Isabel opened her eyes and reached for the tiny electric fan on the bedside table, tilting it toward them. Sweat trickled down the side of her face and along the insides of her arms, and made Mike’s sheets stick to her skin. It had to be almost a hundred degrees here in his room, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. For a solid week, the entire time Mike had been in Maine, she’d thought about being just in this spot, and she was going to stay here as long as she could.
Mike dozed next to her, his head on her shoulder, his arm thrown casually across her back. She laid her head back down on the pillow. Their date the night before had been as fun as she’d hoped it would be: dinner on the back patio at Buford’s, then hanging out on his deck under the stars with him and his roommates. But this afternoon had been the real romantic reunion. He’d picked her up at three o’clock and held her hand all the way to Montauk. When they got to his house, his room was sweltering, but she didn’t care. She pulled off his shirt, then her cotton dress. It was becoming easier to be with him without talking.
Except now, as she was lying here next to him, there was something that she wanted to say. She reached for his hand and caressed it. The fan whirred quietly.
“I love you,” she said.
Behind her, there was just silence. She held her breath. Not the reaction she’d been hoping for.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes.” He kissed the back of her head. “I was just thinking about it.”
She stared at the pillow.
“I love you, too,” he finally said.
She turned around to face him. The trace of a knowing grin was still on his face, but there was something newly vulnerable in his eyes. “You do?”
He smiled at her. “Don’t act so surprised.”
“I’m not. But… you do?”
“Yeah,” he said, staring into her eyes. “I think that’s why I had to go up to Maine and chill out for a minute. So I could kind of think about it. Let it marinate. You know, figure it out.”
“You had to figure it out?” she asked.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “I just needed to take a beat. I don’t say ‘I love you’ all the time. I don’t know about you.”
“I never say it,” she said.
They lay in silence for a while. She was happy and relieved, but she couldn’t get past the feeling that the exchange had rolled out a little differently than she’d wished. “And I still want to meet your family,” she added.
“You will,” he said. He kissed the tips of her fingers.
“We’re having this party for my dad’s birthday tonight,” she said. “Maybe it would be a good way for you to meet my parents. It’s supercasual. And lots of people will be there. You won’t be on the spot or anything.”
He held her fingers away from his lips. “Tonight?”
“Yeah. Tonight. Can you come?”
He considered this for a moment. She couldn’t help but stare at his pouty lips. “As long as I don’t have to put on a tie,” he finally said.
“You won’t.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, then,” he said, whipping off the sheet and exposing his slim, naked body. “I’ll go just like this.”
Isabel laughed. “Lookin’ goooood,” she said, giggling, as he pulled her under him.
“Rory!” An urgent knock on her bedroom door made her jump as she pulled her dress over her head.
“Yes?” She ran to the door, lifting her hair off of her neck.
Fee walked in with a focused look in her eyes. “Mrs. Rule wants this room clean for the party tonight,” she said, rearranging the pillows on Rory’s bed.
“Why? Are they doing the party in here?”
“No, but people like to walk around a house and go into the rooms at parties like this.”
“They do?” Rory asked.
“It’s hard to explain.” Fee sighed. “Here, I’ll help you.” She walked over to the dresser to clear off the surface. “And don’t you look pretty,” she added, glancing at Rory’s dress. “Is that new?”
“I just bought it today,” she said. “Not that I can afford it.” Rory looked down at her dress. Even on sale, it still cost more than anything she’d ever owned. On her way to pick up the birthday cake for Mr. Rule, she’d walked past Calypso and felt herself unable to resist going inside. And there it was, the tie-dyed silk dress with crochet trim and cap sleeves, marked down 30 percent but still far out of her price range. She tried it on, and it had looked surprisingly pretty on her—beachy with just the right amount of preppy thrown in. And Connor was coming back tonight for the party. She wanted to look nice for him, just in case it still mattered to him what she looked like.
“Well, you look beautiful,” Fee said, grabbing an SAT prep book off the dresser. “Connor isn’t going to know what hit him.”
“Excuse me?”
Fee smiled as she dusted off the desk with a rag. “Oh, honey, do you think I’m blind? I have eyes. I see what’s going on. You’ve been as cheery as a French movie since he’s been gone. Don’t worry, he’ll be coming back tonight. He’s driving his father out.”
“What do you think about me and Connor?” Rory asked. “Can you see us together?”
“I’ve seen you together since you got to this house,” Fee said.
“Then why didn’t you say something?”
“I’m not a meddler,” Fee said, opening Rory’s top dresser drawer and dropping in all her books, pens, and notebooks among her underwear and socks. “There. That’s good enough for now.”
“Fee?” Rory looked down at the rug, too flustered to meet her aunt’s gaze. “Something happened with him already. Something good, and sweet, and amazing. And then I messed it all up.”
Fee stopped dusting the bookshelves and turned around. “What do you mean?”
“We… kissed. On the Fourth. And then I got scared. I guess I figured nothing could really happen, and it can’t. Mrs. Rule would never approve of it. Not in a million years. And I just didn’t want to get hurt. So I pushed him away. Told him that I didn’t want anything to happen between us. Because it was sort of the truth.”
Fee folded her arms and sighed. “But not all of the truth. You have to tell him how you feel.”
Rory leaned against the dresser. “What about Mrs. Rule?”
“Let me tell you something about Mrs. Rule,” Fee said. “She might act like butter doesn’t melt in her mouth, but believe me, she’s not above breaking the rules from time to time to get what she wants.”
“What does that mean?” Rory asked.
Fee shook her head. “Nothing. Just don’t you worry about her. And they could all do a lot worse than you, my dear. If they don’t see that right away, they’ll see that in time.” She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the room. “All right. This place looks presentable. Guess I should run back and see if Bianca needs anything else.”
“Thanks,” Rory said, touching her aunt’s arm. “And please don’t tell anyone. Isabel doesn’t know. I haven’t said anything to her.”
“I won’t,” Fee said, pretending to close a zipper across her lips. “But just remember: You never lose points in life by telling people how you feel.”
Fee walked out of the room and closed the door. Rory’s mom may have been the sister who’d had all the men, she thought. But it was her aunt Fee who knew the most about love.
“Mom?” Isabel knocked on the door of her mother’s bathroom. “Can I talk to you?” She pushed open the door and stepped into a cloud of sickly sweet perfume.
Her mother leaned over the sink, rubbing foundation into her skin with short, sharp strokes of her bare fingers. Her eyes traveled over Isabel’s dress. “Is that new?” she asked.
“Sort of. I got it last summer.” She lifted the neckline of her dress, which kept slipping forward down her chest. She’d lost weight over the past few weeks. “I just wanted you to know that I have a friend coming tonight,” she said.
“Oh? Did you make up with Thayer and Darwin?” her mom asked over her shoulder, brushing powder over her nose.
“No,” Isabel said, forcing herself to stick to her spiel. “His name is Mike and he’s from the North Fork and he works at his dad’s vegetable stand in the summers and he goes to Stony Brook,” she said, rushing through it. “And we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks, and he’s my boyfriend, and I really need you to be nice to him.”
Lucy put down the brush. “Where’d you meet him?” she asked after a few moments.
“On the beach. He was the one who pulled me out of the water that day.”
Her mother rummaged through her makeup tray. “Well, that’s very interesting news.” She glanced at her daughter as she plucked an eye shadow out of her bag. “I guess I should have known something like this was coming. Is this somebody Rory knows?”
“No. Why would you think that?”
“Because I think it’s interesting that this girl comes to our house and now you’re suddenly dating a kid from the North Fork.”
Isabel bristled. “She hasn’t infected me with some kind of blue-collar disease, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Isabel, don’t start,” her mom sighed, turning back to the mirror to apply some shadow. “I have enough on my mind.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Her mom’s hand was still over her eyelid. What secrets are you hiding? Isabel thought.
“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that he’s coming, and I love him, and he loves me, and I need you to deal with it. Nicely.”
Her mom threw the makeup brush in her bag. “So you love him,” her mother said. “I hope you know what you’re getting into.”
“What does that mean?” Isabel asked.
“Nothing,” her mother said tonelessly, taking out a lipstick. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
Rory found Bianca in the kitchen, hovering outside the swirl of busy cater-waiters and cooks, looking a little unsure of what to do with herself. She’d pulled her silver hair half up and back from her face, and she seemed to have taken even more care with her makeup.
“Is there anything I can do?” Rory asked.
“There you are,” she said, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of someone to boss around. “Take this and light all the votives outside, including the ones in the paper bags around the pool,” she said, handing her a gas lighter. “Then I want you to scatter these floating candles across the surface of the pool. Like lily pads.” She gave her a clear bowl filled with small, flower-shaped candles. “And I see you actually went shopping.” She looked Rory up and down approvingly, until she noticed her chunky platform slides. “Though not for shoes,” she said, sniffing, before stepping away.
“Of course,” Rory said aloud. She walked out of the kitchen with the bowl and the lighter and stepped through the back door.
Outside, the back patio and pool area had been transformed. Round tables with white linen tablecloths and white folding chairs lined the flagstones in front of the lap pool. Banquet tables near the back of the house held an array of hors d’oeuvres that could have fed a small town: meats, cheeses, crudités, and baskets of fruit spilled attractively onto their sides. Rory stared at all the food and then the two bars, each equipped with two white-jacketed bartenders who stood behind an arsenal of vodka, Cristal, and red and white wine. This must have cost a fortune, Rory thought. All this because Lucy Rule felt like entertaining. If Mr. Rule hated birthday parties as much as everyone had said, and their marriage was already in trouble, then this didn’t seem like money well spent.
She’d lit the hurricane lamps in the center of each of the round tables and was starting on the votives around the pool when she saw Steve make his way across the patio toward her. It was almost startling to see him dressed in a sports jacket and jeans.
“You need some help with that?” he asked, crouching next to her as she reached into a paper bag to light a votive.
“No, I think I got it, but thanks.”
“You look very pretty, Rory. That’s a beautiful dress.”
“I splurged on it with all the money I’m not making.”
Steve laughed. “Cool. How’s everything going with you know, what we talked about?”
Rory clicked the gas lighter and lit another wick. “Well, I did what you said I should do. I ended it with him.”
“You did?” He sounded disappointed.
“Yeah. But now I kind of wish I hadn’t. I made him think that I didn’t care about him. I lied to him.”
Steve let out a long exhale. “Yeah. I hear you on that.”
“I’m just going to tell him how I feel about him,” Rory said. “I mean, what do I have to lose? Really?”
Steve nodded. “Sounds like a plan, then. And hey, I’m sorry if I steered you wrong on that.”
“That’s okay. I know you were trying to help.”
The back door flew open, and Isabel walked out in a stunning, strapless lavender dress that swept the floor. Each of the bartenders turned to stare at her. Isabel sighted Rory and Steve and began to glide over to them on her heels.
“Isabel still doesn’t know,” Rory said. “Very important.”
“Got it,” Steve said, and with a quick wave to Isabel headed in the opposite direction. Isabel joined Rory at the edge of the pool and crouched down next to her.
“I can’t believe they’re making you work at this,” she said.
“I just have to light these.”
Isabel swirled her hand in the water and Rory realized that she looked like she was about to cry.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I did something kind of insane today,” Isabel said. “I told Mike I loved him.”
“You did?” Rory asked. “That’s great! Good for you!”
Isabel glanced at Rory with a pained expression. “I kind of want to throw up.”
“Why?”
“Because I said it first.” She took her hand out of the water and shook it. “And then he said it, but it took a few seconds, and it was just a little weird because I’d said it first. And now I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you think that’s bad?”
Rory pushed one of the candles out onto the surface of the pool. The lit wick fluttered as it moved but stayed lit. “You love him, right? So you just have to be honest with people. You never lose points by saying how you feel.”
“Except when you say it first,” Isabel said.
“But really, who cares who said it first? He said it back to you, right?”
Isabel nodded. “Well, he’s supposedly coming tonight.”
Isabel gave Rory a suspicious look. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Nothing, no reason,” said Rory. “I’m sure he’s going to come and everything is going to be fine—it really will.”
Isabel sighed and stood up. “I’m gonna go get a drink.”
Rory finished lighting the candles and began carefully placing the rest of the floaters, one by one, on the surface of the pool. A month ago, she would have never guessed that Isabel could feel this vulnerable. The day that she’d dropped Connor’s cell phone in the water seemed so long ago now. She couldn’t wait to make everything right again with him. As soon as he got here, she’d take him aside and tell him how she felt. So I messed up. I freaked out. I really like you. And I don’t want to cut this off just because of what I think might happen. Like Fee had said, all she could do was be honest.
Guests started to appear on the patio. The women wore sleeveless dresses and shawls that cradled their bare shoulders. The men wore striped button-downs tucked into stone-colored slacks. Rory sent the last candle floating across the surface of the pool and saw Mrs. Rule emerge from the house in a shimmery, beaded off-white dress. She looked like she wanted every pair of eyes on her, so Rory turned away toward the water. The ocean looked as bright and silvery as that night two weeks ago. Any moment he would be here. And if she was going to do this right, she would need to have Isabel’s permission. It was time to tell her.
Isabel ambled back over to her from the bar, sipping a glass of what looked like ice water. Or at least Rory hoped it was.
“One of those bartenders is supercute,” Isabel said. “Though he might be a little old for you.”
“So there’s something that I really need to tell you,” Rory said. “Something that’s been sort of on my mind.”
From behind her, Rory could hear the noise of the party suddenly soar upward and get louder.
Isabel turned around. “Oh, look. My dad’s here.”
Rory looked over and saw the lean, tall figure of Mr. Rule standing outside the sliding glass doors, his arms raised in a gesture of surprise and defeat.
“At least he doesn’t look too pissed off,” Isabel said.
Rory watched Mr. Rule greet his guests with hugs and handshakes, and waited for Connor to walk out behind him. And then someone who matched his tall, slim build walked out of the sliding glass doors and down the steps. Connor looked incredibly handsome in a dark sports jacket and blue button-down. She started to walk toward him, drawn toward him like a magnet, and then saw someone tagging along behind him. Someone also tall and slim, but with long, dark hair. Someone who was wearing a dress.
“Ugh, Julia,” Isabel groaned, as if Rory knew exactly who this was. “Unbelievable. I guess they got back together.”
“Back together?” Rory asked.
Rory watched Connor turn around and extend a hand to the girl behind him, and she accepted it gracefully, as if they’d been together a lifetime.
“Yeah, that’s his ex-girlfriend,” said Isabel. “He dumped her last year. She was so not good to him. I can’t believe he got back together with her. What’s he thinking?”
Rory watched them walking hand in hand right toward them. So he was trying to make her jealous. It was working. “I guess we should say hi,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess,” Isabel said, sounding extremely annoyed. “She’s kind of insufferable. Just warning you.”
Rory let Isabel take the lead as they approached. She kept her eyes on Julia, not just because she was excruciatingly pretty, with doll-like dark eyes, poker-straight brown hair, and the longest neck she’d ever seen, but because she couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Connor. Why are you even surprised? she thought. Did you think that he was going to wait around for you to make up your mind?
“Hey!” Isabel said as she kissed Julia on the cheek. “Long time no see. I didn’t know you’d be coming to this.”
“Neither did I,” Julia cried, overjoyed. “It just sort of happened!”
“Awesome,” Isabel murmured.
Julia looked up at Connor adoringly. “We ran into each other a few days ago at this party, and I told him how much I missed him, and then he said how much he missed me”—Rory watched her nuzzle her cheek against his arm—“and then we went to see the Gotye show, and now we’re back together. And he doesn’t even like Gotye. I mean, isn’t that cute?”
“Yeah, it’s adorable,” Isabel said.
Connor glanced at Rory. He appeared to have lost the ability to talk.
“Well, that’s great,” Isabel said, resisting a smirk. “This is Rory, by the way.”
“Hi!” Julia chirped, taking Rory’s hand. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” Rory said.
“Rory is staying with us for the summer,” Connor finally said.
“Oh, really? Are you guys friends?” Julia asked, looking at her and Isabel.
“No, I’m the housekeeper’s niece,” Rory said.
“Oh!” Julia chirped again, a little too loudly. “That’s great!”
“Yeah, it’s… great.” With a look at Connor that she hoped was equal parts reproachful and shaming, she said, “I’m going to get a soda. Excuse me.”
On her way to the bar, she reminded herself to calm down. Connor hadn’t done anything wrong. She was the one who had pushed him away and pretended to be cool. She almost deserved this in a way. But to get back together with an ex-girlfriend and then bring her to the house for a family party seemed a wee bit vindictive.
At the bar, she ordered a ginger ale and tried to think of somewhere to hide.
The bartender handed her the fizzing glass. “Here you go,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. She stayed with her back to the party, unable to turn around, until she sensed a familiar presence standing next to her.
“Hey,” he said.
She turned to see Connor beside her, pretending to watch the crowd.
“I’m fine.” She looked up at Connor as she sipped her drink. “How was New York?”
“Good,” he said. “You know. It was New York.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“How were things here? Did I miss anything?”
“Nope, not really.” She took another sip. She really wanted him to go away.
“So the deal with Julia is that we went out for almost a year, and we sort of ran into each other—”
“I already heard the story,” she said, stepping away from him. “And you don’t owe me an explanation.”
At last he looked her in the eye. “Rory. Can we just talk about this?”
“What’s there to talk about? We’re not together. You can be with whomever you want.”
Just then she felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and when she saw that it was Bianca, she was actually relieved.
“We need you to move the presents people have brought into the laundry room,” Bianca ordered. “Mrs. Rule doesn’t like how messy they look in the foyer.”
“Fine.”
“Now,” Bianca stressed before moving away into the party.
Rory watched her go, wondering if she should just follow her and end this painfully awkward conversation with him once and for all.
“Rory, you were the one who said you just wanted to be friends—”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “Have a good time.”
He looked wounded, but she didn’t let that stop her from walking away from him. At least she still had her pride. Isabel would have been proud of her.
“So anyway, that’s pretty much why I’m going to pledge Delta Delta Delta,” Julia said, wrapping up her ten-minute monologue on the intricacies of rushing at Duke. “I think it’s probably the best fit.”
Isabel kept her eyes on the living room sliding door. It was nine o’clock. Mike still wasn’t here.
“Do you think you’re gonna rush when you go to college?” Julia asked.
Isabel still kept her eyes on the door, lost in thought.
“Isabel? Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, finally hearing Julia’s question. “Um, would you excuse me?”
Isabel stepped past her, slipping through the crowd on the patio with a minimum of waves and hellos. Inside the house, she went to the front stairs, in case Mike might be in the foyer, but the only people she saw were Mr. and Mrs. Kendall, ambling around and muttering something gossipy about the Rules’ decorating taste.
She took the stairs two at a time, gripping the banister, dread starting to build in her gut. She ran down the hall. When she walked into her room, her phone was right where she’d left it, faceup on her bed. And a text was on the screen.
Hey Beautiful. Can’t make it tonight but let’s def hang this week.
She read it over. And over. Of course, it could have meant any number of things—he’d gotten sick, there was a family emergency, he’d had a fight with one of his roommates. But deep inside, she knew that none of these were probably true. He was blowing her off.
She put down the phone. It was just a dumb party, she told herself. It really didn’t matter whether he was here. And maybe it was just as well that she didn’t bring him into the arena of crazy that was her family.
But just a few hours ago he’d said that he loved her. And if you loved someone, then you did things for that person if you knew they were important. Didn’t you?
She closed the bedroom door and lay down on her bed. She tried to tell herself that everything was still okay, that this didn’t signal anything. But there was that feeling once again, of something missing. And maybe something had been, from the very beginning.
