Caroline figured the cottage was 1880s, 1890s, built not long after the brownstone she was now renting in New York, with more rooms and much more light and air. Since the others seemed to be gone for the morning, Caroline decided to give herself a house tour. She would have liked to have a native guide and interpreter but that would have meant extending herself to the taciturn Max or to one of the islanders, whose tennis balls she could hear thwoking in the near distance. Neither of which she wanted to do.

She opened the door that led to the upstairs hallway. Thank God her room and Beverly's were so far apart-there was no insulation in this cottage, so everyone could hear everything. Hence the name, she realized suddenly. A house, no matter how palatial, is a cottage if it's only meant for three months of the year. Even the past couple of nights it had been chilly.

Caroline wandered down the dark hall, opening one door after another to take in the whole place. A bedroom, another bedroom, a sort of dorm room, another bedroom. There was a tiny sink in almost every room, a holdover from when a washing bowl and pitcher stood there instead.

Each bedroom was neat and faded and a little antiseptic. Nobody really lived here, it was clear. She went back to the dorm room. It was long and narrow and looked out onto the woods. It had surely been more than one room to start. Someone had taken down the walls to make the place a giant room for kids. Hogwarts in Maine.

Her eyes caught the markings on the plank ceiling. She couldn't figure it out. The marks were clearly footprints, and they were clearly on the ceiling. She pictured Fred Astaire doing that dance routine where he danced up and down walls. He would have had to dance in work boots to make these kinds of footprints. Hard to dance in work boots, even if you're Fred Astaire.

She looked harder at the footprints. The wide planks that made up the room's ceiling must at some point have been lying on the ground, before the house was built. A workman in 1880 stepped all over them, then used them to make the ceiling above her. Now, all this time later, the boards were still unfinished and the footprints were still there. She liked the continuity of this place. Another Max with another hammer. Maybe even the same hammer.

This dorm seemed to be a boys' room, even stripped down as it was. Striped sheets, old ticking pillows, a blue corduroy bean bag chair, three half-finished model airplanes from a time when there was such a thing as model airplanes. Carved into the wooden plank walls were a height chart and a lot of messages: "John R, 1938," "Dick + Ellie," "RMBG WAS HERE," and something else that looked like Boy Scout code. Larger nails had been banged into the walls as hooks to hang up jackets and towels. There was a door partially hidden behind a beat-up metal trunk from the seventies, probably, judging from its garish colors. She tried the door handle. Locked, of course. On the wall next to the door was an enormous map of the Harvard campus, copyright 1952, Caroline read. All the boys in this dorm room had clearly got the message: all roads from Hopewell had better lead to Cambridge.

The dorm room needed something to warm it up. She took a few cushions off the windowsill and arranged one apiece on the faded ticking pillows of each bed. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Caroline walked down the stairs, her feet echoing. The house sounded almost hollow. It must be hard to have a great sex life here, she thought. Everyone can hear everything. Though if you were into that it would be ideal.

There were two living rooms on the ground floor. On the fireplace mantel were photos of the Little Lost set in almost every decade of the past century. Little Lost tennis champions, 1947. Everyone in crisp whites. Everyone crisp and white, in fact. Ladies Association for Beautification Society Picnic, 1972-oh, how effortlessly groovy they were. The men-so slender!-in pants that proudly clung to their crotches, with horrible facial hair; the women in long skirts or caftans, looking as close to indigenous as they knew how. Lottie would not be amiss in this group, she thought. No one obviously smoking pot but pot smoking must have gone on, even here. And then in the back row were the matrons, who must themselves have been the winners of that same tennis championship in 1947, and on the lawn the children who would be the matrons of the future.

A door, uneven on its hinges, led to the side porch. She nudged it open and stepped out. The birdcalls and nonstop chittering were even louder here. They never shut up, these animals. She had never much cared to know the difference between a pigeon and a mourning dove in the city, but here it felt like it mattered which was which. So far the mourning doves and the crows were all she could recognize. The shady path out this side door invited her to explore the island itself, but the house-the cottage-still held more interest. She wasn't ready for the island yet. Corny as she knew the thought was, the house was crying out for love.

Caroline thought about love as she went back upstairs to her own little porch. She sat down on the chaise again and closed her eyes. She imagined herself installed in this cottage, a doting tennis player mixing her a cocktail as the sun went down. Not a tennis player-he wasn't coming into focus. She was just getting a picture of who might be mixing the cocktail when her reverie was disturbed by another sound: the clump of footsteps up the outside steps to her porch. Her private porch.

"Max?" she said.

It wasn't Max. It was Rose and Lottie, peering at her from the top of the steps. She opened her eyes, and then closed them again.

"Do you need sunscreen? Because Rose brought some. That is a really tiny bathing suit. We're worried about sun damage." Caroline could feel Lottie's enormous eyes widen at the diminutive size of her bikini. And it was not her briefest.

"Then wear a hat," said Caroline.

"We thought we'd make lunch," said Rose. "Would you like to join us?"

Caroline thought that if she took long enough to reply they might go away. It was a long beat before anyone spoke.

"I think she wants to be left alone, Rose," Lottie said. "That's why she is not answering us."

Lottie had seemed the flighty one on first acquaintance, but Caroline was beginning to admire her intuition.

"Caroline came here to be alone and now we're not letting her do what she most wants to do." Caroline opened her eye just a tiny bit and saw Lottie take Rose's arm. "We've been taking care of other people for so long that we can't remember how to take care of ourselves," Lottie added. "Rose will remember, I know it. Me, too." She heard the two of them walking away, leaving her alone with the sound of the sea.

By midafternoon, Beverly had arranged his photos of Possum to his satisfaction. He had placed them just so around the unhappy-making brown box that he took with him everywhere. The room was his castle, and none of the women had been up there again to irk him. He slid his suitcase out from under the bed and removed an untidy sheaf of papers to see if he could make sense of any of it. There were so many bills overdue and yet so much money in various accounts to pay them with. If only he hadn't fired that new "manager" who'd taken over the old firm from their fusty old lawyers. It had been impulsive, but he couldn't stand the way the man's every statement sounded like a joke. And the jargon! Now it was up to Beverly to sort this out.

It was such an effort to keep up, or even to ask people to keep up for him. He vaguely remembered sending a check for some enormous amount to the heating and gas people last winter to keep them happy, but apparently that had been gone through and now more effort was required. Gorsch had been so good at money, and Beverly was so bad. Gorsch would have found them someone better to take care of their affairs by now. Beverly couldn't trust the young.

It was quite a lovely day outside. He wasn't much for the outdoors but there were some pleasant paths on this island and he thought he might as well walk down one as stare at these damnable papers. He popped a photo of Gorsch holding Possum in his pocket and went silently down his private staircase to the cottage lawn. The grass sloped down to the beach, but he had walked there yesterday and met up with Rose and Lottie gathering shards that they called sea glass, and he did not much want to see them again.

He set forth on the boardwalk. Not easy for a man of seventy-eight, he thought, but I still move well enough.

He noticed a flash of something moving in the ferns alongside the path. An animal, certainly. Too loud and big for one of those myriad brown squirrels that make so much noise all morning. Of course, he could tell nothing about the color. What if it was a cat? thought Beverly. A cat in distress?

Beverly supposed he should follow.

The boardwalk took him away from the cottages and then dissolved into a little dirt path through the soft moss under the enormous trees. It was green and quiet, and the creature had disappeared, which suited Beverly fine. He had resisted pedigreed kittens proffered by neighbors, strays in Village side streets, ASPCA giveaways in Union Square. A mangy cat from Maine, if it was a cat, would have no hold over him.

Then the cat cried.

I'll just make sure it's not injured, he thought. If I can even find it.

It was much cooler here under the trees. The moss was spongy underfoot and the trees-spruce, he thought-provided shade. He was glad he had worn his walking shoes, particularly in this spot, where twigs and even branches lay in a messy pile on the ground. Why so many here? he thought. He was never much interested in flora and fauna but this island had so much of both that it was hard not to notice. Especially as there was nothing else going on here.

Beverly leaned against the big tree and tried to catch his breath. He didn't want to sit down in this big muddle of twigs and leaves; the moss beyond was too damp. He thought he'd head back to the cottage once he'd had a bit of a breather.

He heard a loud birdcall above him. Sweet sweet sweeet in an upward arc. Not an urban cry. He looked up into the branches of the tree and saw that at its top there was a huge unruly mess of a nest. Sweet sweet sweeeet sweeeet, came the cry again. So plaintive. So raw.

Wouldn't Gorsch love to hear this bird's song? he thought. Gorsch would make it into a song. And he'd sing it to me.

Beverly allowed the tree to support him as his knees gave way.

CHAPTER NINE.

It was at dinnertime when the whole thing started to unravel. Lottie had spent the afternoon exploring the island. She wasn't quite brave enough to order tea at the teahouse, which seemed such a local place, but she took the winding boardwalks into the woodsier parts at the top of the island, and got a sense of the shady cottages hidden there. She happily allowed herself to double back a couple of times when the path she thought would lead back to Hopewell took her farther from shore. But you can never really get lost on an island, she thought. Little Lost or not.

The sun, the tramping around, and the salt air had built up Lottie's appetite, so she was ravenous by dinnertime. She had collected enough blackberries and blueberries on her walk for dessert. And she'd love to make a cocktail for anyone who asked. She wasn't great in the kitchen but she really could mix a drink. She had bought ginger and Hendrick's Gin at the IGA-so convenient to have liquor in the grocery store!-and if she started infusing tonight there'd be delicious ginger tonics for them all by tomorrow.

The kitchen was empty when she got back.

"Rose?" she called. "Caroline? Beverly?"

There was a rap on the screen door to the kitchen. "Anybody home?" came a voice.

Lottie went over to the door and saw Max the ferry driver. "Max the ferry driver," she said.

"Delivering your lobsters," he said. She was tempted to ask him to say "lobsters" over and over but stopped herself. "And the corn." The way he said "corn" was even better.

"Oh, we're having lobsters and corn?"

"Guess so."

Caroline must have arranged this. "Thanks, Max," Lottie said. Then, much as she didn't want to, she asked, "How much do we owe you?"

"The lady of the house said she'd settle up before you leave. That's fine with me," he said.

Lottie hesitated. Rose and she had bought so much this morning at the grocery store and Rose was going to make ratatouille for dinner. Lottie hated to nickel-and-dime about food, but how much would this kind of service set them back? With the car and the gas and the liquor and the food they'd already bought, her stock certificate proceeds were burning up.

"Oh, that's fine, then," she said-bravely, she thought. "Thanks."

Max set a basket of corn on the floor and a brown bag on the table. Then he was out the door.

The bag moved.

"Oh, shit, they're alive," said Lottie.

She heard Caroline's light tread on the stairs.

"Has the food arrived? I'm starved," said Caroline.

"Me too," said Lottie. "It'll be a little while, though-we have to cook all these things. I wonder who's going to turn out to be the cook among us."

"God, not me," said Caroline. "I'm hopeless in the kitchen. It will have to be you or Rose, I think. You have children, so you must cook."

"Yes, I do cook but I'm better at Annie's mac and chicken tenders than I am at lobster. Corn I can do. And drinks. Would you like a drink?"

"Ketel One on the rocks if you have it," said Caroline. "With a twist. I'll be up on the porch when you have it ready."

Lottie liked people who knew how to order a drink. She had bought Grey Goose, not Ketel One, though. She bet Caroline would taste the difference.

Caroline couldn't help being the way she was, Lottie decided. She'd been brought up with servants, probably, or at least a nanny, and now that she was famous she'd had to keep her distance from ordinary people like Lottie. And Lottie was happy to get a drink order. There were a great number of glasses to choose from-jam jars, cut-glass goblets, tumblers, and old-fashioned glasses with the island's insignia imprinted on them (five giant spruce trees in a circle). She couldn't even reach whatever glasses were on the top shelf. She picked up one of the Little Lost glasses and thoughtfully placed ice cubes in it. She really did miss tending bar. It was the job that put her through college after she didn't make the cut at the pole-dancing audition. "Too short," the manager had said. "But nice tits. Can you mix a drink?"

Vodka on the rocks with a twist wasn't too hard to make, and Lottie had gone to the trouble of lugging back a bag of ice (frozen from the inside out), so the ice cubes were pure. The lemon was fresh, and the vodka pour was generous. She found a little linen cocktail napkin in the old breakfront and brought it with the drink up to Caroline's porch.

Caroline seemed startled to see her, as if she had forgotten all about her drink request. "Thank you, Lottie," she said, genuinely.

"You're welcome." She saw Caroline hesitate, as if she realized good manners called for her to invite Lottie to join her. But Lottie did not want to be asked out of good manners, so she turned and headed down the stairs. "We'll call you for dinner," she said. "I'm not exactly sure when it will be."

She was about to head downstairs to the kitchen when she thought instead she might pop in on Beverly. Would he want a cocktail? Would he join them for dinner?

She knocked lightly on the door. There was a sound within that sounded like someone trying not to make a sound within. "Beverly, will you join us for dinner?" she asked through the door. "Would you like a cocktail? I'm good at cocktails."

Still no answer.

"I'll be downstairs if you need anything," Lottie said. She paused again, waited for an answer, and when none came, she headed back down toward the kitchen.

"Have you got the water on yet?" It was Beverly's voice, through the wall. "Unless you're grilling them."

He was talking about the lobsters. She did not have the water on yet and how would you grill a lobster? Beverly must have heard the lobster discussion from up in his ivory tower. Everyone can hear everything in this place, she reminded herself. "Water's just going on now," she said. "We'll eat in an hour or so."

"Please see that we do," said Beverly. Lottie was very pleased that Rose could not hear him.

Down in the kitchen, the bag was still squirming. Lottie felt certain she should put it in the refrigerator but she did not much want to touch it. She could at least husk the corn, and start that water boiling. She wasn't sure about lobsters. The only cookbook in sight was A Little Lost in the Kitchen and there was no boiled lobster recipe in it-everyone just knew instinctively how to boil a lobster if they had a cottage here, Lottie realized. And there was no way to get online to check. She looked in the cupboards for a pot big enough to hold the writhing creatures. Nothing in the kitchen, but in the little pantry next door there was an enormous double boilerstyle pot. It had jaunty red lobsters painted on the sides! She lifted the lid and investigated. There were holes on the bottom of the top pot-aha! "You steam lobsters," she said aloud, and she liked the way she sounded.

She took the pot into the kitchen, filled it with water, and set it on the stove. The tap water didn't look so great for boiling corn, so she used the springwater for that. Someone would have to get more soon.

All this water would take a while to boil. She fixed herself a drink-just a gin and tonic, neat, like the English (using cold tonic and squeezing in a whole lime made all the difference)-and got to work husking the corn.

As she peeled the fragrant, watery green outer leaves from the translucent white corn, she thought about Ethan. He loved corn. He was a typewriter corn eater, like his dad; she was a roller. She wished Ethan were here with her, exhausting her on exploring expeditions around the island, maybe even exhausting himself. She wished Jon liked their son better. He loved him, of course, he'd run into a burning building to save his life, but he didn't really like Ethan to be around. He didn't much like Lottie to be around either. She wondered if he was having an affair with that new lawyer at work. Carla. Carla probably looked just like her (Jon was true to type) but a younger version, and surely she had never had children. Jon didn't realize how many times he said her name aloud at home.

The lobster pot was boiling, sooner than she'd thought it would. The corn water was almost ready too. Now what? The corn would only take a few minutes, but the lobster, she had no idea. There was nothing for it but to call for help. They needed to work on this together.

At that moment, the screen door banged, and Rose walked into the kitchen, flushed from her walk.

"I found some basil and chives in the flowerpots by the dock and there was lavender planted right outside the window at the boathouse. I don't think I have time to do the ratatouille tonight but I thought I'd make up a salad for dinner and then we can call our companions." Lottie could tell she wanted to make a fresh start with Beverly and Caroline. Soon, however, she would notice the pots boiling on the stove.

"What's in the pots?" asked Rose.

"Caroline had an idea that we should have our food delivered," said Lottie tentatively. "So now we'll have fresh groceries every day."

"That sounds like a great idea, but did they even ask us about it?" Lottie shook her head. "What if we don't want Max's food? What if he brings hot dogs?"

"Tonight he brought lobsters."

"Still." Rose went to the base of the stairs and called up. "Caroline! Beverly! Do you have a second?"

Not a sound.

"Eventually someone will come down here and we'll talk about it then. In the meantime, I'll start the salad. There are beautiful gardens here! People really put time into them." She started running water. "I hope this is okay for washing vegetables."

"It's supposed to be. I'm using it for the lobster water."

"If Caroline ordered the food, Caroline might cook the food, don't you think? I know she's used to servants."

Beverly walked into the kitchen. "I don't know if you two realize how your voices carry in this house. The walls are not insulated, you know."

Lottie saw that Rose was not going to rise to Beverly's bait. Instead she got busy tearing lettuce and washing it splashily under the brown water coming out of the tap.

"You've spoiled my enjoyment of the sunset." Beverly took a shallow bowl from the cupboard, filled it with water, and walked out of the kitchen. "Why don't you use a spinner?" he said as he left.

"I'm sure there's no such thing as a salad spinner in this house," called Rose.

"Where is he going with that?" asked Lottie.

"Who knows?" said Rose. They heard a screen door slam. "Was that the front porch or the back?"

"Back, I think."

"Have you even looked?" called Beverly. He came back into the kitchen, got his bearings, reached to open a cupboard to the left of the sink, and pulled out an aged salad spinner. "This will do," he said. "Fresh greens can be so gritty; do wash them well."