“Sex?” Box said, as though he’d never heard the word before. “You do realize that I have to administer final exams to three hundred students in the morning, right?”

“I don’t give a hoot about your three hundred students!” Dabney said. “I want to know if you love me. If you desire me.”

There was a pause. Then a sigh. “Yes, darling, I love you. You are my heart’s desire.”

“Am I?” Dabney said.

“Yes, Dabney. You are.”

“Okay,” Dabney said, but she was not placated.

“Good night,” Box said.

Dabney hung up.

She woke up in the morning exhausted and anxious, which was not good, because it was the day that she and Nina were interviewing job candidates. They had enough money in their budget to hire two information assistants and pay them twenty dollars an hour to answer the phones, which would start ringing nonstop the Thursday before Memorial Day.

One of the assistants would be Celerie Truman, who had worked at the Chamber the summer before. Celerie—pronounced like the underappreciated vegetable—was the most enthusiastic information assistant Dabney had hired in twenty-two years. Celerie had been a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota and had discovered Nantucket through her college roommate. She was the kind of peppy individual who could shout cheers in a stadium of sixty thousand people while wearing shorts and a halter top in minus-thirty-degree weather. And she had turned out to be a magnificent ambassador for Nantucket. Certain visitors had stopped by the Chamber office just to meet Celerie because she had been so helpful on the phone.

Dabney was relieved to have someone as knowledgeable and on the ball as Celerie back in the office. No training necessary. Celerie was a disciple of the Dabney Way of Doing Things. By the end of last summer, she had even started coming to work wearing a strand of pearls.

They had to hire only one other person. Nina had placed a classified ad, and this had garnered the usual hundred applicants. Nina, through years of experience, had winnowed the list of potential candidates down to three of the most promising for herself and Dabney to interview.

“The first guy is twenty-six years old, between years of dental school at Penn. He started coming to Nantucket when he was ten. His parents own a house in Pocomo, so he’ll live with them.”

“Dental school,” Dabney said, yawning. The lack of sleep had left ugly black circles under her eyes, and she thought her skin was turning a funny color. “That’s a first.” She checked with Nina for confirmation. “Right? We’ve never had a dental student?”

“Law school, medical school, Rhodes scholar, the guy writing his doctoral dissertation on the Betty Ford Clinic after having been there three times, the wacky woman who was writing the Broadway musical…”

“Ruthie,” Dabney said. “She brought the worst-smelling lunches.”

Nina held up her hand. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“A dental student sounds good,” Dabney said. “Clean, hygienic. Not like the guy from Denmark who never bathed.”

“Franzie,” Nina said. “Let’s not talk about him, either.”

“What’s this kid’s name?” Dabney asked.

“Riley Alsopp,” Nina said.

Dabney had been hiring information assistants for twenty-two years and her instincts were spot-on; despite smelly lunches and body odor, Dabney had never actually had to fire anyone. As soon as she met Riley Alsopp and noted his excellent handshake and heard his pleasant speaking voice and took in his brilliant smile, and his needlepoint belt featuring hammerhead sharks (“My mother made it for me”) and the copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest under his arm (“I’ve decided to go back and read the classics this summer”), Dabney’s mood instantly improved. She knew there would be no reason to interview any other candidates. When they were finished with Riley, she could go home and take a nap.

She sat Riley Alsopp down, brought him a cold bottle of water, admired his thick brown hair and his tapered fingers and his battered boat shoes, and asked the standard first question.

“Why do you want to work at the Chamber of Commerce, Riley?”

She closed her eyes for a second and thought: Please do not say, “Because I want to work in town.” Please do not say, “Because it seems easy.” Please do not say, “Because I worked as a waiter at the Languedoc last summer and I got caught stealing from the till.” Please, please, please do not say, “Because Celerie Truman is my girlfriend and we thought it would be fun to work together.”

He took a breath and laughed a little. “I guess there’s only one reason. Because I love Nantucket.”

Dabney beamed at Nina and Nina squinted back at Dabney and gave a nearly imperceptible nod. Dabney knew what Nina was thinking: We have interviewed scores of candidates together and only a handful have ever given us this simple, perfect answer.

Dabney said, “You’re hired!”

“Really?” Riley said. “Just like that? I memorized all these facts and statistics about the island. Don’t you want to hear them?”

“Nope,” Dabney said. “I trust you. But I do have two questions: when can you start and when do you have to leave?”

“I can start tomorrow,” Riley said. “And I go back to dental school on September fifteenth, so I can work until the twelfth or so.”

“Wonderful!” Dabney said. What a bonus! Most information assistants said they could work until Labor Day, but then their grandmother would die sometime around the twentieth of August, and either Dabney or Nina got stuck answering the phone for the remainder of the summer.