Nantucket by Harrison Young

not?”
    â€œI’m entertaining clients here.”
    â€œWell, it’s very dislocating of you. I will have to rearrange the tennis. I wanted you and Cathy – that’s your wife’s name, right? – I wanted you to partner with the Ellises. We’re trying to get his next equity offering – and damn it, what clients are you entertaining?”
    Andrew named the men in the next room as quietly as he could.
    â€œCan’t hear you,” said his new boss.
    Andrew tried again.
    â€œRight. But I wouldn’t have called them clients . Do you even have a fee letter from either of them? That Indian has never signed a fee letter in his life, as I understand it.”
    â€œI need to get back to my guests,” said Andrew evenly. And I need to figure out who is undermining me at work, he said to himself. There was always a price to pay for ignoring the politics.
    â€œOh, all right. But come see me Monday morning. I want to understand how you’re spending your time. We have several things to talk about, as a matter of fact. We need to start running this place like a business.”
    â€œI won’t be back in Manhattan until lunch time.”
    â€œWell, call my office and book a time then.” He hung up.
    Andrew took a few deep breaths and went back to the table, wrestling with the thought that the weekend would probably come to nothing. In the merger business, most good ideas died.
    â€œWho was that, sweetie?” said Sally cheerfully, as if any news had to be good. She sounded like Cathy had ten years earlier.
    â€œFellow at the office,” said Andrew. “Needed my advice on something.”
    â€œDid he really need it at nine on a Friday night?” said Rosemary. Her tone was both impatient and sympathetic.
    â€œEvidently so,” said Andrew.
    â€œI think it’s very nice that your partners want your help,” said Shiva, which fortunately seemed to close the subject.
    There was some clearing of plates and then the famous cheese course, as Cathy would have called it, which further confronted Andrew with the reality that his guests lived on Olympus and he was just a working stiff.
    Sally brought in a wooden chopping board on which she had laid out the cheese, and a pile of crackers and lightly buttered toast points. She’d tied the shop’s signature dark red ribbons around the board as a reminder of the luxury they wereabout to enjoy. “This is very spoiling,” she said to Rosemary as she set it down.
    â€œHow did you manage, by the way?” said Cynthia. “I thought you said you’d just arrived from London. That was your Gulfstream we saw, right?”
    â€œYou flew from London to New York and then took the puddle-jumper back to Nantucket?” said Sally in amazement.
    â€œAndrew told us he had tickets on the puddle-jumper,” said Shiva grandly, “so we reported to the puddle-jumper. If that is the official way to come to your magical island, that is the way I wanted to do it.”
    â€œLike approaching a temple barefoot,” said Cynthia.
    â€œPrecisely,” said Shiva.
    Andrew had always thought it quite grand to be able to give his guests tickets on the little plane from Manhattan. In the middle of the summer they were hard to come by, especially for the primo time slots like Friday evening. It had taken some wrangling with the airline, years ago, to convince them to issue blank tickets, and further argument, in the wake of 9-11, to get them to keep doing so.
    â€œIn answer to your question, Cynthia,” Shiva continued, “Rosemary had the butler bring the cheese to the airport.”
    â€œYou keep servants in New York,” said Joe, “even though you live in London? I mean, I know you probably have an apartment here…”
    â€œThere’s no point in having a flat if you don’t have anyone looking after it,” said Shiva. “I dislike the smell of a flat that no