Swan Song

by Elin Hilderbrand

Genres: Friendship

Synopsis

In the grand finale of "queen of the beach read" Elin Hilderbrand's beloved Nantucket novels, there's a new couple in town... and they instantly shake things up. Amid the extravagant parties on land and sea, there's trouble on the island, forcing Chief of Police Ed Kapanesh to postpone his retirement and changing the fabric of life on the picturesque island forever...

After thirty-five years serving as the Chief of Police on the island of Nantucket, Ed Kapenash's heart can no longer take the stress. But his plans to retire are thwarted when, with only three days left to serve, he receives a phone call. A 22-million-dollar summer home, recently purchased by the flashy new couple in town, the Richardsons, has burned to the ground. The Richardsons are far from hurt—in fact, they're out on the water, throwing a lavish party on their yacht—but when news of the fire reaches them, they discover that their personal assistant has vanished. The Chief is well-acquainted with the Richardsons, and his daughter is best friends with the now-missing girl, leaving him no choice but to postpone his retirement and take on the double case.
On a small island like Nantucket, the Richardsons shook things up from the second they stepped on to the scene, throwing luxurious parties and doing whatever they could to gain admittance to the coveted lunches at the Field & Oar Club (with increasing desperation). They instantly captured the attention of local real estate agent Fast Eddie, and the town gossip Blond Sharon, both dealing with their own personal dramas. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce, and in order to avoid becoming a cliché, she's enrolled in a creative writing class, putting her natural affinity for scandal towards a more noble purpose. To solve the case of the fire and track down his daughter's best friend, the Chief will have to string together the pieces of the lives of all of these characters and more, rallying his strength for his final act of service to the tight-knit community he knows and loves.
The last of Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Nantucket novels, SWAN SONG is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters, including, most importantly, the beautiful and timeless island of Nantucket itself.

Release date: June 11, 2024

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

Most towns have a rumor mill. We here on Nantucket have what’s known as the cobblestone telegraph—and Blond Sharon has long been the switchboard operator. Everything goes through her.

But this summer, a twist: Blond Sharon is now the topic of gossip. Everyone on the island is talking about how Blond Sharon’s husband, Walker, left her for his physical therapist, a woman who is less than half Walker’s age. Walker tore his ACL skiing over the holidays, and in March, he announced that he’d fallen in love with “Bailey from PT.” He was leaving Sharon; he wanted a divorce.

Ouch, we thought. It’s hardly a new story, a middle-aged man leaving his wife for a younger woman, but we thought Blond Sharon’s family was bulletproof. Sharon is an exemplary mother. She secured her sixteen-year-old twin girls, Sterling and Colby, coveted internships at the Nantucket Historical Association (unpaid, but so good for their college applications). Sharon’s thirteen-year-old son, Robert, has type 1 diabetes, and Sharon monitors his blood sugar using an app on her phone. We feel bad that Sharon has been dropped like a hot potato at the age of fifty-four, but none of us feel guilty talking about it. When we think of how many hours Blond Sharon has spent blabbing about other people’s business, we can’t help but see this moment as a kind of poetic justice.

The good news, we all think, is that Sharon has her sister, Heather, to lean on. Sharon and Heather are polar opposites: Sharon is blond and Heather is brunette; Sharon is a stay-at-home mom, Heather is an attorney with the corporate finance division of the SEC in Washington. Blond Sharon is like the flight attendant who overshares about the pilot’s hemorrhoids and the famous talk-show host seated in 3C; Heather is the black box. The only thing Heather has ever done with a secret is keep it.

Heather is also the voice of reason. When Sharon admits that what bothers her most about Walker leaving her is being a cliché, Heather says, “Just promise not to wear statement necklaces and fake eyelashes and take cruises in the Mediterranean looking for a rich replacement husband.”

Sharon blinks. That had been her plan exactly.

“This is your chance to reinvent yourself,” Heather says. “Do you remember the quote you taped to your bedroom mirror when we were young?”

It wasn’t a quote, Sharon thinks. It was the last two lines of the Mary Oliver poem “The Summer Day”: Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life? Sharon discovered the poem one summer when she worked shelving books at the New Canaan Public Library. The lines, which Sharon typed out on her father’s electric Smith Corona and taped to her bedroom mirror, had always seemed like a challenge—but when she thinks about it now, it feels like one she has failed to meet. She has spent her one wild and precious life selecting wallpaper and scheduling the pool cleaners; she has spent it reading People magazine in line at the market and fruitlessly trying to improve her backhand. She has spent it scrolling through her phone.

But there is something that Sharon has dreamed of doing, something we never would have guessed.

It has been Blond Sharon’s secret lifelong desire to become an author.

Well, we think, she’s certainly demonstrated her keen interest in other people’s stories, the seedier and more salacious, the better. Since beloved local novelist Vivian Howe died a few years ago, there has been no one to write about the dramas that occur every summer on Nantucket. Could Blond Sharon take her place? Does she know the first thing about writing fiction?

Summer is a prime time to embark on a self-improvement project, Sharon thinks—and she signs up for a virtual creative-writing workshop. The instructor’s name is Lucky Zambrano, which makes it sound like he’s a Mob boss, but in fact, he’s a recently retired Florida Atlantic University English professor. He tells his students that he’s teaching this online class to keep busy because his wife passed away last year.

Lucky is a widower, Sharon thinks. She sits up straighter and yanks at the bottom of her blouse to show a bit more cleavage. There are two other students in the Zoom class, both of them women and both about Sharon’s age, though neither quite as well preserved as she is. One is named Willow, the other Nancy.

“Oh,” Lucky says. “Nancy was my wife’s name.”

Does this give Nancy an advantage with Lucky? Sharon wonders. Nancy has one of those short, no-nonsense haircuts that means she’s probably already married. Willow is wearing long feather earrings and has never seen a Botox needle.

“Let’s get to your first assignment,” Lucky says. “Character. What I’d like you to do is venture out into the world somewhere, could be your local farmers’ market, your office building—Nancy, I see you work at the RMV, that’s a fertile environment—and choose two individuals to observe. Then I’d like you to dramatize a scene between the two with an eye toward developing this scene into a story. The late great novelist John Gardner famously said that there are only two plots: One, a person goes on a journey, and two, a stranger comes to town.” Lucky pauses and Sharon furiously scribbles on her legal pad. Sharon is hopelessly old-school; both Nancy and Willow type on their laptops. “Go forth and observe, then, my friends. We’ll meet again next week and you can share what you’ve written with the group.”

When Sharon clicks Leave Meeting, she’s energized and, dare she say, inspired. She won’t be one of those orange divorcées on a cruise ship; she’s going to create a dazzling second act for herself as a published author. She snatches up her legal pad, ready to venture out into the world to observe. In a way, this has always been Sharon’s mission—to find out what’s really going on. But now she has a more noble mission. Now she’s going to write about it.

Sharon plops herself down on a bench at the Steamship Authority ferry terminal. Where better to observe a person going on a journey or a stranger coming to town? Sharon wears her enormous Céline sunglasses and a white tennis visor, though those of us who are waiting for the ferry to arrive—notably Bob from Old Salt Taxi and Romeo, who works for the Steamship Authority—notice Sharon right away.

Why, Romeo wonders, does Blond Sharon have a notebook and pen at the ready? He can’t think of a single reason, but Romeo loves a mystery… especially one that involves a beautiful woman.

As soon as Sharon gets settled, the boat pulls in. She scans the people coming down the ramp. Does anyone look promising? No, no, no; it’s all day-trippers, the women in roomy sundresses, the men in cargo shorts, everyone in ugly sensible shoes. Fanny packs, backpacks. Why is the casual traveler in America so decidedly unstylish?

Her eyes latch onto a young woman over by the luggage cart. She has a look not seen often on Nantucket—she’s like a human piece of art. Her black hair is short and cut in angles and spikes. She’s wearing a tight black tank that leaves an inch of her midriff bare. She has a tattoo of a flamingo on her left shoulder and another that looks like a gecko just above her ankle. Sharon sees a gemstone sparkling in the girl’s nose as she lifts a lumpy army-green duffel off the luggage cart. This person is more than a casual tourist; this is someone arriving for the summer.

A stranger comes to town! Sharon thinks. She abandons her spot on the bench and creeps over to get a closer look. Should she offer this girl a ride to wherever she’s going? Sharon is about to tap the girl on the shoulder when a second young woman appears. This young woman has honey-colored hair cut in a neat, sassy bob and she’s wearing slim white jeans and a fitted navy blazer. She hoists a brightly patterned Vera Bradley bag off the cart. Sharon has the exact same bag at home.

“Here, take my number, Coco,” the second woman says. “Keep in touch, okay? Let me know where you end up staying.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Coco says. “I always do. And hey, Kacy, thanks for the chowder—it meant a lot.”

The second woman, Kacy, waves a hand as if to say It was nothing. She walks into the snarl of traffic in the parking lot. Coco’s shoulders sag as she pulls out her phone. The poor girl has come to Nantucket with a giant duffel bag and doesn’t have a place to stay? Sharon is about to offer to walk her over to Visitor Services to see about available hotel rooms—but then a couple of things happen in rapid succession. One is that a black Suburban pulls up, and Romeo from the Steamship opens the tailgate door and slides Kacy’s suitcases into the back. It isn’t Romeo’s job to help with luggage, so Kacy must be some kind of VIP. A second later, Sharon realizes the person driving the Suburban is the chief of police, Ed Kapenash. The young woman must be his daughter. Yes! Kacy Kapenash! Last Sharon heard, she was working as a nurse out in San Francisco. She must be back for a visit.

The second thing that happens is that Sharon’s phone rings. Inwardly, she groans. Before Walker left, Sharon’s phone was attached to her ear; this had been one of Walker’s major complaints (but how was Sharon supposed to get any news if she didn’t chat?). In a few short months, Sharon has turned into a full-blown Millennial when it comes to talking on the phone—she’ll do anything to avoid it.

The display says Fast Eddie. Eddie Pancik is Nantucket real estate royalty and Sharon’s male counterpart in the gossip department. He’s one of six people she’ll answer her phone for.

“Eddie,” Sharon says.

“Hey there, beautiful,” Eddie says. Eddie has, of course, heard the news about Walker trading Blond Sharon in for a younger model but he won’t mention it. “I just closed on Triple Eight Pocomo Road. A couple appeared out of nowhere and offered the full asking price. Twenty-two mil.”

What? Sharon thinks. The house at 888 Pocomo Road has been something of an albatross for Eddie. It’s famous for its octagonal deck, and Jennifer Quinn recently gave the interior a complete cosmetic refresh (it was the last project she took on before Real-Life Rehab, her HGTV show, took off). But… Triple Eight sits right on the water, and, thanks to climate change, harbor levels have been rising each year, eating away at the property’s small private beach. The forensic geologist reported that the first floor of the house would be underwater in eighty to a hundred years. Unfortunately, there’s not enough land behind the house to move it back, and neighborhood bylaws prohibit lifting it up.

Who pays twenty-two million for a doomed house? Sharon wonders. Someone either stupid or crazy.

“I want to introduce you to the wife,” Eddie says. “She’s a self-described ‘party animal.’”

Sharon cringes. Party animal brings to mind someone like Keith Richards in the 1970s, Rob Lowe in the 1980s. But Sharon could use a new friend, even a shortsighted one. A stranger comes to town, part deux! she thinks. “Great, feel free to give her my number.”

“Already did,” Eddie says. “She wants to join the Field and Oar Club.”

There’s no chance of that happening, as Eddie well knows, but instead of reminding him about the lengthy wait list and the nominating and seconding letters, Sharon says, “Proud of you, honey.”

“Thanks, bae,” Eddie says and he hangs up because he needs to get to the bank with his commission check. He’s glad he called Sharon with this news before going. If Blond Sharon doesn’t know about it, has it even happened?

During the short time that Sharon was on the phone, Kacy Kapenash has reappeared at the luggage cart; it seems she isn’t finished with Coco. “I just talked to my dad, and he says it’s fine if you stay in our guest room for a few days.”

“You’re kidding!” Coco says. “That’s amazing—thank you, you’re such a lifesaver.” Coco follows Kacy to the waiting Suburban.

Sharon returns to her spot on the bench and scribbles down all the details she can remember, including the flamingo tattoo, the army-green duffel, the “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” haircut.

As she’s describing the heartwarming scene between the two women, Romeo approaches; his large form casts a shadow on her page. “Hey, Sharon, what’s up?”

Sharon glances at him. Is Romeo single? she wonders. “I’m writing a short story.”

Romeo grins. How has Sharon never noticed how attractive he is? “Cool, can I be in it?”

“I’ll have to think about that,” Sharon says. “It’s going to be pretty scandalous.”

“Scandalous is my middle name,” Romeo says.

Sharon writes in her notebook: Romantic hero—Romeo Scandalous Steamship Guy? It feels a little unlikely, but then she reminds herself that it’s fiction—anything can happen.

One month earlier

The song is playing when the couple sit down at the bar. Each track on the Banana Deck’s Spotify playlist has paradise in the title; Coco is weary of all of them but especially this one. What that really means is that Coco is tired of St. John. It’s nearly Memorial Day weekend, which marks the end of high season here in the Virgin Islands.

“I have a question for you,” the gentleman says in a broad Australian accent. The guy is overdressed for the Banana Deck—he’s in a linen blazer the color of wheat bread and a crisp white shirt. His wife has long chestnut-brown hair styled in sumptuous barrel curls; her silk bias-cut dress is giving Academy Awards–presenter vibes.

Coco sighs and sets down her book. She’s reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt. She can’t believe it’s never been made into a movie.

“No, this song isn’t about me,” Coco says, though most of the lyrics apply. She is living in paradise, she is slinging drinks at a bar down by the beach. She’s both chasing something and running from something; she’s had a lot of lovers who were good for nothing. As for thinking about leaving—well, these days Coco does nothing but.

“That wasn’t my question,” the gentleman says. “I want to know if—”

“Yes, Kenny Chesney does sometimes come in here,” Coco says. “Though not usually this late in the season.”

“Shoot. We were hoping we could buy him a drink,” the wife says. She sounds American.

You and everyone else, Coco thinks. Wow, she’s in a foul mood. She slaps down a couple of Cruzan Rum coasters. “What can I get you?”

“A bottle of very cold Veuve Clicquot, please,” the gentleman says.

Coco nearly laughs. “We don’t have Veuve Clicquot.”

“Moët?” he says. “Taittinger?”

Coco holds a finger up. “I’ll be right back.”

She heads over to the hostess station. “I think the couple at the bar is in the wrong place,” she tells Clover. “They ordered champagne, and they’re all gussied up.” Coco can’t believe she just used the word gussied; from time to time, she opens her mouth and Arkansas slips out.

“They didn’t make a reservation and I won’t have an open table for at least forty-five minutes,” Clover says. She lowers her voice and says, “The guy called me mate and tried to slide me a hundred-dollar bill. I was like, Whoa, are you trying to bribe me? Then he tells me he’s a movie producer and I’m like, Good for you, mate. I’m a restaurant hostess without any available tables.”

Coco perks up. She just finished her screenplay last week and has been contemplating her next steps. This, she thinks, is what’s known as manifestation.

When Coco returns to the bar, a dude who works for WAPA, the Virgin Islands power company, has taken a seat next to the couple, and they’ve struck up a friendly conversation—so friendly that the movie producer introduces himself. “I’m Bull Richardson and this is my wife, Leslee.” To Coco, he says, “How’d we do with the bubbly? I’ll need a third glass for my mate Harlan here.”

“We don’t carry any champagne, unfortunately.” Coco wonders if this couple thought the Banana Deck was more like Nikki Beach in St. Bart’s, where, if Instagram is to be believed, your server parades through the dining room holding your ten-thousand-dollar bottle of Dom Pérignon with Pitbull playing and sparklers shooting so everyone knows just how much money you spent on your buzz.

“No worries!” Bull Richardson says. He looks at Harlan. “What are you drinking, mate?”

“Bud Light, please,” Harlan says.

“I’ll have a double-shot rum punch with a Myers’s floater,” Bull says.

Coco raises her eyebrows. That’s a serious drink.

“I’ll have the same,” Leslee Richardson says. “And we’d like to eat.”

Coco slides menus in front of everyone and mixes up the double-shot rum punches with generous Myers’s floaters. She presents the drinks to the Richardsons and cracks open a Bud Light for Harlan from WAPA. The song changes to “Two Tickets to Paradise,” and Coco washes glassware while casually eavesdropping.

She learns that the Richardsons are renting in Peter Bay, aka Billionaire Hill. When he’s asked where they’re from, Mr. Richardson says, “We bounce around a lot. We did the holidays in Palm Beach, then we skied most of our winter away in Aspen. The snow was so good that we stuck around longer than we planned, which is why we’re here so late in the season. We’re going to spend the summer on Nantucket. I should say we’re moving there, finally putting down some roots. We’ve been looking at houses.”

When asked what business he’s in, Mr. Richardson says, “I own a beverage-distribution company. We supply water, soda, and sports drinks throughout Indonesia.”

Coco’s spirits deflate. Did this guy lie to Clover just to get a table?

“And Bull is a movie producer!” Leslee says.

“On the finance side,” Bull says. “I have people who tell me what’s going to be big, and I invest. For example, did you see The Main Vein?”

Harlan admits he hasn’t seen it, and neither has Coco. She can’t help but think of her mother’s boyfriend, Kemp, who announced he was going to “drain the main vein” every time he took a leak. Eww.

“What about Snark?” Bull asks.

Nope.

“They were big overseas,” Leslee says. “All the cinemas in Kuala Lumpur were showing Snark. There were lines down the street.”

Coco is glad to hear that Bull Richardson’s producer credits don’t include movies like Top Gun and Avatar. That means he might be open to taking a chance on a first-time screenwriter.

She asks if they’re ready to order. Bull slaps down the menu and says, “Give us all the appetizers.”

“You’d like—”

“All of them,” Bull says. “Please.”

Coco punches in the conch fritters, spring rolls, mozz sticks, wings, and quesadillas; she skips the peel-’n’-eat shrimp as a favor to the wife in her silk dress. The song changes to “Paradise City,” and Coco checks her garnishes. Harlan is sitting next to Leslee; he’s a white dude with a hard-hat sunburn that cuts neatly across his forehead. He’s explaining his job as a lineman, and Coco would like to ask how he can, in good conscience, work for a company that charges forty-one cents per kilowatt hour. (It’s ten cents per kilowatt hour in Arkansas; Coco looked it up.) But she doesn’t want to be rude. She needs to seize this opportunity.

She considers saying, I’ve written a screenplay. And when Bull Richardson quips, Hasn’t everyone? Coco will tell him that her screenplay is based on a true story. Is there a more seductive phrase in the English language?

But what if he asks her to pitch him right then and there in front of his wife and the WAPA dude? Coco learned everything she knows about pitching a movie from watching The Player a dozen times, and although she practices her pitch in front of the bathroom mirror every morning as she waits for the shower to heat up, she can’t quite convey the magic of her screenplay, which is in the writing, the details, the emotional depth of her main character. She wants this guy Bull Richardson to read it—but why would he? He doesn’t know her; she’s just tonight’s bartender, and therefore she’ll be easy to dismiss.

There has to be another way to finesse this. There is another way, Coco realizes, one that nicely dovetails with her burning desire to leave the Virgin Islands for the summer.

She sets down the order of conch fritters, and Bull Richardson growls. He’s more Mad Max than Crocodile Dundee, Coco thinks. She can easily picture him cruising across the outback in a Ford Falcon seeking vengeance and justice.

“I heard you mention Nantucket,” Coco says. “I’m heading there myself this summer.”

Bull dips a conch fritter into the roasted red pepper aioli and seems to take an interest in Coco for the first time. Bull holds her gaze (Coco has been told her entire life that her eyes are something special; the irises are icy blue with a dark blue ring around them). She expects his attention will drift down to her chest, but happily, Bull isn’t as coarse as her typical bar customer.

Leslee, meanwhile, has taken the moment to squeeze Harlan’s grapefruit-size biceps. She turns to Coco. “That’s quite a coincidence. Do you know people on Nantucket?”

“Yes,” Coco lies. Then she scrambles. Who? Who? “I grew up in Rosebush, Arkansas, and our town librarian, Susan Geraghty, introduced me to Nantucket.” Technically, Coco thinks, this is true.

“Rosebush, Arkansas?” Leslee says.

“Yes, ma’am,” Coco says. Coco’s screenplay is titled Rosebush. Her opening shot is of the town sign, which announces a population of 423, then the camera pans to Rosebush’s seen-better-days Main Street, which boasts two businesses: Grumpy Garth’s Diner and the Pansy and Petunia Vintage Market, where you can buy anything from a donkey saddle to Aunt Sally’s amethyst brooch missing all but one of the amethysts.

The screenplay follows a high-school girl named (for the time being) Coco, who wants to get the hell out of Rosebush. Most people in Rosebush care about nothing but college football and NASCAR, but Coco is obsessed with grander things: film, literature, art, music—culture.

The screenplay starts during Coco’s senior year, when she attends a program for exceptional students in Little Rock. She takes a screenwriting seminar with a professor from NYU who tells her she has a “good ear for dialogue” and a “keen sense of story arc.” These two compliments set Coco on her path; she returns to Rosebush energized, inspired, aroused. She wants to hitchhike to LA but before she goes, she needs at least a little money. She steals from the register at Grumpy Garth’s and then the safe, but she’s caught by Garth himself, which is awkward and horrible because Garth is a wonderful man (Coco imagines Morgan Freeman playing this part). September arrives and there’s no money even for community college in nearby Searcy, so Coco moves up to Missouri and gets a job bartending near the Lake of the Ozarks.

A montage of Coco at her new job follows: She pulls draft beers and pours shots of bourbon; she counts her tips, then looks across the dull mirror of the lake in which the Hollywood sign appears as a mirage. She’s gotten away—but not far enough.

Coco is named employee of the year and wins a weeklong cruise to the Virgin Islands. There’s a scene where Coco leans against the railing of a cruise ship marveling at the green peaks of the islands, the clear turquoise of the water. She has reached a land of palm trees and steel-drum music, hibiscus and white sandy bays. She wanders through Cruz Bay and sees a Help Wanted sign at a bar not unlike the Banana Deck, and the viewer realizes she’s going to stay.

The script ends there, but in real life, Coco wants a more meaningful dream to come true. She wants to enter the world of producers and first ADs, of craft services and second units. She will do whatever it takes to see Rosebush on the big screen. Only then will she have fulfilled her purpose.

When Coco turns her attention back to the Richardsons, she notices Leslee’s hand resting on the WAPA dude’s thigh. Coco’s eyes flick over to Bull. Is he seeing this?

“Anyway,” Coco says. “I’m really looking forward to this summer on Nantucket.” And suddenly she is. She will leave behind three o’clock happy hours and wild donkeys in the road for… what do they have on Nantucket? Lighthouses, clam chowder, cocktail parties on the croquet lawn?

Bull takes a long swig of his rum punch. “Do you already have a job nailed down?” he asks. “Because we’re going to need a household assistant. A… girl Friday.” He turns to Leslee, who lazily lifts her hand from the WAPA dude’s leg. “Right? We talked about finding someone.”

Leslee says, “We talked about hiring someone who’s familiar with the island since we’ll be brand-new there. We don’t know a soul.”

Coco says, “I’m deciding between two offers for the exact position you’re talking about. Personal concierge.”

“Yes!” Bull says. “Personal concierge! Well, don’t take those other offers. Come work for us instead. We’ll pay thirty-five an hour and provide housing.”

Wait, Coco thinks. Is it going to be this easy?

“Thirty-five an hour!” Harlan says. “Hell, I’ll go to Nantucket.”

“Bull,” Leslee says. Here it comes, Coco thinks, the velvet hammer. “We haven’t even bought a place yet.”

“But we’re close. You liked the one with the party room.”

“Party room!” Harlan says, hoisting his Bud.

Bull shoves the final conch fritter into his piehole. He has sun-scorched cheeks and a nose that looks like it’s been broken half a dozen times, so you couldn’t call him handsome, but his confidence and his accent are appealing.

“The party room is an orgy waiting to happen,” Leslee says like this is a good thing. “But isn’t that the house with issues? The erosion problem? Climate change…”

“By the time we need to worry about climate change,” Bull says, “we’ll be long dead.” He smiles at Coco. “We don’t have kids. Who cares if the house falls into the sea fifty years from now?” He slides his business card across the bar and Coco picks it up. BULFINCH RICHARDSON, it says. SWEETWATER DISTRIBUTION AND PRODUCTIONS. There’s a cell number and two email addresses, one for the distribution, one for the productions. “Send me your information tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll let you know when we close on the house, and we can reconnect on Nantucket. How does that sound?”

“Maybe we should ask her name first,” Leslee says fake sweetly. “Before you invite her to live with us.”

Bull says, “She already told us—it’s Sherry.”

“That was the song,” Leslee says.

“My name is Colleen Coyle, but everyone calls me Coco.”

“As in… Coco Chanel?” Leslee says dubiously, giving Coco the up-and-down.

Only if Coco Chanel wore Chuck Taylors and had a pierced nose, Coco thinks. “I’ll probably take one of the offers I already have,” she says. “But thanks anyway. Maybe I’ll bump into you up there.”

“No, wait!” Leslee says, practically jumping off her barstool. Coco has read her correctly: She’s a woman who wants only what she can’t have. “Bull is right, you should come work for us. Besides, I could use another woman around.”

“In that case,” Coco says, cheesing up the moment for all it’s worth, “you have yourself a new personal concierge.” She reaches across the bar and shakes hands with Leslee and then Bull. “Now, let me check on the other apps.”

As Coco heads for the kitchen, she hears Bull say, “How about that? I can’t believe our luck.”

“Me either,” Harlan from WAPA says. “She’s hot.”

The patient who finally breaks Kacy is named Gideon, though Kacy calls him Little G. Gideon arrives in the level 4 NICU at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital as a twenty-four-weeker (technically, twenty-three weeks and six days), and, as with all babies this premature, he has only a 25 percent chance of survival. Little G weighs in at one pound, four ounces; he fits in the palm of Kacy’s hand. His lungs are the size of lima beans; he has no hair; his eyes don’t open; and, like most extreme preemies, he looks like a tiny, translucent doll.

What Kacy has learned during her seven years as a NICU nurse is that her itty-bitty patients are stronger and more resilient than most people realize. The human body wants to survive. Through the thimble-size bell of her stethoscope, Kacy can hear Gideon’s heart beating as rapidly as the wings of a hummingbird.

Kacy learns that Little G’s parents went through nine rounds of IVF and his mother suffered three miscarriages before she became pregnant with Gideon. Kacy has known some nurses over the years who grow impatient with the parents—their crying, their worrying, their questions that don’t have answers, their interfering, their praying, their self-blame, their pessimism, their optimism. However, Kacy excels with parents. She embraces Mama and Papa G, tells them, “We’re going to give Gideon the best care.” She wants to add, I will personally see to it that your child survives, but the head neonatologist on the unit, Dr. Isla Quintanilla, has gently reminded Kacy that the cruelest thing she can do is offer parents false hope and make promises she can’t deliver on.

Gideon has an umbilical venous catheter and is given trophic feeds to prepare his gastrointestinal system. He’s on a vent, but still, his O2 levels drop so low that Kacy fears they’re goin