“We’ve been here since dawn,” he said. “Caught the first ferry. Lisa’s inside, a nervous wreck. And she was just sick to her stomach, for Christ’s sake! What the hell’s in the water here?”

Sandra’s mouth opened in shock. “Oh my God, that’s awful. Is she okay?”

“We were in that area you hilariously refer to as a green room and she was all set up with her laptop. She’d had some coffee that your caterers—more like poisoners—brought in and within seconds she was running for the ladies’ room.”

“I can’t imagine . . . maybe it’s just nerves or—”

“I’ll bet it was the cream,” Ruskin said. “You can’t get fresh cream around here.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what happened. You can be sure I’ll look into it. Let me talk to Lisa—Ms. Carver—and see if she’s okay. I feel just terrible about this.”

Ruskin shook his head in disgust, then said, “Come on.”

He turned on his heel and headed for the main doors. The man had a quick, nervous walk—like his legs were on fast-forward while the rest of him moved at a normal rate—and when he opened the door he went through first, failing to hold it open for Sandra. She grabbed it before it swung shut and scurried to keep up.

Ruskin was talking without turning his head and Sandra wasn’t picking up all of it. But she did hear, “Maybe it was the coffee. What’d you use? Seawater? And I swear, really, is it so hard to have a proper green room?”

Sandra wanted to tell him that the Garrett Island Community Center was not a TV studio, that this was not the Jimmy Fallon show, but held her tongue. She’d chosen this place, as opposed to one of the local hotels, because they needed a large room to display a small fleet of Arrivals, and the center’s gymnasium fit the bill. Other areas of the facility—a kids’ day-care room, an exercise room, the administrator’s office, a dining area—had become makeshift media centers and conference rooms and, yes, a green room.

Ruskin went down a hall to a door marked ladies, opened it an inch, and said, “Lisa? How are you feeling?”

Seconds later, the door opened wide. Lisa Carver, mid-fifties, silvery blond hair. Sandra, no stranger to Vogue, recognized her smartly tailored jacket and skirt, in dark blue, as Donna Karan. Lisa was dabbing the corners of her mouth with a tissue and looked at Sandra as if she were a cockroach sitting atop a cupcake.

“Are you the one?” Lisa asked.

Ruskin nodded a confirmation. “This is Sandra Montrose, our event coordinator.” His voice was tinged with sarcasm, as if to say, Can you believe it?