“Are you okay?” Claire said. In her mind, she launched automatically into a Hail Mary. Not two days before the gala, not today, when Claire had a list a mile long; not tomorrow, when Matthew was coming; and certainly not Saturday, when Claire would be unavailable from start to finish.

Pan groaned. Claire approached the bed. There was a half-eaten bowl of rice on the dresser.

“Pan, are you sick?”

Pan pushed her hair out of her face. “I feel hot,” she said.

Claire gasped. Pan was covered with red spots.

On the way home from the doctor, with Pan leaning limply against the car door—Tylenol, the doctor had said, baths with baking soda, bed rest—Claire called Isabelle at home. No one answered, so Claire left a message on the machine.

“Hey, Isabelle, it’s Claire. Listen, will you call me when you get this message, please? It seems odd I haven’t heard from you this week, and I just want to make sure we’re all set with the event.” Pause. Mention the elephant in the room? “I know you were upset about the magazine article, and honestly, no one was more shocked that you weren’t mentioned than I was. It’s awful. An egregious oversight. I’ll say something to Tessa. Okay, call me, please.”

Claire hung up, then dialed Isabelle’s cell phone.

Again, no answer. Again, Claire left a message.

“Hey, Isabelle, it’s Claire.” She paused, thinking: I find your behavior discouraging and immature. “Call me when you get a chance!”

On Thursday, when Lock walked into the office, he stopped first at Gavin’s desk. Slowly, Gavin raised his eyes from his work.

Lock said, “Is it true that you’re going to the gala with Isabelle?”

“Yes.”

“Daphne told me that, but I didn’t quite believe it. Isabelle invited you?”

“I didn’t invite myself.”

“Of course not. Well, good, I’m glad you’re going with Isabelle. You’ve worked hard, and you deserve it.”

“I’m sure it seems odd to you . . .”

“Not odd at all,” Lock said. “Have you decided what you’re wearing on Saturday?”

Gavin said, “Navy blazer, white shirt, madras pants, loafers.”

“Tie?” Lock said.

“No,” Gavin said. “But you should wear one, as the director.”

Lock nodded and moved on to his desk. Gavin let his breath go. The most crucial thing, he’d decided last night, was to get the money out of his car and into the bank, into the Nantucket’s Children operating fund. If it was in the fund, no one could accuse him of stealing it. But Gavin couldn’t just show up with $52,000 to deposit, could he?

Claire had said she would come at two o’clock to help, but she didn’t show up until four, at which point Siobhan was at the end of her rope.

Claire said, “Sorry I’m so late. You’re not going to believe what happened!”

Did the woman think she was the only person with problems? Did she think she was the only person who was insanely busy? One thing was for certain: since she’d decided to cochair the gala, Claire had cornered the market on drama. Siobhan said nothing, and Claire stood there expectantly, waiting for Siobhan to bite. Siobhan would not bite! Siobhan was tired of the way things worked in this friendship, with Claire’s problems constantly taking top billing. She would not ask! She was in the middle of poaching six hundred lobsters, a hot and thankless fucking job: you had to rip the claws off the poor buggers before you dropped them in, otherwise the whole mess tasted like rubber bands. Siobhan would make Claire rip the claws off. Just thinking this made Siobhan smile, which Claire took as her cue to proceed.

“Isabelle isn’t speaking to me because of that stupid article in NanMag.”

Siobhan didn’t know how angry at Claire she really was until she decided, in that split second, to take Isabelle French’s side. “Well, she wasn’t mentioned at all. Not once.”

“I know,” Claire said. “But that’s not my fault. How can she blame me?”

Siobhan didn’t answer. She held up a lobster; there was a tub of them, crawling all over one another, on the floor. They were really quite unappetizing-looking creatures.

“Here,” she said. “Rip the claws off, remove the rubber bands, throw it into the pot.”

Claire made a face. “I can’t do that.”

“You came to help,” Siobhan said. “This is what I need done.”

“What about making the gazpacho?”

“I finished that an hour ago,” Siobhan said. “If you’d been here at two like you said—”

“I know,” Claire said. “Sorry. But guess what, on top of everything else?” She paused. Waiting for what? A drum roll? “Pan has the chicken pox!”

Siobhan laughed, though this, she realized, was cruel and may have been crossing the line. “The chicken pox?”

“She’s very sick,” Claire said. “And contagious to boot, though my kids all had the vaccine. But she can’t work. What am I going to do about a sitter?”

“Who’s watching them now?”

“Jason. He should be at work, but he agreed to help. What am I going to do about the gala, though? Nightmare.”

Nightmare? She wanted nightmare? Siobhan could redefine nightmare: Carter had spent three days surfing and skulking around the house like a derelict, doing little more than drinking beer and eating the junk Siobhan bought for the children—Go-Gurts, barbecue-flavored Fritos, Slushee pops. Then she caught him on a suspicious phone call on their land line. He’d claimed it was Jason, but the call log showed a number with an unfamiliar area code, and that did it, the camel was on its knees: Siobhan threw him out. She loved repeating the phrase threw him out, though in reality what she had said was, Please make yourself scarce, Carter Crispin. Go away, take a trip, leave the island for a few days, get out of my hair until this gala mess is behind me. Then we can start over, I can focus, we can talk, and we will work this out and find you some much-needed help. Okay?