“The board isn’t pleased,” Vaughan said. “One member in particular. She feels your personal life has gotten in the way of your work performance.”

She wants Clen, Dabney thought. Hell hath no fury. What was Elizabeth doing on the board anyway? She didn’t own or work for a Nantucket business. But she had money and influence; she was a summer person who “cared” about Nantucket. She had used her charms with Vaughan Oglethorpe, batted her eyelashes, flashed her pretty manicure, and maybe promised him a back scratch.

Still, Dabney said nothing. Was he going to drop the hammer?

He said, “The board took a vote and it was decided that it’s time to ask you to step down.”

At that instant, Dabney realized that both Riley and Celerie were at their desks, quiet as church mice, staring right into the front office, listening to every word.

“Step down?” Dabney said.

“I’m asking for your resignation, Dabney,” Vaughan said.

Asking for her resignation? Asking her to step down? She, Dabney Kimball Beech, was the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce. She had, with Nina’s help, turned Nantucket into the thriving business community it now was. In 1992, the Chamber had 340 members, a budget of $175,000, and there were thirty thousand visitors annually. Twenty-two years later, under Dabney’s leadership, there were 620 members, a budget of $1.2 million, and seventy-five thousand visitors annually.

Should she quote these statistics? Surely he already knew them. But it didn’t matter, because she, Dabney Kimball Beech, had done what so many great people before her had done. She had proved to be human.

“Okay,” Dabney said. “I’ll just collect my things.” She looked around the office, wondering where to start. The desks were hers, the oriental rugs, the original Abigail Pease photographs, which every single visitor to the office commented on, the green-apple-candle smell. How could she pack up that smell?

“I’m asking Nina Mobley to take over as executive director,” Vaughan said. “I assume you approve of that choice?”

“Yes,” Dabney bleated. She couldn’t imagine that Vaughan Oglethorpe or anyone else on the board cared what she thought now. She was being discarded like a piece of trash.

Suddenly, Nina was at the top of the stairs. She said, “If you’re asking for Dabney’s resignation then you might as well ask for mine as well, because I will not work here without her.”

“Nina,” Dabney said. But Nina was already collecting things from her desk. She took down the calendar from Nantucket Auto Body, which they had each consulted a hundred times a day. Dabney realized that what Nina had said was true. She would never have been able to work in this office without her.

Vaughan clasped his hands together in front of him; the false sympathy required of a funeral director rose to the surface. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Nina. Let me encourage you to reconsider.”

“I quit, too,” Celerie said, standing in the doorway of the back office. “Dabney Beech is my idol! She is my hero! I have never known anyone like her! She inspired my love for this island! She made me appreciate its uniqueness and she made me want to serve as its advocate! She made me think of it as home, and I grew up far, far away from here! I am devoted to Nantucket, but more than that, I am devoted to Dabney Kimball Beech!”

“I’m leaving, too,” Riley said. He was holding his guitar case and a copy of The Grapes of Wrath and the framed photo he kept on his desk of Sadie, his chocolate Lab.

“Wait,” Vaughan said. “Everyone please just wait a minute. You can’t all leave.”

Just then, the phone rang, and this seemed to give Riley great joy. He smiled widely, showing off his perfect teeth.

“With all due respect, sir,” he said to Vaughan, “you’d better answer that.”

Box

He loved Cambridge in the fall, winter, and spring, but he did not love it in the summer. He wouldn’t have liked it under the best of circumstances, but now he found it unbearable—air-conditioning instead of open windows, the campus inundated with foreign visitors. Even the Charles was a disappointment; it looked like spoiled chocolate milk and smelled even worse.

Box ate every meal out, most of the time venturing across the river into Boston proper to do so, because it stretched out his night. He walked for the same reason. Now, there was nothing more depressing than his apartment after dark. If left to his own devices, he would sit in a chair facing the window and drink an entire bottle of wine by himself while listening to Mozart’s Requiem.

What had he done wrong?

His thoughts skipped like a broken record: he had put work first, he had taken Dabney for granted, he had become complacent with their arrangement, he had not always returned her passionate advances and especially not in years of late, he had settled into contentment, he had assumed she would create her own happiness and excitement—and guess what? She had!

He couldn’t pretend to be surprised.

If he had known twenty-five years earlier that it would end this way—Dabney would return to Clendenin—would he have married her anyway?

Yes. The answer was yes.

Coming out of Grill 23 one night, Box bumped into a fellow he recognized. It was…he couldn’t quite grasp it at first. He had drunk a lot of wine. It was…

The man stuck his hand out. “Box?” he said. “Christian Bartelby.”

“Oh!” Box said. “Hello!” And then once his brain processed who exactly Christian Bartelby was, he summoned some enthusiasm. “Yes! Hello, Christian Bartelby! The good doctor!” Box was swaying on his feet. He had eaten at the bar and the comely bar maiden had enticed him into ending his evening with a glass of vintage port. Box had gazed upon the bar maiden and had wondered why it was that no other woman in the world could maintain his interest, no matter how beautiful or charming she was.