Ava is wearing a winter-white dress with black trim and black lace Manolo Blahniks—both her mother’s. She loves dressing up for work and never gets the chance; she would sooner wear roller skates to Nantucket Elementary than heels. The only teacher in the district who wears heels is… Roxanne Oliveria.

Ava can’t think about Roxanne right now. Here she goes!

She knocks the interview out of the park. She pauses and considers before every answer; she is funny, self-effacing, knowledgeable. She draws on her classical training at Peabody, her love of the piano, her practical experience with musical theater. (She directed The King and I, Pippin, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the high school.) She sings a few bars from Godspell. Why not? And when they ask if she has anything to add, she says: “My father moved us from Manhattan to Nantucket when I was nine years old. My mother stayed in New York to pursue her career.” Pause. She nearly said her career in broadcasting but then thought better of it. “My father wanted to raise us in a small, close-knit community where we didn’t have to lock our cars, where we knew our neighbors, where we could ride our bikes to school. I love those aspects of Nantucket and I also love the way the island expands socially and intellectually in the summer. But I’m ready to grow beyond the confines of Nantucket. On a personal level, I am unencumbered—no husband, no children—so there is nothing and no one to stop me from getting some air under these wings. I am so excited by the opportunity to lead the music department at Copper Hill. You may have candidates who are more qualified, but you don’t have anyone who will give this position more of him- or herself than me.”

The committee looks—intrigued? Impressed? Ava mists up, then reins in her surging emotions.

The headmistress beams at her. “Thank you, Ava,” she says. “We value nothing at Copper Hill more than heart.”

Ava is all dialed up when she leaves the school. She wants to call her mother but Margaret is filming a 60 Minutes interview with Ellen DeGeneres. Ava doesn’t feel she can call her father, Mitzi, Kevin, or anyone on Nantucket; she fears they won’t understand her brand-new love affair with the city. Shelby will be at school, and even if she took Ava’s call, she would be the worst of the lot. Every time the topic of Ava moving to New York comes up, Shelby starts to cry.

Nathaniel? No.

Scott? Definitely not.

Who does she know who will appreciate her imminent leap into a new, urban life?

Potter Lyons is so excited to hear from Ava that Ava gets excited as well.

“I have a seminar from one to four today,” he says. “Otherwise, I would take you out drinking. I can’t believe you’re here! I can’t believe you’re moving here!”

“Definitely moving,” Ava says. She has the offers from the Albany and Bainbridge Academy, like two gold coins in her pocket. “The question is… great job or dream job?”

“Copper Hill is such a utopia,” Potter says. “If the chairmanship of the literature department became available, I would snap it up.”

“You’d leave the Ivy League?” Ava says.

“The students are ruined by the time they get to me,” Potter says. “I love the wonder of high school kids. Middle school, even better. You can actually mold them, influence them, make a difference.”

He’s speaking her language. That’s what Ava wants. A classroom filled with kids who want to learn.

“You have to have dinner with me tonight,” Potter says. “Can you? There’s a place called Fish down on Bleecker. It’s basically a dive with cold PBR and a ridiculous raw bar. A guy shucks ten kinds of oysters while you throw peanut shells on the floor.”

“Sounds divine,” Ava says. Margaret and Drake have a benefit for the Boys and Girls Clubs tonight, so she was on her own anyway. “I’ll meet you there at seven.”

It is only when Ava sees Potter standing in front of Fish that she wonders if this counts as a date. Potter is wearing jeans and a black crewneck sweater and black suede loafers without socks, even though it’s November.

He is too good-looking for her, yet he beams when Ava emerges from the cab.

He nearly picks her up off the ground in his embrace. She feels the surge of desire she experienced on the Sunfish in Anguilla and then again at the Bar after her mother’s wedding.

Fresh perspective, she thinks. She raises her face, and Potter doesn’t hesitate. He kisses her until she feels light-headed and has to grab his arms. His sweater is so soft. It’s cashmere.

Two things occur to Ava in that moment: She is going to owe Shelby dinner at the Club Car. With caviar. And no matter which job she takes, she will never have to teach the recorder again.

THE HOLIDAYS

KELLEY

It’s a quiet Thanksgiving this year. Patrick, Jennifer, and the boys are going to San Francisco to spend the holiday with Jennifer’s mother, Beverly, and Ava has chosen to stay in New York with Margaret, a decision that shows where her heart is. It has taken thirty years but Ava has finally—and inevitably, he supposes—turned into Margaret. On Wednesday morning, she was offered the job of her dreams, as the director of musical studies at Copper Hill School on West Seventieth Street.

Kelley writes this down word for word so he can put it in the Christmas letter.

Kevin, Isabelle, and Genevieve will be on the island and Kevin has suggested that Kelley and Mitzi allow Isabelle to cook and that they eat in the pocket-size dining room of the cottage they’re renting.

Kelley is too embarrassed to express how he feels about this. He feels irrelevant; he feels like he’s being replaced as patriarch. For years and years, Kelley has wished for Kevin to find his way. But now that he has—Quinns’ on the Beach is an enormous success—well, he feels jealous. He’s not ready to pass the baton yet and certainly not where Thanksgiving is concerned. If they eat at Kevin’s house, Kevin will want to carve the turkey. The notion is outrageous!

Kelley expects Mitzi to side with him. She will say no way to eating at Kevin and Isabelle’s. Mitzi loves Thanksgiving. She loves getting one of the sought-after fresh turkeys from Ray Owen’s farm and making her famous stuffing with the challah bread, sausage, pine nuts, and dried cherries. Kelley can’t imagine Mitzi allowing Isabelle to make the stuffing. What do the French know about stuffing? Nothing, that’s what.

But when Kelley tells Mitzi about Kevin’s invitation, she says, “What a lovely idea!”

She sounds genuine. Kelley blinks. Mitzi spent last Thanksgiving in Lenox with George. It was the nadir of her depression and she couldn’t bring herself to boil a potato or end a bean and so they ended up going out to the Olde Heritage Tavern, where Mitzi cried into her cranberry relish. She definitely wants to make up for what was, essentially, a lost Thanksgiving last year, and besides, she has to keep busy. That’s how she survives. She has the inn to run, but any additional distraction is welcome—Margaret’s wedding in August, and Kevin and Isabelle’s impending nuptials. Thanksgiving too—or so he’d thought.

“You want to go to Kevin’s?” Kelley asks.

“Sure,” Mitzi says. “It’ll be fun.”

“Fun?” Kelley says.

“Something new and different,” Mitzi says. “They’re getting married; they moved into the new house. It’s only natural they would want to host us.”

Natural? Kelley thinks. Fun? These aren’t words Mitzi should be using. Their son, Bart, their baby, is missing. Kelley has counted on Mitzi to be the more emotionally vigilant of the two of them; she worries all the time at the maximum level so that Kelley doesn’t have to. But now, instead of being thrown into a tailspin by the holiday, she’s relaxed. It’s almost as if she’s forgotten about Bart or is, somehow, getting used to the agony of their circumstances. Kelley remembers when his brother, Avery, died of AIDS. His parents had been destroyed; his mother, Frances, especially. But the day had come, hadn’t it, when Kelley had called his parents’ house in Perrysburg, Ohio, and Frances had been hosting her bridge group.

Bridge group? Kelley had said. What about Avery?

Frances said, Avery is with the Lord now. There’s nothing I can do about that. So I might as well host bridge group.