Alessandra is on high alert every time the elevator dings, and the instant she sees Duffy step off, she beelines for the break room. She feeds a dollar to the jukebox and chooses Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, and Metallica and then takes her angst—she can’t believe Duffy Beecham is here, haunting her!—out on the pinball machine. She plays one game, then a second, then a third （high score）—and then she hears Adam’s voice sing out. “Alessannnnnnndra, are you in here?”
“Hello?” Alessandra says, tearing herself away from the machine, though she has already dropped a fourth quarter in.
“Girl, get back out there! Edie is three-deep.”
Alessandra hurries back out, and sure enough, Edie has a line at the desk, the first ever since the hotel opened.
“Sorry about that,” Alessandra says.
“It’s fine,” Edie says. “I understand.”
You don’t, though, Alessandra thinks.
Duffy stops by the desk a while later with Cabot, who’s wearing a tiny bucket hat and a little bathing suit printed with sharks. “We’re taking him to the family pool,” Duffy says. “I’ll put him down for a nap around one and then I’ll come chat.”
“Whatever works!” Alessandra says. She doesn’t want to chat with Duffy. She doesn’t want to talk about high school or hear about Drew and Mary Lou （from Duffy’s Facebook, Alessandra knows that they’ve both put on forty pounds and turned gray） and she doesn’t want to learn about Duffy’s fabulous San Francisco life with her successful husband and adorable baby. But what she really doesn’t want is to be asked questions about herself. What were her years abroad like? Well, some of them were better than others. Alessandra held a string of jobs in beautiful hotels and she’d dated different men, all of them wealthy, most of them married, one of them—the one Alessandra thought would be her husband—a financial criminal, none of them appropriate. And what is her life like here on Nantucket? Last night, she slipped into Dr. Romano’s room; they ordered room service （Alessandra hid in the bathroom while it was delivered） and had （completely mediocre） sex, and Alessandra left at two in the morning, emotionally numb.
When Duffy swings by on her way back up to her room, she says, “I’ll be back down in a little while. Jamie will stay in the room with Cabot so that we can talk.”
“Great!” Alessandra says.
Once Duffy is on the elevator, Alessandra releases a low moan and Edie says, “Why don’t you take lunch now? You can go for as long as you want, it’s okay with me.”
Alessandra blinks. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I grew up on this island,” she says. “I check the cars in the parking lot of the Stop and Shop before I go inside. There are old friends I would do anything to avoid.”
Oh my God, Alessandra thinks. Edie does understand.
She takes one of the hotel bikes, goes to Something Natural, and sits at a picnic table for two hours, reading the new Elena Ferrante novel. When she arrives back at the hotel, Edie says, “You’re safe. They went to the Oystercatcher for a late lunch and they’re staying through sunset.”
“Thank you,” Alessandra says.
Once Alessandra learns Cabot’s schedule, she’s able to avoid a conversation with Duffy on day two and day three as well. She owes Edie big-time because she takes some seriously long-ass lunches, telling Duffy she has a doctor’s appointment and then a Zoom meeting she can’t miss. She blows Dr. Romano off on night two—she needs sleep—but she visits him late on night three, and after they’ve had more mediocre sex, Alessandra finds herself weeping uncontrollably. Dr. Romano—his name is Mark—thinks she’s crying because she’s become emotionally attached and he’s leaving in the morning. Gently, he wipes her tears away with the pad of his thumb. He has lovely hands and even lovelier fingers; he’s a surgeon.
“Please don’t cry,” he says. “We had a nice time together and that’s what matters, right?”
Yes, of course Alessandra will never see him again—he has a wife and two little girls in Kansas City—but that’s not why she’s crying. She shrugs.
“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”
“Just hold me,” she says, snuggling into him. “And if you could write a review on TravelTattler and mention me by name, that really helps. Just say I was exceptional on the desk or whatever.”
He tickles her ribs. “You were exceptional on the desk.” He reaches for the remote control and turns on the TV. Caddyshack has just started. “Have you ever seen this movie? It’s a laugh riot.”