At exactly three forty-five, Isabel rode her bike through the open gates and turned east on the smooth, sun-baked asphalt, pedaling toward Main Beach. The wind blew her hair off her bare shoulders, and the sun beat down on her back. For the past twenty hours, ever since she’d texted him at the party, she’d barely thought about anything else besides seeing Mike. So it seemed almost incomprehensible that she was about to be face-to-face with him again. She’d agonized over what to wear. Mike hadn’t told her where they were going, so she’d settled on jeans, an off-the-shoulder ivory peasant blouse, and platform espadrilles that could work just about anywhere. She hoped that he’d take her to another place like Buford’s. Though this time she’d take it easy on the rum.
At Ocean, she hooked a right and headed straight for the parking lot at the end of the street. She slid off the bike, wheeled it over to the rack by the snack bar, and locked it. It was warm, which accounted for the smattering of young mothers on plastic chairs and striped towels, watching as their babies and children dug and played in the sand. She looked at one blond woman in particular, trying to talk to her friend while at the same time keeping an eye on her toddler, who was busy flinging sand with a shovel. That could be me one day, she thought. She shrugged it away. It was too weird to think about that right now.
And then, from far down the street, she saw a dark red Xterra glide into view. She felt her stomach rise and fall. He was here. She pulled a lipstick out of her pocket and ran it over her lips, then felt the crazy urge to run. But the SUV was too fast, and before she knew it, Mike made a sweeping turn right in front of her, sand hissing under the wheels. The window came down. Mike leaned his head out, and she saw those liquid brown eyes and full lips and that smile that said I know everything that you don’t want to tell me.
“Hey,” she called out. “Nice turn.”
“Glad you liked it,” he said, grinning.
She walked to the car and got into the passenger seat.
“So, what’s the plan?” she asked, trying not to think about how hot he looked in his plain white T-shirt.
He examined her shoes. “Are those comfortable?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Just checking,” he said, putting the car in gear and heading out of the parking lot.
“Um, you still haven’t told me where we’re going,” she pointed out.
“I know,” he said, covering her hand with his own.
Rory pushed through the swinging door. “Have you seen Bianca anywhere? She just called me on the intercom, but I don’t know from where.”
Erica looked up from the egg whites she was whipping into fluffy peaks with an electric mixer. “I think she’s down in the screening room.” She gave Rory a closer look with her kind brown eyes. “Are you okay, Rory? You look all flushed.”
“Oh, I just got a little too much sun today, that’s all. Thanks!”
Rory stepped back into the hall and patted her damp hands on the front of her shorts. If Erica was already onto her, then no doubt Bianca would be, too. She was going to have to figure out a nonchalant opening line. Someone just invited me to the movies was all she needed to say. She didn’t need to get into who and how and why—and the fact that she’d already said yes. And being out of the house for two nights in a row couldn’t be that big a deal. Could it?
“Oh my god, don’t even worry about it,” Isabel had said in the car while Rory drove her home from Two Trees that morning. “It’s not like you’re a prisoner here. You’re supposed to make friends. You’re supposed to meet people. It’s no big deal.”
“Except Bianca thinks I’m some partying freak. Remember? Mike? In my room?”
“Oh, yeah,” Isabel said, looking out of the window and smiling at the memory. “I’m sure she’s forgotten all about that.”
“I highly doubt it,” Rory said.
“But that’s great that he called you,” Isabel said. “What are you guys gonna do?”
“We’re seeing Mission: Impossible Five. Then maybe we’ll get some pizza.”
“Not the most imaginative first date,” Isabel said, “but okay. Did you tell him yes right away or did you make him wait a little bit?”
Rory glanced at Isabel. “How was I supposed to make him wait? We were on the phone, he asked me, and I said yes.”
Isabel pulled some hair behind her ear. “Okay,” she said. “But for the next one, make him wait a little.”
“Fine,” Rory said. “What about you? What are you and Mike gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” Isabel said. “He’s being kind of mysterious. But I’m sure it’ll be fun.”
“Just be careful,” Rory said. “He’s older, right?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Rory had been about to say that it had a lot to do with everything, but she decided not to say anything. After all, she knew that she wasn’t an authority on relationships.
She crossed the marble floor of the foyer and descended another set of stairs, which she was fairly sure led to the screening room. She’d seen the screening room only once, on her tour with Bianca, but she remembered it being extremely, almost ludicrously, luxurious. It had Art Deco–style sconces that dimmed to the lowest lights, oversize suede easy chairs with matching ottomans, and thick red-and-black-patterned carpeting that looked just like what she imagined movie theaters used to have, back before multiplexes and stadium seating. “Why do they have a screening room?” Rory had asked Bianca as they stood on the threshold. “And such a nice one?”
Bianca had looked at her strangely. “For entertaining,” she’d said, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.
Rory had felt stupid at the time, but now she was getting used to the over-the-top touches in this house. Things were all about plenty on Lily Pond Lane. It wasn’t enough to have a Ping-Pong table; you had to place a pyramid of rolled-up towels nearby just in case someone worked up a sweat. It wasn’t enough to have a Blu-ray player; you needed real movie-theater seats and carpeting so that you could feel like a Hollywood mogul.
She knocked softly on the double doors and entered. Bianca and Fee were dusting the mahogany tables between the easy chairs.
“There you are,” Bianca said as she pounded an orange throw pillow with her fist. “We’re going to need you to make a run over to Amagansett. Mrs. Rule is having some people over to watch The Geisha’s Lament.”
“So then why do I have to go to Amagansett?” Rory asked.
“Because Billy Withers is going to lend it to her,” Bianca said, as if Rory were already supposed to know this.
“He’s a publicist,” Fee said, guessing Rory’s next question. “He gets all the first-run movies and sometimes loans them out.”
“The guests should be getting here around six,” Bianca said. “After you pick up the movie, you’ll help me pass out some drinks and hors d’oeuvres. We’ll see if Mrs. Rule wants to serve a full dinner after the film.”
Bianca put down another pillow and folded her arms. “Do you have other plans?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Well, actually,” she said, forcing herself to look Bianca right in the eye, “someone asked me to go to the movies tonight.” She noticed Fee break into a smile, but Bianca had no expression.
“Didn’t you go out last night?”
“Yes, but I just thought in case you didn’t need me—”
“Here everyone is!” Mrs. Rule said, bouncing into the room on white tennis shoes. Her face glowed from a lesson, and in her pleated tennis skirt and damp ponytail, she looked younger than Isabel. “I’m so excited to see this movie. Nobody has seen it yet. Not even Birdie, and she sees everything.”
“Rory’s going to go over to Billy’s now,” Bianca reported.
“Oh, good!” Mrs. Rule beamed. “And I hope you can help out tonight,” she said to Rory. “My friends will be so interested to meet you.”
“Actually, she’s asking if she can go out,” Bianca said.
“I’ve just been invited out—by a friend,” Rory said quickly, looking at Bianca. “But I don’t need to go if it’s going to be a problem.”
“Oh, of course you can go out,” said Mrs. Rule. “Bianca and I can manage.”
“She still needs to get the movie,” Bianca said.
“Then she can get the movie,” Mrs. Rule said blithely. “Fee, have you seen my black James Perse dress? I just can’t find it anywhere, and it would be so perfect for tonight. Can you come upstairs with me?”
As Fee and Mrs. Rule left, Rory realized that she was blessedly in the clear. Mrs. Rule didn’t care at all if she had a date tonight or not. But Bianca gave Rory a searing look anyway. “You’ll find Billy’s information in the book in your room. And I don’t think I have to remind you not to bring anyone back with you tonight.”
Rory didn’t blink. “No, you really don’t,” she said. “But thanks anyway.” She walked out of the room. She wasn’t going to let Bianca keep intimidating her all summer long.
“Okay. I guessed it. We’re obviously going to your house.”
“Nope.”
“But this is the North Fork,” Isabel said, looking out the window at sweeping cornfields and vineyards, and beyond them, the still blue waters of Peconic Bay. They’d been driving for almost an hour, talking nonstop as Mike headed west past Bridgehampton, Water Mill, and Southampton. When he’d gone north at Riverhead, she hadn’t been surprised. She just hoped that he wasn’t taking her home to meet his parents.
“I know, but we’re not going to my house,” Mike said as the sun slanted in through his car window and threw golden light across the dash.
“It’s really pretty here,” she said. “I read once that it’s all the water around here that makes the light so beautiful. You know, the bay on one side, the ocean on the other. It makes everything really specular.”
“It’s the opposite of diffuse,” she said. “The surface of water is smooth, so light gets bounced back all in one piece. That’s specular.” God, what’s wrong with me? she thought. I sound like Rory.
Mike glanced over at her. “Do you get straight A’s or something?”
“No. I just remember a lot of things.” She looked out the window, a little elated that Mike had just asked her that. “So where are we going?”
“I told you. It’s a surprise.”
Suddenly, Mike made a left off the highway, away from the bay, and they were traveling down a long gravel drive shaded by oak trees. “Okay, I’m completely at a loss,” she said. “Are we at some kind of farm?”
“You said you liked strawberries, right?” said Mike.
“Yeah. So?”
He rounded a bend, and acres of strawberry fields came into view.
“Wait,” she said. “You brought me to a strawberry farm?”
“It’s my friend’s,” he said. “He said we can pick as much as we can carry. And these are amazing. All organic. He sells them down on Montauk Highway for six bucks a pound. Now you can make me that strawberry shortcake you were telling me about.”
Aston March would never have remembered that, she thought. Not in a million years. He parked, and she unbuckled her seat belt. “You have a good memory, too.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t wait to have some.”
Mike walked around to the trunk, opened it, and took out an empty fruit crate. “You spend any time around farms?” he asked.
“My dad just bought some property near a potato field in Sagaponack,” Isabel said.
“What’s gonna happen to the other house?” Mike asked, carrying the fruit crate as they walked toward the field.
“I don’t know. Someone’ll buy it,” she said. “I’ll miss it, though. I think the next house will be even bigger. If my dad has anything to say about it.”
“Bigger?” Mike asked.
“Believe it or not, there are bigger homes out here than mine.” Dirt flew up into the heels of her shoes as she walked, but she didn’t care.
When they opened the gate that led out to the field, Mike put down the crate and reached into the green leaves. She could see the dangling strawberry stems, with the berries hanging at the ends like rubies.
“Okay, try this,” he said, picking one off. “This looks good. The redder, the better. If it has any green, it still needs to ripen.” He placed the crimson berry in her hand. “Go ahead, try it.”
She popped it into her mouth and took a bite. “Oh my god.” Strawberry juice, ripe and sweet, seeped onto her tongue. “It’s so sweet. It’s amazing.”
“I told you, right?” he said. “You also want to make sure you pick them with some of the stem on. It keeps them fresh.”
She watched him start picking and tossing berries into the box with the brisk pace of an expert.
“Just so you know,” he said, looking back at her, “I prefer real whipped cream. No Cool Whip.”
She laughed out loud. “I’ll remember that.”
Rory pulled up to the Rules’ garage, parked, and picked up the DVD from where it lay in its plastic case on the shotgun seat. Reaching Billy Withers’s home at the end of a twisting, barely paved road had taken some time, but once she was there, the entire transaction had taken less than a minute. A tall man answered the door dressed in khakis and a polo shirt, just like the Rules’ staff wore.
“This needs to be back by nine AM tomorrow,” he said, waving the disc in front of her as if she didn’t quite deserve it yet. “Nine AM.”
“Okay,” she’d said.
Then he’d placed the disc in her hand with a flourish and closed the door in her face.
Still holding the disc, Rory ran to her room. She changed into a stretchy black top from Aéropostale and a pair of white jeans, then pulled her hair back into a ponytail. It wasn’t exactly the grooming routine she would have liked for her first real Hamptons date, but it would have to do. She left her purse by the door and went looking for Bianca. Hopefully this would be quick.
She found Bianca in the kitchen, taking trays with mother-of-pearl handles out of a cabinet. “I got it. His butler or manservant or whomever it was says that we need to get it back by nine AM tomorrow.” She held up the disc. “Now what should I do?”
“Get it set up,” Bianca said sharply.
“But I don’t know how to work the projector.”
Bianca gave a long, irritated sigh and walked over to the intercom pad in the wall. “Connor?” she said, pressing a button. “Can you meet Rory in the screening room and help her with the projector?”
Rory felt the DVD almost slip out of her hand.
“Connor?” she repeated.
“I’ll be right down,” said the voice, which Rory couldn’t help but notice sounded a little grouchy.
“He’ll show you,” Bianca said. “Now go. You’re blocking that cabinet.”
Rory moved into the dining room, too giddy to focus on anything. Connor was going to help her? Connor and her, alone in the screening room? She was so distracted that she walked right into the edge of the dining table.
“Ow!” She patted her aching hip as she heard Connor come down the front steps.
“Hey,” he said, walking into the dining room. “You need some help with the projector?”
“Yeah, I just have no idea how to use it. Sorry you got dragged down here.”
“No problem,” he said, smiling. “At least now I won’t be the only one who knows how to work it.”
Several minutes later, they stood side by side in the narrow projection room, in front of a tall media cabinet. She scratched her ankle with the opposite heel and redid her ponytail while he slid the DVD into the player. Standing this close to him made it hard for her to stand still. She looked at his hands as he fiddled with some buttons, and noticed that his arms were almost completely hairless. “Do you have to shave your entire body for swim meets?” she blurted out.
“What?” he asked.
“Sorry,” she said, catching herself. “I don’t know why I just asked that. Forget it.”
“No, that’s okay. Yeah. We have to shave.” He touched another button. “Okay, is something coming up?”
She looked out at the screen. “It looks like something’s on, but the screen is still black.”
He sighed and muttered, “Only my parents would get a system that nobody but Stephen Hawking can figure out. Okay, what about now?”
“Still nothing. Wait.” A picture flashed on the screen—the Universal Pictures logo—and then cut out. “Something almost worked.”
“Okay, what about now?” he said, turning around so abruptly that his right arm grazed her own.
She watched as the opening credits began and then turned into blackness. “It happened again.”
“I think it might be the disc,” he finally said, ejecting it. “Let’s try this one.” He slid another DVD into the slot, and a title came up on the screen. PHISH LIVE IN UTICA. Trey Anastasio stood with his hands outspread as he leaned into a mike, an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulders.
“So when are you gonna show me that documentary you did?” he asked. He stepped closer, blocking the tiny source of light in the projection room.
“Oh, right,” she said, as if she’d forgotten their conversation. “I’ll show it to you anytime.”
“We could screen it in here.”
“Actually, it’s more of a low-fi kind of thing.” The roar of a crowd made her jump, and up on the screen, she saw Phish launch into a song.
“Okay, looks like it’s the disc that’s the problem,” Connor said. “I think you got a lemon.”
“Great,” she muttered.
“It’s not your fault. They’ll understand.”
“No, it’s just that I’m probably going to have to return it and find something else. And I’m supposed to go out tonight.”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “I can go for you, then.”
“That’s sweet. But you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem. I know how it is when my mom is planning to have people over. Anything I can do to keep the peace, you know what I mean?”
He stepped toward her and she suddenly froze. He was going to kiss her, right now, and she wasn’t ready for it.
He cocked his head and gave her a strained smile. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m great. Uh, let’s go up and tell them it’s not working.”
She turned abruptly on her heels. Of course he wasn’t going to kiss her. And why couldn’t she come up with some witty things to say? Or at the very least, follow the thread of conversation? Why was she acting like a complete idiot?
She led the way up the stairs and through the dining room, where she managed to avoid the sharp edge of the table. So far, he was still following. “Thanks again for your help,” she said, just before they went into the kitchen. “I can take it from here.”
“I’ll go with you,” he offered.
“You sure?”
“I’m not gonna feed you to the wolves,” he said with a smile.
She turned around, biting her lip, and pushed through the swinging door. He doesn’t want to leave me, she thought.
Erica and Fee stood in an assembly line at the kitchen island, arranging pieces of bruschetta on a platter as Bianca supervised. “Good, you’re back,” Bianca said brusquely. “Is it all set?”
“Not really,” she said. “We couldn’t get the movie to work.”
“Something’s wrong with the disc,” Connor said. “I got something else to play down there, so I know it’s the disc that’s the problem.”
Lucy Rule breezed into the kitchen through the opposite door, pinning up her hair. She’d changed into a floor-skimming black tank dress and an elaborate gold-and-tiger-eye necklace. “I think I just heard the doorbell,” she said. “Did you all hear the doorbell?”
“I’ll get it,” Fee said, patting her hands on the half apron around her waist. She glanced at Rory, and her eyes seemed to warn of something.
“How are we doing in here?” Mrs. Rule asked, lifting one of the bruschetta pieces and inspecting the pieces of tomato. “Hmph,” she said, sounding less than impressed. “Maybe a little less topping on each, Erica.”
“Of course,” she mumbled.
“Something’s wrong with the movie, Mom,” Connor said. “We can’t get it to play. You’re going to have to use something else.”
Mrs. Rule looked up from the bruschetta. Rory remembered her expression that first day she met her, when all her features had gone slack as if they’d been wiped clean. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said. “Rory and I tried everything.”
Mrs. Rule’s eyes fell on her for the first time. “Both of you tried it?”
“Basically,” Connor said.
Rory nodded.
“Well, everyone is coming over here, expecting to see The Geisha’s Lament,” Mrs. Rule said in an irritated voice. “What am I going to do?”
“Maybe you guys can watch something from on demand?” Connor asked.
“I don’t want to watch something from on demand,” Mrs. Rule said. “People can watch on demand at home. I want to watch The Geisha’s Lament.”
“Well, it doesn’t work,” Connor said calmly. “Is there another copy you can borrow?”
Rory recognized something in Connor’s voice: the same careful, measured tone that she took when her own mom was being unreasonable.
“Bianca?” Lucy Rule said. “Please call Billy right now and tell him that his disc is defective and I would like the next best thing he has, immediately.”
“Of course,” Bianca said, reaching for the cordless.
“And Rory will just go back to Billy’s and get something else.” Mrs. Rule smoothed her hair and shook her head, as if this was all getting too trivial for words. “And Connor, can you help Bianca get the guests something to drink?”
Rory saw Connor almost say something, but the sound of laughter out in the hall sent Mrs. Rule to the door. “I have to go,” she said warmly, and waved over her shoulder.
Rory glanced at the clock. It was six fifteen. If she raced back to Billy’s, she might just be able to be ready in time. She started toward the door.
“Hey!”
Connor rushed after her with the DVD. “Don’t forget this,” he said, giving it back to her.
For just a moment, that old feeling came over her again, that electric sense that something more was going on here between them than just friendly conversation.
“Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for everything.”
“Have fun tonight,” he said. Then he pushed his way back into the kitchen and disappeared.
It was already twilight when they pulled off the highway and bumped along a winding gravel road that seemed to head toward Lake Montauk. Isabel looked down at her fingers, which were stained with strawberry juice. She’d eaten so many strawberries she probably wouldn’t even be hungry enough for dinner. Finally, they drove up in front of a house so small and lonely-looking that it could have passed for an abandoned shack.
“So it’s a little bit smaller than your place,” Mike said as he parked, “but it has just as much character.”
“You live here with how many people?” Isabel asked, eyeing the crooked screen door and the strand of Christmas lights that ran haphazardly along the porch.
“It’s me and my friends Pete and Esteban. But they’re in Quogue for the night.”
Isabel got out of the car and followed Mike up the cracked concrete driveway. There was no yard to speak of, just bare dirt with some grass making a cameo appearance here and there. Beer cans lined the arms of two Adirondack chairs on the porch, and sat along the porch railing, and surrounded a pile of supermarket circulars and mailers that had fallen out of an overstuffed mail slot in the front door. “What’s that sound?” she asked.
“Frogs,” he said, carrying his box of strawberries in front of him. “From the lake. It’s just on the other side.” She watched him climb the peeling porch steps, balance the box on one arm, and grab a beer can from the porch railing. “I’ll just put the berries in the kitchen, and then we can get out of here,” he said.
“Or we can stay.”
He looked at her over his shoulder with surprise. “Yeah?”
“Sure,” she said. He still hadn’t kissed her. And hopefully this place didn’t look as bad on the inside.
“I can make some pasta,” he said. “You like spaghetti?”
“I love it,” she said with a smile.
He unlocked the front door and she felt herself get nervous again. Did she even remember how to kiss someone she really, really liked?
He opened the front door. Bright lights switched on and blinded her.
“Surprise!” screamed a crowd of voices.
She looked over Mike’s shoulder. A group of twenty people stood elbow-to-elbow under a sign that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY in accordion letters.
“Is it your birthday?” she asked him.
Mike didn’t seem to hear her in the din of people. He put down the strawberries and waded into the crowd, giving high fives and yelling, “No way! No way!” over and over.
Perfect, Isabel thought. Just perfect.
Someone started singing “Happy Birthday,” and soon the entire room was belting it out as Mike gave more high fives. She recognized some of the faces in the room from Buford’s, but almost everyone was a stranger. As for the house, it was definitely shabby, but not quite chic. All the furniture—a gray sofa with large pink flowers, a scratched cherry-wood oval coffee table, a La-Z-Boy with a long rip in the pleather seat—looked like it came from Goodwill. The TV was large but an antique—definitely from ten years ago. The orange shag carpet had a mysterious dark stain in the corner. It wasn’t dirty, though, and there were little touches that she liked: a black-and-white poster of surfers that said MONTAUK, 1965, and a vase of yellow flowers on the round kitchen table.
Mike walked back to her and grabbed her hand. “Hey, meet my roommates,” he said, leading her over to a guy with sun-bleached blond dreads and a tattoo creeping out of his shirtsleeves on both arms. “This is Pete,” he said. “Pete, this is Isabel.”
“Hey,” said Pete, shaking her hand. “Hope we didn’t ruin your romantic night. It’s just we really wanted to bring in Mikey’s first legal birthday in style, seeing as he’s always getting carded.”
“Dude,” Mike warned, playfully giving him a jab on the arm. “And this,” he said, steering her by the shoulders, “is Esteban. Esteban, this is Isabel.”
A shorter guy with piecey black hair and a scar on his cheek leaned in to give Isabel a hug. “Don’t listen to a word this guy says,” he said with a smile. “He’s a complete liar.”
“Hey—” Mike warned.
Esteban clapped him over his ear and laughed. “You guys want something to drink?”
Mike looked at her. “Anything?”
“I’ll take some champagne,” she said.
“How ’bout a beer?” Mike asked her.
“Fine,” she said.
Esteban headed into the kitchen, and Mike pulled her in close. “Sorry about this. I had no idea. These guys can’t even pay the rent. I’d never think they’d be able to pull this together—”
“Maybe I should call a cab and let you have your party,” she said.
“No,” he said. “Don’t go. Please.”
Suddenly, a girl with brown hair and a tight purple tank top stepped between them and gave Mike a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, stranger!” she said.
“Leelee, what’s up?” he asked, with a bit more enthusiasm than Isabel would have liked.
“I heard you were finally legal, and I figured I had to be there,” she said in a saucy voice. She reached up and patted him on the shoulder.
“Hey, Leelee, meet Isabel.”
“Hey,” Isabel said.
The girl gave her only the briefest smile and wave before turning back to Mike. “Come by the Ripcurl sometime. I’m working there now. And there are some really cool bands next week.”
“Where’s the bathroom?” Isabel asked.
“It’s right through there, first door on the left,” Mike said. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “I’ll be right back.” She gave Leelee as fake a smile as she could muster. “Nice meeting you.”
Leelee barely looked at her. “Yeah.”
She pushed her way through the crowd and into the hall, and located the first door on the left. She flipped on the light. The bathroom was a mess. Razor stubble coated the sink, while razors, tubes of toothpaste, and bottles of shaving cream crusted with dried foam competed for space on the counters. A wet suit hung from the showerhead, dripping sandy water onto the bathtub floor. And there wasn’t a scrap left on the toilet-paper roll.
She lowered the fuzzy-covered toilet lid and sat down. Copies of Maxim and Surfer were jammed into a magazine rack on the floor. God, this place was dirty. Her mom wouldn’t have stood for this for one minute. But that was probably the point. This was Mike’s house. There weren’t parents around to tell him what to do. There weren’t even parents at this party. This was his very own place. She couldn’t even imagine having that kind of freedom. She’d never dated a guy before who didn’t live at home or live in a dorm. It was exciting but also slightly disorienting, like leaving a department store through a side exit. Suddenly, she realized why she felt so off her game out there in the living room, and during most of the date. She was feeling something she’d never felt before. She felt young. That girl outside talking to Mike—and frankly, hitting on him—was more appropriate for him than she was. Leelee probably also had her own tiny, messy shack with a few friends, her own kitchen, and her own unsupervised bedroom. And a car. That she was legally able to drive.
Isabel stared straight ahead at the wrinkled and stained towels on the rack, feeling herself begin to get depressed. She needed to vent. She unsnapped her clutch and took out her phone.
Date total disaster, she typed. How’s yours?
Hopefully Rory was having a better time than she was.
Rory gunned the Prius up to forty-five as she drove past the hedges and vast front lawns of Further Lane. Somewhere in her purse, her phone chimed with a text, but she ignored it. The replacement DVD slid along the leather seat beside her and slammed into the door. She still wasn’t even sure which movie this was. Billy Withers’s butler had placed it in her hand with only a stormy look on his face, as if she’d ruined his night, and uttered, “Here.” This time, she didn’t wait for the front door to slam in her face. She ran straight to the car.
When she drove through the Rules’ iron gates, she glanced at the clock on the dash. Six forty-five. She zoomed up the long gravel drive, parked the car, then picked up her phone and tried Landon. It went straight to voice mail. She pictured him driving toward the house, music too loud for him to hear his phone, oblivious to the small drama happening here on Lily Pond Lane. She hung up and threw the phone back in her bag.
Downstairs in the projection room, she slid the disc into the machine and pressed the same buttons she’d seen Connor press. She paced the floor, one eye on the screen through the box-shaped hole in the wall. Please work, she thought. Otherwise she’d be sent back to Amagansett for yet another movie, and her date with Landon would definitely be canceled. Upstairs, she could hear Mrs. Rule’s guests in the living room. One woman was laughing noisily and stomping her foot on the carpet.
The screen went black, and then credits came up on the screen. Whichever movie he’d given her, it was working.
As if on cue, the door to the screening room opened, and the guests trickled in. They were all well-kept women around Mrs. Rule’s age, but like her, each of them looked much younger, with long hair highlighted some shade of sandy blond and faces devoid of wrinkles. Their martini glasses were half full, and one woman sloshed some liquid onto the carpet. There was no sign of Connor, but Mrs. Rule brought up the rear of the group, chatting with a petite, dark-eyed woman swathed in black whom Rory recognized as a world-famous fashion designer.
“Rory!” Mrs. Rule called out, a bright, hectic look in her eye. She seemed to be having a really good time. “Is everything set?”
“It’s working,” Rory said. “I’m not sure what this is, but it’s working.”
“Oooh,” Mrs. Rule cooed as she looked at the screen. “It’s The Geisha’s Lament.”
“I hear that this is just fabulous,” said the woman next to her.
“Okay, well, have a good time,” Rory said.
“Oh, would you mind staying down here?” Mrs. Rule asked. “Just to make sure that we don’t have any problems? And if you can also bring down some of the snacks from upstairs, that would be wonderful.”
Before Rory could answer, Mrs. Rule picked up her conversation with the designer and sat down in one of the deep suede chairs. Rory tried to think of a way to remind Mrs. Rule that she had plans tonight. After all, she’d been totally fine with her going out just a little while ago. But then Rory realized something. Mrs. Rule hadn’t forgotten that she had plans. She was just going to act like she had.
She stood and watched the women whisper and giggle and slosh more martinis onto the floor until Mrs. Rule gestured for her to go upstairs. “More drinks, please!” she called out cheerily.
So much for the date, Rory thought as she left the room.
“Hey, Isabel.” A soft knock came from the other side of the bathroom door. “Isabel?”
She put down the copy of Surfer and stuck it back in the magazine rack. She’d lost track of time reading about the winter swells at Mavericks in Northern California, and now Mike probably thought she had some kind of intestinal disorder. She stood up and turned on the faucet, then splashed some water on her face. She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked about twelve. The idea of going back out there and trying to talk to his friends gave her a hopeless feeling inside.
“Hey,” she said, opening the door.
“Hey.” Mike stood with a Corona in his hand. Loud music and laughter drifted in from the living room. It sounded like the party had picked up while she’d been in the bathroom. “Here’s your beer. It’s probably a little warm by now.”
“Thanks,” she said. She took it but didn’t have the least interest in drinking it.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You’ve been in here a long time.”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I was just reading.”
He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. “So you’d rather read in the bathroom than meet my friends?”
“Sort of. I mean, this was all kind of a surprise.”
“You’re telling me,” he said, grinning.
He was still so hot, she thought. Especially when he grinned at her like he already knew everything that was going through her mind. It made this awkward feeling even worse. “You know what? You enjoy your party. I’m just gonna call a cab.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. You can’t be mad because my friends threw me some surprise party that I didn’t know about.”
“I’m not mad. Who said I was mad?”
He leaned against the door. “You get your way a lot, don’t you?”
“That’s rude,” she said.
“It’s an observation,” he said. “But hey, if you want to bolt, fine.” He folded his arms and looked down at her as a smile curled around his lips. “We’ll just hang out another time.”
His stare was so intense that she had to look away from him. “You know, you really need to clean this,” she said, pointing to the sink.
“Okay,” he said, without taking his eyes off her.
“And you know, fuzzy toilet-seat covers aren’t really in style these days,” she added.
He reached out and encircled her waist with his arm, bringing her in closer. “Okay,” he said.
“And you really need to organize that magazine rack,” she added, almost unable to breathe. Standing this close to him, she could feel his chest through his thin T-shirt. He smoothed her hair with the flat palm of his hand, all the way down her back.
“I’ll remember that.” He moved his hand to the back of her head and leaned down.
She closed her eyes.
His lips touched hers, softly, hesitantly, feather light. She allowed them to linger on hers, daring him to kiss her deeper. He did. His hand on the middle of her back pressed her close. By the time she let her arms reach up around his shoulders, she knew that she no longer wanted to leave.
Rory sat hunched over the butcher-block table in the kitchen, poking her fork at a plate of fried chicken. Mrs. Rule had finally released her from duty, but she wasn’t even hungry. She’d made at least twenty trips up and down the stairs to fetch drinks and appetizers and, finally, individually plated dinners of Erica’s miso black cod, fried chicken, and Caesar salad for Mrs. Rule and her guests to eat on their laps. Now they were having coffee and blueberry cobbler downstairs and pretending to watch the movie, which Rory had been asked to start from the beginning several times. It was nine o’clock. Rory yawned. Erica stood at the island, wrapping up pieces of leftover cod and fried chicken and carefully storing them in glass containers.
“Weren’t you supposed to go out?” Erica asked, snapping the plastic lid onto one of the glass bowls.
“Yup,” Rory said. “I had to cancel.”
“Was it important?”
“Not really.” She ate a morsel of coleslaw. “My friend didn’t take it too well, though.”
“Was it a date?” Erica asked.
“Sort of,” she said. “But that’s okay. I wasn’t really that into him anyway.” Rory watched Erica stack the bowls in the refrigerator and then start cleaning the counters. “How long have you been a chef?” she asked.
“About ten years,” she said. “But I’ve only been a private chef for about five.”
“It seems stressful,” Rory said.
“Oh, it is,” Erica sighed. “These people want what they want when they want it. And it’s the nice ones that you really have to watch out for.” Erica gestured downstairs to the screening room, and Rory knew that Erica was referring to Mrs. Rule. “Just a little piece of advice. You didn’t hear it from me.”
Rory nodded. It had been hard to name the feeling that she’d been having in her gut all night about Mrs. Rule. It felt a little like the time her mom had promised to take her to Great Adventure for her eleventh birthday, just the two of them, but at the last minute had brought along her boyfriend—some guy with shaggy hair and a bad smoking habit—whom she made out with at every opportunity in public. Manipulated was probably the word. From now on, she’d be more careful about Mrs. Rule.
The swinging door creaked open, and Connor peeked his head into the kitchen. “How’d it go?” he asked.
Rory put down her fork and tried not to blush. “Fine. Crisis averted.”
“But you didn’t go out tonight.”
She smiled. “No. That didn’t happen.”
“Well, can I make it up to you?” he asked. “I’m just hanging in the TV room if you feel like being social.”
Rory could see Erica watching this entire interaction very, very closely.
“Great,” she said as casually as possible.
“Bring your food,” Connor said. “You need to keep your strength up around here,” he said with a smile.
She looked at Erica, who nodded and mouthed “Go!” Rory grabbed her plate. She felt giddy and vulnerable. After what had happened tonight, she wasn’t sure if she could trust anyone in this family.
“So I know that my mom can be kind of high-maintenance,” Connor said as they walked down the hall. “Sorry she ruined your night.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” she said. “She really didn’t. It wasn’t that big a deal.”
“It’s not the point,” Connor said. “She’s just used to getting what she wants. Same thing with Isabel. Is my sister being nice to you, by the way?”
“Yeah,” Rory said, smiling. “She is being nice to me. She took me out last night to a party.”
They walked into the TV room and sat down next to each other on the couch. Rory balanced the plate on her lap and prayed that she wouldn’t drop any food anywhere.
“Well, in that case, be careful,” Connor said. “My sister can be kind of crazy. Don’t get sucked into the vortex. Take it from me. It’s not pretty.” He aimed the remote at a hidden cabinet, and soon Van Morrison was playing through hidden speakers.
“But is Isabel that crazy? I haven’t really seen that. Except behind the wheel, of course.”
Connor put down the remote and chuckled. “Yeah, driving with her can be a little intense. But the rest of it…” He looked off into the distance. “I don’t know. She’s always acted out a little. She’s always been hard to control. And I think it’s because she’s always felt like an outsider.”
“Really?” Rory asked. “Why?”
“No clue. But she does. She hates Gregory and Sloane.” He looked at her, catching himself. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” she said.
For a moment, there was just silence as they looked at each other, and then the sound of women’s voices and the click-clack of heels wafted into the room.
“Con-nor!” Mrs. Rule yelled. “Connor, are you still down here? Mrs. Van der Cliff has something to ask you!”
Connor looked at Rory hesitantly.
“I guess you need to go,” she said.
He nodded and got to his feet. “I’ll create a diversion. So you can get back to the kitchen.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve had lots of practice,” he said wryly.
He walked into the hall, and soon she was listening to him talk to the women. She waited until she heard them move to the front door, and then she slipped out of the room with her plate.
Tap-tap-tap. Rory lifted her head off the pillow. She’d been dreaming about someone knocking on her wall, and now she realized that she wasn’t dreaming at all.
Tap-tap-tap.
Someone was at the window, again.
She sat up and turned on the light. After her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she could see blond hair and big blue eyes peering in through the window. “Hey!” Isabel tapped her knuckles on the glass. “Can you open this?”
Luckily, she appeared to be alone.
Rory threw off the covers and padded to the window. “Isabel?”
She raised the window and was hit with the overpowering smell of beer.
“Hey!” Isabel clambered through the window and fell right onto the floor.
“Are you okay?” Rory crouched down and helped Isabel sit up.
“I’m fine,” Isabel said, but Rory could tell that she was slightly drunk.
“How’d you get home?”
“I got a ride with some really nice people,” Isabel said. “Nice, sober people.”
“Okay, we need to get you back to your room.” Rory slung an arm around Isabel’s narrow shoulders and helped her to her feet. She weighed almost nothing. “So I guess you had a good time?”
“Wait! How was Landon? Did you guys make out?”
“No, we didn’t go out,” she said, dragging Isabel by the arm to the door.
“What do you mean, you didn’t go out?”
“I mean, the date was canceled,” Rory said. “But that’s okay, it’s so not a big deal.”
“Did you chicken out?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t chicken out. Your mom had stuff for me to do.”
“I’ll totally yell at her for you,” Isabel said, weaving unsteadily on her platform espadrilles.
“Thanks, but that’s okay,” she said.
They walked past Bianca’s room as quietly as possible, though Isabel did manage to bump into the wall. Being caught helping a tipsy Isabel might actually be worse than having a guy sneak into her room, Rory thought. When they reached the second floor, Rory looked down the dark, slumbering hall. “Which one’s your room?”
“I can take it from here,” Isabel said. “But you—you,” she said, pointing to Rory as she tripped backward, “are awesome. You know that?”
Rory nodded. “He kissed you tonight, huh?”
Even in the dark, Isabel’s smile was blinding. “Yes, he did.”
“Good. Well, good night.”
She released Isabel, who flew out of her arms, twirled down the hall, and then crashed into a wall. “Uh, you okay?” Rory asked, not sure if she should laugh or gasp.
“Oh yeah,” Isabel said, righting herself. “Definitely. G’night.”
Rory waited until Isabel opened a door and disappeared behind it. Then she padded down the stairs, smiling to herself. Someone had finally gotten to the ice princess. Isabel was totally whipped.
