Matthew called G-Man over. “Would you get me a Tanqueray, splash of tonic, with a very fresh lime?” he asked. “Please?”

It was going too fast! Already it was time to sit for dinner. Everybody was starving. The cocktail hour—always legendary—had been a bit lean in the food department.

Claire took a deep breath and looked around the tent. This was it! The gala! The tent was lit by white Christmas lights and candles; the tables were decorated with crisp white linens, crystal goblets, and simple arrangements of pink tea roses in silver bowls. The tent shimmied with the sound of people talking and laughing. This was a beautiful party. Adams opened a bottle of champagne and poured some for Claire and then kissed her cheek and said, “You did a great job.”

“It wasn’t only me,” Claire said. She peered at the next table. Lock was sitting between Heather and Isabelle. Daphne was on the other side of Heather, and Gavin—who Claire now understood was Isabelle’s date!—was sitting on the other side of Isabelle. Dara, the cellist, was at the table with a date, and Aster Wyatt, the graphic designer, was there with his boyfriend. None of Isabelle’s other friends had shown up. Isabelle looked positively morose. Claire raised her champagne flute in Isabelle’s direction. We did it! she mouthed. Isabelle looked away.

Claire’s heart faltered. She took a feeble sip, then set her glass down. Tomorrow, she reminded herself, it wouldn’t matter what Isabelle thought.

Everything tends to go wrong at the last minute. They were past the point where everything could go wrong, weren’t they? But Claire worried about dinner. Siobhan had not managed to get hors d’oeuvres out; even Genevieve and her troop of sixteen-year-olds could have done better. When the waiter set down Claire’s plate, however, her mind was put at ease: the food was beautiful. The beef tenderloin was rosy, the lobster salad creamy, the wild rice studded with dried cherries and golden raisins, like jewels. Claire checked around her: service seemed even. Claire believed she could hear a collective sigh of relief, and then expressions of excitement and joy. Dinner!

As dinner was being cleared, Lock stood up from his place. Claire’s stomach clenched; she wasn’t ready for this. Lock took a microphone from one of the production guys and said, in a booming voice that quieted everyone, “Good evening!”

Applause. People were feeling good now; they had been warmed by the cocktail hour, and they’d eaten. The evening was about to take off like a rocket ship.

“I’m Lockhart Dixon, executive director of Nantucket’s Children, and I would like to thank you for coming to our summer gala!”

More applause.

“Nantucket’s Children was founded in 1992, when it came to the attention of our late founder, Margaret Kincaid, that the face of Nantucket was changing. There were children of working islanders whose basic needs were not being met. The island needed affordable housing options, better after-school programs, day care . . .”

Lock went on; Claire knew the spiel. She looked around at the attractive, wealthy people surrounding her. Did they get it? Nantucket’s Children was about kids whose parents worked as hard as they could to make a life here. Nantucket’s economy depended on this workforce; the island had a responsibility to care for these children. Lock finished his speech and raised his hands, and the lights in the tent dimmed. The video started on a screen that dropped down over the stage: kids of all shapes, sizes, and colors playing ball, studying, riding bikes, walking in groups on the beach. The sound track played “Lean on Me,” and Claire misted up. A picture of J.D. flashed on the screen, showing him sitting with a special-needs preschool student, a book open between them. The Read to Me program, funded by Nantucket’s Children. Claire felt conflicted: to cochair this gala had been so hard, so draining, and it had led her to such a complicated place. She looked at the kids’ faces on the screen. The point of the gala was to raise money; money would make a difference. She had taken the job as cochair because she wanted to help, because she wanted to return some goodwill to the universe. But it had backfired. Or had it?

Claire’s nerves attacked her thighs, her knees. She knew what was coming. She looked over at Isabelle’s table and was alarmed to see Isabelle stand up, push her chair in, and stroll to the back of the tent. Where was she going? Didn’t she know the thank-yous were next on the program? Gavin stood and followed Isabelle out.

Adams ambled up onto the stage and took the microphone from Lock. Claire turned around, searching in vain for Isabelle. She was gone. Claire tried to signal to Adams, but he was off and running on his president-of-the-board speech. He thanked Gavin—polite applause, though now Gavin was missing, too—and then he thanked Lock, and Lock returned to the stage to take a bow. Claire looked at Daphne—she was, as ever, scowling—and then Daphne stood up and walked out. The applause was deafening, or so it seemed to Claire. She was gripped with fear. Here was the moment she had been waiting for, or one of the moments, and she was dreading it. No! she thought. Her face blossomed into two red posies. Calm down. She had done harder things than this. She had kept her cool while they performed an emergency C-section and pulled Zack out: Living? Dead? Healthy? Impaired? She had been introduced during the unveiling of Bubbles III at the Whitney Museum; she had been photographed by the New York Times. She had banged the tambourine against her hip in front of a packed house at the Stone Pony. She must have had chutzpah then. Well, if she’d had it, she’d lost it. She worked alone in the hot shop, she raised her family; she was not the kind of person who could accept a bouquet of flowers in front of an intimidating crowd like this. Her heels would snap, she would fall, there would be a stain on her dress in an embarrassing place, there would be something stuck in her teeth. She checked again for Isabelle—gone. In the bathroom. And Daphne, gone. And Matthew, too, would miss her shining moment. Was it even worth having a shining moment if the right people weren’t there to watch?