It goes down like this.
In May Sam enrolls in her mother’s alma mater, New York University; in early June she graduates from high school. She wants to be in New York City, but when she digs deep into her psyche she knows that that’s the only thing drawing her to NYU. She doesn’t want to spend the money she made from the Disney show andMockingbirdon tuition for classes she isn’t interested in taking. But she doesn’t know what else to do, and her mother is so excited for her. Her dad is excited for her. Henry is excited for her, although he hoped she’d apply to Middlebury, or at least the University of Vermont, so they’d be closer to each other.
In June, she worries. But she also gets a job waiting tables at PJ’s Pub, and she goes to the beach during the day, and she makes and posts a lot of videos on TikTok. She picks up a bunch of followers. Then more, and more, and more. It doesn’t matter how silly or inane the videos are, or even what they’re about. People are eager to know what the third daughter from the once-popularMy Three Daughtersis up to! More videos, more followers.
In July, she gets a DM from Tink Macalester. Sam has heard of Tink, the mastermind behind one of the biggest collab houses in L.A., Rainbow House. Tink wants to start a collab house in Manhattan: the first of its kind on the east coast. She’s got six people signed on already, and she needs a seventh and an eighth. Tink was a fan ofMy Three Daughtersback in the day, and she’s been watching Sam’s videos. (She loved the video where Sam put makeup on one of her mother’s rescue dogs to the sound of “Let’s Get It On.”) Really, Tink could watch Sam’s videos all day long. Tink thinks Sam has the It Factor.
“Like anyone really knows if that’s a thing! The It Factor!” Tink says, laughing, when they connect by phone. (People in Tink’s world are always “connecting” or “circling back” or “putting a pin in” discussions.) “But if it is, you have it, girl. You have it.”
Is Sam interested in joining them in Manhattan’s first-ever collab house?
Hell yes, Sam is interested in joining them! The first payment for NYU is due in a little under a week. Tink got to her just in time: She’ll lose just the initial deposit. That’s a loss she can absorb.
Her mother is devastated; her father is confused. Henry is disapproving. But Sam turned eighteen in March. They all agree she’s old enough to make her own decisions, even if nobody agrees with them.
The TikTokers move in in September. Seven of them at first, all young, all beautiful. Xanadu, Tink decides to call the house. “It’s a metaphor for an idyllic place,” she explains, though Sam, daughter of an English teacher, already knows this.
Tink is thirty-four years old but looks twenty-five. She dresses like she’s sixteen, or, when the occasion calls for it, forty. She’s part den mother, part therapist, part party planner, part party attendee, part accountant. She doesn’t live at Xanadu; she “splits her time” between New York and L.A., and pops in both expectedly and unexpectedly. She has her own key.
The boys: Scooter, Nathan, Boom Boom, Tucker. The girls: Cece, Kylie, Sam. Everything would have been fine if they’d stopped there, but Tink wants an equal number of boys and girls, so the last person to move in is Alice. Alice and Sam have the same skin tone, similar hair color. They’re nearly the same size, so they can share clothes. In the beginning, this feels like a blessing—Alice is the sister Sam never had! By the end, it’s a curse.
Sam is riding her bike up Corn Neck Road on the way to thebeach. Strictly speaking, it’s not her bike—it belongs to her uncle’s friend Floyd, but both Uncle Timmy and Gertie have assured her that she can use it as much as she wants to. Floyd, they’re willing to bet, is not much of a cyclist.
The island is only seven miles in circumference, so it’s maybe three miles from Mohegan Trail to Corn Neck, but oh, the hills! The hills. Feels like twenty miles. Sam’s sweating; she’s panting; her heart rate is skyrocketing. She stops to rest for a moment, and to sip from her water bottle, when an unfamiliar car pulls up alongside her, and a very familiar voice says, “Sammy?”
Sam peers through the lowered passenger window. “Mom? Whose car is that?”
“It’s Floyd Barringer’s,” says Amy. “It was part of my deal with Timmy. Obviously I couldn’t bring a car over on the ferry every day, so he said I could use this while I’m here.”
“There was an extra car?” pants Sam. “All this time? And I’ve beenbiking?”
Amy shrugs and says, “Looks like it!” a bit too merrily. “I think I found a rehearsal space! It’s a barn just up the road from here. It’s technically for sale, but they’re willing to take it off the market for the month of July. I guess the money we’re offering, plus the cachet of having Gertie Sanger rehearse there, is worth it. This barn is perfect, Sam. I feel like I’m earning my keep!”
Sam knows she should say something kind and supportive, like,Good job, Mom!Or,I’d love to see the barn!But she’s feeling neither kind nor supportive; she’s feeling sweaty and thirsty. So what she says instead is, “Are you going to be here every day?”
“Every weekday, for now. Until we get closer to tech. Then, probably some weekends. Maybe I can stay over at the house with you guys! Save myself the trip. Kidding, I’mkidding,Sam, don’t look so disheartened. I won’t cramp your style. I promise.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Sam. “I don’t have much style right now anyway.”
Her mother laughs and says, “Oh, come on, now. You’ll always have style.” She waves at a car to go around her and says, “Do you haveany idea,Sam, how much this place has changed since I was growing up here?”
Sam rolls her eyes and thinks, Oh, great. Just what I was hoping to get out of the afternoon: a trip down Memory Lane. “How would I know that, Mom? I’m not like some island historian.”
Her mother laughs again: her good mood seems to be impenetrable. “Did you know there weren’t even mopeds here in the seventies?” As if on cue, a moped rushes past them, a girl’s hair flying out from underneath the helmet. “Did you know you couldn’t just hop on a ferry on a whim? The ferries didn’t run that often! You had toplan.”
“You have to plan now, Mom.”
“So!” Amy says brightly, ignoring this last comment. “How’s everything going at Timmy’s?”
“Fine. Good.”
“Sam—are you okay? Are you really okay?”
No. I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not. “Yes,” says Sam finally, whether because it’s true or because she thinks it’s what her mother wants to hear, she’s not sure. “I’m really okay.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened in New York?”
Sam blanches. “Right now? Through a car window?”
