“No,” Jane exclaimed happily, and everyone else looked properly interested. “Are you serious?”
“I think so.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“I figure I’ll check out the house, just to see it—I saw those garden tours online. Maybe talk to Edward Barbanel.”
“You should go with Lexi tomorrow,” Jane said. “Get the lay of the land.”
“I don’t want to impose—” I said, hating myself for sounding stiff and timid even as the words left my mouth. “I mean, Ido, but—”
“You should,” Lexi said, her brows slightly raised. “Ms. Wilson is always willing to hire more hands. And honestly, I’m all for shaking up some bougie rich people.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t be trouble or anything.”
“You’re only invited because I hope you will be,” Lexi said, cracking a smile. “We feed on drama.”
“Cheers to that,” Pranav said, and we all laughed and lifted our plastic cups.
So the next day, I headed to Golden Doors.
Three
Lexi picked me up at five, in a Jeep crammed with other kids from the catering company. I squeezed in the back, wearing black shorts and a white top like the others, and let their music and conversation wash over me as they gossiped casually about people I didn’t know.
As the elevation climbed, the houses grew farther apart. Hydrangea bushes, with their globes of tiny flowers, blossomed everywhere, beneath shady trees, over white fences, climbing up trellises. Sea views dipped in and out of sight, the water sparkling like diamonds. I draped my arm out the window and turned my face up to soak in the late-June heat.
We passed rolling green fields, our view of the ocean now almost unbroken, a line of ever-present blue beneath the constant sky. Only giant mansions, with colonnaded porches and drives made of crushed white shells, interfered. Eventually, we turned down an unpaved lane.
And Golden Doors came into sight.
The pictures I’d seen hadn’t captured the grandiosity. The house was sprawling and elegant, all gray cedar shingle and peaked roofs and gables and chimneys. Two dozen windows were set on the side facing us alone. A veranda circled the first story, while balconies dotted the second. A widow’s walk crowned one branch of the house.
“It’s a lot,” I said.
“Twenty-five million dollars,” the girl next to me said. “Not that they’d ever sell.”
Wow. It was nice, but notthatnice.
“It’s not just for the house,” a boy added, when he saw my face. “It’s also the land.”
At first I didn’t get it, but then, as we drove around the side of the house to the parking area, I did.
Theland.
While everyone else bustled about, I stood still. Exquisite lawns and gardens spread behind the house, until the earth dropped away, falling toward the shore and sea itself.
Just as I’d known it would. I knew the gardens E had written of, and the ocean he’d painted. Past the manicured hedges and neatly planted flowers lay a rose garden and a gazebo, and riotous hydrangeas tumbling down dunes to the beach. A shiver cut through me—of recognition, or foreboding. Maybe I’d trespassed too far.
“Come on, Abby,” Lexi said. “Let’s find Ms. Wilson.”
Too late now.
She led me across the lawn, where people raised white tents and strung up fairy lights. Tablecloths billowed in the air before landing on folding tables, where bouquets were then placed at intervals. A clump of workers set up a sound system, and behind them, a woman consulted a clipboard: Lindsey Wilson, who ran the catering company.
We’d spoken on the phone this morning, and she greeted me briskly. “The Barbanel parties are always easy,” she said as I scrawled my signature across several forms. “But they’re a private family, so don’t poke around.”
Lexi smirked.
