“I’m Agnes,” she said. “I’m…”

“Dabney’s daughter,” he said. “Your mother talks about you all the time. And I’ve seen your picture.” He smiled at her, showing off very straight white teeth.

Agnes turned around. Unlike most offices, where the bosses hid in the back, here Dabney and Nina sat in the front room. This, of course, was Dabney’s idea. She wanted to be the first person someone encountered when he or she walked into the Chamber. But Dabney’s desk was still empty, and now Nina Mobley was on the phone.

“Where is my mother?” Agnes asked Riley Alsopp. “Do you know?”

“She went out around lunchtime,” Riley said. “And she hasn’t been back.”

“Lunchtime?”

“Noon or so,” he said. “You can check the log.” Next to them, the blond ponytail yammered on about her other favorite restaurant, Cru. Cru better for seafood, she said. American Seasons better for land animals.

Land animals? Agnes thought.

Riley Alsopp winked at Agnes. He said, “I’m still learning the ropes.”

Agnes said, “Is this your first summer?”

“First summer working here,” he said. “I’ve been coming to Nantucket since I was ten. I’m in dental school now, at Penn.”

That explained the teeth, Agnes thought. But not the Salinger or the board shorts. Agnes was confused about her mother. Dabney had left at noon or so, and she hadn’t come back? It was nearly three.

“Where did my mother go?” Agnes asked. “Did she say?”

Riley shrugged. “I’m not exactly privy to office secrets.”

“Right,” Agnes said. Did Dabney have a doctor’s appointment, maybe, that she hadn’t mentioned?

Riley said, “Are you coming to Business After Hours tonight? It’s at the Brotherhood of Thieves.”

“No,” Agnes said. “I don’t go to those anymore. I got dragged to them as a kid. By the time I was fifteen, I had sneaked more than my share of bad Chardonnay.”

Riley laughed. The guy was so cute, her mother must have pounced on him immediately, and maybe forgiven him the board shorts.

“Well, Riley, it was nice to meet you,” Agnes said. Her inflection, she realized, was eerily like her mother’s at that moment. She turned, and was dismayed to find Nina still on the phone. Nina would know where her mother was.

The blond ponytail hung up her phone and announced to the room, “Those folks are definitely coming to Nantucket for a week in September!” She put two fists in the air in a V for victory. Then the blond ponytail noticed Agnes and nearly vaulted over her desk.

“You must be Agnes!” she said. She offered Agnes an extremely strong handshake. “I’m Celerie Truman. This is my second year as an information assistant here at the Chamber. I am a really, really big fan of your mother’s.”

Agnes suppressed the urge to laugh. Where did Dabney find people with such wholesome energy?

“Oh, hi!” Agnes said, again channeling her mother’s tone. “Nice to meet you, Celerie.” She paused, hoping she had pronounced the girl’s name correctly. Celerie like celery? What had her mother thought of that? Dabney was very particular about names. She believed that the only suitable names were those befitting a Supreme Court justice: Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O’Connor. Celerie was not a Supreme Court justice name.

“I hope you’re coming to Business After Hours,” Celerie said. “It’s at the Brotherhood, which is my other other favorite restaurant. My casual favorite.”

“Sadly, I won’t be there tonight,” Agnes said. She sounded so much like her mother it was frightening, but the words were coming out that way unbidden. She heard Nina getting off the phone. “Excuse me!” She waved at Celerie Truman and Riley Alsopp. They were so gorgeous, both separately and together, that Agnes wondered if the back room of the Chamber was a matchmaking laboratory this summer. Leave it to her mother.

Agnes presented herself at Nina’s desk. “Where’s Mom?”

Nina clasped her hands at her bosom. “Tell me about New York!” she said. “Is it wonderful? And you’re getting married! At Saint Mary’s and the Yacht Club, your mother said.”

There was catching-up required. Agnes knew this. She hadn’t had a chance to talk with Nina at Christmas or on Daffodil Weekend. Nina Mobley had five children to ask after; Agnes had babysat for all of them. But Agnes didn’t have the presence of mind for chitchat right now.

She quickly checked the log. Dabney had signed out at five minutes to noon, listing errands/lunch as the reason for her absence.

“So, wait, I’m sorry,” Agnes said. “Did Mom say where she was going?”

Nina took a deep breath, then emitted a nervous laugh. “She had errands.”

“Errands?” Agnes said. “What kind of errands?”

Nina Mobley squinted at Agnes. “Oh, honey,” she said. “I wish I could tell you.”

Agnes walked home, thinking that she and her mother must have just missed each other—or that Dabney had run to the grocery store for more eggs, or to Bartlett Farm for hothouse tomatoes. But would she do that in the middle of a workday? Never! And those errands wouldn’t take three hours. Dabney had been acting strange, Box said. Dabney did have a slew of peculiarities—a rare form of OCD and agoraphobia that made her incapable of leaving Nantucket—and then her mystical matchmaking power. Maybe she was seeing Dr. Donegal, her therapist. Or maybe she was having a midlife crisis and Agnes would find her in the cool dim of the Chicken Box, drinking beer and shooting pool.