Still, Gavin was left in a state of disgrace, and he was unhirable. His parents were at their wits’ end. Gavin lived at home that winter, jobless, listening to mournful jazz and spending his parents’ money on finely tailored clothes that, as far as he could tell, he would never again have a reason to wear. In the summer, he trailed his parents to Nantucket, and in the fall they suggested he stay and try to make his own way. Either Gavin’s parents thought the sea air and cold, gray winter would be fortifying for his character, or they simply wanted him banished, tucked away on an island where they didn’t have to deal with him in the day-to-day. Gavin was allowed to live in the house overlooking Cisco Beach for free, but he had to find a job and pay for the utilities.

Nantucket was a small place, and this suited Gavin, but he had a hard time finding a way to distinguish himself. He babysat paintings in an art gallery for a few months but found it too boring; he waited tables at the Brotherhood but found it too messy and hot. Then he found Nantucket’s Children, and something clicked. (This was odd, his parents thought, because he disliked children.) His skill set, as it turned out, was exactly that of a fastidious administrator. He was prompt, he was neat, he was impeccably polite, and he never forgot a thing. He built himself a persona—the tiny red ladybug of a car, his penchant for classical music and foreign films and Italian shirts from the Haberdashery—but lately he had begun to feel hemmed in by his own identity. He wanted friends instead of acquaintances, he wanted to be invited out to see a band and drink beer at the Chicken Box, he wanted to be talked to instead of wondered about. His closest friends now were Rosemary Pinkle, a recently widowed woman he knew from the Episcopal church, and Lock’s wife, Daphne Dixon, who liked to gossip as much as he did.

He was stealing, not because he needed the money (though the utility bills for a six-thousand-square-foot house weren’t cheap, and his raises at work never garnered him as much butter as he hoped), but because he wanted a change. He would stockpile the cash and save it for his escape. When the time was right, he would flee the country—for Thailand or Vietnam or Laos, where he would find a beautiful girl and live freely, without judgment.

Here was one thing that surprised Gavin about the stealing: it enhanced the quality of his day-to-day life. He went from floating mindlessly through the thousand and one tasks of his day, to sitting on the edge of his seat, noticing everything, taking nothing for granted. He was aware of the five hundred-dollar bills in his pocket; he was aware of the crumpled deposit slip buried in the trash can; he could feel the pressure of his fingertips against the computer keyboard as he typed in the deposit amount. He could feel the sharp zing of the air against his clean-shaven cheek; he could hear Lock, across the room, drawing and expelling breath; he could pick apart each individual note of the Chopin polonaise that was playing on the Bose radio. Which note would be playing at the moment he was discovered? It gave him a chill to wonder.

The phone rang and Gavin nearly jumped out of his rolling office chair. Lock looked up.

“Too much caffeine at lunch?”

“Double latte,” Gavin confirmed.

“If it’s Daphne, tell her I’m out,” Lock said.

Gavin nodded. This was a standard request. Although Gavin regarded Daphne as a comrade in the quest to keep life interesting, he did not tell her that her husband routinely refused her calls.

“Nantucket’s Children.”

“Gavin?”

Gavin licked his teeth and stared straight ahead at the freestanding coatrack—like a prop straight out of Dragnet—draped with Lock’s Burberry overcoat and Gavin’s (nicer) cashmere jacket from Hickey Freeman. It was Claire Crispin . . . again.

“Hello, Claire.”

“Hi. Is Lock handy?”

Handy. She always said this—maybe because her husband was a carpenter—and the phrase drove Gavin apeshit. Was Lock handy? No, he wasn’t handy; he couldn’t even change the toilet paper roll in the bathroom. (Gavin had used that joke once, then wearied of it.) He had wearied of Claire in general and yet she was always around, calling Lock, popping in. She would stop by at eight fifteen on her way back from dropping the kids off at school, looking like death on a stick in her stretched-out, shapeless yoga clothes, wearing no makeup, her hair in a haphazard bun. Gavin would never be seen looking that way in public; he didn’t like to look that way in private. Claire always had something to pick up or drop off or something she wanted Gavin to pull from the files, or she wanted Lock’s ear on a conflict she had had via e-mail with Isabelle French. It was so tiresome, Gavin didn’t pay close attention. More often than not, Claire would call later that day, and when Gavin answered the phone, she would say, “Hi, it’s Claire. Did you miss me?”

And Gavin would think: How can I miss you when you won’t go away?

He usually tried to muster a little chuckle, and then Claire would say (wearing his patience down to a frayed thread): Is Lock handy?

Now Gavin said, “Please hold.” He pushed the button on the phone and said to Lock, “It’s Claire.”

“Okay,” Lock said. “Great. Put her through.”

Lock did not take Daphne’s calls, but he always took Claire’s. What did that say? Gavin watched Lock closely. His eyes did seem to brighten when he said hello, and his voice seemed to take on a tender tone, and then Lock swiveled in his chair and faced the twenty-paned window, which put his back to Gavin. It was a gesture Gavin knew well, in many incarnations: Gavin kept his hands in his jacket pockets when he went to the bank with a deposit, and he did all of the banking computer work with the screen tilted away from Lock’s desk, most often when Lock was at lunch. These were the ways of a person with a secret. Turn your back. Speak in short, innocuous phrases that give nothing away, as Lock was now doing: Yes, I see what you mean. Okay. Not right now. You bet. Yep, me too.