Eddie wished he could be more like Barbie. No one was out on the street gossiping about Barbie.

Eddie said, “Why is Eloise being so nice to me?” Sometimes Eloise buttered up Eddie after she’d had a fight with Barbie.

“No idea.”

“You didn’t lose your temper?”

“No, I didn’t,” Barbie said. “How goes your bromance with the Chief?”

“Funny,” Eddie said. “It’s not a bromance. It was two guys fishing, Barb. I caught a striped bass. I have some to share, if you want a pound or two.”

“No, thanks,” Barbie said.

“Do you still have that bad feeling about the other thing?”

Barbie nodded. “I could be wrong. I’ll probably regret not going in. I could use the money.”

So maybe the men Barbie dates aren’t wealthy, Eddie thought. Maybe she dated Chris, the mechanic who fixed her Alfa Romeo.

“That makes two of us.”

“This market had better pick up,” Barbie said. She stared listlessly at her computer screen.

“Have you heard any rumors about me?” Eddie asked.

“Rumors?” Barbie said.

“No?”

“No.”

Eddie nodded and stood up, taking the box of doughnuts with him. He could not resist Boston cream. He devoured the doughnut in three bites.

MADELINE

The annual Nantucket–Martha’s Vineyard all-star baseball game was normally one of Madeline’s favorite days of the summer. But this year, Madeline was distracted by her writing.

Write as fast as you can, Angie had said.

Madeline had spoken to Eddie three times and left him as many messages, but it had become clear that she and Trevor weren’t getting their money back anytime soon. Madeline had gone so far as to drive by the spec houses on Eagle Wing Lane to check on their progress, but all three were boarded up and silent. Nobody was working on them!

She had called Trevor. “There aren’t any trucks out front, no workers, no action, no nothing!”

Trevor said, “Maybe Eddie is taking a hiatus for the summer. Maybe he has other things going on.”

“He said June!” Madeline said. “It’s practically July now. He said August at the latest. But there is no way these houses are going to be finished by August. They might not be finished by next August.”

“Why are you so keen for the money?” Trevor said.

“We have bills, Trev. We promised Brick a car!” she said. “I know it was my idea to invest the money with Eddie…”

“A hundred percent your idea,” Trevor confirmed.

“I’m kicking myself now,” Madeline said.

“Madeline,” Trevor said. “You need to breathe.” This was his standard line when he thought she was being hysterical and he wanted to calm her down—but today, it only served to agitate her further.

“I am breathing!” she screamed, and then she hung up.

Maybe Eddie has other things going on. Eddie had more going on than he even knew! Grace was in love with Benton Coe! She was excited to take things to the next level by going with Benton to the Sunset Soiree.

Listening to Grace was an addiction. Madeline could NOT wait for the next installment of the story. Madeline knew she should advise Grace to turn the car around. But instead, she was Grace’s steadfast sounding board, and not only that—she was using everything Grace told her in her novel. Her characters “B” and “G” were moving full steam ahead. Madeline could not stop writing; nothing had ever come to her this easily. It was black magic, like the séance with Barbie.

Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left.

But in a way, writing the novel felt natural and organic, as if Madeline were giving birth—this novel, somehow, was like the second child Madeline had never managed to have.

She couldn’t stop. Could not pull the plug or abort the mission. She would write the novel and then, later, go back in and change everything so that nothing was recognizable except to Madeline herself.

For years, Madeline had been in charge of the potluck barbecue lunch between the games of the doubleheader with the Vineyard. Last week, she had managed to get the e-mail out, and the usual people signed up to bring the usual things. Cathleen Rook was bringing her pepperoni bread, which all the boys and coaches fought over, and Rachel had overvolunteered as usual and was bringing her potato-and-egg salad, pesto pasta, and a seven-layer Mexican dip. Madeline was in charge of condiments, paper products, Gatorade, bottled water, and ice—but she had spaced on the ice, so she had to stop at the airport gas station, where five bags of ice ran her twenty-five bucks.

She set out the hamburgers and hot dogs, rolls, paper plates and napkins, ketchup, mustard, and relish. The propane gas tanks on the grills were both full. When it came time to watch the actual game, Madeline found a shady spot in the bleachers, pulled out her legal pad, and started to write.

Diana Marz, Parker’s mother, was the first to comment.

“Is that your new novel?” she asked.

Madeline smiled in what she hoped was a cryptic way. She had always wanted people to think of her as a novelist, but now, the less she said about her work, the better. She realized it might have been smarter to have left her legal pad at home, but she couldn’t fight the urge to finish this one particular scene: B and G taking things to the next level by venturing out together in public—in this fictional case, to the Summer House pool, where they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, both under the table and then later, splashing around in the pool. Madeline was currently writing a scene about some clandestine underwater fooling-around between B and G. Angie, she knew, would love it.