“Thank you,” Kirby says. It’s three o’clock now; she can’t imagine staying awake another four hours. “Everything okay upstairs?” Mr. Ames does three walk-throughs, one at eleven thirty, one at two thirty, and one at five thirty.

“The gentleman in room eight snores like a black bear,” Mr. Ames says. “Though I’m hardly one to talk.” He points a finger at Kirby. “There’s no shame in dozing off. If there’s an emergency, I’ll wake you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ames,” Kirby says. She takes the coffee to the back office and thinks about how much she enjoys living without shame.

Shame.

There’s a far bigger problem with Kirby dating Darren Frazier than just his being black. It’s his mother. Dr. Frazier knows who Kirby is…maybe. Or maybe all young blond students look the same to her. Kirby should forget about Darren; the last thing she needs is a complicated relationship. Although what appeals to Kirby about Darren is that he seems so easy. He was nice enough to pick her up and drive her all the way to Edgartown; he’s smart enough to go to Harvard; he takes pride in his summer job; he’s confident and self-assured. And he has a gorgeous smile. How divine would it be to bask in that smile all summer long? How lovely to ride shotgun in Darren’s Corvair and go pick up lobsters from Larsen’s and eat them in the blue fairy-tale house?

Kirby sighs. Divine, lovely, but just a dream. He was nice to her because she’s friends with Rajani. Possibly, he’s interested in Rajani. This thought bothers Kirby more than it probably should.

She tries again with the radio and gets Peter, Paul, and Mary. The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. She closes her eyes.

Kirby wakes with the sun at quarter after five and snaps into action. She goes through the bills one more time and hurries to the restroom to freshen up. She sets up the coffee percolator and arranges powdered doughnuts from a box on a plate for the guests. At precisely six o’clock, a guest named Bobby Hogue from room 3 appears in a pair of shorts and tennis shoes. Bobby Hogue is missing his left hand. It was blown off by a grenade during a search-and-destroy mission in Quang Nam during his second tour with the Marines. Once a Marine, always a Marine, Bobby Hogue says, so he still gets up early every day and goes for a five-mile run.

“Good morning, Mr. Hogue,” Kirby says.

“Good morning, Kirby,” Bobby Hogue says.

The newspapers land with a thud on the front porch, and Kirby rushes out from behind the desk to get them, but Bobby Hogue picks the bundle up with his right hand and sets them on the pedestal table in the middle of the lobby. Kirby feels a rush of admiration, then sneaks a glimpse at the rounded stump where his hand used to be.

“I’m not going to read the news today,” Bobby Hogue says. He gives her a kind smile; Kirby has told him that her brother is stationed in the Central Highlands. “And you shouldn’t either.”

“Deal,” Kirby says. She’s only too willing to play along, to pretend that the rest of the world is as serene as Edgartown, Massachusetts, at six o’clock on a summer morning.

Bobby Hogue waves to her with his stump, then runs down the porch stairs.

On her first day off, Kirby decides she’ll try Inkwell Beach. She has considered it every day since Darren extended the invitation but she’s exercised uncharacteristic restraint. She thinks about her first, heady days with Scottie Turbo, how eager she was to climb into his convertible and drive up to Lake Winnipesaukee. She had been a fool once, but she wouldn’t be again.

Monday is picture-perfect—warm sun, low humidity, a silken blue sky, a delicious breeze off the water that Kirby enjoys through the open window of Mr. Ames’s pickup truck. Kirby had spent six precious dollars of her disposable income on taxis to and from work before Mr. Ames saved the day by offering to drive her back to Oak Bluffs in the mornings, since they kept the same schedule. Normally, both Kirby and Mr. Ames are too tired for conversation, but on Monday morning, Kirby is excited about the day ahead.

“I’m going to Inkwell Beach,” Kirby says to Mr. Ames. “Do you ever go there?”

“Used to when I was younger,” Mr. Ames says. “With my wife’s family.” He pauses. “You and your friends might like Katama or the state beach better.”

“I don’t really have any friends yet,” Kirby says. “I mean, I have one friend from college who’s working as a nanny out in Chilmark, and I’m becoming friendly with a girl who lives in the house with me.”

“So what’s the interest in Inkwell Beach?” Mr. Ames says. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I met a boy who invited me,” Kirby says. “Darren Frazier? He’s a lifeguard at Inkwell.”

“Yes, I know Darren,” Mr. Ames says. “My wife’s sister is married to Judge Frazier’s cousin.”

“Right on,” Kirby says. Darren is the son of Dr. Frazier, who may or may not know about Kirby’s unfortunate past, and of Judge Frazier, who may or may not have access to Kirby’s arrest record. Darren Frazier is the last boy in Massachusetts that Kirby should be interested in.

“Darren invited you to Inkwell?” Mr. Ames says.

Kirby nods.

“Well, okay, then,” Mr. Ames says. “Have fun.”

Kirby is too nervous to join the other girls for breakfast and she is too agitated to sleep or even nap. She heads straight up to her room and puts a record on her Silvertone—Stand!, by Sly and the Family Stone, the album she brought for her hopeful moods. She turns the music up as loud as she dares. (One of the Irish Ms—Michaela—came storming upstairs a few evenings earlier when Kirby was playing Crosby, Stills, and Nash, her introspective-mood album, and said in her thick Irish accent, “Teern et doone!” To which Kirby responded, “Sorry, I didn’t know you were fifty years old.”)

Kirby puts on her red bikini and over it an extra-long tie-dyed T-shirt that has a hand-painted peace sign on the front. She wore this T-shirt with jeans and a pair of fringed suede boots to the protest where Scottie arrested her. He had cherry-picked her out of that teeming crowd because she looked “so good in that top,” he’d said. Kirby ties a red bandanna over her hair—out of its bun for the first time in a week—and puts on her sunglasses. She’s ready to go.