Bayer grins. “To you, Mary Ann.”

A woman materializes out of nowhere. She’s in a red floral wrap dress with a matching headscarf. She has dark hair and wears red lipstick. She’s pretty enough. Older. Bayer’s age.

“Bayer?” she says. “Is that you?”

Bayer stands up. “Caroline, hello, yes.” Air kiss, hand on Caroline’s back, and a sweeping arm to introduce Mallory. “Please meet my friend Mary Ann.”

Mallory has been raised by Kitty; she knows to stand up when meeting someone. But she doesn’t account for the sand or the proximity of her chair behind her or her drunkenness or her confusion because Bayer has chosen not to use her real name. Mallory’s chair falls backward at the same time that she lurches forward, and she practically watches herself fall face-first into all the glassware and the candle’s flame, but at the last minute, she catches herself and nothing breaks or spills.

“Pleasure to meet you, Caroline.” Mallory’s words, while not slurred, are not exactly crisp either.

Caroline’s hand is smooth, her grip firm, her eyes assessing. She takes Mallory in and must draw the conclusion that further conversation is unnecessary because she turns back to Bayer. “I heard you were here,” Caroline says. “From Dee Dee.”

From Dee Dee. Mallory reaches for her wineglass and, finding it empty, picks up Bayer’s and throws back what’s left. Is this rude? She doesn’t care.

Bayer says nothing. His face is still; his eyes are those of a man facing his own execution.

“How are the children?” Caroline asks. “Enjoying camp?”

“Not if you believe their letters,” Bayer says. His lips turn up ever so slightly at the corners. “Good to see you, Caroline.”

“Oh,” Caroline says. “Well, okay, then. Good to see you too.” She nods at Mallory. “Enjoy your evening.”

Caroline’s visit brings the evening to a premature end. Mallory says she doesn’t want dessert. She goes to the ladies’ room, trying to tell herself that there’s an explanation, that the only lie is who he named the boat for, which is minor. Dee Dee Ramone. He was making a joke and she didn’t know any better. When she returns to the table, Bayer is leaving a pile of hundreds for the check, and it’s this that lets Mallory know he’s guilty. Just throw money at the people you’re wronging and their friends, and they’ll forgive you. Isolde sees the pile of bills as she brings a to-go box with complimentary desserts from the kitchen and she murmurs in Mallory’s ear, “Everything okay?”

“Yes, yes,” Mallory says—though actually, she has no idea.

Back on the boat, Bayer lights a cigarette, sits in the stern, and pats the cushion next to him.

Mallory shakes her head. She feels she should remain standing. Where does she even start? “You have children?” she says.

“Guinevere, age ten. Gus, age nine. They’re at camp in Maine this summer.”

Guinevere, ten. Gus, nine. Why is this the first she’s heard of his children? Well, there can be only one reason, right? “And Dee Dee?”

He clears his throat. “My wife.”

“Your wife.”

“Yes,” Bayer says. “When I told you I had a bigger boat at home, with a crew, and I needed time away from them…”

“You meant you had a family.”

“It was a euphemism.”

“It was a lie. A lie, Bayer.”

“I do have a second boat,” he says.

“I don’t care about your second boat,” Mallory says. “I care about your wife. By not telling me, you made me complicit. What must Caroline think?”

“Who cares what she thinks? Do you care? You don’t even know her.”

“Well, then, what about what I think? You lied to me. Now, of course, all the things that have been bothering me about our relationship make perfect sense.”

He turns on her. “Are there things about our relationship that bother you? Because, frankly, you’ve seemed pretty damn content.”

Well, she was content—when she’d thought that she had landed a rich, eligible bachelor with time and money to lavish on her. She supposes now that it was no accident she got involved with Bayer directly after hearing Leland say all those unkind things about her. Leland was right; Mallory is suggestible. And she’s gullible. A more clever person would have realized she was being duped.

“This whole thing was a sham. I feel so…stupid. So used. I’m a nice person, Bayer! I’m a good person.”

(Bayer stubs out his cigarette. He considers Mallory. She looks beautiful tonight, but then, she always looks beautiful. She’s young, maybe too young to understand. She told him during their first meeting at the Summer House that she wondered if he was a serial killer. No, he’s not a serial killer, and honestly, he’s not even a garden-variety philanderer, though he’s aware it must appear otherwise to Mallory. He and Dee Dee agreed to spend the summer apart. The kids were at camp; it seemed like the right time.

Do what you want, Dee Dee said. But go elsewhere. I don’t want to hear about it.

Where Dee Dee is concerned, all is fair—though she’ll likely be hearing from Caroline Stengel in the morning, if not tonight. But Bayer admits to himself that all this probably hasn’t been fair to Mallory. He should have come right out and told her he was married. He’s curious why she never asked. This has made him wonder about her as well. There were times when he would have described her as not-there. Meaning somewhere else, with someone else.)

“You are a nice person and a good person, Mary Ann. Yes, you are. But even nice, good people aren’t perfect. Everybody has weaknesses. I suspect there’s a secret you’re keeping as well. Maybe even something big?”

Mallory feels like she’s in a hot-air balloon that’s about to crash into a cornfield. Either she’ll be killed in a fiery wreck or she’ll walk away unscathed.

The latter, she thinks. It’s her choice and she chooses the latter.

And Bayer is right. She is keeping a secret. Something big.

“I’m in love,” she says.

He looks genuinely surprised. “With me?”

“No,” she says. “I’m in love with Jake McCloud.”

(Ah, he thinks. His instincts were correct.) “Is Jake McCloud the boyfriend who got married the day we met?”

“He’s the one who got married,” Mallory says. She hesitates and thinks, How bizarre, how bizarre, that Bayer Burkhart is the person I finally tell. “But he was never my boyfriend. He’s my…my Same Time Next Year. Like in that movie. He comes to Nantucket to see me every summer for one weekend, no matter what.”

Bayer nods. “Interesting arrangement.” (He can’t believe it, but he feels jealous. It’s something about Mallory’s expression. Jake McCloud is one lucky bastard. Frankly, Bayer would like to strangle him.) “That sounds nice.”

She shrugs. “It has its ups and downs.”

Summer #6: 1998

What are we talking about in 1998? Monica Lewinsky, the blue dress, Linda Tripp, Kenneth Starr, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”; El Niño; Nagano; Linda McCartney; MMR vaccines; Mark McGwire; the Elliptical; Hurricane Mitch; Babbo; Phil Hartman; Windows 98; Viagra; Matthew Shepard; There’s Something About Mary; Jesse Ventura; “Chickity China, the Chinese chicken”; Eric, Kyle, Stan, and Kenny.