The dry-cleaning job pays nicely but it’s hot. There’s no air-conditioning and even though there’s a cross breeze from leaving the side door and front door open, sweat drips down Vivi’s temples, between her breasts, and down her back throughout her shift. （She once goes so far as to blot her forehead with a cotton dress she pulls out of a drop-off bag.） Her long dark hair feels like a furry animal, a raccoon or a mink, that’s gone to sleep on her head. After her first week, she goes to RJ Miller and tells the stylist to cut it all off.
“Give me a pixie cut,” she says. “Like Demi Moore in Ghost.” Then let me meet my Patrick Swayze, she thinks.
JP comes in to pick up clothes for his mother, Lucinda Quinboro. He’s wearing athletic shorts, a Chicken Box T-shirt, and flip-flops. His hair is a mess. He looks like he just woke up. Vivi checks the clock—it’s half past twelve.
Vivi has gone back over the details of their meeting thousands of times in recent years as a way of chastising herself. Why did she not see the warning signs? He had just woken up in the middle of the day, he was picking up dry cleaning for his mother. What about this made Vivi think, I want to marry this guy and have kids?
Well, Vivi isn’t thinking in the long term when she meets JP. She’s thinking: Ninety-nine percent of the people who walk through that door are either housewives or household staff. Here, finally, is a cute guy my age.
She flexes her flirting muscles, which she’s been toning when she goes out to the Muse and the Chicken Box at night with Savannah. Vivi has met boys and even kissed a few, but she has not yet embarked on a summer romance.
“Here you go, Lucinda,” Vivi says, handing JP a clutch of dresses and blouses sheathed in plastic.
“I’m Lucinda’s errand boy,” he says, laughing. “JP Quinboro.”
“I’m Vivian Howe—everyone calls me Vivi. So, what does JP stand for? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.” She assesses him. He’s WASPy; he will have the name of a British monarch. “James Peter.”
“Nope. Want to try again?”
“John Paul?”
“You got Peter and Paul right, but you forgot Mary.”
“Excuse me?”
“My real name is Edward William Quinboro,” JP says and Vivi nearly laughs out loud because she was so right about the British monarch. “But my mother is a big fan of Peter, Paul, and Mary and her favorite song is ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ so she called me Jackie Paper growing up. Shortened to JP.”
Vivi loves this story so much she considers ripping up the ticket and giving him the clothes free of charge. “That is so cute.”
“It’s the only cute thing about my mother,” JP says. “Trust me. You’ll put these on her account?”
“I will.” Vivi winks at him. “See you later, Jackie Paper.”
JP walks out and Vivi watches him lay the clothes across the back seat of a convertible Chevy Blazer. The clothes will slide to the floor of the car the second he reverses. His mother should find another errand boy.
Instead of driving off, JP comes strolling back into the dry cleaner’s. “Want to go out sometime?” he asks. “When’s your next day off?”
“Sunday,” she says.
“Beach on Sunday?” JP says. “I’ll take care of everything.”
Vivi tells Savannah that she has a beach date on Sunday with a cute guy she met at work, and Savannah is both excited and jealous. “I never meet men at work,” she says. “The perils of working at a needlepoint shop. I should have gotten a job on a fishing boat or at the golf course. What’s this guy’s name?”
“JP Quinboro,” Vivi says. “You’ll never guess what JP stands for.”
Savannah groans. “Jackie Paper.”
“Wait,” Vivi says. “You know him?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” she says. “Since forever.”
“Did you date him?”
“God, no.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Vivi says.
“I’ll let you find that out for yourself,” Savannah says.
Is Vivi deflated that JP is, apparently, flawed in some way? No—Savannah has unrealistic expectations when it comes to men, whereas Vivi is just fine with a mere mortal.
JP picks Vivi up in the Blazer. He’s wearing only board shorts, flip-flops, and a visor, so Vivi gets a good look at his smooth tan torso. She’s wearing a yellow sundress over a yellow bikini. JP asks the appropriate first questions—how long has Vivi been here, where did she come from—and Vivi says that she was Savannah Hamilton’s roommate at Duke and that Savannah invited her to Nantucket for the summer without asking her parents, and the parents kicked Vivi out after a week, so she had to cobble together a summer on her own.