“My mother didn’t tell you?” she said.

“No, but like I said, I’m not exactly privy to office secrets.”

“It’s not a secret,” Agnes said. “Although maybe my mother wants to keep it that way. She doesn’t approve.”

“No?”

“No.” Agnes sighed. “You do know, right, that my mother is a matchmaker?”

Riley threw his head back and laughed into the evening air.

“She’s set up forty-two couples,” Agnes said, “all of them still together. She’s famous for it. She sees an aura—pink if it’s good, green if it’s bad. And my aura with CJ is green, so she can’t give her blessing.”

“You’re kidding,” Riley said.

“Not kidding.”

“I told you I was only seeing the tip of the iceberg,” Riley said. “She’s a matchmaker! No wonder she was so excited when I told her I played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.”

Agnes smiled. It was impossible to sustain a bad mood with this guy: he was too happy-go-lucky. “You’d better watch out,” she said. “I think she has plans for you and Celerie.”

“You think?” Riley said. “I was considering asking Celerie out, actually.”

Ridiculously, Agnes experienced a pang of jealousy at this statement. Oh my God, what was wrong with her? “You should!” she said.

“But I think she has someone back home,” Riley said. “In Minnesota.”

“Minnesota is pretty far away,” Agnes said.

“You’re right,” he said. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll ask if she wants to go up to Great Point with me on Saturday.”

Another pang of jealousy: Agnes loved Great Point. To her, the perfect summer day was a cooler full of drinks, a couple of avocado BLTs from Something Natural, and a trip up to Great Point in a Jeep like this one—top down, radio blaring.

Agnes watched as Riley negotiated the curves of Madaket Road. He and Celerie would make a good couple. Agnes had thought that when she saw them together at the office. But earlier, at the office, she hadn’t known Riley. She hadn’t heard him play “Puff the Magic Dragon,” she hadn’t watched him eat pizza, she hadn’t talked with him about her job. It was amazing how, after the past hour, she now felt like she had some sort of claim on him. The thought of him bestowing his affection on Celerie with her bouncy ponytail and her cheerleader moves and her favorite this and other-favorite that was upsetting.

No—what was really upsetting was that Agnes couldn’t locate her mother. They weren’t going to find her driving out to Madaket, of this much Agnes was suddenly certain.

“Would you mind taking me home?” Agnes asked.

Riley hit the brakes and the case of his guitar bumped against the back of Agnes’s seat, emitting a dissonant chord. “What? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Agnes said. “This is silly. It’s a wild-goose chase. I’ll just wait for my mother at home.”

“Oh,” Riley said. “Okay, no problem. But just so you know, I’m happy to keep looking.” He sounded wistful. Well, he had been enjoying the adventure, and now it was over. It had nothing to do with Agnes.

“I appreciate that,” Agnes said. “But I’d like to go home.”

Riley’s cute face with his perfect, straight white teeth settled into an expression of something like hurt or regret. But that would be erased, Agnes was sure, once he asked out Celerie and Celerie said yes. It would, no doubt, be rosy auras all around.

It was ten thirty when Dabney finally walked in the door. Agnes was sitting at the kitchen table with an empty glass of milk in front of her. She had eaten half a dozen of her mother’s oatmeal cookies and had let three of CJ’s phone calls go to voice mail.

Dabney was clearly startled to see Agnes; she nearly dropped her Bermuda bag. “Oh! Darling, I’m sorry…I didn’t expect…what are you doing…what?”

Agnes studied her mother. She was wearing the same navy polo shirt and madras skirt, penny loafers and pearls that she’d been wearing when she’d left that morning. Her hair was smooth in its headband. But something was different. What was it? She looked like she’d gotten sun. Had she been at the beach? Agnes wondered. She thought of Riley and Celerie up at Great Point, but that served only to irritate her further.

“Where have you been?” Agnes said. Her voice had a jagged edge. She could remember using such a tone with her mother only once before.

Dabney’s expression was inscrutable at first. This woman, whom Agnes had believed to be so transparent, was hiding something. Tip of the iceberg, indeed!

“Tell me right now!” Agnes said. She was only too aware that she sounded like the parent in this scenario. “You left work at noon. You didn’t answer your cell phone! You skipped Business After Hours! Where. Have. You. Been.”

Dabney’s eyes shone defiantly.

“Out,” she said.

The reversal, Agnes thought, was complete.

Dabney

She was utterly predictable; she never failed to act exactly like herself. The only surprising thing she had ever done in her life was to start this extramarital love affair.

But it was Clendenin Hughes. He had plucked her heart out of her chest when she was fourteen years old and she had never been able to reclaim it.

Love was her only excuse.

As soon as Dabney opened the door to Clen’s cottage, she smelled garlic and ginger. Clen was at the stove; when he turned around, he didn’t look surprised to see her, which she found maddening. She handed him a bottle of Gentleman Jack; she had stopped at Hatch’s on her way to his house.