Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Storms

“Sure, let’s invite George and Mary Rose,” Kelley says. George is fun at parties. And Kelley would basically do anything to keep Mitzi’s mind off Bart.

A few days earlier, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center finally issued a press release about the status of Private William Burke. The soldier had regained consciousness but was still unable to speak. He could answer simple questions by blinking his eyes. Kelley and Mitzi had hugged each other in celebration, although they soon realized they weren’t any closer to getting answers about Bart.

What kind of simple questions are the doctors asking the private? Kelley wonders. Is he alert enough to answer questions about what happened? About his fellow troops, still held captive? And what if…

The next thought is too difficult to articulate, even in his mind. What if William Burke says that he’s the sole survivor? What if William Burke’s regaining consciousness is the end of hope?

Again, Kelley considers driving ten hours south to Bethesda-but that won’t solve anything. He and Mitzi simply have to wait. They have to live their lives and concentrate on the family they do have.

Margaret and Drake’s wedding will be held on the beach out at Eel Point. Catherine, the town clerk, will marry Margaret and Drake, and there will be a harp player, a trumpet player, and a cellist. But Margaret keeps adding surprises. At the beginning of August, Margaret and Drake had dinner at the Club Car. When they visited the piano bar in the back, Margaret met Gordon Russell, a man with a deep, resonant, nearly professional-sounding singing voice. He had been belting out “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” from Oklahoma! Margaret (a lifelong sucker for show tunes) approached Mr. Russell afterward and asked him to sing at her wedding. And, because Margaret is an investigative reporter, she learned that Mr. Russell owned the Lilly Pulitzer store In the Pink, here on Nantucket, and that he was a twelfth-generation islander, descended from the Folgers and the Gardners. In all ways, Gordon Russell is a valuable, interesting addition to the group.

“What song is he singing?” Kelley asks.

“‘The Wedding Song,’” Margaret says casually.

This gives Kelley pause. “The Wedding Song”? The old chestnut sung by Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary that was so in vogue forty years earlier when Margaret and Kelley got married? Hadn’t he and Margaret wanted Kelley’s brother, Avery, to sing “The Wedding Song” at their wedding? Yes, Kelley is pretty sure they had, but then the priest wouldn’t allow it, so one of the choir members had sung the Ave Maria instead.

“But that was our song,” Kelley says.

“It wasn’t our song,” Margaret says. “Our song was ‘Thunder Road.’ ‘The Wedding Song’ was only a song we considered for the ceremony. Don’t be sensitive.”

Is Kelley being sensitive? Probably. What does it matter if Margaret is recycling their first choice of song? This wedding requires adult behavior from everyone.

After all, Kelley will be giving Margaret away.

Quinns’ on the Beach is a gangbuster success, a beyond-his-wildest-dreams moneymaking machine. Kevin hasn’t slept since Memorial Day, but by the end of Fourth of July weekend, he is able to pay Kelley and Margaret back the money they lent him to get the business up and running. From the time the shack opens, at eleven o’clock in the morning, until it closes, at five, there is a line all the way through the parking lot to the road. Quinns’ on the Beach is written up in N Magazine, the blog Mahon About Town, and the Inquirer and Mirror . People are crazy about the striped-bass BLT made with Bartlett’s Farm tomatoes, gem lettuce, and lemon-herb mayonnaise and presented on a soft pumpernickel roll. On an average day, he sells two hundred sandwiches at fifteen bucks apiece.

If Kevin weren’t so bone-tired, he would be ecstatically happy. Finally, finally, finally, at the age of thirty-eight he has done it: found his calling. He is no longer slinging drinks at the Bar. He is no longer working for his father. By the end of the season-he’ll stay open seven days a week through Labor Day, then on weekends only until Columbus Day-he reckons he’ll have enough money that he, Isabelle, and Genevieve can find their own place to live.

There are many things Kevin loves about Quinns’ other than the money. For example, he loves working with Ava. He figures that could have gone either way, but the two of them have turned out to be an outstanding team. Ava is brilliant at taking orders and manning the register. He loves to hear her banter with the kids, especially her students from the elementary school. She also excels at the upsell-lobster tacos instead of beef tacos, frappes instead of sodas. And she has phenomenal taste in music. For the shack, she made a variety of playlists. There’s the Tropical playlist (Buffett, Bob Marley, Michael Franti), the Classic Rock playlist (Stones, Clapton, Zeppelin), and the Acoustic playlist (Coldplay, James Taylor, some long-lost Springsteen tracks).

Kevin sees every person he has ever known, and he meets new people every day. During the week, it’s mostly moms and kids, teenagers, and college students, but on the weekends, the fathers show up.

“I really wish you sold beer,” they all say.

“Me too,” Kevin says. “Next year.” As soon as the place closes for the season, he’ll figure out whose ass he has to kiss to get a liquor license.

Isabelle brings Genevieve every day at four thirty, and Ava takes the baby while Isabelle finishes with the customers and tallies the day’s receipts. Isabelle isn’t as good with people as Ava is but it’s important for Isabelle to get the exposure and practice her English.

One day, Haven Silva comes through the line with her son, Daniel. Kevin flashes back to their conversation that spring about Norah selling pills to Jennifer and he hopes and prays she doesn’t bring it up. If she were to mention it to Ava, Ava would have a cow. She would call Patrick and Jennifer as soon as she got home and demand answers. That’s because Ava likes to deal with problems head-on, whereas Kevin prefers to bury them in his mind at the bottom of the pile known as Quinn Family Dirty Laundry.

Haven orders lobster tacos, a kid’s bacon burger, and two frappes. She grins at Kevin and gives him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “I’m happy for you!”

Phew, he thinks.

But then, sometime during the insanity that is the second week of August-when all the residents of the Eastern Seaboard have crammed themselves onto Nantucket-the inevitable happens: Norah Vale comes through the line. Ava has run to the ladies’ room, so Kevin is a sitting duck.

“Hey, Kev,” Norah says.

The line behind Norah is two thousand people long. Kevin doesn’t have time for any kind of scene or breakdown. If it were legal, he would have a sign on the front of the building reading OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (except Norah Vale).

“What can I get you?” he asks.

Norah scans the menu behind his head but it feels to Kevin like she’s trying to read his mind.

“You got your own place,” she says. “Proud of you.”

“Thanks,” he says. “What can I get you?”

“I’ll have the fish BLT,” she says. “Extra mayo. Side of coleslaw. And a coffee frappe. Please.”

Kevin scribbles the order down. Where is Ava? He’s so flustered by Norah’s presence that he can barely do the math. It’s only two fifteen, which is right in the middle of Genevieve’s nap time, so there’s no chance Isabelle will show up and see Kevin talking to Norah. But still.

“How’s your family?” Norah asks.

“That’ll be twenty-one dollars and sixty cents,” Kevin says.