Sam chews on her fingernail. “Is she likereallyworried?”
Henry laughs. “I don’t know! How do you tell that, with Mom?”
“Good point.” Sam sucks in her bottom lip and looks from Henry to Ava and back again. “Does Uncle Timmy know she’s worried? DoesGertieknow? God, I can’t believe people aren’t flocking here by the zillions to see Gertie. She’s so famous. And she’s so good in this part.”
Ava, listening all along, pipes up. “I’m sure everybody would come, if they knew about it. Somehow not enough people know. That must be the problem.”
“Right,” says Henry. “Mom said something about putting all of her publicity eggs in a bad basket, or something.”
“Huh,” says Sam. “Huh. Okay.”
An idea is blossoming.
After she points Henry and Ava up the hill, she unlocks her bike from the rack in the back of the theater. But she doesn’t cycle home. The wheels are starting to turn, and not just on her bike. She remembers her dinner with Uncle Timmy.You’ve got this massive following, and you’re doing nothing with it.
Sam can’t fix the planet, but in this little corner of it she can make a difference. This she can do.
She heads the other way on Water Street, left on Dodge to the four-way stop, then turns right on Corn Neck Road. When she gets to the new beach pavilion at Fred Benson, she pulls her bike into the rack. The first thing she sees is the banner announcing the next movie night at the pavilion:The Devil in Here.She rolls her eyes. Ofcourse.
It takes a little while for her apps to come in, because she has todownload all of them and she has to think hard to remember her passwords. The apps start to filter in one by one, cautiously, like the first early guests at a party, and she logs in. TikTok. Twitter. VSCO. Snapchat. Even, in a nod to the olds, Facebook.
And then she finds the best lighting on the beach, and she begins her first video in a long, long time. Once she has the beach scene covered, she gets back on her bike. She takes a video of the Empire, with the poster for the play hanging outside. She happens by the dock just as the afternoon ferry is unloading, so she shoots that too. She gets a great shot of a girl on a moped. She gets a shot of the afternoon crowd at Ballard’s, and Rebecca, the statue in the middle of the traffic circle, and the famous porch of the National Hotel. She stops at the exotic animal farm across from the 1661 Inn and she captures the zedonk, the kangaroos, the lemurs. She tries to imagine the logistics of getting kangaroos and a zedonk onto an island—ferry? Or private boat? On her way back to Floyd’s house she stops and videos the outside of the Spring House Hotel, with the Adirondack chairs and the wide green lawn.
By the time she gets home she’s absolutely wiped out. She’s thirsty. Her legs are shaking from so much cycling. But she feels better than she’s felt all summer as she pulls out a chair in the breakfast nook, plugs in her dying phone, and gets to work.
Sam. Trevino. Is. Back.
Timothy
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” says Timothy when he meets his assistant, Alexa, at the ferry. Alexa is wearing a knee-length sundress, sandals, sunglasses. She looks so put-together—so capable! He feels like hugging her, in an appropriate, avuncular way, but he can’t do that. He’s witnessed enough Hollywood scandals. “Didn’t you just get off a red-eye?”
“Yes.” She glances at her phone. “Well, like three hours ago.”
“You look fresh as a daisy! How is this possible?”
“You flew me first-class.”
When Timothy gets off a red-eye in first-class he looks like a mushroom recently dug up from a faraway wood. “And...?”
“A first-class seat on a red-eye is more comfortable than my apartment,” explains Alexa. “I slept like a baby on a CBD tincture, then I napped again in the car from the airport. I’m ready to work! What do you need from me?”
What does Timothy need from Alexa? It’s a reasonable question. Alexa is looking every which way, taking in the crush of people getting off the ferry, the bikes, the mopeds, the people drinking and relaxing on the porch of the National.
“Nothing right now,” he says. “Let’s go get a drink. Or a coffee. Which would you prefer?”
Alexa considers this. “Coffee, I think. Is there a good place?”
“Oh, believe me. There’s averygood place. Alexa, have you ever had a mini whoopie pie?” Alexa shakes her head.
“I can’t believe I’ve never been to Block Island before,” says Alexa, once they’re settled with their drinks in Joy Bombs. “Point Judith is only a couple of hours away from where I grew up, in Newburyport.”
“Well, I grew up here,” says Timothy. “AndI’venever been to Newburyport!”
“You should go. It’s really beautiful. I wassoready to leave there when I moved out west. But now I think about it a lot.” Her pretty face looks sad and wistful. “I even dream about it sometimes.”
“A hometown can have a very powerful pull. Especially if it holds memories of people who are no longer with you.” Timothy’s thinking of his mother. Maybe Amy is right. Maybe he did leave all the dirty work to her. Maybe having Hugh Jackman sing to Rose didn’t have the impact he’d imagined it would. Maybe he could have done more, while he had the chance.
The door swings open, and in comes Amy. This is a happy coincidence; they hadn’t arranged to meet. Her face is shining and her eyes are bright, and she appears to be a little breathless. She goes right to the counter and orders, not even looking around, a woman on a mission. Once she has her drink, Timothy calls her over.
