Mittens was sulking under the dining room table. She heard Christina rip open the foil package. Christina made a wavy path of cat treats across the floor and up onto the sofa where she settled with the TV remote in her hand. Mittens approached Christina warily, as if Christina were some kind of shape-shifter. The smell of duck liver must have been irresistible, because Mittens ate them all. The cat curled in Christina’s lap exactly when Christina clicked the remote to the Hallmark Channel, the one definite location where true love existed.

Chapter 9

That night, on the mainland, in Boston and on the Cape, snow fell, icing the homes and stores and roads and bridges with sparkling white.

On Nantucket Island, thirty miles from the mainland, it rained.

And rained.

Christina phoned to tell Wink not to come to work today. It wouldn’t be busy, not with all the rain.

A few customers slogged through the wet streets to the shops, not bothering to carry umbrellas because the wind would turn them inside out. People hated the rain, and frankly, so did Christina. Every time her door opened, a minor tsunami blew into her shop. Her customers dripped water on the floor. When they picked up an object, water dribbled from their shoulders and rain hats onto the merchandise, the boxes of Legos, the fancy mermaids, the books, the puzzles, the whales.

The little sheds shuddered with the impact of the wind. When people asked if the place was safe, Christina assured them the sheds had stood for over a hundred years.

Still, it was cold in her shop in spite of her space heater turned to high. Customers didn’t linger. She didn’t blame them.

—

Lunch at Mimi’s was marginally better. Her shed trembled in the high wind, but she had three space heaters. The group gathered around the one in the back of the store and were thrilled to eat their food with their gloves off.

“Okay,” Harriet said, “we’re all here, and I’m calling this meeting to order. First item of business—Christina. Spill.”

Christina took a bite of her sandwich. Today she had peanut butter and jelly, an inexpensive and easy food, but the peanut butter stuck to her teeth. She looked over at beautiful Harriet in her cashmere shawl pinned at the shoulder with a ruby and gold sleigh.

“So I went to dinner,” she managed to say. She took a sip of water. “I met the great man himself, Oscar Bittlesman. The dining room was so elegant, and Janice Harris served filet mignons. Delia was there, and Wink and Andy, and it was all pleasant enough, even though Oscar called me Cheryl and went on to express the opinion that I probably had never traveled.”

Mimi leaned forward. “Was he trying to insult you by calling you Cheryl?”

Christina thought about it. “I don’t think so. I think it was just a slip of the tongue.”