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“Our humble abode,” my mother said wryly when Teddy screeched to a halt at the bluestone driveway.

Mrs. Fairweather said, “I have always thought your cottage is darling. I remember when the Timothy Stanford family owned it, and they always had the loveliest eggnog and caroling at Christmastime.”

“Well,” Mom said darkly, “I'd like to make some improvements, but I won't have anything more done to it until I can find the perfect restoration experts to maintain the integrity of the original layout.” Mrs. Fairweather nodded approvingly.

“Weren't you talking about putting in a pool with a waterslide in the spring?” I piped in. Jeff held in a snort.

“I most certainly was
not
talking about anything of the sort!” my mother snapped. “I did have an idea for a nice Zen garden with a reflecting pool, but it wouldn't be for swimming. And of course it would be
nothing
like the one next door.” The house next door was something of an infamous legend among my mother's friends. A three-story cedar-shingled castle, it fairly towered over Mom's house. It even had a couple of turrets in the Queen Anne's style. And while Mom had one very well-maintained acre of land, the house next door sat on over two acres. It even had a moat, sort of.

A winding pool designed to look like a river dominated the backyard. It snaked along the right side of the yard and then doubled back, curving along its original path and then snaking out along the left side of the yard before curling around and returning to meet the place where it started. I imagine from above it looked like a giant bubble letter U drawn with squiggly blue borders, with perfect green lawn filling in the space between. There were a few rustic-on-purpose footbridges scattered along the river pool's path, and here and there, little waterfalls built from smooth stones. There were even a couple of story-high waterslides. It was actually really cool, and ever since I was eleven, I'd secretly longed for a chance to swim in it.

“Who lives in the Disney castle, anyway?” Teddy asked. “We've never been introduced.” You could tell by “we” he meant the entire great and powerful Barrington Oil clan. Super-rich people never really think of themselves as individuals—they're forever blessed, or doomed, to be an extension of a glamorous genetic web.

“Neither have we,” said Mrs. Fairweather.

“God knows we haven't, either,” my mother said with a touch of resentment. “Some Europeans who never actually visit. They rent it out to summer families and, I'm telling you, Merilee, they pick the people with the
noisiest
children. Last year it was a Saudi family who let their boys swim until three o'clock in the morning. Nine-year-old twins.
Screaming
little madmen. You can imagine how much we loved that.”

“They were just excited to have that pool,” I said, not sure why I was defending a pair of rich Saudi boys. “It wasn't their fault their parents let them stay up.”

“I'm not saying it was their fault, Naomi, darling,” my mother said testily.

We were all silent for a moment.

“Well,” Mom said brightly, “it's time we got ourselves to bed. We should be able to sleep through the night this year. No kids next door.” She leaned forward to peck Mrs. Fairweather near the cheek, and then began to clamber out of the SUV.

“Who
is
staying there this year?” Delilah asked with mild interest.

“Just some young woman, as far as I can tell,” my mother said. “She has a cleaning service come in every week, and the florist is over every few days. When I got here in May, she had an interior decorating service over for a full week. I can't imagine any owners would let her redecorate if they knew about it.”

“Maybe she's doing it in secret,” Jeff suggested. “That would be a very East Hampton sort of crime.”

“Like wearing white after Labor Day,” I said.

“Or not going to a top-tier university,” Jeff added.

“Oh, you two,” Delilah said. She giggled mischievously.

“We should hang out sometime, if you want,” Jeff said in a low voice as the adults chattered to each other. “I'm a pretty nice guy. Really.”

I looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. “We'll see,” I said. He grinned at me, and I had to admit, he looked really good.

I got out of the car, and we waved goodbye as Teddy tore off.

Once the car was out of view, my mother and I stood outside the front door and looked at each other. Neither one of us was particularly pleased with what she saw.

“I'm going to bed,” she said abruptly. “Do you need anything?” Now that no one else was around, she had dispensed with the doting mother act.

“I'm just going to hang out here for a bit,” I said. “Stretch my legs.”

“Be careful. Don't wander or get lost.”

“Mom, this is like the safest place in the entire world.
Nothing
bad ever happens in the Hamptons.”

“Okay, okay,” she said with a sigh. “I forget that you know everything. Just remember to lock the door behind you when you come in. You've got your key, right? I'll take your suitcases in.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don't go on some kind of artistic walk through the yards and scare the neighbors,” she said. “The last thing I need is for you to get arrested for trespassing.”

“What the hell is an ‘artistic walk'?” I asked.

“You know what I mean,” Mom said with a sigh.

She gave me a dry kiss on the forehead and took my suitcases into the house. I stood and watched her go. She turned off the front porch light and the front walkway lights, leaving me suddenly awash in near-total darkness. And aside from the dramatic spotlights on the river pool, the enormous house next door had not one light on, either. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the almost-full moon cast enough glow to allow me to wander without too much trouble.

On impulse, I took off my Docs and socks and dropped them on the front porch. It was summertime, and that meant I could go barefoot, building up the resistance on my feet until I could walk on even a hot sidewalk without wincing. I've always liked going barefoot in the Hamptons. It's so clean that you don't need to fear stepping on a needle or in dog crap like you do in Chicago. And it made me feel vaguely scandalous. When I get away from my mother for a solo journey in town, I'll slip off my flip-flops and put them in my beach bag, wandering down the sidewalk “just like some kind of dirty hippie,” as my mother once said in disgust when she caught me. I don't care, though. I'm a Chicagoan through and through, which means I instinctively shed clothes (not in a whorish way) every time the temperature passes sixty degrees. So my feet get a little more sun. So what?

If moonburn were a thing, the tops of my feet would've been fried that night. The moon seemed to glow brighter and brighter with each step I took, acting like a giant lantern in the sky. I walked around the side of the house and watched the moonlight sparkle on the water through the trees.

Something strange caught my eye, an unusual light from an unusual spot. It was tiny, and at first I thought I'd imagined it, but I hadn't—it was a pinprick of green, and it was coming from some inscrutable spot on the back deck of the castle house, in an area shadowed by one of the big turrets. It seemed to hover in midair, and for reasons I can't quite explain, I crept closer to the neighboring yard than I ever had before. I got so close, in fact, that I managed to make out the shape of a person cradling whatever it was that glowed green.

Then, all of a sudden, light flooded the person's face, and I realized it was a she. And what's more, she had just snapped open a laptop. The green light had come from the charging dock on the laptop, where a power adapter was plugged in. I could see now that the adapter cord ran to an outdoor outlet on the castle's deck, and she had set the laptop down on a small table before her.

I felt a little stupid, but my embarrassment was soon overwhelmed by fascination with what I beheld. The girl was beautiful, with a white-blond bob and blunt-cut bangs that glowed in the light of the computer. Her big, thick-lashed eyes were trained intently on the screen, which I couldn't see from my vantage point. She had high, prominent cheekbones and full lips. She was so ethereally thin that she looked as if she might blow away in the light evening breeze and turn into a firefly, or a star. She could've passed for a teen angel, or maybe a fairy. Illuminated as she was by the computer screen, she didn't look entirely of this world.

Maybe it was because she didn't seem real, but I actually thought about talking to her. It would've been completely out of character for me, and chances are I would've just freaked her out, probably, and then had to hide from her scornful gaze every time I sat on my mother's deck. She didn't look like the type who could generate scorn, but if she was anything like every other girl I'd met during my East Hampton summers, scorn was her second-favorite feeling, after boredom. Instead, I stood, frozen and silent, and watched, for what must have been several minutes, as she read and typed on the computer.

Then she did something I'll never forget. The girl stood up, facing the lake. The white light from the laptop screen lent her face an unearthly glow from below as she stretched out her arms toward the twinkling houselights in the distance. She held it for a long moment, like some kind of yoga pose, just reaching and reaching for something I couldn't identify. Then, after what seemed like hours, she scooped up the laptop and went into the house, leaving me alone in the moon-drenched yard. I lingered for a moment, listening to the sound of the spring peepers and other frogs calling to one another from the muddy banks of Georgica Pond. I turned back toward my mother's house. I knew it was time for me to go inside, too.

CHAPTER FOUR

S
kags and I have an issue with the term “brunch,” as in, we think it's stupid. I mean, if you're having a meal and it's in the a.m., that's breakfast. If you're having a meal and it's in the p.m., that's lunch (or dinner, if it's after 5:00 p.m.) I don't care
what
you eat. French toast at 1:00 p.m.? Lunch! Hot pastrami sandwich at 6:00 a.m.? Breakfast.

Naturally, my mother loves brunch.

I will say that the woman can cook. By the time I got up at 10:00 a.m., she already had a spread laid out on the table on the back deck—popovers, strawberry-flavored butter, mixed berries, scrambled egg whites with local (of course) goat cheese, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. She'd done it all herself in the space of about thirty minutes, probably less. She may fall short of the mothering ideal in most regards, but when it comes to whipping up a fantastic meal, she's just about perfect.

“Hey, Mom,” I said blearily, blinking my eyes in the bright sunshine as I joined her on the deck. “Thanks for breakfast. This looks awesome.”

She turned toward me with a smile that faded quickly as she took in my ensemble (a ratty basketball T-shirt and a pair of paint-splattered drawstring shorts.)

“Still in your pajamas?” she asked, a clear note of disapproval in her voice. I was, but I decided to mess with her a little.

“Naw,” I said breezily, sitting down and buttering a golden-brown popover. “I figured I'd go over to Baxley's for lunch by myself, then maybe stop by the Marc Jacobs in the village and drop by the Fairweathers' for tea.” Her look of horror was so classic that I snorted, cracking up.

“Don't joke about things like that,” she said, shaking her head and delicately spearing a berry with a fork. “I don't understand why you can't just give me an honest answer. I know you think your father just hangs the moon, and you two have always been buddy-buddy, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stand for you giving me nonstop attitude for yet another summer.”

“Oh my God, this strawberry butter is so good,” I interjected suddenly. “Did you use that wild strain you found at that farm last year?”

“Yes,” she said, her expression lightening. Nothing brightens my mother's mood like flattery. It's like lighting a candle flame in front of a moth: instant distraction.

Her cell rang, and she checked the incoming number and snatched it up.

“Hello, Merilee,” she sang sweetly. “How are you this morning? I'm . . . oh,
Delilah
. Hello, darling. You'd like to talk to Naomi?” Her eyes lit up with glee, and she snapped her fingers in front of my face, actually bouncing up and down a little with excitement. “Of course, dear, here she is.” She handed me the phone, mouthing unnecessarily,
It's Delilah! For you!

While it's true that this phone call from Delilah was an unprecedented development, my mother's freak-out hardly seemed necessary. She stared at me expectantly, a dopey grin stretched across her face. I could tell she was going to hang on every word of this conversation.

“Hey, Delilah,” I said, turning away from my mother, the hyperactive puppy. “What's up?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn't have your number, so I just thought I'd call your mom. Teddy and Jeff and I want to go to the club to play tennis, and Jeff needs a partner. Want to come?”

I am not athletic in the least, and while the prospect of seeing Jeff was kind of tantalizing (even though I wasn't quite convinced he was the nicest guy), the surrounding circumstances would undoubtedly prove annoying and embarrassing. These kids came out of their mothers' wombs wielding tennis rackets, and I'd only played once, when Skags decided we needed to get more physical activity (actually, she had noticed a hot girl at the public courts in our neighborhood and wanted an excuse to run into her).

And besides, I'd planned to spend the day studying my SAT book and doing a practice test, which takes a few hours. I know that sounds incredibly lame, but (and this sounds even lamer) I've wanted to go to Harvard since I was a little kid and saw
Legally Blonde
, which is the sort of guilty-pleasure movie you wouldn't think a nerd like me would like, except that it is perfect, and makes me wish the Beasts at our school were anywhere near as kind and awesome as Elle Woods. The unfortunate reality is that beautiful blond popular girls usually
are
superficial bitches, and not good-hearted humanitarians like Elle.

“Thanks for asking, Delilah,” I said, “but I promised myself I'd study my SAT book today.” I could actually hear my mother go into a conniption behind me. She hurried around the side of the table to face me and glare.

“I know that sounds completely dorky,” I added hastily, averting my eyes from my mother's gaze, “but I'm trying to get into Harvard early action, so I have to take the SAT at the end of the summer.”

What are you DOING?
my mother mouthed. I turned away from her, toward the backyard, and she let out an audible groan.

“Is everything okay over there?” Delilah asked, sounding concerned.

“Oh, that's my mother,” I said. “Her cake just collapsed in the oven, and she's mourning the loss.”

“My cakes never collapse,” Mom hissed at me, plopping down in her chair and folding her arms in a huff.

“Well, I totally understand about the SAT thing,” Delilah said. “You're not a legacy, are you?”

“No,” I said. “My dad went to the University of Wisconsin.” I didn't add, “And my mother went to nowhere,” because she was already pissed about the cake crack.

“Well, my father and grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather all went to Harvard,” Delilah said. “And my father is on the alumni board. So if you need any help when it's time to apply, just let me know. I'm applying, too.” She did not add, “And I will automatically get in,” although we both knew that was true.

“That's really nice of you,” I said. “I might actually take you up on it.” The thing with rich people is that they often offer to help you with a fancy connection, but you usually can't tell if they genuinely mean it or if they just want to show off their fancy connections. But I wanted to go to Harvard so bad that in this case, I didn't really care. It was worth a shot.

“Please do,” said Delilah. “Well, I understand why you're not coming, but Jeff's going to be pretty disappointed.”

I blushed. “Really?” I said in a squeaky voice. Then I blushed again, because a squeaky voice is like the number one sign you're nervous about something, and being nervous about a guy means you're into him, and I guess I kind of was.

Delilah laughed. “We'll all get together really soon,” she said. “Every day can't be SAT day.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I looked at my mother.

“She
invited
you out, and you said no,” she said flatly. “I put you in contact with these people and provide all these opportunities for you, and you just turn them down, time and time again.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You're the only mother I know who would get pissed that her daughter would choose studying over playing tennis,” I said.

“She invited you to
tennis
?” Mom moaned. “And you said no?”

“I just don't feel like engaging in any activity where balls fly at my nose,” I said, quoting
Clueless
, another favorite movie.

“Well, you should!” my mother snapped, rising to her feet. “That's how people make friends in this town!” I cracked up, and she stamped her foot in exasperation. She's such a child.

“I'm going to town,” she said. “To BookHampton, to sign some stock.” My mother loves doing that—popping into any bookshop in the world to see if they have her cookbook, and then magnanimously offering to sign any copies. I would love it if, just once, a bookshop owner said, “Nah, we're cool.” But they all flip out like she's this big star, which I guess she actually is.

“See ya,” I said, returning to my breakfast. She gave an exaggerated sigh and made her customary dramatic exit.

I felt strangely drained as I tried to eat my popover and eggs. Well, I guess it's not so strange—my mother is kind of an emotional vampire at times. I decided to revive myself with a phone call to Skags. Her real name is Tiffani Skagsgaard, but if you call her Tiffani, she will hunt you down and destroy you. It's always hard for her the first day of school, when the teacher calls out “Tiffani Skagsgaard?” and is confronted with this very boyish-looking young lesbian furiously shouting, “It's SKAGS!”

She picked up the phone on the second ring. “S'up?” she grunted.

“My mother is the most superficial person on the planet,” I said.

“And water freezes at zero degrees Celsius. Tell me something everyone in the world doesn't already know.”

“That's the thing, Skags—not everybody in the world knows it. In fact, I'd say most people in the world don't know it. They think she's this warm, loving culinary goddess who nurtures people with love and food.”

“Hold up—I don't think anyone would ever mistake your mother for
warm
. She's not Rachael Ray. She's an ice-queen-prom-princess type. And I assume she's already ruining your summer.”

“Yeah, and get this—she made me take a
helicopter
from Manhattan to East Hampton just because she wanted to kiss up to Senator Fairweather's wife. It was the Fairweathers' helicopter, and I had to ride with Delilah and Teddy Barrington and this kid Jeff.”

“
The
Teddy Barrington?” Skags shrieked in a high-pitched, girlish tone. “Dreams do come true!”

I laughed a little. “He's totally bizarre,” I said. I told Skags about the shoving incident I'd witnessed at Baxley's.

“Dude, that is
seriously
messed up,” she said. “Jesus. That poor waitress. She's, like, the abused mistress. How's Montauk Barbie this year? You think he hits her, too?”

“No, I don't think he does,” I said. “Delilah's actually pretty good, I think. You know she's always nice to me. I think she's trying to hook me up with this Jeff kid.”

“Is he hot?”

“He's not your type.”

“Well, obviously not. Why do you think she wants you to mate with one of the jet set?”

“I don't think it's like this big plan, I just think she thinks we'd go well together. He's cute enough”—I was downplaying the situation, obviously—“and he doesn't seem like he's a complete idiot. Kind of has an attitude, but whatever. Delilah called me this morning and asked me to go play tennis with her and Teddy and him today, but I said no because I'm doing my SAT book.”

Skags groaned. “You and that freaking SAT book are like the lamest pair in history, you know that? You've been glued to it for months. Why don't you just go out and play some tennis?”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Gross! No, I don't.”

“Well, she was all pissed that I'm not going.”

“That's just because she's obsessed with Montauk Barbie's Republican robot mom. I'm the one with your best interests at heart here: some good old-fashioned physical activity, bonding with the local teen population, getting out of that stupid fancy house for a reason that doesn't involve your mom dragging you to some dumb party. I don't care if it means you have to hang out with some Waspy teen-dream hooker.”

“She's not a hooker. She's just—she's a nice girl who happens to come from a very stupid world. And I feel kind of bad for her about the cheating thing—Jeff said everybody in town knows.”

“You've always been a Delilah Fairweather apologist. Every summer you call me up and tell me the dumb stuff she does and says, and every summer I'm like, ‘This girl sounds like an empty shell of a human being,' and you're like, ‘No, she's nice, it's the other kids who suck.' Someone has a girl crush.”

“I'm not
gay
, Skags.”

“A girl crush is different from being gay, dude. A girl crush is like when one girl is so into another girl that it's
almost
sexual, but not quite. A girl crush is way creepier than being gay, which is not at all creepy and, in fact, is completely awesome, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn't.”

“Have you ever seen
The Roommate
?”

“No.”

“Dude, it's got Leighton Meester from
Gossip Girl
. Blair freaking Waldorf! It's so much fun.” One thing you should know about Skags—despite the fact that she considers herself cooler than everyone else, including me, she is in love with Netflixing old episodes of
Gossip Girl
. She pretends it's because she thinks Blake Lively and Leighton Meester are hot, but actually she gets really into the soapy story lines and has passionate opinions about whether Dan should be with this girl or that girl. She's seen every single episode at least twice.

“I don't have a girl crush on Delilah. I just appreciate the fact that she treats me like an actual person. None of the other kids around here have ever given me the time of day.”

“Except for
Jeffrey
, the new love of your life.” Skags went into her impression of my mother. “And what do his parents do, Naomi, dear? Are they in plastics? Coal? Mass-produced sex toys?”

“Yes,” I said. “They're vibrator moguls.”

“Oh, Naomi, darling, that is just
delicious
!” Skags cracked herself up and broke character. “Oh, dude! Change of topic, but such a good one. Guess who came into the DEBJ yesterday?” Skags works at a little café called That's a Wrap, which we refer to as the De-Ethnicized Burrito Joint.

“Who?”

“
La reina de las bestias.
The queen of the Beasts!”