Jeremiah crouches in front of the car and pushes. The water is at his ankles; his boots must be flooded. Mallory can see the tendons in his neck strain; his cheeks turn red, the veins in his forehead pop. Mallory steps on the gas, praying, praying, Come on, baby, easy does it, here we go…

The wheels spin. They take a deeper bite of the muddy earth.

Mallory takes her foot off the gas.

Jeremiah says, “Do you have any boards we could put under the tires?”

She blinks. “Do I have any boards?”

It’s a Wednesday morning. There is no one else at Gibbs Pond—no cars, no people, nothing but birds and the cloudless sky above. They’ll have to go for help. What choice do they have? Mallory tries to decide if she should send Jeremiah out to find help or leave him here with the car. Well, it’s her car and he has longer legs. She sends him out to Milestone Road.

“Just flag down the first person you see and explain what happened,” she says. “We need someone to tow us out.”

Jeremiah heads out on his own while Mallory gets out of the car and assesses the situation. She’s stuck. Stuck! She sits on the hood with her face in her hands and tries not to cry. She only wanted to help—but what does Kitty always say? No good deed goes unpunished. Mallory hopes that Dr. Major will understand. He already knows that Mallory feels awful about Jeremiah being left behind, so naturally she would offer to do something nice for him. A little fresh air. It’s such a gorgeous day, and everyone gets spring fever. Even Mallory.

What our girl doesn’t predict (though the canny among us might) is that the person who drives Jeremiah back to the pond is none other than JD. He’s in the Nantucket Fire Department’s Suburban.

Mallory can’t believe this. This is…so awkward. Mallory wonders if maybe it’s no coincidence that JD was the first person Jeremiah was able to flag down. Mallory has noticed JD driving the Suburban on the roads between the school and her house pretty frequently since they broke up. She hadn’t considered that JD was following her or checking up on her…until now.

JD pulls up behind the Blazer and hops out. He’s in his black uniform. Mallory used to joke about how sexy he looked in that uniform, but now she finds him intimidating.

He inspects the front of the Blazer and lets out a low whistle. “You’re stuck, all right.”

Mallory yearns to keep things professional. “Do you have a tow rope?”

“I do,” JD says. “Mind telling me what you and young Mr. Freehold were doing out here at Gibbs by yourselves in the middle of the school day?”

Mallory stares at JD, her cheeks aflame. She will not let him poison this situation with his pathological jealousy.

But then again, how will she stop him?

“I told you, Miss Blessing and I were having an adventure,” Jeremiah says.

Mallory closes her eyes. She feels JD’s imagination moving as swiftly as a duck’s webbed feet beneath the calm surface of the pond.

“An adventure,” JD says. “How about that.”

When the seniors arrive back at school the next morning, Mallory learns that Christy Belk and, yes, Maggie Sohn sneaked out of their hotel room, crossed a highway to get to a liquor store, bought a bottle of Wild Turkey with Christy’s fake ID, smuggled it into the hotel, and shared it with their roommates, both of whom spent the early-morning hours puking their guts up.

This, however, is not the talk of the school. The talk of the school is Jeremiah Freehold and Miss Blessing caught alone out at Gibbs Pond.

Apple stops by to see Mallory between classes. “Please tell me it’s not true,” she says. “Please tell me you listened to my advice and left that boy alone.”

“How did you find out?” Mallory asks.

“How did I find out?” Apple says. “There’s been a lot of whispering, baby. A lot.”

Oh, for God’s sake! Mallory thinks. People can’t possibly believe that anything funny was going on, can they? Mallory is stung, and worried, and crestfallen—not only because she and Jeremiah have become an object of curiosity (best-case scenario) or potential lascivious rumors (worst-case) but because in every class, she notices that her students avoid eye contact with her while simultaneously watching her every move. One of the boys slaps Jeremiah on the back.

At the end of the school day, Mallory is called down to Dr. Major’s office. She’d expected this, even welcomed it, because she wanted a chance to explain herself. But now, after talking to Apple, she figures she’s about to get fired. She wonders if Mr. and Mrs. Freehold will be there to complain about Mallory Blessing corrupting their son.

As soon as Dr. Major closes the door to his office, Mallory says, “I exercised horrible judgment, sir. I thought it would be okay to go for a ride during lunch. I felt so sorry for him. But I know how it looks and I understand why you have to let me go.” Only in the last few hours has it occurred to her how bad the situation might appear to others. She and Jeremiah went to Gibbs Pond alone. A female teacher and a male student. He is eighteen—but still. What were Leland’s words back in New York? It’s unseemly. How about some self-respect? Has Mallory learned nothing in the past two years? Has she not grown up at all? That’s what it feels like. She’s back at square one.

“Let you go?” Dr. Major says. “I’m not giving up on my most promising teacher. Are you kidding me?”

Mallory keeps her job, but the incident with Jeremiah Freehold casts a pall over her summer. It feels like everywhere Mallory goes, people are avoiding her, whispering about her. She lives in mortal fear of bumping into Jeremiah or his parents; she wishes she knew what they drove so she could scan the parking lot at the Stop and Shop before venturing inside.

She decided earlier in the spring that she would not return to work at the Summer House pool; she wanted to enjoy a real teacher’s summer off. But a week into vacation, this feels like an unwise choice. Apple is away—she took a job as head counselor at a camp for disadvantaged girls in North Carolina—and without her friend, Mallory finds herself feeling lonely.

She wants to call Jake but she can’t. When they parted the last time, they agreed they would call for only four reasons: engagement, marriage, pregnancy, or death.

How will I know if you’re coming back next year? Mallory asked.

I’m coming back every year, Jake said. No matter what.

Mallory accepted that answer, but a year is a long time and a lot can happen. Last summer, Jake had the convenient excuse of Cooper to bring him back up to Nantucket. But what about this year? What is he going to tell Ursula?

Maybe he and Ursula broke up, she thinks. It’s not impossible.

Mallory is desperate for company. She calls Cooper and invites him to come for the weekend.

“The rest of my summer is booked,” Cooper says. “Alison and I are in Vegas this weekend, then we have tickets to see Mary Chapin Carpenter at Wolf Trap the next weekend with Jake and Ursula, then we’re going to Denver, then to Nashville.”

“Ah,” Mallory says. It feels like she’s been hit in the forehead with a poison dart. Jake and Ursula have not broken up. They’re a couple, doing couple things with other couples. “So, you and Alison…I guess it’s more than just a rebound?”