“Can we do the carousel again?” Kirby asks him. “Maybe tonight before work?”

“It’s my auntie’s birthday,” he says. “The judge is making oyster stew.”

“I love oyster stew,” Kirby says, though this is an outright lie. She likes clams, shrimp, and mussels and she’s a fool for lobster, but the pleasure of the oyster still eludes her. She’s just angling for an invite.

None comes.

“We’ll go back to the carousel,” Darren says. “Just not tonight.”

But then…serendipity! They have the same day off, Tuesday, and Darren proposes a beach outing.

“I’ll plan everything,” he says. “All you need is your bikini and a book.”

Kirby loves that he said she needed a book—what is the beach without a good book?—but she hopes they are too busy swimming and kissing and splashing and tussling in the sand to read. Even so, she packs Myra Breckinridge, which she hasn’t even cracked open, and she decides she’s finally tan enough to wear her white crocheted bikini.

Darren asks Kirby to meet him at Tony’s Market; he wants to pick up beer and ice, and they can leave from there. Kirby agrees…but as she’s walking from Narragansett Avenue to Tony’s, she passes right by Darren’s house and his car is still out front. Should she go knock on the door or keep going and meet him at Tony’s like he asked her to?

Her head advises her to keep going. Her heart tells her differently.

She marches up the walk and knocks on the door.

“Come in!” a voice booms from inside.

Kirby pulls open the screen door and enters. She peers into the sunny front room with its bright furnishings; on the white kidney-shaped table there’s a glass pitcher holding periwinkle hydrangeas that make the room even more summery and inviting. In addition to being beautiful and accomplished, Dr. Frazier has impeccable taste. Kirby is nearly frantic to win her over. She continues down the hall, passing a small powder room with green bamboo-printed wallpaper, to the last door on the right, which opens to an eat-in kitchen that is decorated to resemble a Parisian brasserie. There is a black-and-white-tile floor and marble countertops and frosted-glass globe pendant lights and a wooden sign that says CAFÉ, CHOCOLAT, PÂTE, ET SIROPS over the copper sink. There’s jaunty clarinet music playing.

The judge is leaning against the counter, bifocals on, with the newspaper spread out in front of him. He’s wearing green golf pants and a yellow polo shirt. There’s a couple sitting at the round bistro table drinking coffee and helping themselves to a rainbow pinwheel of fruit and a platter of muffins.

“Hi,” Kirby says. The man and woman at the table are older, the judge’s age, and Kirby tells herself to act natural, as though she were meeting friends of her own parents. “Sorry to interrupt. I’m looking for Darren.”

The three adults stare at her for a second as though she’s an alien arrived from Mars. Kirby is, frankly, relieved that Dr. Frazier isn’t present. This is her chance to charm the judge, maybe. She gives him her best smile. “Your Honor, I’m Kirby Foley. I met you at the Homeport with Rajani?”

“Yes,” the judge says. “I remember. Good morning.”

The woman stands up. “I’m Cassandra Frazier,” she says, offering her hand. Her hair is in a towering bun that’s wound with a colorful scarf. She’s wearing wooden bangles that clatter as she shakes Kirby’s hand. “And this is my husband, Hank,” she says as she sits down.

Hank has a mouthful of muffin but he rises to shake Kirby’s hand, and then, once he’s swallowed, he says, “Hank Frazier, first cousin of the honorable judge.”

Kirby looks at Cassandra. “Are you by any chance the sister of Mr. Ames’s wife, Susanna?”

Cassandra cocks her head and offers a half smile. “I am, yes. How do you know Susanna?”

“Oh, I’ve never met her. But I work the night shift with Mr. Ames at the Shiretown Inn and when I mentioned that I was friends with Darren, he said his wife’s sister was married to the judge’s cousin.” Kirby feels a small sense of triumph, as though she has just plugged the last piece into a jigsaw puzzle.

“Yes!” Cassandra exclaims. “You’re the young lady from Nantucket, then? Cal raves about you.”

“That’s very nice to hear,” Kirby says. She checks to make sure that Judge Frazier has taken note of this, that his cousin’s wife’s sister’s husband raves about Kirby. See? she wants to say. Someone you know, even ever so tangentially, thinks I’m worth raving about.

The judge says, “And you’re here to see Darren?”

“I am,” Kirby says. “We’re going to the beach.”

“The beach?” the judge says, as though he’s never heard of the place. He turns to face the doorway. “Darren! You have a visitor!”

Kirby wants to compliment the room—it’s so cool, with all the art deco flourishes, so unexpectedly fun and fresh. She wants to take a mental picture of the fruit plate so that at some point in her own adult life, when she has money for that kind of exquisite produce, she might re-create it—pale green slices of honeydew melon, brighter green kiwi, fresh pineapple, pale disks of banana, strawberries cut into fans, a pile of blueberries and blackberries in the center. She wants to ask Cassandra where she got her scarf and her bracelets. Is the scarf from Paris? The bracelets look vaguely African; were they purchased at a market in Nairobi? Kirby also wants to ask about the music. She usually listens to rock ’n’ roll but the clarinet has a cheerful cadence that makes it perfect for a summer morning. Is it Benny Goodman? Basically, Kirby would like to be invited to be a part of this world, but she’s afraid of sounding pushy, and so she says nothing, and the four of them stew in awkward silence until Darren comes down to the kitchen. When he sees Kirby, his expression is one of unadulterated alarm.

“What are you doing here?” he says.

Kirby tries to smile. “We’re going to the beach…right?”

“I didn’t know your friend works with Cal at the Shiretown Inn,” Cassandra says. “You should have told me.”

Darren gives his aunt a distracted nod. To Kirby he says, “I thought I said Tony’s.”

“You did, but I was in the neighborhood.”