“Do tell. Who doesn’t like dirt?”

“For the past ten years they’ve told everyone that they’re married, got hitched on a hillside above Nice. It’s a romantic story but it’s not true. They’re not married, and they appear to have a rather open marriage. He strays, she strays, but they always find their way back.”

“How in the world would you know this?”

“Again, writers are blabbermouths. Evidently, some are rather promiscuous.”

“Don’t include me.”

“I wasn’t. I’m speaking in general terms.”

“Go on.”

“We’ve checked everywhere and there’s no record of a marriage, here or in France. A lot of writers pass through. Bruce plays his games with the women. Noelle does the same with the men. Their home has a tower with a bedroom on the third floor and that’s where the visitors sleep over. And not always alone.”

“So I’ll be expected to give up everything for the team?”

“You’ll be expected to get as close as possible. How you choose to do that is up to you.”

The spring rolls arrived. Mercer ordered lobster dumplings in broth. Elaine wanted the pepper shrimp, and she chose a bottle of Sancerre. Mercer took two bites and realized the first martini had deadened everything.

Elaine ignored her second drink and eventually said, “May I ask something personal?”

Mercer laughed, perhaps a bit too loud, and said, “Oh why not? Is there something you don’t know?”

“Lots. Why haven’t you been back to the cottage since Tessa died?”

Mercer looked away, sadly, and thought about her response. “It’s too painful. I spent every summer there from the age of six through the age of nineteen, just Tessa and me, roaming the beach, swimming in the ocean, talking and talking and talking. She was much more than a grandmother. She was my rock, my mom, my best friend, my everything. I would spend nine miserable months with my father, counting the days until school was out so I could escape to the beach and hang out with Tessa. I begged my father to let me live with her year-round, but he would not allow it. I suppose you know about my mother.”

Elaine shrugged and said, “Just what’s in the records.”

“She was sent away when I was six, driven crazy by her demons and I suspect by my father as well.”

“Did your father get along with Tessa?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody in my family gets along with anybody else. He hated Tessa because she was a snob who thought my mother married badly. Herbert was a poor kid from a bad section of Memphis who made a fortune selling used cars, then new ones. Tessa’s family was old Memphis with lots of history and airs and such, but no real money. You’ve heard the old saying ‘Too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash.’ That’s the perfect description of Tessa’s family.”

“She had three children.”

“Yes. My mother, my aunt Jane, and my uncle Holstead. Who would name a kid Holstead? Tessa. It came from her family.”