“But the thing is, it also might not have been Demeter at all. Penny might have run into Winnie in the dunes. Winnie might have told Penny herself.”

“Oh, man,” Hobby said.

Jake started to really cry now. He said, “I didn’t do it to hurt your sister, man. It just happened. Winnie was all over me. I was drunk, I wasn’t thinking. But I mean, I got my ass out of there. I ran out of there.”

“Believe me,” Hobby said, “I know how Winnie is.”

“You do, right? Everyone knows how Winnie is. Even your sister-especially your sister. But that wasn’t going to make things any better. If Penny heard that, she would be… well, she’d be…”

“Hysterical,” Hobby said.

Jake dropped his head into his hands.

Hobby said, “Yeah, but we don’t know for sure what it was that set Penny off.”

“What else could it have been?” Jake asked. His voice was so loud and so filled with anguish that Hobby was afraid it was going to attract the attention of one of the nurses.

“It could have been anything, man,” Hobby said. “This is my sister we’re talking about. Remember how she acted after the tsunami in Japan? She cried for three days. And right after your brother died? She had to go see a therapist. She was different like that, man. Stuff affected her. We don’t know what was going through her head that night, and we’ll never know. But it’s not going to do you any good to blame yourself. She loved you, Jake.”

Jake wiped at his eyes with the pointed collar of his shirt. He stood up. “I can’t deal with the fact that she’s gone, man, that’s tough enough, but thinking it’s my fault for doing something so fucking stupid.…”

“Jake, man,” Hobby said, “you can’t blame yourself.”

“I do, though,” Jake said. “I do. Even if Penny didn’t know about it, what I did was still wrong. And I’ll never get to make it up to her.” He put his hands in his hair and pulled, and his eyes popped out, and Hobby thought, He’s losing it. But then Jake composed himself, or he sort of did, and said, “I just had to tell someone.”

“Yep, I get it,” Hobby said. “And it ends with me, I promise.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. He reached out to shake Hobby’s good hand, and Hobby held on and said, “Hey, man, take care, be safe, okay? Stay in touch.”

“I will,” Jake said. “Thanks, Hob. And heal up. You’re the one lying there with all those broken bones, and I’m the one crying.”

“We’re all broken,” Hobby said. This was a heavier statement than he’d meant to make, but oh well, it was true.

Jake stared at Hobby for a second, then he backed out the door.

Hobby was certain he would see Penny again, but he wasn’t so sure about Jake. Jake might travel to the other side of the world and decide never to come back. It was unfair, Hobby thought. He’d already lost Penny, and now he was losing Jake, too. Jake was one of his best friends, not a friend the way the guys on the football team were friends-all jokey, back-slapping, hanging out-but more like a cousin or a brother. More like family. And there he went, out the door, leaving Hobby to sort through everything alone.

Jake with Winnie Potts. Was that the reason? Until Jake brought it up, it hadn’t even occurred to Hobby that there was a reason, but of course there was a reason. Still, the reason could just as easily have been that Penny found out that Hobby had gotten Claire pregnant and that Claire had an appointment for an abortion. It was a toss-up.


Hobby thought back to the fraught weeks before graduation. He had asked Claire Buckley to the junior prom. He had texted her between Chemistry and American History, when he knew that she had study hall and would be working out in the weight room alone. He pictured her in her team shorts and gray Whalers T-shirt, all sweaty, her blue eyes intense, her light-brown hair pulled back in that swingy ponytail she wore. He wanted her to see the text when she was alone rather than surrounded by forty girlfriends, as she so often was.

Be my date for prom?

He should have asked her in person, he wasn’t too daft to have figured that much out, but what people didn’t realize was that Hobby was shy with girls. This made no sense. He lived with two females, he had girls calling and texting him all the time, he had girls from other schools handing him roses and folded notes with their cell phone numbers on them: Call me anytime! Hobby could chat on a basic, friendly level, but as soon as the talk nudged toward romance (could it properly be called romance? he wondered), he fell behind. He didn’t know how to flirt; he was slow to pick up on cues. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to kiss or feel up a girl whom he’d just met and still remain the kind of person he believed himself to be: a good guy, a gentleman.

Hobby had lost his virginity the summer before to a college girl (a freshman at Amherst, she said, but he was pretty sure she meant UMass). She worked at Henry Jr.’s making sandwiches. Hobby had a job across the street loading lumber onto trucks at Marine Home Center, and he got his lunch from Henry Jr.’s every day. This pretty brunette with a killer smile remembered his order (two roast beef and herb-cheese subs with tomatoes, cucumbers, and horseradish mayo). “Are they both for you?” she asked sweetly. “Yes,” he said, “I’m a growing boy.” He learned that her name was Heather, and from then on he made it a point to say hello to her personally when he picked up his lunch and always to leave a dollar in the tip jar.

Hobby bumped into Heather unexpectedly at a beach party in Dionis. He was pretty drunk, he was out with Anders Peashway and the disreputable David Marcy, and when he saw Heather, he knew only that he knew her, but not how he knew her. She had been drinking, too, and she toyed with him, making him guess, until finally she said, “Normally when you see me I’m wearing a white apron.” And he said, “Henry! I mean, Heather!” They embraced like long-lost friends. After a few more beers, Heather was feeling very friendly. She led Hobby away from the party, down the beach, and they started kissing. And Heather, who was at least three years older than Hobby, took charge. Soon they were lying on Heather’s cashmere hoodie, and she was straddling him, and he tried to stop her because he was ready but not prepared-he didn’t have a condom!-but she told him she was on the pill, and he thought, Okay, then. And he thoroughly enjoyed himself, taking as much pleasure in being at last shed of his virginity as he did in the act itself.

But then a couple of days later, when Hobby walked into Henry Jr.’s beaming with excitement about seeing her again, Heather was short with him. Her sentences were clipped; she didn’t smile. She made his sandwiches, wrapped them in white butcher paper, and slammed them down on the counter. Hobby obviously knew something was wrong, but he had no idea what it might be. He had called her cell phone and left a nice voicemail about how much fun he’d had with her. What had gone wrong? He wanted to ask her, but there was a line of construction workers behind him, so there was no way he could broach the topic. He paid her, and she handed him his change, and he hesitated, wondering if he should leave a tip. Would the tip be misconstrued? Would she think it crass? If he didn’t leave a tip, would that seem crass? He’d always left a tip before, so he deposited a dollar in the tip jar, said thank you, and walked out of Henry Jr.’s into the hot parking lot, thinking, I just really don’t have any talent with women.

But with Claire Buckley, things were different. Hobby had put in a lot of time with Claire. They had gone to school together since kindergarten. He’d always known that Claire was smart, a cut above the other students. And she had developed into a phenomenal athlete as well, playing field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse. She was tall and strong, more interested in her quad muscles than in her breasts-though, as Hobby happened to notice, she had very nice breasts. But what Hobby found most attractive about Claire was her drive. Claire wanted to excel at whatever she did, just like Hobby.

She responded to his text:

Of course.

Of course she would be his date for the prom. Hobby got that text just before lunch, and he grinned and thought, Excellent. He ate two meatball subs draped in gooey, melted mozzarella cheese, and he thought again, Excellent!

One reason Hobby hadn’t asked Claire in person was that he feared she might say no. There had been a time-in late fall, between Thanksgiving and Christmas-when he and Claire were seeing each other every day. Basketball season had just started, and they were both in and around the gym all the time. Claire had a car, and she often offered Hobby a ride home. There had been one time when the moon was coming up over Miacomet Pond, big and round and shining a cool gold color. It looked like a giant sugar cookie, Hobby thought, but that was a stupid thing to say, so he kept it to himself. Claire pulled over on the dirt road that led to Hobby’s house so they could properly ogle this moon, and the next thing he knew, they were kissing and he was really turned on and so was she and he thought they might and she thought they might-but they were two good kids, and they didn’t want their first time having sex to be in Claire’s car on the side of the road, and so they stopped. Caught their breath. Stared out the window at the moon and the reflection of the moon on the pond.

The kissing and getting all worked up had subsequently continued-on one occasion, Hobby’s pants were around his knees, and Claire was sitting on his lap, but no, they still didn’t. Then Claire got sick with bronchitis, then Hobby went away for the weekend for a basketball tournament, then they were both busy studying for their SATs, then the boys’ team made it into the playoffs but the girls’ team didn’t, and Claire and Hobby lost the momentum that had been building between them.

And then Hobby heard a rumor that Claire had hooked up with Luke Browning, whose brother, Larry, was in the correctional facility in Walpole, which was exactly where Luke was destined to wind up too. Luke was known as something of a ladies’ man, but Claire Buckley was too smart to fall prey to his obvious charms. Right? Right? Hobby saw Claire in class and around the halls, and she was nice to him, but then again she was nice to everybody. She wasn’t going out of her way to start a conversation with him, and she didn’t offer him any more rides home. The good thing was that when he saw her out-at the second night of the school musical, Grease, for example-she was always with her girlfriends. So he thought maybe the rumor about Luke Browning had been just stupid Nantucket gossip, which bit its victims like a pit bull and shook them until there was no life left.

Hobby decided to ask Claire to the prom because he didn’t want to go with anyone else.

Of course, she said. As though it were a given.


Claire and Hobby had sex for the first time on the Wednesday morning before prom. They were supposed to be at school, but Hobby’s American History teacher had called in sick and the front office couldn’t find a sub, so he had a free period. He decided to work out in the gym, and he bumped into Claire by herself in the hallway in front of the locker rooms. She said she had been planning on working out, but it was such a beautiful spring day that she thought she might ditch for one period and drive to the beach. Ditch? thought Hobby. Seniors were allowed to leave school during their study halls and lunch period, but nobody else was. Still, Claire was right, it was springtime, the janitors had just cut the grass, and the scent wafted in through the windows. And they were practically seniors.

Hobby said, “I’ll go with you.”

They climbed into Claire’s car, and without their exchanging a word, Claire knew to drive right to Hobby’s house. He jiggled his leg; he couldn’t be misreading any cues. This was it.

Claire shut off the ignition in his driveway. “Your mother’s at work?”

“All day,” he said. He couldn’t stop his leg from doing its own dance.

“Are you nervous?” she asked him.

The cool answer would be no. Hobson Alistair Jr., who had scored the winning touchdown in a Hail Mary against the Vineyard with thirteen seconds left in the game, nervous?

“Yes,” he said. He was nervous about many things: he had never skipped school before, and he was afraid of getting into trouble. If he got caught, Coach might not let him pitch in the game against Dennis-Yarmouth, and it might go down on his school record, and what if some admissions director at Stanford or Duke noticed it? He was nervous that his mother might show up for some reason. Hobby’s bedroom door didn’t lock; Zoe would feel no compunction about barging right in, even if she did recognize Claire Buckley’s car in the driveway. And finally, he was nervous because he wanted this to go well. He wanted her to enjoy it. Probably this was her virginity they were talking about, and if it wasn’t, then Hobby wanted to be better than the other guy. That was just his competitive nature.