“In 2019,” Martha says. “Maribeth saw to it that it was kept quiet. And then six months later, she married Archie.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I was brought up here to the Beyond, and my Person, Geri, gave me one nudge.”
“Only one?” Vivi says.
“The policy changed back in January,” Martha says. “Used to be one, now it’s three. You got lucky.”
“What did you nudge?” Vivi asks. “Didn’t you want to stop Archie and Maribeth from getting married?”
“I tried but I couldn’t,” Martha says. “Turns out, they were in love. They’d been in love for…decades. And nudges can’t change that.”
“Ah,” Vivi says. “So, instead?”
“Instead, I reached down and disappeared Maribeth’s collection of Hermès scarves.” Martha holds the silk square out, exhibit A. “She thought she was robbed.”
“You were allowed to bring the scarves up here?” Vivi asks.
Martha shrugs. “Geri was a progressive.”
Vivi marvels over this story. She thinks…well, what she thinks is that it would make one hell—oops, heck—of a novel, and it falls right in Vivi’s wheelhouse. The Swan Dive, she would call it. But before Vivi can ask Martha what she thinks—could she write a novel and distribute it, maybe, to the angels in the choir?—she turns to find that Martha is gone.
Leo
In one week, Leo’s father and Savannah will drive him out to Boulder. They’re taking the route Vivi mapped out and they’re stopping at all the places Vivi chose. Savannah found the itinerary in the Notes app of Vivi’s phone.
“It’ll be kind of like your mom is with us,” Savannah says. “I have her playlists and everything.”
Kind of like is just another way of saying nothing like, in Leo’s opinion. He has lost so much this summer, and although a part of him is ready to move on—get off the island, start a life somewhere new—he knows he has unfinished business.
Marissa has a list of things she wants to do before they both leave for college, and sleeping out on the beach at Madequecham is the only thing left. Marissa has some romantic vision of a bottle of wine, a couple of sleeping bags, and a sky filled with stars, and although Leo goes through the motions of preparing for this outing, he has no intention of sleeping on the beach.
He’s going to live his truth.
When he picks Marissa up, she’s subdued, and when he asks what’s wrong, she says that she had an unpleasant phone conversation with Rip Bonham about her claim.
“He thinks I’m lying about the timing of my accident,” she says.
“Technically, it wasn’t an accident,” Leo says. “You drove into the Bathtub on purpose.”
“Shut up, Leo!” Marissa says.
Leo’s anxiety is rising like the water level in a Titanic stateroom. It’s going to drown him. He fights for a clear breath. He promises himself it will be fine. It’s no big deal. He just needs to get to the beach and talk to Marissa calmly and rationally.
The road to Madequecham turns to dirt; they rumble along. Marissa suddenly starts to cry, but Leo can’t engage, he can’t get distracted. He realizes the song on the radio is “Falling,” by Harry Styles, which was the theme song for their senior banquet. Is that why she’s crying?
It’s an emotional time, the transition between one period of their lives and the next, leaving the cradle of this island, venturing into the wider world. For him the Rocky Mountains, for her the mansions and glamour of Newport. He wants to assure Marissa that she’ll thrive without him; she’s a smart and beautiful girl, she’ll meet people, make friends, find someone who genuinely adores her. Leo has been pretending for years. That ends tonight. That ends now.
He pulls up to the lip of Madequecham Beach. It’s the wild, windswept southeast coast, nearly always deserted at night. There are a few homes on the bluff, all completely dark. The owners have probably left for the season. Summer is ending.
The waves crash under a nearly full moon, which makes the water look dense and metallic, like mercury.
“Marissa.”
“You don’t want to sleep here, do you?” she says. “You look like I’ve brought you to the proctologist’s office.”
He wants to smile, but it’s beyond him. “We need to break up.” He turns to face her. “I’m not in love with you, Marissa.”
Her face looks ghostly pale in the moonlight, like an image on black-and-white film. She isn’t wearing any of the orangish foundation she favors, and Leo thinks she looks prettier without it. He watches her absorb his words. A flicker