“I don’t care about my mother,” Savannah says, waving a hand. “Her opinion matters not. And you don’t have to worry about sharing my bed because…” She strides over to a door that Vivi thinks is a closet and opens it to reveal another bedroom, this one just big enough to hold a double bed, a dresser, and a desk set by a tiny window. Vivi gazes out—she can see the harbor in the distance. The tiny room is perfect. It’s compact and sensible. She can write here while looking at the water for inspiration.
Tears drip down Vivi’s face. “How long does she think I’m staying?”
“Oh, it’s this stupid family rule. Houseguests get one week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Vivi says. “You said I could stay for the summer.”
“You can stay for the summer,” Savannah says. “I just have to speak to my father in person.”
Mr. Hamilton lives and works in Boston during the week; he arrives on Friday afternoons and leaves on Monday mornings.
“What if that doesn’t work?”
“It always works,” Savannah says.
“But what if it doesn’t?” Vivi says. “Just give me the plan for the worst-case scenario.”
“Worst-case scenario?” Savannah says. “Listen, my parents never, ever come up here. And they go to bed early. We could just say that you’ve found a place to rent and that every once in a while you sleep over. I’ll take care of cleaning your room, doing the sheets, and whatnot while my mother is at the club—”
“You’re suggesting I hide here all summer?” Vivi asks. “Like…like Anne Frank?”
This makes them both laugh—but is it really funny, and is Vivi really so far off base?
After spending a few days on Nantucket—lounging on Nobadeer Beach, driving around town in Savannah’s bare-bones Jeep （no top, no doors, no back seat）， riding a couple of the old Schwinns in the garage out to Sconset to see the first bloom of the climbing roses, dancing all night at the Chicken Box—Vivi is ready to consider the hidden refugee plan.
When Mr. Hamilton shows up on Friday afternoon, still in his pin-striped business suit—he’s the managing partner in a big law firm on State Street—the household becomes far more festive. Mr. Hamilton makes his famous frozen margaritas and they drink them while sitting at a table by the pool.
“How are you liking Nantucket?” Mr. Hamilton asks Vivi.
“I love it,” she says. “I never want to leave.”
“Ah, but leave you must,” Mrs. Hamilton says. “Monday, yes? Have you booked your ferry?”
“Can’t Vivi stay a few more days?” Savannah asks. “Please?”
“A few more days won’t hurt,” Mr. Hamilton says, filling enormous tulip-shaped glasses from the blender.
“You’ve both clearly forgotten that Patrick and Deborah are coming with the children,” Mary Catherine says. She offers Vivi a close-lipped smile. “My brother, his second wife, their blended family of six children. I’m afraid there won’t be an inch of extra space.”
Vivi mumbles, “Excuse me,” and slips away from the table. The margarita is churning in her stomach. Patrick and Deborah and their six kids are family and Vivi is not. She has to go. Bromley follows Vivi into the house—he has become her devotee this week, always at her heels, and she has to shoo him away so she can close the powder-room door.
Of all the rooms in this remarkable house, the downstairs powder room is the one Vivi loves the most. The walls are plastered from floor to ceiling with framed snapshots of the Hamilton family on Nantucket. There must be over two hundred pictures, and Vivi has spent a long time studying them. Most are from when Savannah was growing up. There are photos taken on the beach, on sailboats, at picnics, on the tennis court, in the pool, at the Fourth of July festivities on Main Street; there’s a picture of Savannah’s old dachshund, Herman Munster, lying across the sofa in the library. There are pictures of a younger Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton hugging, kissing, hoisting cocktails. Vivi has scrutinized each photograph like a detective looking for clues.
Now, she scans the wall for people who might be Patrick and Deborah or Patrick and his first wife.
There’s a knock on the door: Savannah. “Are you okay? Please don’t hate me. This is all my fault.”
It is all Savannah’s fault. Who invites someone to spend the summer at her parents’ house without checking with them first? Savannah knew the family rule about houseguests and yet made no mention of it. She led Vivi to believe that this Nantucket life could, for one summer, be hers. This wouldn’t be so bad if Vivi hadn’t fallen so completely, irrevocably in love with the island and all its wonders.