household staff. Here, finally, is a cute guy my age.
She flexes her flirting muscles, which she’s been toning when she goes out to the Muse and the Chicken Box at night with Savannah. Vivi has met boys and even kissed a few, but she has not yet embarked on a summer romance.
“Here you go, Lucinda,” Vivi says, handing JP a clutch of dresses and blouses sheathed in plastic.
“I’m Lucinda’s errand boy,” he says, laughing. “JP Quinboro.”
“I’m Vivian Howe—everyone calls me Vivi. So, what does JP stand for? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.” She assesses him. He’s WASPy; he will have the name of a British monarch. “James Peter.”
“Nope. Want to try again?”
“John Paul?”
“You got Peter and Paul right, but you forgot Mary.”
“Excuse me?”
“My real name is Edward William Quinboro,” JP says and Vivi nearly laughs out loud because she was so right about the British monarch. “But my mother is a big fan of Peter, Paul, and Mary and her favorite song is ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ so she called me Jackie Paper growing up. Shortened to JP.”
Vivi loves this story so much she considers ripping up the ticket and giving him the clothes free of charge. “That is so cute.”
“It’s the only cute thing about my mother,” JP says. “Trust me. You’ll put these on her account?”
“I will.” Vivi winks at him. “See you later, Jackie Paper.”
JP walks out and Vivi watches him lay the clothes across the back seat of a convertible Chevy Blazer. The clothes will slide to the floor of the car the second he reverses. His mother should find another errand boy.
Instead of driving off, JP comes strolling back into the dry cleaner’s. “Want to go out sometime?” he asks. “When’s your next day off?”
“Sunday,” she says.
“Beach on Sunday?” JP says. “I’ll take care of everything.”
Vivi tells Savannah that she has a beach date on Sunday with a cute guy she met at work, and Savannah is both excited and jealous. “I never meet men at work,” she says. “The perils of working at a needlepoint shop. I should have gotten a job on a fishing boat or at the golf course. What’s this guy’s name?”
“JP Quinboro,” Vivi says. “You’ll never guess what JP stands for.”
Savannah groans. “Jackie Paper.”
“Wait,” Vivi says. “You know him?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” she says. “Since forever.”
“Did you date him?”
“God, no.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Vivi says.
“I’ll let you find that out for yourself,” Savannah says.
Is Vivi deflated that JP is, apparently, flawed in some way? No—Savannah has unrealistic expectations when it comes to men, whereas Vivi is just fine with a mere mortal.
JP picks Vivi up in the Blazer. He’s wearing only board shorts, flip-flops, and a visor, so Vivi gets a good look at his smooth tan torso. She’s wearing a yellow sundress over a yellow bikini. JP asks the appropriate first questions—how long has Vivi been here, where did she come from—and Vivi says that she was Savannah Hamilton’s roommate at Duke and that Savannah invited her to Nantucket for the summer without asking her parents, and the parents kicked Vivi out after a week, so she had to cobble together a summer on her own.
“You went to Duke with Savannah?” JP says. “I’ve known her forever. She’s great.”
“That’s exactly what she told me about you!” Vivi says with a grin.
Vivi thinks maybe JP will take her to Surfside or Nobadeer or Madequecham, which is where people their age hang out, but instead he drives her down a long sandy road to a beach that is completely deserted. It feels like a secret.
“Is this where you bring all of your unsuspecting victims?” Vivi says, because it would be easy enough for JP to kill her here and send her floating out to sea. (She wonders if this would make a compelling short story, something in the vein of Joyce Carol Oates’s darker work. “Beach Date,” she could call it.)
JP says, “My friends hang out at Nobadeer but I wanted to come here because it’s quiet and we can talk.”
JP plants an umbrella in the sand with great seriousness and intention while Vivi admires the rippling muscles in his arms and back. She slips her sundress over her head and feels JP’s eyes lingering on her body. His gaze is so intense, it’s as if he’s resting his hands on her waist.
It’s like they’re in a Harlequin romance novel, she thinks. Except it’s real.
JP asks if she wants to go for a walk and when she says yes, he reaches