“Not a fan?”
“Not really. I guess he’s okay. They’re just, I don’t know, annoying together.”
“They look annoying,” says Sam loyally, even though of course she can’t really tell from here. All she sees is a tall girl and a slightly taller boy in a baseball cap.
“What’s that say about me?” asks Maggie. She picks up a fistful of sand and lets it out slowly, as though through an hourglass. Then she stands and brushes the sand from the backs of her legs. “That I want everyone to be alone, so I don’t have to share them?”
“It says you’re human,” says Sam, and the grateful smile Maggie gives her is enough to put her in a better mood.
Amy
When Amy was growing up on Block Island you’d be more likely to come across the rare grasshopper sparrow than an espresso drink. Now there are at least three coffee shops to choose from! The Friday after securing the rehearsal barn she’s going into Joy Bombs, which Timothy has raved about, when a woman on her way out stops, stares, and says, “Amy! Amy Fleming! Ohmygod, Amy. I’d recognize you anywhere. It’s me! It’s Holly Anderson!”
“Holly?” Amy doesn’t know anyone named Holly. Does she? She peers at the woman. She’s short and curvy, with wavy blond hair and big blue eyes. Those fake eyelashes that look like spider legs on some people but actually look pretty good here. “Hi...?” she says uncertainly, raking through her memory.
The woman shakes her head. “Silly me. You don’t know me as Holly Anderson. You know me as Holly Lewis. Amy! You used to babysit me!”
Holly steps back into the shop and Amy follows her. “Holy moly,” says Amy. “Holly. Of course.” She babysat Holly when she was sixteen and Holly was, what? Eight or nine? So that means the woman in front of her, little Holly Lewis, with the pigtails and the crooked front teeth, is now... she does some quick math (not her forte)... is now forty-five years old. With beautifullystraightened teeth. “That seems impossible. That so many years have gone by.”
“Iknow!” Holly bobs her head enthusiastically. “I heard you were here for the play.”
“I am,” says Amy. “I am here for the play.”
“I have a daughter who’s almost as old as you were when you were my babysitter, if you can believe that!”
“I can’t,” admits Amy. She’s remembering now. She was sixteen in 1986. Holly’s parents attended a regular Wednesday-night card game on the other side of the island. Holly’s little sister (what was her name?) went to bed at eight o’clock, and Amy allowed Holly to stay up and illegally watchFacts of Lifeat nine-thirty, provided she scooted into bed immediately after and feigned sleep when her parents returned from the card game at ten-fifteen. Her parents thought Holly was too young to watchFacts of Life,and looking back from the vantage of adulthood Amy realizes that shewastoo young. She feels a little guilty now.
“Look, here’s my Riley!” says Holly. A teenage girl—tall, gorgeous, in small shorts and a cropped tank top—is walking toward them, holding a coffee cup in one hand and a cell phone in the other. “Her best friend’s mom owns this place so she spends ninety-six percent of her time here,” explains Holly. “And most of her money.”
“I got this one on the house,” says Riley.
Holly links her arm through her daughter’s and says, “Honey, this is Amy Fleming! She used to be my babysitter! One hundred years ago!”
“Hi.” Riley’s disinterested eyes flick over Amy, and she grants her mother a half smile and says, “Can we go? I’m supposed to meet Jacob.”
Nonice to meet you.Amy’s teacher radar senses trouble. She can always pick them out: something hooded in the glance, thedangerous combination of insecurity and overconfidence, the merger of discomfort in the new body with knowledge of what it’s capable of. It’s always something the moms can’t see. Poor Holly.
“Trevino,” she tells Holly. “My married name is Trevino. I’m not a Fleming any longer.”
Riley perks up immediately. “Trevino? As in Sam Trevino?”
Amy nods. “Yup. She’s my daughter.” She thinks, Here we go. If people here know Sam, people with no ties to Narragansett, does everyone know Sam?
Riley turns to her mother and says excitedly, “Maggie told me Sam Trevino is here!” Her face lights up like a Christmas tree, and she suddenly looks younger, and more vulnerable, and sweeter. In fact, she reminds Amy of little Holly Lewis laughing at the TV, a bowl of popcorn on her lap. “Sam Trevino. From TikTok. She got like really famous. Then she left TikTok, and everybody was like, where did she go? But she’s here! She’s here on this island!”
“She’s here,” confirms Amy. Her stomach clenches in that familiar worried way it does when she thinks about Sam and New York. Every time Amy successfully forgets about Sam’s fame—every time Sam becomes simply Amy’s daughter again, not a TikTok star—something pops back up to remind her. Would it have been this way had Sam led a private life afterMockingbird,after the Disney Channel? Will it be this way for Sam if Sam ever goes to college? Maybe, but famous people go to college all the time. Look at Natalie Portman. Look at the Obama daughters.
Riley glances at her phone and says, “I’m going to go now, okay, Mom?” To Amy she says, “It was really nice to meet you.” So she does have manners, thinks Amy. She takes them out when she needs them. “Please tell Sam...” She takes a deep breath and blinks rapidly. “Never mind. I just hope I get to meet her sometime.”
“I hope so too,” says Amy, though she’s not sure she does.
“Bye, Mom.”
“Bye, sweetie.” Then, “Get your drink,” Holly tells Amy. “We can sit for a minute, if you have time.”
Amy looks at her watch. “I have a little bit of time. I have to be at the theater soon. I’ve got a to-do list a mile long.” She orders a mocha, with whipped cream, thank you very much, and joins Holly at one of the small tables.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Holly says. “The play. I’m a Realtor now!” She pulls a business card out of her bag and pushes it across the table toward Amy. The card names a realty agency in town, and in the corner is a photo of Holly, looking serious and businesslike in a white blouse. “I worked for the Chamber of Commerce forever, but I thought I was ready for the next step in my life’s journey, so I got my license last year. The market is exploding. You know, I handled the housing for some of the cast.”
