Ramsay, to his credit, asks the right question. “What do you need?”

Harper gives him a small, sad smile. “A friend friend,” she says. Fish barks. “A human friend.”

“I’m in,” Ramsay says.

AINSLEY

She meets Caylee at the corner of Broad and Water Streets at eight thirty in the morning on Wednesday for breakfast. Caylee greets her with an enthusiastic hug and a kiss on the cheek, as though she is a sorority sister or a soul mate, and Ainsley stands up a little straighter.

She worked with Caylee on Monday, and although Caylee had been civil, even pleasant with Ainsley, there had been a distant reserve—or so Ainsley thought: no chatter, no confidences shared. Ainsley worried that Caylee no longer found her worthy of her friendship or tutelage. Ainsley had let her down. How had she so severely misread Caylee? Caylee was a good person in a cool body, whereas Emma Marlowe was a bad person in a cool body. Caylee had just come from church and wanted to stop by with flowers for Ainsley as a gesture of solidarity; she had been wearing the Roxie because it was appropriate for church and it was promoting the brand she worked for. Ainsley shudders when she thinks of how disappointed Caylee must have been to see Ainsley holding the vodka—which she had, indeed, stolen from Eleanor’s house. And then she had told Caylee to get off her property, which is something you say when you’re five years old.

Ainsley realizes she needs to clean up her act or she’s going to lose everyone close to her. Tuesday was Caylee’s day off, and Ainsley worked with Aunt Harper, but on Tuesday night, Ainsley sent Caylee a text that said: Are we still on for breakfast tomorrow?

Caylee had responded immediately: You bet.

Being “downtown”—and, yes, Ainsley knows that four square blocks of Nantucket hardly qualify as a downtown, but it’s what she has grown up with—used to be fun. Now it’s a place filled with pitfalls. Ainsley could bump into anyone from school at any moment, which is why she has kept her trajectory simple: home, work, home. She hasn’t been into Force Five to try on bikinis; she hasn’t shopped for earrings at Jessica Hicks; she hasn’t gone to the Juice Bar for ice cream. But when Caylee threads her arm through Ainsley’s, it’s like protection. Ainsley lets Caylee lead her across Broad Street and up the stairs of a Victorian house.

“Ainsley?”

Ainsley swivels her head around. Teddy is standing on the porch of the house, wearing a uniform of khaki pants and a white polo emblazoned with the name of the property: 21 Broad.

“What are you doing here?”

Wait. Ainsley is discombobulated. Caylee said they were going to some secret place for breakfast, and now they’re standing on the front porch of the hotel where Teddy works. It’s going to look like she’s stalking him. Ainsley takes half a step back, but Caylee holds her fast.

“We’ve come for breakfast,” Caylee says. “I’ve been invited by the owner.”

Teddy looks back and forth between Ainsley and Caylee, clearly confused but maybe also impressed. “Right this way,” Teddy says.

In back of the hotel is a charming porch, and set up on long wooden tables is what’s called the small plates breakfast. Ainsley hadn’t been excited about actually eating, but she’s never been anywhere that has a breakfast as enticing as this. There are locally roasted coffees and organic teas, glass pitchers of juice in jewel tones, and a platter of fresh fruit—fat berries and figs and fresh sliced peaches and plums, wedges of watermelon and rings of juicy pineapple. There are two kinds of smoothie—kale and strawberry—and there are freshly made scones with clotted cream and guava jam. There is overnight oatmeal with raisins, nuts, and dried cherries, and there is an elaborate platter of cheeses and meats and smoked fish.

Caylee picks a table in the corner, then she leads Ainsley over to the buffet, and together they start filling their plates.

“This is actually the prettiest breakfast I’ve ever seen,” Ainsley says. “How did you find out about this place?”

“The owner used to come into the Straight Wharf,” Caylee says. “He told me about it and invited me to come try it.”

“You are so lucky,” Ainsley says.

“There were a lot of perks in that job,” Caylee says. “I miss it.”

Ainsley feels a pang of fear. “But you like the boutique, right?”

“Right,” Caylee says.

Ainsley exhales. The worst thing that could happen now is for Caylee to quit the shop and go back to bartending.

“I’m so angry about how I lost my job,” Caylee says. “I have a revenge dream about the man who grabbed me. In the dream, I stick a corkscrew in his eye.”

“Nice,” Ainsley says.

“Would you like coffee?” Caylee asks.

“I’d better not,” Ainsley says. Her heart feels like a rock that is skipping across the surface of the water. Teddy. Teddy. Teddy. Ainsley thinks about him all the time, but seeing him has jarred her. She had hoped that she had built him up only in her mind and that in person he would seem diminished. The bad news is he’s even more appealing in person, and now her longing for him is sharper, which she didn’t even think was possible.

“That was a friend of yours out there?” Caylee asks, spearing half a strawberry.

“My old boyfriend. He dates Candace now, the redhead who came into the shop during the party.”

“How long did you go out with him?” Caylee asks.

“All of last year,” Ainsley says. “He was new. I made friends with him on the first day of school, and by the end of the week he was my boyfriend.” It seems like a lifetime ago, but Ainsley can remember how jumped up they had all been by a new boy in their grade. Ainsley, Emma, Maggie, probably even Candace—all of them had been excited, and who can blame them? They had all been swimming circles in the cloudy fishbowl that is the Nantucket Public Schools since kindergarten. Over the years they had seen kids come and go, but mostly go. Danny Dalrymple and Charlotte Budd went to boarding school, and Saber Podwats’s parents moved to Swampscott because they couldn’t afford to live on Nantucket anymore.

Emma had seen Teddy first because they had both driven to school and been assigned spots near each other in the parking lot.

Prepare to be disappointed, Emma had texted. He looks like a refugee from the dipshit rodeo #everythingbutthespurs.

As luck would have it, Teddy had been assigned to Ainsley’s first-block English class, and before Mr. Duncombe had given them their permanent seats, Teddy had chosen the chair next to Ainsley’s. He had been wearing Wrangler jeans, a flannel shirt over a plain white undershirt, cowboy boots, and a cross on a leather strap around his neck.

Everything but the spurs, Ainsley thought. Dipshit rodeo. But Teddy wasn’t ugly—far from it. He had auburn hair, freckles across his nose, strong shoulders, long legs. The outfit was off-putting, but Ainsley knew better than anyone that new clothes were an easy fix. Put this kid in a Force Five T-shirt and madras shorts and a pair of Reefs, and he would be hot.

He had his jaw set, his green eyes focused forward on the whiteboard, which was blank except for Mr. Duncombe’s name and e-mail address. Ainsley remembered the stories she had heard—father dead, mother suicidal then hospitalized, kid shipped two-thirds of the way across the country then thirty miles out to sea. He probably felt like a long-horned steer dropped into a tank of killer whales.

Ainsley tapped the edge of his desk to get his attention. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Ainsley Cruise. Welcome to Nantucket High School.”

He had given her a slow cowboy smile, filled with relief and gratitude. “Thank you,” he said.

That first week, Ainsley had made welcoming Teddy Elquot her personal mission. She showed him where the wood shop was, she invited him to sit with her in the cafeteria, she introduced him to BC and Maxx Cunningham and Kalik and D-Ray and the other jocks and insisted they be nice to him.

Emma was as skeptical and crude as ever, joking that Ainsley was working off her mandatory community-service hours by being nice to Sheriff Woody Pride. Either that or she was hoping to finally lose her virginity, and wasn’t it common knowledge that ranch hands were well hung?