memories-but then, when Bo said he would, Scarlett hadn’t been able to leave Deacon. When Scarlett decided that her marriage to Deacon was over, she again asked Bo to leave Anne Carter, and again he said he would, and he did. While Bo was moving out, Deacon had died.

Bo made a good living as an attorney for wealthy Georgia gentlemen-mostly Savannah based, but some in Atlanta as well-who had business interests up North. But he would be paying alimony to Anne Carter, and besides, Nantucket wasn’t his summertime place. He had always been a Folly Beach boy.

Scarlett bicycled home just after midnight; the dark was velvety and nearly opaque. Anywhere else in the world, Scarlett would have been afraid, but here she felt safe. She shed a few tears on the way home because endings were sad and the day had been filled with emotional fireworks. She had only wanted to apologize to Belinda for the atrocious things she’d said; the others, she feared, might have thought she’d meant to push Belinda off the boat. When JP had surfaced the first time without her, Scarlett’s limbs had turned leaden, and a pool of cold dread had collected in the pit of her stomach. She had her problems with Belinda, but that was a far cry from wanting her dead.


When Scarlett tiptoed back into the house, she saw a light on in the kitchen. There, at the counter, sat Laurel-with a steaming mug of tea and a shot of Jameson sitting before her.

“That looks good,” Scarlett said.


Belinda awoke in the night, certain that she heard voices below her. She strained her ears, but she couldn’t be sure. She gave herself a case of the willies wondering if the murmuring she heard was the ghost of Clara Beck. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing sleep to take her.

The voices stopped, then started again. Belinda sat up.

They’re probably going to ask you for something. Money, or a favor. Or both.

Technically, no one had asked; Belinda would make sure to point that out to Bob later. In fact, Laurel had been adamant about not accepting Belinda’s money. Belinda might have a struggle with her-although Laurel probably felt as Belinda did: anything to save this house. Belinda recalled what Marianne Pryor had said: It’s not a house to us. It’s a home. And it’s not a home, it’s a way of life. Our summertime happens here. This house is part of our past, it’s our present, it’ll be our future. It’s who we are.

Whether Belinda liked it or not, the Thorpe summertimes happened here, at American Paradise.

She would save it-for Angie’s sake and Hayes’s sake and Ellery’s sake. She wouldn’t bother with the arrears; she would pay off all three mortgages, whatever that cost. And during her weeks in residence, she would take the master bedroom! Although she might just sneak down to Clara’s room every once in a while for a secret nap.


Belinda rose from bed and crept down the stairs. The voices grew louder and more distinct. There were people in the kitchen. Belinda poked her head in: Laurel and Scarlett were sitting together at the kitchen counter, each with a cup of tea and a shot of Jameson before them.

“Oh, hello,” Belinda said.

They both looked over. Without a word, Scarlett rose, pulled a shot glass out of the cabinet, and poured Belinda some whiskey.

“Tea?” Laurel asked.

“Not necessary,” Belinda said.

Scarlett and Laurel raised their shot glasses.

“Here’s to us,” Laurel said.

“To us,” Scarlett said.

“To us,” Belinda said.

The glasses clicked, and they drank.


A second shot followed. Then a third… before Belinda announced that she was paying off the mortgages.

“I don’t want you to argue with me. And I don’t want you to thank me. I’m not doing it for the two of you. I’m doing it for our children.”

Laurel welled up with tears. “And our grandchildren.”

“Thank you, Belinda,” Scarlett said.

Belinda glared at her. “What did I just say?” She wandered over to the door frame. “I want to know why the kids are the only ones to be measured,” she said. “Why not us? I, for one, would like my own hash mark.”

Laurel stood up. “Me too.”

Scarlett pulled a pen out of the junk drawer.

“You first, Laurel,” Belinda said.

Scarlett measured Laurel. She was almost an inch taller than Hayes had been at thirteen.

Laurel then measured Belinda. She was a smidge shorter than Angie had been at twelve.

And Belinda, standing on the step stool that Mrs. Innsley had probably used to reach the high cabinets and shelves, measured Scarlett. She was taller than everyone.

When they were done, the three of them stepped back to admire their names on the door frame of American Paradise: LAUREL 6/20/16, BELINDA 6/20/16, SCARLETT 6/20/16.

My, my, Belinda thought. Look how we have grown.


Tuesday, June 21


ANGIE