Twenty-five thousand dollars. Thirty thousand.

“Jeez, Baker,” Ellen murmurs.

“It’s Nanette’s husband bidding,” Wendy says. “Oil.”

“Against Beanie O’Connor’s grandmother,” Becky says. “Oil.”

Thirty-five thousand. Forty thousand.

“That’s going to buy a lot of manipulatives,” Debbie whispers.

Forty-five thousand.

Fifty thousand. Going once, going twice…sold, for fifty thousand dollars.

“Are you going back?” Ellen asks. “For good?”

Baker sighs. He hasn’t even told Ellen about his night with Ayers. He hasn’t told anyone. “I am,” he says.

“Good for you,” Ellen says.

The auction is over, the DJ gets warmed up with “Celebrate,” and all of Baker’s friends go to the ladies’ room, leaving him sitting at the table alone.

First order of business on getting back to St. John: Find some male friends. Other than Cash.

When the ladies reappear, they envelop Baker in a group hug. Wendy is crying. Baker gives Ellen a quizzical look and she shrugs as if to say, Sorry, not sorry. The thing that Baker has long suspected happens in ladies’ rooms has happened. The truth has come out.

“I’m going to miss you guys,” Baker says.

 

Turns out that when Nanette’s husband, Tony, lost out to Beanie O’Connor’s grandmother in the auction, it lit a fuse. Nanette and Tony have a raging, alcohol-fueled fight in Free Parking (though, thankfully, no one ends up dead like in that book all Baker’s friends read three or four years ago), and Nanette announces that she wants a divorce.

“The auction was just an excuse,” Debbie says when she comes over the next day to help Baker get organized. “She’s been sleeping with Ian for years.” Ian is Wendy’s ex-husband.

Yes, true, everyone knows this.

Nanette sends Baker a text less than an hour later: I hear you have a place for rent?

He texts back, Just so happens, I do.

 

On Sunday, Debbie helps Baker clean out his fridge and cabinets. Becky helps him figure out his tax returns. Wendy comes over with her daughters, Evelyn and Ondine, and they play with Floyd while Baker packs Floyd’s suitcase.

Ellen stops by with a goodbye present, a Rawlings alloy baseball bat for his new coaching duties.

“You won’t hit the ball if you don’t swing,” she says.

Baker books tickets for Wednesday. Debbie drives a minivan; she’s going to take Baker and Floyd to the airport after she drops Eleanor and Gale at school.

Monday after school, Baker and Floyd sit in the kitchen eating pizza because Baker doesn’t want to dirty any dishes. It’s ironic that they’re eating pizza, Anna’s favorite meal, when Anna is so far away.

Baker decides to reach out to Anna. He snaps a selfie of himself and Floyd and the sausage and pepperoni pie from Brother’s and texts it to her with the words Miss you, Mom!

She’ll probably respond to the text sometime next week, Baker thinks.

A few minutes later, Baker’s phone beeps and he checks it, expecting Anna’s response to be Okay or Sounds good or maybe even Miss you 2.

The text isn’t from Anna, however. It’s from Cash. Baker reads it, then drops his phone.

Rosie

July 31, 2006

I should have known that telling Mama and Huck had gone too easily.

Mama read my diary and found out about Russell and found out about Irene—and one night after work, I walked in the door expecting to find her asleep or, possibly, waiting up with a plate of chicken, beans, and rice—she was concerned that I wasn’t eating enough for two—but instead she was in the doorway, my diary in her hand, her eyes popping.

“A married man?” she said. “Have you no shame, Rosie?”

I grabbed the diary from her. “Have you no shame?” I asked. I went into my room and slammed the door behind me, my heart cowering in my chest because I had left it exposed and my mother had found it.

I’m going to set the diary on fire, I thought. And if the whole house goes up in smoke, so be it.

There was a light knock on the door and I figured it was Huck, there to try and fix what my mother had broken. But when I opened the door, it was Mama herself. I tried to slam the door in her face but she pushed back—for a second, our eyes locked, and it was a test of strength. I was younger but pregnant; Mama was Mama. Then she put a finger to her lips and I relented.

She entered, closed the door quietly behind her, sat on my bed, and patted the spot next to her.

I shook my head, lips closed in anger.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had to be sure.”

What she meant was that she had to be sure the baby wasn’t Oscar’s.

I wasn’t naive. I knew there was talk across the island. Who is the father of Rosie Small’s baby? The odds were on Oscar. It was possible that Oscar had even claimed it was his, though we hadn’t been together since he’d been out of jail.

“My word isn’t good enough?” I said.

“It’s not,” Mama said. I gave her a look, which she brushed off. “You’re young, you’re afraid, you might have said anything to keep a roof over your head.”

“I don’t need this roof,” I said. “I have money saved.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “The ten thousand dollars. Where is it?”

She knew about the ten thousand dollars, of course. She knew everything now: Vie’s Beach, the sex, the room service, the wife and sons in Iowa, the name of the boat—Bluebeard.

“I kept a thousand in cash,” I said. “The other nine I deposited a little at a time along with my paychecks.”

She nodded like she approved. “Good.”

“I haven’t contacted him,” I said. “I have no intention of ever seeing him again, Mama. Like I said, it was a mistake.”

“Your voice is saying it was a mistake but your face is telling a different story.”

I almost broke then. I almost said that it wasn’t a mistake, that I didn’t regret being with Russ, that there had been something between us and that something was real. But my mother was Catholic; she believed in the sanctity of marriage. A married white man having a baby with an island girl was no good. I could tell, however, by her mere presence in my bedroom that it was far, far better than me being pregnant by Oscar.

“What does Huck think?” I asked. I wondered if he might be more sympathetic to my situation. He had been married, then divorced. He, maybe, understood that relationships didn’t always fit into neat boxes—though it would be very unusual for him to battle Mama.

“Huck doesn’t know.”

“You didn’t tell him?” I said. It was even more unusual for my mother to keep a secret from Huck.

“I told him the man was white. A pirate.”

Pirate had been the word I used in my diary.

“That’s the story from here on out,” Mama said. “Pirate came in on his yacht, you had relations, then he left, never to be seen again.” She clasped my hand. “Do you understand me, Rosie? Never to be seen again. You see this man again, I phone the wife. Irene Steele from Iowa City. I called Information. I have the number.”