26. Book in Hand, Feet in Sand
Back in her bedroom, Caroline feels a twinge of guilt. She considers apologizing to her mother, but breakfast with Jack? Kind of inexcusable.
Caroline’s phone dings. It’s her mother Venmoing her twenty-five hundred dollars with the memo Filming for HWH.
Caroline won’t lie: She’s hyped about the money. But it’s also a reminder that she isn’t here to mend fences with her mother; she’s here to do a job. The other ladies are all heading outside for the next item on the itinerary: Beach, lunch, pool.
There’s a bluebird sky. Caroline is going to fly Isaac’s drone.
The day Isaac taught Caroline to fly the drone was the most romantic of their time together. The night before, there had been violent thunderstorms, and when Caroline and Isaac woke up, the city air had that rare scrubbed- clean quality. Isaac declared they should fly the drone in Central Park.
Caroline didn’t pretend to be shocked—she was shocked. “You mean we’re taking our relationship outside?”
Central Park was showing off—green and leafy, flowers blooming.
Everything seemed refreshed by the rain, even the people with their strollers and dogs and crazy exercise outfits, and none of them gave Isaac and Caroline a second look. While the two of them were wandering down the mall—lined on either side by benches, elms arching overhead to form an emerald canopy—Isaac put his arm around Caroline and kissed the side of her face. Right there in public! For one fleeting moment, they were just a couple of lovers enjoying the summer morning.
Caroline thought they would film at Bethesda Fountain or Sheep Meadow, but Isaac’s favorite spot was Conservatory Water, the pond on the east side.
He showed Caroline how to take the cover off the gimbal, the actual camera mechanism, and slide her phone into the controller.
“See, mon petit chou?” he said. “So easy!”
Conservatory Water was famous for the toy yachts zipping across its
surface. From high above, they looked like so many dropped handkerchiefs, but Isaac showed Caroline how to lower the drone so close to the water’s surface that she felt like she was a little person riding along on the bow of the boat.
Now Caroline sets Isaac’s drone on the outdoor table by the pool, and, recalling Isaac’s instructions, she pushes the buttons that bring the drone to life.
It’s like a cute mechanical pet. But whereas most drones sound like a swarm of bees, Isaac’s drone is completely silent—and therefore stealthy.
Caroline is thrilled when it floats over the table, across the pool, and above the dunes to the beach.
On the screen of her phone, Caroline has a bird’s-eye view of Hollis and her friends as they settle into their afternoon.
There are three navy beach umbrellas shading five teak chaises swathed in navy-and-white-striped towels and a long table that, Caroline assumes, will soon be set up with lunch. She lowers the drone in for some close-ups.
Tatum’s chaise is out in full sun; she’s reclining, her face raised defiantly to the sky.
Brooke’s chaise is in the shade; she has covered her legs with a towel and she’s wearing a long-sleeved rash guard over her suit. She pulls a book from her bag and cracks it open.
Gigi is the only one of the women wearing a bikini. It’s solid turquoise with strings. Gigi’s stomach is perfectly flat with gently defined obliques. (She must do side planks, Caroline thinks.) She has on a matching batik pareo, which she whips off and ties to her chaise. She’s wearing her gold chains, her bracelet and watch, her straw fedora, and sunglasses. Effortlessly chic. The drone approves, and apparently so does Brooke. Her gaze lingers on Gigi for a prolonged second—Girl crush? Caroline wonders—then Brooke tightens the blanket around her legs like a cocoon.
Dru-Ann is out in the water swimming, and when she yells, the other women snap to attention. Dru-Ann points to a sleek, dark head twenty or thirty yards away.
Gigi jumps up from her chaise and Hollis follows. They both walk toward the water.
Caroline maneuvers the drone out over the ocean. There’s a seal frolicking in the waves. Caroline is tempted to send the drone farther out on an exploratory mission. Would she find other seals or something more sinister?
She loves the symbolism: Is something lurking out there, threatening the seemingly idyllic weekend?
Gigi and Hollis gravitate toward each other until they’re standing side by side, watching Dru-Ann. Then Gigi points up at the drone, and she and Hollis both smile and wave. Caroline presses the Return to Home button. When viewed from above, her mother’s weekend is undeniably flawless.
Hollis’s eyes drift down to Gigi’s feet in the sand. Her toenails are painted a red so dark, it’s nearly black, and she’s wearing a gold toe ring. Every aspect of Gigi is beautiful, Hollis thinks. Even her feet.
Hollis and Gigi drift down the beach until they’re out of earshot of the
others.
“How are you doing?” Gigi asks.
It’s ironic that, of all the women, Gigi feels the most like a confidante to Hollis. She’s tempted to tell Gigi about Tatum’s biopsy, Dru-Ann’s public relations disaster, Brooke’s rampant insecurities, and the issues between herself and Caroline. But that’s just… a lot.
She says, “While you all were shopping, I went to breakfast with my first love.”
Gigi gasps. This is not what she expected Hollis to say. “You did?”
“I did,” Hollis says, and she’s relieved that Gigi doesn’t seem to be as horrified as Caroline was. “I broke every rule in the Five-Star Weekend handbook.”
“I’m not sure there is a handbook for this weekend,” Gigi says. “Or, rather, I’m not sure there should be any rules. We’re grown women with agency; we can all make the best decisions for ourselves.” Waves wash around their ankles. “Tell me about him. Or… her?”
“Him,” Hollis says. “Jack Finigan.” She sighs. How to begin? When Jack was thirteen years old, before his voice even changed, he rode his dirt bike all the way out to Squam on the weekends, and upon his arrival, Tom Shaw put him to work raking leaves, collecting kindling for the woodstove, fixing the overhead fan in the cottage’s only bathroom. In exchange for Jack’s help,
Tom let Hollis and Jack hang out on the beach unsupervised for an hour.
They kissed for the first time in the dunes not far from where Hollis and Gigi are now.
In high school, Hollis and Jack strolled the halls with their hands tucked into each other’s back pockets. They were frequently told to stop making out at their lockers (PDA wasn’t allowed in school), but eventually the teachers gave up. Jack got his driver’s license and bought a used pickup truck with money he saved over the summer, and he and Hollis drove into the moors at night. They found a clearing in a circle of trees that they named the Round Room, and this was where they always parked. (Once they got stuck in soft sand, and once their battery died, and both times, Kyle and Tatum came to their rescue with a tow rope and jumper cables, respectively.) They listened to Sticky Fingers on repeat on the tape deck, always rewinding and replaying “Wild Horses” three times.
“That sounds like something out of a movie,” Gigi says after hearing all this. “So American.”
“Oh, it was,” Hollis says. But the summer before their senior year, Tatum and Jack and Kyle started talking about “the plan.” Hollis agreed to the plan —but she didn’t take it seriously the way the rest of them did.
Hollis and Gigi have walked so far down the beach that Sankaty lighthouse is visible in the distance. “We should probably head back,” Hollis says.
They turn around and Hollis says, “Thank you for talking. Not only today but after Matthew died. You were a lifeline for me. I hope you know that.”
“I’m glad I could be some comfort,” Gigi says. She is glad, isn’t she? Yes, but she can’t pretend she was acting out of altruism. She isn’t that delusional.
“Why…” Hollis pauses. “Why did you agree to come this weekend?
Didn’t you think I was nuts, inviting you when we’d never met?”
“It did feel a little… risky,” Gigi says. “But you and I have a connection.
When you asked, it felt like the right thing.”
“You said at dinner that you were in a relationship but it ended,” Hollis says. “Was that around the same time I lost Matthew?”
“It was around the same time,” Gigi says. She’s being reckless now. She’s basically asking Hollis to figure it out: The person I lost is the same person you lost. That is our connection.
“I thought so,” Hollis says. “There was a point in our DMs where you
went dark for a while, and I figured something must be going on with you.”
Yes, Gigi “went dark” right after Hollis confided in her about what had happened on the morning of Matthew’s death—how angry she was that he was missing their holiday party, how they’d quarreled. Hollis had said she was afraid Matthew was going to leave her. She’d left a voice mail for him and sent a text, both saying she loved him, but she had no idea if he’d received them. This had thrown Gigi for a loop. Imagine being Hollis and not only losing your husband but having all of that unresolved emotional business.
You have to tell Hollis what happened! Gigi thought at the time. But that would only have made things worse. Why hadn’t she just cut Hollis off?
“I should have asked questions about your life,” Hollis says. “But I was completely self-absorbed. I do care about you, Gigi, and I’d love to hear more about what you went through.”
Gigi shakes her head. “It wasn’t quite the same as what you’re going through. The man I was with… we weren’t married and we didn’t have children together. But in a way, that makes it harder. I don’t have much to hold on to now that he’s dead except my memories… and I’m not sure if you’ve experienced this, but memories lose their clarity with time. I find myself wondering, Did that really happen?”
The now that he’s dead stops Hollis in her tracks. “Dead?” she says. “The man you were with died too?” Suddenly, she feels short of breath. Gigi’s boyfriend, partner, significant other—he died? Right around the same time as Matthew?
Gigi had meant to say Now that he’s gone, which could be interpreted more than one way. She can’t believe she said dead. By coming here this weekend, she was choosing to stand at the edge of a cliff, and now… what?
She’s going to jump? She has approximately two seconds to correct course and say something like Dead to me, I mean, but that won’t work.
“He died, yes,” Gigi says.
“Hold on,” Hollis says. “Wait a minute.” She shakes her head and Gigi chastises herself for taking this walk. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Well, Gigi thinks. She has no words to offer in her defense. Any second now, Hollis is going to figure it out.
Hollis sucks in a breath. She’s confused, shocked; she feels weirdly deceived. All those other people on the website reached out to her with their
stories of sudden, unexpected tragedy, but not Gigi. Gigi just sent the simple words I’m here to listen. And later she let Hollis spill her guts about losing Matthew, but she didn’t say a word about her own situation. Something isn’t right here—and Hollis fears that something is her. Gigi didn’t offer the information because Hollis never gave her a chance. Hollis assumed Gigi was being altruistic. And, worse, Hollis thought Gigi felt honored to be the person Hollis chose to confide in.
Caroline is right, Hollis thinks. She is a phony.
“I am so mortified,” Hollis says. “Everything you said to me was so insightful, so spot-on, exactly as if you’d been through the same thing. I should have guessed that you’d experienced a similar loss.” Hollis reaches out to touch Gigi’s arm and—is this her imagination?—she feels Gigi flinch.
Oh, this is awful. Hollis let her status on the website blind her; it created a power dynamic where Hollis’s grief was somehow more important than Gigi’s. You’ve changed. And we’ve changed.
But still, Hollis wonders: In all their conversations, why didn’t Gigi say something?
“What happened?” Hollis asks. “To your… to… what was his name?”
“Oh,” Gigi says. She can’t construct an alternative narrative under pressure like this, can she? His name was Mike, he was a pilot for United. His name was Mark, we met at the gym. His name was Maxwell, he was Mabel’s vet. “I want to tell you all about it. But honestly, Hollis, I’m… just trying to let it go while I’m here.” She opens her arms to the sky, a gesture so theatrical that Gigi is embarrassed for herself. “You have given me the greatest gift I could have asked for, which is a complete escape.”
Hollis stares at her, though she’s wearing sunglasses, so Gigi can’t tell if she buys this. Gigi thinks, I should have just said, “Mark. We met at the gym.” The most boring answer is always the most believable. Heart attack on the treadmill. Maybe a history of cocaine use that he was hiding.
It makes perfect sense now why Gigi agreed to come, Hollis thinks. She needed this weekend every bit as much as Hollis needed it. “I’m so happy you’re here. Last night when we were dancing… I hope you didn’t feel left out? Or like a fifth wheel?”
Gigi laughs, mostly from relief. “I enjoyed the show.”
They walk along a little while without speaking, Hollis thinking how she must have intuited that Gigi had been through something similar, Gigi
thinking that when she gets back to Buckhead and relates this part of the story to Tim and Santi, they will never, ever believe that Gigi got that close to the fire but managed not to get burned.
Dru-Ann isn’t a “There’s something healing about the ocean” kind of girl, but —there’s something healing about the ocean. It’s the chill of the water, the saltiness, the waves that roll over her shoulders and occasionally over her head. The ocean, Dru-Ann thinks, is vast. It’s profound. What do a handful of Twitter trolls matter compared to the magnificence of our planet and the mystery of human existence?
She has to stop thinking this way; she sounds like a poster in the dentist’s office.
Dru-Ann sees Hollis and Gigi finishing their walk. Dru-Ann windmills an arm. “Come on in!” she shouts. Hollis waves but heads back toward the house. Gigi smiles, takes off her watch and her sunglasses, sets them inside her hat, and steps into the water. She dives in, and a moment later, she surfaces right next to Dru-Ann. She has the kind of eyelashes that clump together when wet and hold drops of water like little jewels.
“This water is sublime,” Gigi says.
“Are you a beach person?” Dru-Ann asks.
“City person,” Gigi says. Dru-Ann thinks, Right—Singapore, Atlanta. She was actually listening last night. “But it’s hard to beat this.”
Dru-Ann has to agree. Nick’s house on Lake Michigan is lovely, it has its own beach, but the lake is nothing like the Atlantic.
Gigi says, “So, I have to admit, I did the predictable thing and googled you last night.”
Dru-Ann groans. “How much did you read?”
Gigi shakes her head. “Just a bit. The tweets were all rubbish.”
“Everyone hates me,” Dru-Ann says. “My clients are dropping me. My
boss wants me to issue an apology.”
“And will you?” Gigi asks.
“I don’t want to,” Dru-Ann says. “But I might not have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” Gigi says. “The reason you’re so popular in the first place is that you speak your mind and stand by your convictions.”
Gigi is right, Dru-Ann thinks. That is why she’s so popular. Not
apologizing is actually on brand for Dru-Ann.
Gigi kicks her legs out in front of her. “Frankly, I’m impressed by how you’re handling it. If I hadn’t looked online, I would never have known there was a single thing wrong. You’re so present. So calm.”
“It’s the ocean,” Dru-Ann deadpans. “It makes everything better.”
Gigi laughs. “I saw a needlepoint pillow in town that said the exact same thing.”
When Dru-Ann gets back to her chaise, she considers checking her phone, but Gigi’s words ring in her head. You’re so present. So calm. Dru-Ann pulls a cucumber-flavored seltzer out of the ice in the cooler. When she looks up, she sees Hollis coming over the dune with one of those antique French market baskets looped over her arm, and the thing is piled with sandwiches.
“Straight from Something Natural,” Hollis says when she sets the basket down on the table. She’s also made an enormous bowl of Asian noodle salad.
There’s a platter of cold sliced watermelon sprinkled with lime zest and sea salt as well as Paloma sugar cookies, flavored with grapefruit and tequila. Is it any wonder that Hollis has millions of fans? She’s a goddess—and Dru- Ann is starving.
Gigi approaches the table. She has dried off from her swim and knotted her pareo at her chest. “Hollis, this spread…” she says. “Any other woman would have called a caterer or had a nervous breakdown. I hope you’re getting photographs for the website.”
“Oh!” Hollis says. She looks back toward the house. Where did Caroline go? She had the drone out earlier. Hollis takes a few pictures of the lunch with her own phone, including a swoon-worthy shot in portrait mode of the noodle salad with the blurred ocean in the background. Then Hollis turns her phone toward Tatum, who is striding through the sand, tall and lithe in her black tank suit. Hollis’s eyes land on Tatum’s breasts, which are still the round, buoyant orbs they were in high school.
Tatum crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Are you taking pictures of me?”
“Tatum Grover, voted Best Body of the Class of ’87,” Hollis quips.
Tatum snatches the phone from Hollis and stares at the picture. Hollis tenses. What does Tatum think about now when she sees herself in a bathing
suit? Does she think her body has betrayed her? Does she worry about losing one—or both—of her five-star breasts?
Tatum’s fingers fly over the screen. “I’m sending this to Kyle,” she says.
“I look hot.”
Brooke wants to skip lunch.
At breakfast, she made herself a cup of tea instead of the café au lait that she wanted and she piled a plate high with fruit salad, which felt virtuous.
But then she noticed the bowl of granola. It was very clearly homemade, chock-full of almonds, pecans, dried cherries, and slivers of fresh coconut. It seemed a shame that Hollis had gone to all the trouble and everyone was ignoring it. Brooke ate a bowl and decided she wouldn’t have a morning bun.
But there were five buns on the plate and when Brooke picked one up, it smelled so strongly of cinnamon and butter that she took a nibble, which turned into more than a nibble; she ate the entire thing and licked her fingers.
Then she considered eating a second.
Now Brooke feigns sleep under the umbrella. She was alert and watchful while Dru-Ann was swimming (she’d heard stories about the rip currents on Nantucket, people getting swept out so far that they couldn’t make it back), and when Gigi entered the water, Brooke considered joining them—but then she assured herself that just because Dru-Ann and Gigi were swimming together did not mean they were becoming best friends. Or were they?
Brooke squinted, trying to read lips and facial expressions. She leaned forward, straining to catch a word or two, but it was impossible with the breeze and the sound of the waves. She was relieved when Gigi swam off and Dru-Ann headed for shore. Then Brooke noticed Hollis approaching the table with the sandwiches and she dropped her book (who was she kidding? She was never going to read it; even a beach book set on Nantucket couldn’t hold her attention. She had too many other things to obsess about, and reading was for people with peace of mind and Brooke had none), leaned back in her chaise, and closed her eyes.
But she’s a terrible actress. When Dru-Ann returns to her chaise to dry off, she says, “Brooke, lunch is ready,” and Brooke’s eyes fly open.
“I think I’m just going to nap,” Brooke says.
Dru-Ann stares at her a second and Brooke can practically hear her
thinking: What kind of fool gets invited to Hollis Shaw’s house for the weekend and doesn’t eat? “Suit yourself.”
Suit yourself is right, Brooke thinks. Just because they’re on a girls’ trip doesn’t mean they have to do everything together. If Brooke wants to skip lunch, she’ll skip lunch!
But she finds herself rising from her chaise and following Dru-Ann to the table. There are sandwiches: toasted Portuguese bread overflowing with lobster salad and thick BLTs with avocado. Brooke takes half a lobster salad and half a BLT. There’s an Asian noodle salad that looks healthy. Brooke puts a modest amount on her plate, then a bit more because it smells like lime and mint. She adds some watermelon (healthy!), and then she’s faced with
the platter of Paloma sugar cookies.
She can’t. She won’t.
She sits down next to Gigi, whose plate is heaped with food. Gigi takes a bite of the corner of her lobster salad sandwich and closes her eyes in ecstasy.
“How do you stay so thin?” Brooke asks.
Gigi dabs her lips with a napkin. She’s a movie star, Brooke thinks. A Bond girl. Her pixie cut is a little damp around the ears; her skin glows from the sun; her pareo is knotted between the breasts. “I savor every bite,” Gigi says. “And when I’m sated, I stop eating.”
Sated. What an elegant word. (Brooke thinks she knows what it means but she’s going to look it up later to be 100 percent sure.) Brooke brings the BLT to her mouth, thinking, I will savor this bite.
She tries, she really does, but then her thoughts start whirring. Why wouldn’t Gigi like Dru-Ann better than Brooke; she’s far more interesting; maybe Brooke should try harder with Tatum, but if she does that, will she alienate Dru-Ann? Dru-Ann and Tatum don’t get along. The problem with having an odd number of people is that someone is always left out. Hollis and Tatum are a pair and now maybe Gigi and Dru-Ann are, leaving Brooke by herself. As she’s thinking this, she crams first the BLT and then the lobster salad into her piehole. She flops down on her chaise, her entire body feeling bloated and leaden, and decides to try again with her beach book—she has now read the first paragraph four times; when is she supposed to get invested? Her eyelids droop. There’s no hope; the book falls into the sand.
Caroline is in her bedroom reviewing the drone footage. It’s incredible, if she does say so herself. She captured the majesty of their property—you see the house, the pond, the pool, and the ladies on the beach all from overhead, like God is watching—before swooping in for a closer look. The shots of the seal swimming are delightful; you feel like you’re right alongside him. The traffic on her mother’s website will go through the roof thanks to this; Caroline is sure of it.
She prepares a clip to send to Isaac. It’s technically a landscape study, but it’s better because of the human element.
She hears someone knocking on the front door. “Mom?” Caroline calls out. There’s no answer. Everyone must be out on the beach having lunch. She heads for the front door. The guy with the sandwiches came a little while ago, though this could be some other delivery. For one terrifying second, Caroline wonders if she’s going to find Sofia Desmione on her porch.
More knocking, then a male voice calling out something Caroline can’t understand. When she opens the door, she recognizes the man standing there, a perspiring, red-faced dude in khaki shorts, a blue oxford unbuttoned over a FREE BRADY T-shirt, a pair of flip-flops, and a green Red Sox hat, the kind Irish people like to wear.
“Caroline!” the man says, opening his arms wide and stumbling forward.
Instinctively, Caroline steps back. “Hey, Mr. Kirtley,” she says. There’s no chance she’s letting Charlie Kirtley hug her. The few times that happened when she was in high school, the hugs were too tight and lasted too long. And anyway, what is he doing here?
“Can you get my wife for me, please?” he says. He is ever so slightly slurring his words, which isn’t exactly surprising. Mr. Kirtley is a fun-haver.
When Caroline was in middle school, this had seemed cool. He was the parent who would take all the kids sledding on snowy Saturdays. His office had a suite at Boston Garden and he’d brought all of Will’s and Whitney’s friends to Celtics and Bruins games, and on the way into the city and back, he’d play whatever music they asked for at top volume, even if the lyrics were explicit, especially if the lyrics were explicit. But as Caroline got older, she realized Charlie Kirtley was the kind of man who had never really grown up. When he walked into a party at Owen Gaither’s house to pick up Will and Whitney, he’d knelt and done a beer funnel. When the kids all cheered, he
pumped his fist in the air. Did Caroline need to say more? That moment defines Charlie Kirtley.
“Okay?” Caroline says. She knows the polite thing to do is invite Charlie Kirtley inside and offer him a big glass of ice water, but Caroline gets a troubling vibe. Doesn’t Charlie understand this is a girls’ weekend? What’s good with him showing up out of the blue? Charlie turns around, sits on the top step of the porch, and drops his head into his hands. Caroline very quietly closes the front door and hurries to find her mother.
