a party invitation at a gated driveway filled with luxury cars, and we’re allowed to come inside. We’re directed to follow a path that leads to a pool and pool house—one that looks bigger than our apartment above the bookshop.
“Uh, Evie? Who are these people?” I ask as we make our way toward the pool’s blue water, around which dozens of teens are laughing and drinking and dancing to loud music.
“Mostly Goldens,” she says. Golden Academy, the private school in Beauty. Elite. Ivy League prep. Out of reach. “A lot of college students, home for the summer. Harvard’s only a couple hours away. Wish I could afford it.”
My goth cousin at an Ivy League? I wonder if this is because she briefly dated the Harvard guy. She’s taking some basic biology courses at the local community college for a couple of years, but she wants to be a forensic anthropologist. Or a historian. Or a writer. In typical Saint-Martin fashion, she’s always changing her mind. Even her mother, Franny—the straitlaced sister, compared to my mom—changed careers a dozen times before she rented out their house and ran off to Nepal with Grandma.
I get a little nervous the closer we get to the pool, where everyone’s congregating. These kids don’t just look rich, they look older. Prettier. Bigger. Faster … Better. I see them swaggering around town, but it’s weird to be invading their personal property. I feel like an interloper. “Um, Evie? How do you know this crowd again? Because you dated that guy?”
“Adrian. Yeah, sort of.”
“If you broke up with him, why are we here?”
“He’s one person. Plenty of other fish in the sea. Besides, I was assured he wasn’t invited, so we won’t be running into him. One hour, okay? Then if you want to jet, we’re out.”
One hour? Dream on. Twenty minutes of weaving through the bikini tops and top-siders, hearing snatches of conversations about Harvard’s rowing team and summering at the beaches north of the harbor and trips to Europe … and it’s all. Too. Much.
Evie finds her people, though. One is a friendly brown-eyed girl from Barcelona named Vanessa who goes to college with Evie and knows enough about me to catch me off guard. “Feel like I already know you,” she says in a pretty Castilian accent.
Which is odd, because Evie’s never mentioned this Vanessa person before. Guess they’re close friends, because they link elbows and Evie visibly relaxes around her. There’s another girl with them who’s headed to Princeton next year, but I don’t catch her name. They pretend to try and include me in their conversation in an obligatory kind of way, but they’re older than me, and it’s pretty clear that I’m deadwood by the way they turn their shoulders to exclude me.
While Evie gets caught up in a deep conversation with Vanessa about environmental activism and the rising temperatures in the harbor, I wander around the pool, pretending that I know where I’m going, feet matching the rhythm of the thumping music that blares through unseen speakers. And after making the mistake of wandering into the pool house—drinks and a bathroom, sure, but too many strange eyes staring at me—I head through French doors to a secluded patio around back.
It’s shadowy out here, lit only by a few globe lights, and there’s a shrub maze that shields the back patio from the pool; it’s segmented into a couple of seating areas. Plastic cups and cigarette butts litter a glass-topped side table next to a patio chair—unofficial smoking area, I suppose. I plop down in the chair and sigh heavily. This is a good moping spot for me to lick my wounds about the magazine internship. Maybe come up with a plan B. Maybe even a plan B through D.
Almost immediately, I feel a prickle on the back of my neck and suddenly realize my secluded oasis isn’t as private as I’d originally thought.
I’m not alone.
SUMMERS & CO: An early twentieth-century sign curves around the Art Deco entrance of one of the last thriving independent American department stores. Open since the 1920s, the multifloor store is known for its custom tailoring and elaborate holiday window displays. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 3
“Well, well, well,” a gravelly voice says.
I jump, startled, and peer into the darkness. Someone’s sitting, legs kicked out casually, on a loveseat-style piece of patio furniture tucked behind a tall, trellised shrub. When he leans forward to rest his forearms on his knees, the angular planes of his scarred face shift