“Uh, obviously.” She punches him in the arm and says, “When’d you get so rich, David?” Brice Buchanan bought this house just under two years ago, when his love affair with Block Island began, and Nicola knows it’s just the—a—summer residence, one of two or three, and that there’s also the home in Boston’s Back Bay, the ski condo in Montana, and whatever else the Buchanan family owns around the world.
“September twenty-third, almost four years ago,” he said, grinning wickedly. Of course. His wedding day. “Let’s see. Follow me. Family room.” The family room contains every shade of white you can imagine: white couch, a slightly different shade of white armchairs, a white leather coffee table. The couch is dotted here and there with nautical accent pillows. A massive stone fireplace anchors theroom; facing Great Salt Pond is a row of floor-to-ceiling windows, uncurtained, unshaded, the better to let the view in, and beyond, a patio and a giant square raised deck with weathered loungers cushioned in navy blue. “Pool,” said David unnecessarily, because that part is obvious, then, turning from the windows and leading Nicola toward the center of the house, “Kitchen.” Open-concept, slate-gray cabinets, wide-tiled floor, a woman in pinned-up braids busily chopping at an off-white island. Not Taylor. The woman doesn’t look up. Then Nicola hears footsteps clicking along from somewhere, and David calls out, “Come and say hello to Nicola. You know each other, right?”
“Of course,” says a voice from a distant, distant hallway. The voice comes closer, and here’s Taylor, saying, “The Country Cousin.”
Nicola feels her skin warm just as David says, “Jesus, Taylor.”
“I’m kidding! Of course I know Nicola. We met at our wedding.” She kisses Nicola on the cheek. Taylor’s lips are cool against Nicola’s hot face, and she wishes she’d rinsed off after the bike ride. “I married him for his looks, not his memory,” she says. Nicola laughs uncertainly and looks back and forth between the two.
A moment passes when it seems that the mood could go either way—it puts Nicola in mind of the seconds after a child falls, when he is deciding whether to wail or not—and finally David unleashes his megawatt smile again and says, “And I married Taylor for her money.” They all laugh then, and Taylor tells David something about a meeting with a something-or-other guy about a this-or-that permit. Nicola tunes out—she doesn’t speak Developer—and takes the opportunity to study Taylor.
She starts with her long, flaxen hair (that shade of gold can’t be natural—can it? It looks natural, but that’s what money can buy you, a natural version of unnatural). Then she moves on to her full-but-not-too-full lips, her prominent cheekbones. Her clothes—flowing, layered garments—give the impression of being pure silk, but it’s possible they are instead a very expensive sort of cotton. If IvankaTrump and Blake Lively had a baby, Nicola decides, Taylor Buchanan could be the grown-up version of that baby.
Taylor looks at her watch and says, “Let’s eat, okay? I have a meeting.”
David grimaces. “Another evening meeting?”
Taylor nods. “This permit thing is no joke. It’s turning out to be much harder than Daddy thought it would be, and guess who gets to do the grunt work?” Nobody answers; Nicola figures she and David are both assuming the question is rhetorical. A grown woman calling her father “Daddy” freaks Nicola out a little, but, like so many other things, she attributes this habit of Taylor’s to the money. The rules are different for the rich.
“Where’s Jack?” asks David. “Does he know we have a dinner guest?”
“Who’s Jack?”
“He’s our lodger,” says Taylor, rolling her eyes. Nicola, still burning from the Country Cousin comment, turns to David for the real explanation.
“My college buddy,” corrects David. “You’ve met him. He was the best man at our wedding!”
Nicola shakes her head and says, “There were so many people at your wedding.”
“But he was thebest man,” insists David.
“Well, I have theworst memory.”
“He’s a playboy without a mansion, is what he is,” says Taylor. “Jack Baker, the golfer?”
“Am I supposed to know that name?”
“You follow the PGA?” David asks this.
“Nope.” If it’s not the Twins or the Vikings, she doesn’t follow them. The old David would have known that. David lowers his voice and says, “He’s sort of a celebrity in the golf world. And he should be on the Tour but he had a thing—well, I won’t get into it. An injury of sorts.”
“Achilles,” says Taylor.
“It’s a lot of pressure,” says David.
“Pressure,” says Taylor, “is dealing with the people on this island who control everything. Pressure is the planning board.” She shakes her head and scowls prettily.
Nicola has never understood how people who make millions of dollars feel pressure—real pressure, she thinks, is what people feel who have to decide between turning on the heat and buying insulin for their child. But so much about this world is relative.
“The TV cameras love Jack,” says David, not acknowledging Taylor’s complaint. “Whether he’s playing or not.”
More footsteps, another hallway, and then David says in a loud, overly cheerful voice, “There he is! The man himself. Come meet my cousin, you old bastard.”
The old bastard comes out, and David introduces Nicola to Jack Baker, who puts out his hand. And Nicola, who tries to avoid clichés, she really does, feels for at least three seconds like her heart stands still.
Jack Baker is hot.
A flop of blond hair, dark brown eyes, suntanned skin, an easy, jaunty smile revealing white, white teeth. He is almost the genetic opposite of Zachary, who is pale of skin, Keto-thin. You have to work to get a smile out of Zachary, not because of his moods, though there are those sometimes too, but also because he is self-conscious about his smile. Nicola found that endearing, until she didn’t.
