“I have a favor to ask, Bruce.”

“Tickets?” Bruce said. “Max is in Southeast Asia. He’s not playing in the States again until spring.”

“It’s not tickets,” Claire said. It was so much more than tickets that she wasn’t sure how to ask. A free ninety-minute concert on a baseball diamond for a thousand wealthy summer people who might not even dance. She’d eaten a salami sandwich for lunch, and now she had heartburn.

“No?” Bruce said, and his voice sounded both interested and wary.

“I’m the cochair of a benefit here on Nantucket,” Claire said. “It’s called the summer gala. It’s cocktails and dinner for a thousand people. And traditionally, there’s a concert.”

Silence.

“It’s a charity event,” Claire said. “A thousand dollars a ticket, and all the money goes to this organization I’m involved with called Nantucket’s Children.”

Silence.

“I want Matthew—Max, I mean—to play it.”

Silence.

“For free.”

Had Bruce hung up? She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.

“It’s August sixteenth, a Saturday,” Claire said. “Here, on Nantucket. Nantucket is off the coast of—”

“I know where Nantucket is.”

“Okay,” Claire said. She took a deep breath. “What do you think?”

She heard the shuffling of papers. Bruce Mandalay cleared his throat. “Hollywood Hospice, Doctors without Borders, Save the Children, the United Way of Orange County, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dade County SPCA, the Druckenheimer Center for the Elderly of Saint Louis, the Kapistan School for the Blind, the Red Cross, the Seattle Symphony, the Redbone fishing tournament for cystic fibrosis, the Home for Retarded Citizens of Rock City, Iowa, the Conservancy Project at Estes Park, the First Baptist Church of Tupelo, the Jackson, Mississippi, Botanical Gardens, the Cleveland Clinic, Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education, DATA—that’s Bono’s thing in Africa—the Mount Rushmore Restoration Concern—”

“Okay,” Claire said. “Stop. I get it.”

Bruce sighed. He was a nonagent agent and he had bought the cheeseburger and the Coke for Claire so long ago, when she had no money for lunch herself—but he wasn’t exactly kind, either. Maybe he had been kind at one time, but representing Max West through twenty years of meteoric success had made him . . . a realist. It was hard to be a realist and kind.

“Claire . . . ,” he said.

She should never have called. She should have mailed the letter to Sweet Jane and waited to hear back. Jane Westfield was sweet, she was kind, she had known Claire since Claire was twelve years old, she wouldn’t give Claire a song and dance . . . but what, really, did Claire know? Maybe she would. Claire felt like she was going to cry. It was rejection, plain and simple, and the thing was, she deserved it—for being so smug, for assuming that she had been an unforgettable influence in Matthew’s life. You don’t forget your high school sweetheart, do you? But maybe you did. She hadn’t seen Matthew in forever and a day.

Lock doesn’t think you’ll be able to deliver. She couldn’t deliver. She experienced vestiges of an old hurt—Claire, out behind the Stone Pony, hugging Matthew, holding on to him for dear life, knowing she was going to lose him—and it was combined with the hurt she was going to feel when she told Lock Dixon, who admired her and believed in her, that she couldn’t get Max West.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I get it. All those people want him.”

“Those are just the requests from this month,” Bruce said. “This is what’s come in since he’s been gone. He turned down Bono, Claire. And nearly all of these organizations are willing to pay . . .”

“I know,” Claire said. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“You were right to ask,” Bruce said.

He was quiet again, and Claire thought, Please let’s just end this call. Did he expect her to make nice and ask about his daughters now?

“Do you know who I work for?” he said.

“Who?” Claire said.

“Max West.”

“Right.”

“He’s like my own son,” Bruce said. “I know everything about him. For example, I know he’s in Brunei right now, jonesing like crazy because the sultan is Muslim and his kingdom is dry.”

“Right,” Claire said. There were only ten minutes until pickup; she had to hang up. “Listen, would you do me a favor? If you talk to Max, will you tell him I called and just ask him? Tell him it’s really, really important to me . . .”

“I don’t have to ask him,” Bruce said. “I know everything about him. If I tell him you called and asked for this crazy, inconceivable thing, I know what he’ll say.”

“What?”

“He’ll say yes.”

“What?”

“He’ll say, For Claire Danner, yes. Free concert, no problem, sure. Saturday, August sixteenth. You’re lucky because he happens to be free. He flies to Spain a few days later. So, yes, he’ll be there.”

Claire stood up from the bed. She started to bounce—she couldn’t help herself—but she didn’t want Bruce to know she was bouncing.

“Really?” she said. “You think?”

“I don’t think,” Bruce said. “I know. He’ll be there.”