Ha! Agnes was making herself laugh. Dabney would be at home.

But Dabney wasn’t at home. Agnes felt irrationally upset about this, as if she were a child who had been abandoned. And, to boot, her mother’s cell phone was lying on the kitchen counter, charging. Really, what good was a cell phone if you didn’t take it with you when you left the house? Agnes considered calling Box in London. It was nine thirty at night over there; Box would probably be at dinner. Agnes hated to interrupt him-and besides, what would she say? Mom left work three hours ago and I don’t know where she went. The island was only so big; Dabney had to be somewhere.

Agnes trudged up to her bedroom and threw herself across her bed. She was tired enough to sleep until morning.

She awoke to the strains of Alicia Keys singing “Empire State of Mind,” her cell phone’s ringtone, handpicked for her by one of the little girls at the Boys & Girls Club. Agnes was groggy and her limbs felt leaden, but she reached for her phone, thinking it would be her mother.

She saw when she picked up that it was five o’clock and that it was CJ calling. How had she slept for so long? What was wrong with her? She considered letting the call go to her voice mail; CJ would sense sleep in her voice and she didn’t feel like explaining that she had eaten five thousand calories already that day and had just woken up from a two-hour nap. But CJ did not like getting Agnes’s voice mail. When he called, he expected her to answer.

She cleared her throat. “Hello?”

“Agnes?” he said. “Are you okay?”

She stretched out like a cat. The room was catching the mellow slant of the late-afternoon sun across the wooden floor. Agnes’s apartment, as lovely as it was, didn’t get this kind of natural light. In the background of the phone call, Agnes heard sirens and hubbub, the city. She didn’t miss it one bit.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“You didn’t call once today,” CJ said. “I thought you couldn’t live without me.”

“Oh,” Agnes said. “Well, I can’t.”

“Good,” CJ said. “I just left the office. I’m headed to the gym and then I’m meeting Rocky for a game of squash. What are you up to?”

Agnes sat up and listened to the rest of the house for sounds of her mother. The house was silent. “Nothing.”

“You and your mom have big plans tonight?” CJ asked. “Peanut butter sandwiches and Parcheesi?”

“No plans,” she said.

“Is everyone on Nantucket aflutter with the news of your return? Are all your old boyfriends banging down your door?”

“No,” Agnes said archly.

“Hey, baby, don’t get angry. If anyone should be angry, it’s me. I have to live here in the big city without the woman I love.”

“We’ll be together in ten days,” Agnes said.

“If I make it up there,” CJ said. “I can’t stay in your parents’ house again. I hate to be a diva that way, but I’m just too old. I’m on the wait list for a room at the White Elephant, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed for that. Otherwise, you can come home to New York.”

Agnes blew her nose. She didn’t want to go back to New York. She had just arrived on Nantucket and she wanted to stay and enjoy it. Her job as a counselor at Island Adventures camp started the next day. Agnes wanted a routine. She wanted sun and beach and ocean air. She wanted to be with her mother.

“It would be much better if you could come here,” Agnes said.

“Well,” CJ said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Agnes thought again about what Manny Partida had told her. Agnes didn’t think CJ would ever hurt her. But she hated being spoken to like a child.

“I hear my mother downstairs,” Agnes said. “I should go. I’ll call you later, baby. Bye.”

But downstairs was quiet and growing darker. Dabney hadn’t returned. She had gone back to the office, Agnes supposed, after running her mysterious errands, and now she would be headed to the Brotherhood, for Business After Hours.

Dabney pulled the yellow dress out of the shopping bag and stared at it for a long minute.

If I make it up there.

She shucked off her shorts and T-shirt and slipped on the dress. Mascara, lip gloss, a hand through her hair, and a pair of gold sandals. She would stop in at Business After Hours, she decided, for old times’ sake.

Glass of mediocre Chardonnay in hand-it was a step up from the boxed wine of her teenage memory-Agnes threaded her way through the party in search of her mother. The best part of the Brotherhood was the old part-a basement grotto with low, beamed ceilings and stone walls and scarred wooden tables. Agnes had loved to come here growing up, although, for some reason, Dabney allowed it only when it was raining. The room was lit by candles; it had the contained coziness of the hull of a ship. Agnes always used to order the Boursin cheese board. Bread, butter, cheese, mustard, pickles, candlelight, rain, sometimes an acoustic-guitar player-it was a good memory that distracted Agnes for a minute.

The place was jam-packed with familiar faces. Everyone was chatting and drinking and picking up fried jalapeños and mini Reuben sandwiches from passing trays. Agnes snagged a sandwich for herself (carbs, how she craved them!), then a jalapeño, then another sandwich-all the while scanning the room for her mother. There was Tammy Block, the Realtor whom Dabney had set up with Flynn Sheehan, creating earth shock waves of scandal a few years back; there was the travel agent, the owner of a popular gift shop, there was Barley Ivan, who made beautiful Lightship-basket furniture, there was the flamboyant gallery owner, and there was Ed Law, legendary owner of Nantucket Cotton, the T-shirt shop where Dabney and then, a generation later, Agnes had worked as teenagers.

Agnes couldn’t find Dabney, yet she knew her mother must be around somewhere. Dabney had invented Business After Hours years and years ago-monthly cocktail parties where Chamber members gathered to “discuss issues in the business community,” which was a grand euphemism for drinking and gossiping.

There was the guy who owned the body shop and towing business. There was Hal Allen of Allen Heating and Cooling; Agnes had dated his son, Duke, in high school.

Old boyfriends banging down the door?

Where was her mother?

There was a guitar player tucked in the back corner, playing a Jack Johnson song. Agnes exhaled and concentrated on the music for a second. Jack Johnson songs always made her think of hibiscus leis and coconut drinks. She was dying to go to Hawaii on her honeymoon, but CJ had been to Hawaii “too many times to count” with Annabelle. CJ wanted to take a cruise to Alaska. Agnes had heard that Alaska was beautiful, but it sounded cold, and who wanted a cold honeymoon? And spending her honeymoon in the cramped quarters of a cruise ship held even less appeal. But CJ had insisted she would love it.

The song ended, there was a smattering of applause, and the guitar player said into the microphone, “This next one is for Agnes, who is back on Nantucket for the summer.”

There was a collective murmur. Agnes? Is that Agnes? Her cover was blown, although she hadn’t ever had a hope of remaining incognito. Agnes craned her neck to get a look at the guitar player. He smiled-those teeth, the Hawaiian-print board shorts. It was Riley, from the office.

He launched into “Puff the Magic Dragon,” a childhood favorite of Agnes’s, learned at circle time in Montessori, although Riley would have had no way of knowing that. Unless Dabney had told him.

Agnes chatted away, sounding exactly like her mother-Oh, it’s so good to see you, yes, it’s been a while, home for the summer, working at Island Adventure, so great to be back, there is no place like Nantucket!-until finally Riley took a break and appeared at her elbow with a fresh glass of mediocre Chardonnay.

“Hey,” she said. “Thanks for outing me. I did love the song, though.”

“I can’t believe you came,” he said.

“You didn’t tell me you were performing,” she said.

“I didn’t want to oversell myself.”

“You were great,” Agnes said. How thrilled Dabney must have been when she discovered that Riley played the guitar! “I hope my mother is paying you extra.”

“I’m playing for tips,” he said. He showed her a plastic cup with a single five-dollar bill in it.

“Riley,” Agnes said. “Is my mother here?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

“She’s not here,” Agnes said. She drank the remaining Chardonnay from the plastic cup. She knew her mother wasn’t here because if Dabney were here she would have been the epicenter of the party.

Agnes studied Riley. His eyes were brown, like his hair, and he had one dark freckle on his cheek. She could tell just from looking at him that his parents were still married, that he had grown up with siblings, probably sisters, and that his life had unfolded smoothly, making it easy for him to be a surfer, and a guitar player, and an aspiring dentist.

Agnes figured he was a good egg. Her mother hired only good eggs.

“Did my mother come back to the office this afternoon?” Agnes asked.

“No,” Riley said. “Nina said she was running errands.”

“This is so strange. My mother is the most transparent person who ever lived. She does not disappear like this.”

“I know nothing,” Riley said. “I’ve worked at the Chamber for two and a half weeks. Your mom and Nina have all this shorthand, and secret code, and nicknames for people, and Celerie and I can’t figure out what they’re talking about. I’m pretty sure that’s by design. I think we’re only meant to see the tip of the iceberg.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to wear board shorts to work,” Agnes said. “Did my mother give you a hard time?”

“No,” Riley said. “She told me they were fabulous.”

“She did?” Agnes was starting to feel like the planet was spinning the wrong way on its axis.

“She did,” Riley said. “If you want to know where your mom is, maybe you should ask Nina.”

“I tried, this afternoon,” Agnes said. “Nina isn’t giving her up.”

“Well, I’m finished playing,” Riley said. “Do you want to get out of here? Go somewhere else, maybe?”

“God, yes,” Agnes said.

They climbed into Riley’s Jeep, a forest-green Wrangler with a six-foot soft-top surfboard strapped to the roll bars. It was the quintessential Nantucket vehicle. He told her he’d owned it since he was eighteen and had driven it only on the island, back and forth between his parents’ house in Pocomo and the south-shore surfing beaches.

“I’m sorry it’s covered in dog hair,” he said. “I have a chocolate Lab named Sadie, and she is the queen of this particular castle.”

“Oh my God,” Agnes said. “We had a chocolate Lab for thirteen years named Henry. My mother loves chocolate Labs. I think I just figured out why my mother hired you.”

Riley laughed. “Believe me, I’m used to people loving me for my dog. Now, where should I take you?”

Agnes plucked at the yellow silk of her dress and arranged it around her legs. She wasn’t used to anyone asking her what she wanted. In her life at home in New York, CJ made all the decisions. He picked the restaurants and the Broadway shows and the parties they would attend, he told her when to meet him at the gym, he picked the color of her nail polish when she got a pedicure.

What did she want?

“I want to find my mother,” she said. “And I’m starving.”

Riley held up the plastic cup with the five-dollar bill. “How about somewhere cheap?” He started the car, then looked over his shoulder as he shifted into reverse. “Food first,” he said. “Then find.”

They stopped at the Strip on Steamship Wharf, where Agnes got a cheeseburger with waffle fries (carbs and more carbs!), and Riley got three slices of pizza and two Cokes. They drove to Children’s Beach and ate in the car overlooking the harbor.

“I used to come here as a kid,” Riley said.

“Yeah, me too,” Agnes said. She didn’t mean to trump Riley’s childhood nostalgia, but the grassy expanse of Children’s Beach had been etched in her brain from her earliest memories. Her great-grandmother had pushed her on the swings and taught her how to pump her legs; Box used to sit on the green slatted benches reading The Economist while Agnes mastered the monkey bars. Her mother had planted her funny old red-and-white-striped umbrella, which exactly matched her red-and-white-striped bathing suit, in the sand at the shoreline while Agnes filled buckets with a slurry of sand and water.

“So what brings you home this summer?” Riley asked.

“I work at a Boys and Girls Club in Upper Manhattan, and we lost our summer funding,” Agnes said.