The Perfect Couple (Nantucket, #3)

by Elin Hilderbrand

she herself always prefers color, a result of having worked in the gift shop at the Crayola factory in Easton for so many years. In Karen’s opinion, Greer’s look would be more interesting if the tunic were magenta or goldenrod.

It’s by far the best part of the oxy, this initial rush when the pain is absorbed like a spill by a sponge.

(Merritt would be able to identify not only the designer but also the year; she feels about bags the way that most men feel about Corvettes.)

she’d had a Nathan’s hot dog and the thing was as shriveled as a mummy’s pecker.

She is our treasure, our hope, our light, and our warmth. She is our legacy. Here’s to the two of you and your life together.”

Celeste doesn’t mean to be ungenerous in her thoughts, but she has come to the chilling conclusion that we are all alone in our bodies. Irrefutably, immutably alone.

There is nothing in the world that is quite as intoxicating as kissing,

She has wondered why she has never been invited to Benji’s apartment. After she finished reading Jane Eyre, she joked that Benji must be hiding a crazy wife in his apartment.

“I’ll tell them to look only on East Seventy-Eighth Street,” Benji says. “Now let’s eat.”

She feels proud of herself for being a good person, then decides that the pride means she’s not so good after all.

She has been loved in her life, deeply and truly loved. She has been known and understood. Is there anything more she is supposed to want?

Featherleigh was clearly quite drunk, and drunk people, in Karen’s experience, love nothing more than to confess.

Nick almost smiles. He wants to dislike her but there’s something about her he admires.

could have come from Van Cleef and Arpels or could have been purchased at a flea market in Mumbai; it was impossible to tell, which was what made it cool.

“Keep her there, Margaret,” the Chief says. “I’ll send the Greek the instant he’s free.” “The Greek?” Margaret says. “My nurses will be thrilled.”

They are wealthy beyond Celeste’s wildest imagination but as she strove to seem cultured and well bred, they strove to seem down-to-earth, and they all met in the middle.

I wasn’t even hungry after that, Bruce said. I threw my orange away, I made weight, I won my match, but it barely mattered. All I wanted was a date with your mother. That’s how love works, Karen said.

“She was so beautiful,” Shooter says. “And she doted on me. She was more my mother than my own mother. I think she would probably write both of her sons out of the will and leave this place to me if I asked her nicely.”

Karen places them all around her and sinks in. It’s like sleeping on a cloud. Will heaven be like sleeping in one of Summerland’s guest beds? She can only hope.

pretty but not beautiful, or maybe beautiful but not extraordinary.

When he works on the back tires she trains her eyes on him in her side-view mirror. He looks up, catches her, blows her a kiss. She wants to scowl, but instead, she smiles.

Celeste was an old soul, she said. She had been to the earth before, more than once, which accounted for her serenity. She didn’t ever feel the need to impress. She was comfortable with who she was.

Her thoughts are a soundless scream.

It has thrived in the modest house on Derhammer Street, in the front seat of their Toyota Corolla, in the routine of their everyday—breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime, repeat, repeat, repeat. It has endured long workweeks, head colds, snowfalls and heat waves, meager pay raises and unexpected bills; it endured the deaths of Karen’s parents, Bruce’s brother, Bruce’s parents, and the smaller losses of Celeste’s toads, lizards, and snakes (each of which required a burial).

He praised her imagination; she gushed over his insightful solutions.

The view is over the working part of the harbor. It’s not glamorous, but it’s still pretty. Everything on Nantucket is pretty.

“If you come with me, I will buy four tickets to Las Vegas—one for me, one for you, two for your parents. And I will marry you by the end of the day tomorrow.

The moment their eyes meet, the moment their hands touch. That certainty. That recognition. You. You are the one. This is what it feels like. Nothing, as it turns out, can take the place of love. “Yes,” she says.

Nantucket Island holds her people’s secrets.