“What?” she said, hand on her hip. “I used to be pretty good at fishing. I could take you myself, if you want to go so bad. I could show you a few things.”

“Mom—” Flynn shot his mother a deadly look. Zanne looked at Erin, whose face was immobile but whose eyes were screaming back at her noooooo. Everyone in the room could feel the threat of another fire drill looming—the memory of the kids’ winter break, when Holly had decided to take the whole family to Marrakesh on a day’s notice, still fresh in their minds.

“It can’t be that hard to charter a yacht, can it?” Holly said. “Erin?”

“Right here,” Erin said, stepping to the front.

“Let’s make a few calls. We don’t want to hold up Vic and the boys, obviously, but if we set out later this afternoon, we could make it to Catalina tonight, couldn’t we? It’s only forty miles.”

“Mom,” Flynn said. “Mom, no.”

“Holly, you have the cocktail party tonight?” Erin said.

“Maybe we should reschedule.” Holly began to lift and sort the things in Flynn’s suitcase.

“Mom?” Flynn asked. “I need to go? We can go fishing together another time when I get back. Okay?”

The staff held its collective breath.

“All right, fine,” she said with a wave of her hand, and he sprinted down the stairs before she could change her mind.

Zanne rolled her eyes at Erin, who betrayed nothing. There was a reason she’d done so well at this job.

“Señora.” Flora had reappeared and was holding up the now-found green swim trunks.

“Put it in the suitcase, thanks,” Holly said.

Erin nodded again at her. Zanne was up.

“Holly, I have the ditch bag Ted asked us to put together,” Zanne said. She stepped forward and put the black duffel bag on Flynn’s bed.

“A ditch bag? What’s that? I don’t know anything about this,” Holly said, a familiar note of irritation in her voice. She seemed to resent having her husband’s wishes explained to her, and yet that was generally how things worked. It wasn’t true that she didn’t know anything about the ditch bag—the topic had been discussed on two of the last planning calls with Ted and Holly, not to mention the email Zanne had sent last night, detailing the bag’s contents and uses—but Holly wanted a target, someone to blame for her scattered mood.

“We’re calling it a ditch bag,” Zanne said, shifting her tone slightly from efficient to conciliatory. “These are the things we want Flynn to have access to in case of an emergency, although the overwhelming likelihood is that he won’t need them. He’ll probably never open the bag.”

“What kind of an emergency?”