“It is. But I don’t know how similar we are. You seem … I don’t know. Much more together than me. You’re, what, three years younger? Four? But already you have a self-possession I never had.”
“Are you kidding?” She turns to me, aghast. “You’re completely confident! For starters you just flew in, not knowing anyone, and already, in one night, you feel like you totally belong. You don’t have any anxiety, or fear—”
I sputter. “I was so terrified when I got to the airport I practically couldn’t walk.”
“It didn’t show.”
I pause before deciding to ask about her sister. “I have a question. What’s Ellie like? Are the two of you close?”
Julia turns to check we are alone, lowering her voice. “I love her, of course. She’s my sister, and if ever she was in trouble I’d be the first one there to help her, but … we’re very different.”
“I can see that.”
“You have to understand it’s all insecurity on her part. Not that I’m not insecure, but she covers it by being cool and superior, when she isn’t actually like that at all. We have different mothers, you know that, right? My mom was with my dad for most of my life, and by the time they split up I was an adult; it didn’t have the same impact. Ellie’s mom and my dad split up when she was a baby. Her mom had lived here, on Nantucket, before moving to Boston after the split. Ellie was always here for summers, and I think of her as my sister, not half or anything like that, but I recognize she’s very different from me. Her mom’s…” She lowers her voice still more. “Difficult.”
“What kind of difficult?”
Julia checks that no one is coming into the room. “Her mother was a big social climber. Huge. I’m not supposed to know this, but she was totally from the wrong side of the tracks. She thought my dad had fortunes, didn’t realize it was all tied up in trusts, and I guess by the time she discovered she wasn’t going to be living a life of luxury with homes on Nantucket and in Boston and on St. Barth’s, it was time to leave.”
“She sounds ruthless. Ellie was a baby, you said?”
“Yes. And the mother, Lily, was on a mission to find another wealthy husband. She found one almost immediately, so Ellie was whisked into this life of luxury, but I know deep down she’s terrified people might discover she doesn’t actually deserve it.”
“It sounds like the dream life.”
“Ellie got lavished with everything she wanted, except love and attention. Except when she was here. Lily’s now on her fifth husband. Every time she gets married she focuses all her attention on the man, nothing on her child, or the children that came after Ellie. Ellie always used to say when she was with her mom she felt unwanted. Pretty much the only place she felt safe, and loved, was here with my dad.”
I think about my own childhood. “I can definitely relate to the feeling unwanted,” I say.
“I’m sorry. The awful thing is the older she gets, the more like her mom she is. I mean, not here so much. When she’s here she’s usually able to let go of the superficial shit. My dad would give her such a hard time if she turned up filled with airs and graces, but she’s married to a banker, and they have this huge life with a huge house in New York, and, like Lily, it’s all about seeing and being seen at the right functions. She has a closet that, I’m not kidding, is bigger than my bedroom here.”
I turn and look at the kitchen, this house that she is staying in for the summer, that she stays in every summer, and I know that even though every fiber in my body is recoiling at what I’m hearing about Ellie, I also know she can’t be all bad, not if she stays here.
This house is cozy, and worn, and comfortable. The kitchen hasn’t been redone in at least thirty years. The table is scrubbed with years of use; cookbooks fill the shelves on either side of the range, and not one looks like it was printed after 1984.
This is not a house that a precious princess would stay in unless she has a very different side.
“Yet she loves it here,” I say, turning back to Julia and taking a plate.