her aching feet. Some women had Botox shot into the soles of their feet to numb them so there would be less pain.
Keely’s cure was a long, soaking, very hot bath. She felt her muscles melt and her mind empty. Wrapped in her silk kimono, she took a glass of sparkling Perrier water and settled on the sofa. She turned on the television. CNN’s Erin Burnett was on, so it was only the beginning of the evening. Keely spent a while thinking that if all the female anchors didn’t have each hair so exquisitely in place, they’d have more gravitas, and then she chided herself for criticizing Erin or any female reporter, and then she wondered when Anderson Cooper would come on because she had a massive crush on him even if he was gay, and then she fell asleep.
She woke at five in the morning with the television still on, displaying an ad for Cialis. She clicked the remote control off, turned over, and went back to sleep.
She woke again at nine, and she was starving. She made coffee, which helped, although she didn’t have any fresh milk. She fixed herself two whole wheat crackers with peanut butter and smiled, because that had been one of her favorite breakfasts when she was a kid. When she was a kid, she’d dreamed of becoming a writer. And so had her best friend, Isabelle.
Keely missed Isabelle.
She missed walking in sandals. She missed walking in sand.
She missed her island, her friends, her home. She missed her mom.
Pathetic.
And yes, she disliked the sniveling bore living in her mind. How dare she be unhappy! She was fortunate, she knew that, almost freakishly fortunate. Her first novel, Rich Girl, had been published to an astonishing reception. She’d toured the country and everyone told her how much they loved her book. She loved her readers! She loved writing. She was wealthy beyond her wildest dreams, and she was only twenty-eight years old. Her second novel, Poor Girl, was ready for proofreading and would come out next summer. She was working on her new novel, Sun Music.
And she was all alone in the world.
Two different kinds of people exist: Those who wade cautiously into the shallows and those who throw themselves headlong into the roaring surf.
At least, that was what Keely and Isabelle thought.
As girls, Keely and Isabelle preferred Surfside to Jetties or Steps Beach, even though that meant a longer bike ride to the water. Jetties Beach was mild and shallow, perfect for children, but Surfside had, well—surf!—often dramatically breathtaking surf leaping up and smashing down with a roar and an explosion of spray that caught the sunlight and blinded their eyes with rainbows. Their parents worried when they went to Surfside. People could get caught up by the power of the water and slammed mercilessly down onto the sand. People had their ankles broken, their arms. Once, a classmate of Keely’s had broken his neck, but they’d medevaced him to Boston and eventually he was good as new. He never returned to Surfside, though.
Keely couldn’t remember a time when Isabelle wasn’t her best friend. They met in preschool, linked up the first day, and went on like that for years. They were equally spirited and silly. They played childish pranks, using the landline to punch in a random number; if a woman answered, they whispered in what they considered sultry, sexy voices, “Tell your husband I miss him.” Usually they couldn’t keep from giggling before they disconnected. At ten, they smoked cigarettes at night in the backyard—until they realized the nicotine only made them nauseous. Once, when they were eleven, they stole lipsticks from the pharmacy, which was really stupid, since they didn’t wear lipstick.
Isabelle lived in a huge marvelous old Victorian house in the middle of Nantucket. It had a wraparound porch and a small turret. Odd alcoves and crannies were tucked in beneath the stairs, both the formal, carpeted stairs from the front hall and the narrow, twisting back stairs from the kitchen. It was the perfect place for hide-and-seek, and on rainy days, they were allowed to rummage through old trunks and boxes in the attic, pulling on ancient dresses as soft as spiderwebs and floppy hats heavy with cloth flowers.
The Maxwell house was rambling and mysterious, a home out of storybooks, and for Keely, the amazing Maxwell family belonged there.
Isabelle’s father, Al Maxwell—his full first name was Aloysius, which his children used when he reprimanded them—“Yes, sir, Aloysius!”—was a