As if that weren’t bad enough, it started to rain, which immediately presented the problem of how to get to work, because Love wouldn’t be able to use Rollerblades, or ride her bike. She called a cab, and as she waited for it to show up, she imagined taking an EPT and having it turn out positive. Her stomach flippety-flopped. Damn Vance! He’d ruined it. Thinking about pregnancy was supposed to make her feel elated, not apprehensive.
Love’s cab was thirteen minutes late. She huffed as she climbed into the backseat.
“I said eight-fifteen.” She looked at the cab driver. The short black hair, the seven silver hoop earrings. It was Tracey, the girl who had picked Love up from the ferry her first day on the island.
“It’s raining, lady,” Tracey said. “You’re not the only person on the island who wants a cab this morning.”
“I know you,” Love said, leaning forward. “You’re Tracey. You gave me a ride in May, remember? I showed you the Hadwen House and the Old Mill.”
Tracey blinked into the rearview. “Oh, yeah.” She laughed. “You’re the woman who wants a baby. So what happened? Did you get knocked up?”
“This morning, I think,” Love said.
“Wow,” Tracey said. “Congrats. You don’t seem too happy about it. What’s wrong, did you boink somebody ugly?”
The girl should write a book on how to be indelicate, Love thought. “No,” she said. “Worse. I boinked someone who now claims he wants a child.”
Tracey backed out of the driveway. “Okay, so what?”
“I want to be a single parent. I want the baby for myself.”
Tracey turned down the radio. “You’ll excuse me for saying so, but that’s fucked up.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Love said. “You’re too young.”
Tracey lifted her hands from the steering wheel and held them palm-up as if to say, I am what I am. “Are you going to tell the guy you’re pregnant?”
“I might not be pregnant,” Love said. “I just think I am.”
“If you were thinking for the kid, you’d tell him,” Tracey said. “Every kid should have a shot at two parents. To deny the kid that is wrong. That’s my take on it. If you care.”
“Well, I don’t care,” Love snapped. Immediately, she was embarrassed. First she yelled at Vance and now at Tracey, an innocent cab driver.
Tracey was quiet for the rest of the ride. When she reached the Beach Club, Love gave her a five-dollar tip, even though this was an ugly gesture in her book: act rude and then try to make up for it with money. But what else could she do?
“I’m sorry I was short,” Love said. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Tell him,” Tracey said.
Because of the weather, the lobby looked like a second grade classroom without a teacher. Guests were eating their muffins and bagels and doughnuts, leaving trails of powdered sugar and smears of cream cheese on everything they touched. Someone had spilled coffee on the green carpet, and sections of the newspaper were scattered about as though the whole pile had been dropped from the rafters. Kids ran around screaming, and the phone was ringing. Vance stood behind the desk, his lips puckered.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Vance, listen, I’m sorry,” Love said.
He raised a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“It wasn’t about your story,” Love said. “I liked your story.”
“Love, the damage is done, okay? Don’t insult me further by trying to backpedal.”
The phone rang again. Vance made no move to answer it. Love hurried through the office, hanging her wet jacket on the handle of a vacuum. She popped out to the front desk and Vance disappeared. Vanishing Vance. The phone nagged at her like a crying baby.
“Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel,” Love said.
“Do you have any rooms available for this weekend?” a woman asked. “The lady at Visitor Services told us you were located on the beach.”
“We’re fully booked, ma’am,” Love said. “We’ve been fully booked since early spring.”
“Can you check to see if someone has canceled?” the woman said.
“Just a moment, please.” Love poked her head into the office. Vance sat at Mack’s desk, staring out the window. Why did they have to work together today of all days? Why couldn’t he be Jem? “Vance, do you know where Mack is? I have a reservation call.”
Vance said nothing.
“Vance?” Love said.
Nothing.
“Okay, fine,” she said. She picked up the phone. “No cancellations, ma’am. Sorry.”
A man with horn-rimmed glasses stood at the desk. He had a muffin crumb in his mustache. “Do you know when the sky is going to clear?” he asked.
“Do I know when the sky is going to clear?” Love said. “No, sir, I don’t. You have a TV in your room. You could check the weather channel.”
The man wiped the crumb off his lip and Love relaxed a little. “My wife has forbidden me to turn on the TV,” he said. “This is a no-TV vacation. Which is really going to be trying if the rain persists, you see what I mean?”
“I’m sorry,” Love said.
A line formed at the front desk. This had never happened before-it was as though everyone thought of a question for Love at the same time.
An older woman with two children stepped up. “I’m Ruthie Soldier, room seven,” she said. “What is there to do with kids when it rains?”
“There’s the Whaling Museum,” Love said. “That’s only down the street. There’s the Peter Folger Museum. There’s the Hadwen House.”
“Is there anything to do that will be fun for these kids?” Ruthie Soldier said. “I don’t want to bore them with history.”
“Thank you, Gramma,” the older child, a girl wearing multicolored braces, said. “We have to go back to school in a few weeks anyway.”
“You could go out for ice-cream sundaes,” Love said.
“We just ate bagels,” Mrs. Soldier said. “Is there a movie house with matinees?”
“No,” Love said. The phone rang. She eyed the console’s blinking red light.
“What about bowling?”
“No bowling.”
“Do you have any board games?”
Love tried to block out the ringing phone. “Let me check,” she said. She thought she’d seen an old, mildewed Parcheesi in one of the closets. In the office, Vance was still lounging at Mack’s desk.
“Vance, do we have any board games?” Love asked. “These people want something to do with their kids.”
Vance smiled meanly. He was his back-at-work creepy self. Someone whom Love would not date, not sleep with, and certainly never parent with.
The phone continued to ring. Love ran back to the desk to answer it. The people standing in line crossed their arms and shifted their weight. A man still in his pajamas tapped his bony, bare foot impatiently. Where was Mack?
“Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel,” Love said.
“This is Mrs. Russo. I’m calling to see if the Beach Club is open today.”
Love looked out the window. The peaked roof of the pavilion created a minifalls. “It’s raining, Mrs. Russo. No Beach Club today.”
“That’s a shame,” Mrs. Russo said. “We paid so much money.”
Love hung up. The line of people swarmed and blurred in front of her hand and then she remembered Mrs. Soldier. “No games,” Love said. “Would you like a VCR?”
“That would be lovely,” Mrs. Soldier said.
Love went back to Vance. “Room seven wants a VCR.”
“They’re all signed out,” he said.
Love returned to the desk. “The VCRs are all signed out,” Love said. The man in the pajamas raised his hand. She was the second grade teacher.
“Yes?” Love said.
“You’re out of coffee,” he said.
“You’re kidding,” Love said. Several people in line sadly shook their heads. Normally, they didn’t run out of coffee until midafternoon and by then things were quiet enough that Love could make more. She poked her head into the back office again. “Vance,” she said, in her most pleasant, ass-kissing voice, “we’re out of coffee. Could you be a doll and make some more?”