However, Dabney had been self-absorbed. To say the least.

“I don’t know where she is,” Dabney said.

Agnes

As she was leaving work, a call came to her cell phone from an unfamiliar number. Agnes was afraid to answer it, so she let it go to voice mail. She didn’t listen to the message until she had pulled into her driveway. It was Rocky DeMotta, one of CJ’s partners at work. Agnes had met Rocky at the U.S. Open the preceding September. Rocky was calling, he said, because CJ was…missing. AWOL. The ink had just dried on Bantam Killjoy’s contract with the Chiefs, and training camp had started the day before, and CJ was supposed to be in Kansas City with Bantam, but he had never shown up for his flight. Nor had he come to work, or called in, or even checked his e-mail. He wasn’t answering his calls or texts.

Rocky said, “We’re all a little worried about him. Worried enough that I grabbed your number off the office records, sorry about that, but would you please call us if he’s there with you, or if you’ve heard from him.”

Agnes sucked in her breath and thought, He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, I killed him.

She listened to the message again. Rocky sounded panicked, of course he sounded panicked; CJ was never, ever out of touch, he carried a BlackBerry, two iPhones, and a laptop. What reason would he possibly have had to miss his flight to Kansas City? Had he hanged himself in his apartment, leaving a suicide note weighted down with the returned engagement ring?

It was about two hundred degrees in her closed-up Prius, and yet Agnes shivered. She was so, so cold. She headed inside. She needed her mother.

But the house was empty, although there was a note on the kitchen table about the things Dabney had left for Agnes’s dinner. The end of the note said, “Daddy and I are at the Levinsons’. Don’t wait up—hopefully we’ll be home very, very late!”

The Levinsons. Dabney loved the party at the Levinsons’; she had really been looking forward to it. Agnes could not call Dabney or Box at the Levinsons’ and ruin their night out just because CJ wasn’t answering his phone.

Agnes sat at the kitchen table and bit her nails. She tried to come up with a plausible reason why CJ had missed his flight. If he’d hurt himself or gotten sick, he would have called in to the office. What else could it be? Had he gotten hit by a bus? Had he gone on a weeklong Dirty Goose bender once he received the ring back, and was he now passed out facedown on a bar somewhere? Should Agnes call someone? Both of CJ’s parents had passed away; there was a brother somewhere in Upstate New York, but he and CJ no longer spoke. CJ knew a million people, but he wasn’t close to anyone, really, except Agnes. And Rocky…he played squash with Rocky. He had gone to high school at Collegiate, on the Upper West Side, and then had a PG year at the Berkshire School before going to the University of Florida. He never talked about anyone from high school or college, except for the Gators, who had later become his clients. Agnes then thought of Annabelle Pippin in her waterfront home in Boca Raton. Should Agnes call Annabelle and ask about CJ…about…Charlie Pippin, her ex-husband? Was it weird that CJ had changed his name after his divorce? Agnes had all but decided that she wasn’t going to marry CJ, at least not right away—so why did she care that he was missing?

No answer for this, but she did care. She felt responsible.

What to do?

She called Riley. Riley would be able to calm her.

But her call to Riley went straight to voice mail, which was unusual. Agnes considered driving to Antenna Beach to see if he was surfing. She stared at her phone. She needed more friends. It was CJ’s fault that she had no friends.

She tried Riley again—straight to voice mail. Then, she called Celerie. Celerie wouldn’t be able to help at all but Agnes craved someone’s positive outlook—and, well, Celerie was a cheerleader.

Her call to Celerie also went straight to voice mail, which was even stranger than Riley’s call going to voice mail. Celerie lived and died by her cell phone.

Agnes wondered if maybe Riley and Celerie were on a date somewhere. She wondered if they were in bed together. She had to admit, the thought bothered her.

What to do? Call her mother? Drive out to Antenna Beach in search of Riley? Call back Rocky DeMotta?

Almost against her will, she dialed CJ’s number, then racked her brain for what she might say in her message. Should she say, Hey, it’s me? or, Hey, it’s Agnes? Now that she had returned the ring, she figured she had pretty much given up the right to say, Hey, it’s me.

“Hello?”

Agnes was so startled, she nearly dropped the phone. CJ had answered.

“Hey,” she said. Her voice sounded bright and normal, but her thoughts darted around like a school of frightened fish. What was she going to say?

“Hey, Agnes,” CJ said. His voice was calm, and a little flat. “Where are you?”

“On Nantucket,” she said. “At my parents’ house. Where are you?”

Click. CJ had hung up.

Dabney

It was as Dabney was standing in the buffet line, eyeing the mashed-potato bar and thinking, bacon, chives, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, cheddar, a dollop of sour cream, that she saw Clendenin walk into the tent with Elizabeth Jennings.

Not possible.

But there they were. Together, indisputably together. Clen was…what, then? Dating her? Lying to Dabney?

The thick white china plate wobbled in Dabney’s hand and her vision started to splotch. She couldn’t help herself to the mashed-potato bar or the grilled lobster tail or the beef tenderloin or the luscious-looking tomatoes with burrata cheese. She couldn’t eat a thing right now; she felt like she might never eat again. But she also couldn’t move through the buffet line with an empty plate. Box was right behind her, and she knew everyone at this party. She took a scoop of potatoes, a lobster tail, a few spears of grilled asparagus, and a lone tomato, then she cast about for a place to sit. There were two empty seats at the Levinsons’ table, but in her present state of mind, Dabney didn’t want to eat with the host and hostess.