He takes a beat. She can imagine him chewing his thumbnail the way he does when he’s in an awkward situation. “Nothing,” he says. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You googled Sam? And didn’t tell me?”
“Didn’t you? You just said you know!”
“I never googled. Sam told me, just now.”
He takes a longer beat. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just couldn’t take not knowing. I couldn’t take it. And then once I knew, I couldn’t tell you. I knew it would kill you, to know what happened. Hang on, sorry.” He speaks again to someone on the site and then says, “Okay, I’m back. Do you forgive me?”
“No,” she says.
Greg laughs uncertainly. “So... should I call my lawyer to get the divorce papers going?”
“Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“If it helps, I felt worse after knowing than I did before knowing.”
“It helps a little,” she says. “Only a very little. But I can’t believe you googled outside of the relationship.”
“I know,” he says. “I can’t believe it either.” He pauses. “Well,I’m glad she told you. So now that we both know... do you want to talk about it? We’re wrapping up here soon.”
Does Amy want to talk about? She might not be ready yet. She might have to process, or let Sam process. It would be easy to tip over into being mad at Greg, but she’s tired of being mad. She wants to be at peace. She wants to choose the graceful route. “Not now,” she says. “And anyway, even if I wanted to talk more, I can’t. I have a meeting.”
After they hang up, and Shelly arrives, Shelly orders a dirty chai, and Amy a decaf cappuccino. They select a table near the door. Shelly’s facing the door, and they haven’t even begun their conversation when her face lights up and she springs from her chair and hugs a man who has just come in. He’s good-looking in a rumpled way, with brown hair, a gray T-shirt, and jeans. He looks like a guy who would play a sexy professor in a limited series set on a college campus. Amy is fine with the fact that Shelly has run into a friend, but, Ticktock, she thinks. We’ve got to get going on this meeting.
When Shelly eventually releases the man, he makes his way to the counter and talks to Joy Bombs’s owner, Joy Sousa. While they’re talking he takes Joy’s hand across the counter and squeezes it, and—oh! Amy sees now.Thisis Anthony Puckett, the writer, about whom Holly told Amy the day she first learned about Shelly. The one who lives with Joy Bombs Joy; the one who’s been working on the same book since moving to the island.
“That guy right there is the reason I came to this island for the first time,” says Shelly, when Anthony chooses a seat on the other side of the café, and Shelly returns to Amy.
“Yeah? That’s the writer, right?”
“Yup. When I worked in book publicity, I was trying to set up this photo shoot with him and his dad, Leonard Puckett, and Annie Leibovitz... it was a whole thing. It was going to be this father-sonreconciliation shoot.” She waves a manicured hand; Amy wonders where on Block Island one can get a manicure like that. When she was growing up, fancy nail treatments, like espresso-based beverages, were things that one procured either off-island or not at all. “It never panned out. The photo shoot. Then the dad died so I guess it never will.” Shelly sighs and stares wistfully into her dirty chai. “But I fell in love with this island on that original trip. In fact I thought for just a second there was a spark between me and Anthony, but looking back I think he was already dating Joy, so I guess that was my imagination.”
“I guess so,” says Amy. Then, encouragingly, “It happens.”
“It sure does,” Shelly says. “Seems to happen to me a lot.”
Amy clears her throat and opens her trusty notebook. “Okay, let’s see... there are a few things we need to go over, but two big things are ticket presales and reviews. I’m not loving these numbers. I mean, we’ve got Gertie Sanger onstage and Timothy Fleming directing. People should be drawing daggers over these tickets. Right?”
“Right,” says Shelly. Now that she’s done talking about Anthony Puckett she looks composed, nonchalant, and not at all like Amy’s words have anything to do with her job. “They totally should. These tickets should be selling themselves!”
“So what’s happening?”
“That’s what I want to know,” says Shelly. She looks at Amy expectantly. “I was just on Nantucket for three days, for a wedding, and I rolled back into town, and I said the same thing to myself when I checked the numbers. I was like, These tickets should be selling themselves!” (At least that’s the manicure explained: a wedding on Nantucket.)
“Well...” Amy takes a small, bewildered sip of her decaf cappuccino. “Do you have any ideas about why they aren’t?”
“Hmm. Do I have any ideas about why they aren’t.” Shelly taps her fingers on the table, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. “Let’s see. Weare on an island, without direct accessibility to many of the major news outlets. And the summer season is super crowded... I mean, you’ve got Williamstown. Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte. The Ogunquit Playhouse is killing it this season.”
Amy arches an eyebrow at Shelly. This is her teacher face, the one she unleashes on students who have not finished the assigned pages ofThe Odyssey.(Who is she kidding? Nobody reads all of the assigned pages ofThe Odyssey.Her entire freshman lit class deserves this look.) “Well. I mean, in light of all of that, do you think we need to, I mean...publicizethis more?”
“Definitely,” says Shelly.
“Okay, so...” Amy is stymied. “We’re sort of running out of time. You’re in charge of publicity, so maybe just... work on that? Some more publicity?”
“Absolutely,” says Shelly. “Of course.”
Amy shakes her head and turns back to her notebook. “What about a reviewer from theTimes, when we open? I know we discussed that a long time ago.”
