The Identicals(30)

No, Harper thinks. Sadie’s behavior was not justified. Showing up at Billy’s memorial to slap Harper in front of the assembled guests—unacceptable. And why is Harper the only one being held accountable for the infidelity? She isn’t married. She isn’t betraying anyone at home. Well, okay, she was betraying Drew. He thinks they agreed to be exclusive, but they’ve only been dating for three weeks. They haven’t even slept together, and Harper knows the word exclusive never crossed her lips. But why isn’t anyone vilifying Reed? Why is it Harper who is cast as the evil seductress? Does it go all the way back to Nathaniel Hawthorne? Yes, she supposes it does.

The house. She has to sell Billy’s house—and fast. She needs a real estate agent. Is there anyone left on the Vineyard who might still speak to her?

She snaps her fingers. Polly.



Polly Childs has been through this. Back when she was a sales associate at Shipshape Real Estate, she slept with her boss, Brock, while Brock and Polly were married to other people. Both marriages broke up, and Polly took a trip to Ethiopia, where she traced her ancestry back to the royal family—at least, that was the rumor—and did some humanitarian work. When she returned to the Vineyard, she had reinvented herself enough to get a job at Up-Island Real Estate, where her African princess self proceeded to make a killing. She immediately sold a harborfront home in Edgartown to the famous talk-show host Sundae Stewart. This had been major Vineyard news! It was made even bigger when Polly and Sundae were caught fooling around in the master bedroom suite by Sundae’s actress lover, Cassandra K. The public relations frenzy had been insane on a national level—the supermarket tabloids, TMZ. For a full celebrity-gossip news cycle—nine days—Polly Childs’s name was mentioned everywhere you looked.

Harper would have locked herself in a car and driven off Dike Bridge—but Polly had held her head high. Harper had seen her in the produce section of Cronig’s that week, and in an attempt at normalcy Harper had asked Polly the best way to tell if a pineapple is ripe. Polly had informed Harper in a normal, cheerful voice that if a whole pineapple gives off a sweet fragrance, it’s ready to eat.

Harper calls Polly and says, “Polly, it’s Harper Frost. I’m looking to sell my father’s house. I need to get off this island.”

There is silence from Polly, and Harper thinks that maybe even Polly Childs is unwilling to do business with her, for she’s certain that Polly has already heard the rumors. The real estate offices are hotbeds of gossip. If Polly can’t help, then Harper has truly sifted down to join the caste of untouchables.

Finally Polly says, “I know the house. Daggett Avenue? I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”



Polly arrives first, as Harper had to feed Fish and let him out, then change her clothes—she had fallen asleep in the black outfit she wore to the reception—and brush her teeth and wash her face in an attempt to make herself look respectable. Harper is wearing white denim shorts, a pale blue golf shirt that used to belong to Billy before Harper requisitioned it for gardening purposes, a Red Sox hat, and her father’s watch. She is the world’s most underwhelming mistress.

Polly, by comparison, is wearing… well, here Harper blinks. She’s wearing one of Harper’s mother’s designs—the Roxie—in amethyst purple, a color that makes her skin look like polished bronze. Harper knows nothing about fashion, but she would know her mother’s dress, that dress, anywhere—it’s a linen shift with an obi. Obis were a fashion statement made popular by geisha girls in Japan. Eleanor’s entire empire is based on reworking a symbol of female subservience and turning it into something empowering.

“I like your dress,” Harper says.

“I like your watch,” Polly says. “Stylish. Makes a statement. I should get a man’s watch.”

“It was my father’s,” Harper says.

“You have my condolences,” Polly says. “I heard I missed meeting your mother yesterday by a minute or two. I went to Farm Neck for a late lunch.”

“That’s not all you missed,” Harper says.

Polly smiles in an inscrutable way. Now would be the time for Polly to say something encouraging, maybe dust off the old chestnut about the man who sees his friend down in a hole and jumps into the hole with him because he’s been there before and knows the way out. Polly clearly found her way out—she looks fantastic! Harper wonders if she’s still seeing Sundae Stewart. Sundae and Cassandra K. have split, that much has been well documented—at which point Polly vaporized from the story. Maybe Harper doesn’t have to leave; maybe she can ride this out. But then she thinks of Jude’s text: SCUM. Scum—like you find in a ring around the bathroom sink or like peanut butter that has collected inside the lid of the jar. Harper has to go.

“Anyway, here it is,” Harper says, pointing to the house. It’s only now that she thinks to worry about the state of things inside. Harper has been here periodically to grab things for Billy, but no one has been in to clean, and the weather has warmed up considerably, but Harper hadn’t thought to open any windows. So when she unlocks the door and she and Polly step inside, they are both assaulted by a wave of stale, hot, foul-smelling air.

Polly keeps her game face on. Surely this isn’t the worst house she’s seen on the island. Right?

“Your father was a smoker?” Polly asks.