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“I'm going to go put the macaroni and cheese back in the oven,” I said. “If you get hungry for lunch, come over.” I turned around and left them there, not waiting for a reaction, since I was pretty certain one wasn't forthcoming anyway.

I walked back across the lawn in the shining afternoon sun and cleared the table on the deck. I stored the mac and cheese and salad in the fridge and grabbed my cell phone, intending to call Skags. Instead, I found myself dialing Jeff Byron.

“How's it going?” he asked cheerfully.

“Too weird to explain,” I said honestly. “Want to come over and watch a movie?”

“Screw the sunshine,” he said.

He was over in fifteen minutes.

Jeff stayed through dinner, and I served him the meal I'd intended to give my original guests. While he scarfed down two bowls of mac and cheese, I told him all about Jacinta and Delilah.

“That's so bizarre,” he said. “And by the way, adding bacon to this was a genius move.”

“Thanks,” I said. “So what do you think? I mean, does Delilah usually cry at handbags?”

He laughed. “Delilah doesn't usually cry at anything. That girl's life is perfect.”

“It was so weird,” I said with a sigh, spearing a piece of watermelon with my fork.

“I'll tell you one thing,” he said through a mouthful of mac and cheese.

“Yeah?”

“Those chicks are totally making out right now,” he said, cracking himself up.

“Gross!” I said, throwing a balled-up napkin at him. He laughed harder and tossed it back at me. I threw some watermelon at him, and he returned with a volley of arugula. We were about to launch into a full-scale food fight when my mother swept into the room.

“Hello, darlings,” Mom said brightly in the super-fake voice she only uses in front of important strangers. “Jeffrey, lovely to see you again.”

“Hi, Mrs. Rye,” he said.

“Hi, Mom,” I giggled.

She looked at the small mess we'd made and opened her mouth to say something, then shut it and smiled tightly.

“I've had a
very
long day,” she said. “Naomi, take care that all the lights get turned off, yes? I'm going to bed.”

She disappeared upstairs, and pretty soon Jeff and I were back in the home theater in the basement. We stayed down there long after the movie ended.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
t's weird how plans change.

Before I got to New York for the summer, I figured it'd be the usual routine each day—wake up when my mother yelled at me, eat some of her amazing food, dive into some books, break for lunch, hit the books again, and have dinner at home alone while she went out to some social function or another. Of course, there would inevitably be times when she'd drag me against my will to the Horticulture Society benefit or some boring polo event, and on certain days I'd actually feel like trekking to the beach for a bit, but generally my life in the Hamptons would follow a very familiar pattern.

Then Jacinta Trimalchio entered my life, and everything changed.

Because of what happened on the Ferris wheel at her party, I had a boyfriend for the first time in my life. We didn't use that word or anything, but it's basically what Jeff Byron instantly became to me.

We hung out all the time, watching movies—or pretending to, anyway—going to the beach, hiking, and trying the lobster rolls at every beach shack and fancy restaurant for miles around. Jeff said he wanted to learn how to cook, so I taught him how to make his favorite things: mac and cheese, pizza, spaghetti with meatballs, and even pad thai. He took me waterskiing, which was mildly terrifying but also incredibly fun. We talked about politics and history and lay around listening to NPR podcasts, our fingers intertwined. Once my mother walked in on us quizzing each other on SAT words in the living room in the middle of the night.

“It's two o'clock in the morning,” she said wearily. “As long as you're awake, shouldn't you be at a bonfire on the beach or—or something fun, dears?”

“This is pretty fun,” Jeff said.

“You two are perfect for each other,” Mom said, sighing. She turned around and went back to bed.

I liked almost everything about Jeff except for the fact that my mother approved so wholeheartedly.

During the hours when I wasn't with Jeff, I was with Jacinta—and, usually, Delilah. They were always throwing little tea parties and slightly-more-adult-beverage parties over at Jacinta's house in the afternoons. Ainsley Devereaux would come over and divide her time between kissing up to Jacinta and fawning over Delilah. The Fitzwilliams sisters would show up, and a pair of girl cousins whose family owned the
New York Times
, and other girls whose names I had trouble remembering. They seemed interchangeable to me—they all had horses, and long shiny hair, and bright white teeth, and plans to go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton or wherever their fathers and grandfathers had gone. A few of them carried that type of bag Jacinta had stockpiled upstairs—the Birkin, Delilah had called it.

Once, we all sat on the deck drinking mojitos and trading sex stories. Obviously, I didn't have much to contribute, even though I was gaining more experience with Jeff on that particular front. And Jacinta kept herself busy freshening everyone's drinks, so she didn't speak up much, either. When Ainsley mischievously asked Delilah how it was with Teddy, Delilah rolled her eyes.

“Ugh,” she said. “We hardly ever do it anymore.” The Fitzwilliams sisters exchanged a look, and Ainsley Devereaux wore a pert smile. I remembered how she'd treated Misti at Jacinta's party. Then I remembered how Jeff said everybody knew about Teddy and Misti. I wondered if Delilah knew.

Jacinta smiled gently and poured Delilah another mojito.

The girls were all perfectly nice to me, warmer with each subsequent visit. There were group beach excursions where Ainsley exclaimed over the flatness of my stomach (“You mean you don't even have a
trainer
? God, I am so jealous!”) and the Fitzwilliams sisters asked me which clubs in Chicago checked IDs. (I had no idea.)

And something funny started to happen, something that had never happened before during all the summers I'd spent in the Hamptons. I started to feel like I almost
belonged
. I didn't come from the kind of pedigree these girls had, and I didn't get all their references to private schools and Swiss ski resorts and high-end designer this-or-thats, but for the first time, I was one of them. I began to realize that they weren't so bad, at least not all the time. You just had to ask them questions about things
they
were interested in: shopping, parties, horses, guys. Sometimes I would bake surprises for our afternoon get-togethers, and the girls would squeal with delight over my creations (when they weren't moaning that I was going to make everybody fat by the end of the summer).

The most fun, though, happened after the other girls left, drifting home to parentally mandated dinners. That was when Jacinta and Delilah and I floated lazily on mini-rafts in the river pool, letting the current take us, talking about everything and nothing. But at times I'd catch them staring at each other with what I could only describe as longing. Something was developing between them that went beyond friendship. It was like they got high off each other, and every mutual encounter was another chance to feel some sort of pleasure that was very specific to their union. There was me, and then there was the Delilah-Jacinta combo, a two-headed blond creature. It was almost like watching two people fall in love. I didn't feel left out, but there always came a certain moment when I knew it was time for me to leave them alone. I'd excuse myself to go to the bathroom or just to walk outside for a moment, and when I returned, I always felt as if I were interrupting something. But they took pains to make me feel welcome, so I stayed. I could tell they both genuinely liked me. It felt good to be genuinely liked, especially in a place where I usually felt genuinely ignored. Even with Skags, I was always the beta friend. I knew a lot of people at school saw me as her sidekick. But when Delilah Fairweather trained those big blue eyes on you and told you she was glad to hang out with you and you alone, you believed it. I believed it, anyway.

Since they knew I was invariably going to see Jeff in the evening, they assured me I needed to look super-hot each time. It was like I was their pet project. I protested that I was giving him an unrealistic impression of my own grooming habits—left to my own devices, I'd go bare-faced, with my hair in a ponytail. But Jacinta and Delilah seemed horrified by the prospect of my leaving the house in anything but a full face of makeup.

“It's not that you aren't naturally beautiful, love,” Jacinta said one day as she carefully applied lipstick to my mouth with a lip brush. “It's just that—well—what would you say, Delilah?”

“A guy likes to see that a girl has made an effort for him,” Delilah said helpfully.

“I think you're both nuts,” I said, laughing. “You're like the fussy older sisters I never had.” Skags would've probably said that they were forcing me to embody conventional, narrowminded notions of femininity—and that I was woefully complicit with my own subjugation—but Skags wasn't there. And we weren't talking all that much these days, so it's not like I gave her the details. She wouldn't have understood. She would have said I was turning into a Beast (one of the evil ones, not her newly beloved Jenny Carpenter), and I couldn't take her judgment when I was this happy.

After I was all done up, Delilah would leave for dinner with Teddy, either at the Barringtons' place or at her parents' place. She and Jacinta seemed to have an unspoken understanding that while her days belonged to Jacinta, her nights belonged to Teddy. And because Jacinta always seemed a little sad to see Delilah go, I'd stay awhile, sipping tea with her on the back deck. Eventually it would be time for me to meet Jeff, and I'd give Jacinta a hug goodbye. When I left, I always paused for a moment on the lawn and looked back at her house. It gave me a tiny pang to leave her there all alone, though I couldn't have told you why.

 

One day, after everyone else had gone home, Jacinta shut the door behind Delilah and walked into the kitchen looking particularly forlorn.

“I hope you don't get this sad when
I
leave,” I joked, trying to coax a smile from her.

She looked at me quite seriously and said, “Well, it's a completely different thing with you and me than it is with me and Delilah.”

“Ah,” I said, trying not to feel insulted.

“We just . . .” She hesitated a moment and peered at me closely, as if she were searching for something. I guess she found it, because she continued, “We've actually known each other a bit longer than we let on. We knew each other when we were kids. Briefly. So this has all been a bit of a reunion for us.”

“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense, actually. It sometimes seems like you are speaking your own language. Why didn't you tell me?”

Jacinta smiled a little. “I guess we wanted to keep it to ourselves a little while longer. We used to play together every day as kids. Her housekeeper used to call
everything
‘scrumptious,'” she recalled fondly. “Like, literally everything. And she always baked us snickerdoodles. And we had matching mini-Birkins when we were kids. Hers was red; mine was white. Don't tell anybody though, okay?”

I thought about this new revelation on my way across the lawn to my house, where Jeff was going to pick me up for dinner. I didn't begrudge the girls their friendship, or their semi-secret past. It just seemed a little . . . intense for just a regular friendship, actually. And I still didn't understand why they hadn't been open with me about the fact that they used to hang out when they were little, but I didn't know them
that
well, after all.

I tried to call Skags a couple of times, but either she couldn't talk more than a few minutes or she didn't pick up the phone. I guess I could've tried harder to call Skags, or at least to text back and forth, but it seemed like something else was always coming up—a clambake, or a day at the village spa with Jacinta and Delilah, or a long bike ride with Jeff. Usually I spent all summer wishing I were back in Chicago, but at some point that summer I stopped thinking about home.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
was so involved in my newly busy summer, in fact, that I didn't even remember to call my dad to check in. He had to call me.

We were at the beach when my cell lit up with an incoming call from Dad.

“Hey, Dad!” I chirped with an amount of excitement that astonished even me. I'm not exactly what you'd call perky, but suddenly I sounded like a cheerleader hopped up on cotton candy and Pixy Stix.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he said. With his Chicago accent, it sounded more like “Ey dere, kiddo.”

“Whatcha up to?” he asked.

I looked around. Jeff lay on his back on our huge beach towel, napping. I traced the lines of his body with my eyes, admiring the muscles I was growing to know so well. He had that thing some super-buff guys get (I don't know what it's called, I haven't taken anatomy yet) when a couple of their lower abdominal muscles make this sort of V shape that points directly to—

Well.

Anyway.

That's not the sort of thing you tell your dad.

“I'm not up to much,” I said, turning my attention to my toes, which had been painted pale pink a few days before during a spontaneous mother-daughter pedicure downtown. I'd been wandering around killing time, waiting to meet Jeff after his golf game, and I ran into my own mom outside a salon. She suggested we get our toes done, so we did. It was kind of nice and she only annoyed me, like, twice in thirty minutes. That's got to be a record for her.

“No time to call your dad, though,” Dad said a little gruffly. “I'm used to hearing from you at least once a week when you're over there.”

“I'm sorry, Dad. I guess I have been kinda busy. Hanging out with friends and stuff.”

“Friends?” He sounded surprised. “Since when do you have friends at the beach?”

“Since, I don't know. This year. It's not as lonely.”

“You still reading that SAT book?”

“When I have time,” I lied. The truth was that other than our late-night study session that so surprised my mother, I'd largely been ignoring my SAT book. It was just that there were always other things to do, like hang out with the girls or go night-swimming at the beach with Jeff or go biking around the neighborhood with Jeff or go hiking on some of the old horse trails with Jeff. There was also frequently dinner at Jeff's house with his post-divorce-depressed mom, who always seemed to perk up when I was around. And at night—especially at night—there were other things to do with Jeff.

I talked to my dad for a few more minutes about the summer basketball camp he was running, the classes I had signed up for the first semester of senior year, what was happening in the neighborhood back home—stuff like that. Then he asked the question he always asks on these phone calls, maybe to be polite, or maybe because he actually still cares about her in some way.

“How's your mother?” he asked, clearing his throat.

Usually, I respond with “She sucks” or something similarly hostile, and then he gives me a mini-talk about how I've got to be nice, or at least patient, and that the summer will be over soon and I won't have to see her again until Thanksgiving. But this summer was kind of different, and so was my answer.

“She's okay,” I said. “She's all into her company going public, so she's in the city a lot. Mostly she stays out of my way, but I see her sometimes, and it's not too bad.”

“Wow,” my dad said, sounding surprised. “I think that's the best report I've ever gotten from you, kiddo.”

“Well, it's not like I
like
hanging out with her,” I said defensively. He laughed.

“It's okay to not hate your mother,” he said.

“Whatever,” I said, a little irritated. I'm not used to feeling irritated with my dad, so I figured I'd get off the phone before I said something crappy.

We exchanged a few more words, and I told him I loved him, and then the call was over.

“No mention of your hot summer lover?” Jeff said without opening his eyes.

“Ewwww,” I said. “‘Lover' is such a gross word.”

“Lover,” he said, sitting up and grinning at me. “Lovaaaah, lovaaah, lovaaah.”

“Oh, nasty,” I said, punching him lightly in the arm. He grabbed me and started tickling me, shouting “lover, lover, lover” over and over again while I cracked up. I had just started fighting back and was tickling him in slightly inappropriate places when I heard someone walk up. I looked up, and there was Jacinta Trimalchio, carrying a vintage-looking robin's-egg blue parasol with pretty white ruffles.

Because Jacinta Trimalchio could never wear anything run-of-the-mill, she was sporting what looked like a 1920s bathing costume—a long black tank with little shorts attached, seemingly made of a jersey cotton instead of Lycra or Spandex or whatever is usually in bathing suits these days.

“Do you ever say to yourself, ‘Hey, I think I'm just gonna go for a subtle look today'?” Jeff asked, teasing her. I looked at his dimples and almost melted.

“No,” Jacinta said seriously. “Why would I do that?”

“I don't know,” Jeff said. “To fit in?”

“Fitting in is overrated,” Jacinta said simply. She turned her attention to me.

“Delilah's at a model agent's in Manhattan today,” she announced, apropos of nothing. “Ford Models. They've launched the careers of so many of my favorites, I can't even count.”

“Oh,” I said. “That sounds nice. Yeah, I haven't really seen you girls for a couple of days.”

“A break in your busy tea party schedule,” Jeff said.

“We've been . . . ,” Jacinta began, and then her porcelain face flushed. She was opening her mouth to say something else when another girl wandered up. This girl was short and curvy, with breasts so large that they almost appeared aggressive in their need for attention. She wore a white bikini and white sandals and carried a white straw beach bag that probably cost more money than one semester of tuition at Trumbo. There was something about the tilt of her chin and the way she pursed her lips that made me immediately dislike her.

“What's up, Olivia?” Jeff said lazily.

Great. Another pretty robot from Trumbo. I restrained myself from rolling my eyes and tried to act friendly.

“Not much,” Olivia said. She looked at me with slight interest.

“You're Anne Rye's daughter, right?” Her expression was hard to read behind her giant sunglasses, but I could tell she was trying to be friendly.

“Yeah, I'm Naomi,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” she said with a syrupy-sweet smile. “All I hear about at home these days is good things about your mom's company.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised.

“My parents are investors,” she said, as if that were a normal job to have. “And,” Olivia added, “they've been looking at your mom's company.”

“Oh, that's—that's really nice,” I said. “Yeah, she, um—she works really hard.”

“Trust me, I know
all
about it,” she said with a friendly little laugh. “You should come over for dinner sometime. My parents would ask you about a zillion questions.”

“Is it weird for you that your mom has fans?” Jeff asked.

“Oh, they're not
fans,
exactly,” Olivia said quickly, frowning at Jeff. “I mean they're looking for a good investment.”

“That's genuinely fascinating, Olivia,” Jeff said, and I tried not to laugh. He could be such a nonchalant asshole sometimes, and it was hilarious.

Olivia ignored him and turned back to me. “But really, you ought to come by sometime,” she said.

“Sure,” I said without enthusiasm. I'm not an idiot. I can tell when people are being nice to me just because they know who my mom is. Then Olivia turned to Jacinta, acknowledging her for the first time, and her demeanor completely changed.

“You're Jacinta Trimalchio,” she said frostily, as if it were an accusation. Jacinta smiled warmly.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “And I know who you are, love. Olivia Bentley.
Young Hamptons.
I
adore
your blog.”

“I'm sure you do,” Olivia said nastily. “I see you using my party photos all the time.”

“Oh, I hope that's all right,” Jacinta said apologetically. “I always give credit and link back to
Young Hamptons
.”

“I noticed,” Olivia said. “I get more traffic from your blog than from anywhere else.” You could tell she wasn't so much grateful as bitterly resentful.

I looked at Jeff. He looked at me.

Catfight!
he mouthed, grinning. I widened my eyes and nodded in agreement.

It was more like a cat-puppy fight than anything. Olivia had her claws out, but Jacinta clearly just wanted to make friends and play.

“We should collaborate sometime!” Jacinta suggested brightly. “Cross-posting features, or writing a post together, something like that. You have the best Hamptons coverage of anyone, year-round.”

“I can tell you think so,” Olivia said. “I mean, based on how often you post about things that I've just posted about.”

Jacinta looked at her in surprise. I think it was just beginning to occur to her that Olivia might not have the best intentions. Jacinta was kind of mysterious and possibly a liar or at least a major exaggerator, but she was
not
a bitch. I don't think she had a mean bone in her entire long, skinny body.

“So you're European, right?” Olivia asked, popping her sunglasses up on her head.

“Yes,” Jacinta said a little cautiously. “Well, partly. My mother's family is from Montana. My father's family is Spanish.”

“That's funny,” said Olivia. “Because ‘Trimalchio' is an Italian name. Isn't it.” She raised an eyebrow. She was acting like a cop who was just beginning to interrogate a perp on
SVU
or something.

“Spanish by way of Italy,” Jacinta said without missing a beat.

“I'm sure,” Olivia said. “And where did you go to school?”

“Oh, all over,” Jacinta said. “Tutors, mostly. A bit of time in a Swiss boarding school.”

“Which one?” Olivia asked, widening her eyes with the fakest curiosity you ever saw. “My sister teaches in Bern.”

“In—oh, she's in
Bern
,” Jacinta said. “Yes, well, we were out in the countryside—far, far away from Bern. Little boarding school. Only about fifty students. No one has ever heard of it.”

“My cousins all go to a little boarding school in the Swiss countryside,” Olivia said. “I wonder if it's the same school.”

“Probably not,” Jacinta said.

“I think it's so interesting,” Olivia said, “that you comment on all these parties and what everyone's wearing, but you're never actually
at
any of them.”

“Well, I've been traveling a great deal,” Jacinta said. “Living all over the world. This has just sort of been a hobby of mine.”

“Looking at strangers' party photos and writing about their outfits,” Olivia said.

Jacinta looked her straight in the eye, with a level expression.

“Exactly,” she said firmly. “That's how I have my fun.” Then she smiled brightly.

I could've hugged her. She wasn't backing down in the face of this jerk's attitude, and she'd dispensed with trying to win her over.

Olivia looked frustrated, and then she shoved her sunglasses back over her eyes.

“Well,” she said. “Nice talking to all of you.” Her tone indicated that it had been anything but nice.

“Lovely to meet you,” Jacinta said sweetly.

Without responding, Olivia turned on her heel and stalked off down the beach.

“She's a real charmer,” Jeff said when Olivia was a safe distance down the beach.

“Jacinta, come sit with me,” I said, scooting over so that I was sitting in the middle of our giant beach towel. Jacinta gratefully plopped down next to me and gave me a little side-hug.

Jacinta asked Jeff about his most recent golf game, and he lit up and started talking about how he'd almost hit a deer on the back nine. Surprisingly, Jacinta seemed to know a lot about the big golf stars (I couldn't have given a crap), and she and Jeff were trading facts about some guy named Graeme McDowell when something suddenly blocked the sun and cast an enormous shadow over the three of us. It was quickly joined by two slightly smaller shadows. I looked up and right into the eyes of Teddy Barrington.

“Hi, Naomi,” he said with a broad smile. “It's so great to see you. Where have you been?” His two companions, who looked like less handsome carbon copies of himself, looked at me with curiosity.

I cringed inwardly. I hadn't seen him since the night I caught him shoving Misti at Baxley's. I could tell he was doing the “everything's totally fine and completely normal” thing, and that I was expected to play my part.

“Hi, Teddy,” I said uncomfortably.

“Theodore,” Jeff said, reaching up.

“Jeffrey,” Teddy said, and bumped fists with him.

“Brock, Reilly,” Jeff said, bumping fists with each of the other guys in turn. It was like watching some weird male-bonding ritual. I felt like an anthropologist in the field.

“Guys, this is Naomi,” Teddy said, gesturing to me. “She's friends with Delilah and
special
friends with Jeff.”

“We're more like buddies,” Jeff said, slinging an arm around me. As awkward as I felt around Teddy, I couldn't help but appreciate the warmth of Jeff's skin against mine.

“S'up,” said Brock.

“Hey,” said Reilly.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “And this is Jacinta.”

Teddy raised his eyebrows, and a slow smile spread across his lips. “
The
Jacinta Trimalchio,” he said, peering down at her. She looked nervous and twisted her hands a little.