“My cell connection sometimes drops upstairs,” explains Juliana. “So I was walking around in the front, trying to get a signal...”
“And Mo is ahugeLookBook fan,” adds Taylor.
“I’m on that site all the time!” cries Mo. “Ilovea bargain.”
“She really does,” confirms Michael.
“Well, thank you. Thank you for being a fan. And I’m so glad you all stopped by,” says Juliana, although she doesn’t look at all glad. She looks awkward and stressed. Nicola heard the mopeds, of course, so she knows that’s how they’d come, but something about the general demeanor of these three gives the impression that they have recently dismounted from a trio of horses, which are now being sponged down and given water by the stable hands.
Nicola can’t remember where Taylor went to high school—one of the well-known New England boarding schools, the kind with classes in Mandarin and hard-core ceramics and with gorgeous students who, in mystery novels, are always murdering each other and not getting caught for twenty years, when new information comes to light. BothMs have the same breezy, slightly bored way of looking at their surroundings, like maybe they think Juliana’s house is nice but not as nice as their uncle’s place in St. Lucia, or maybe Block Island is a cute island but wouldn’t it be cuter if it were annexed to the Vineyard?
What is Taylor playing at? And why does Nicola care? None of this affects Nicola, not directly anyway. She’s involved tangentially through Jack, tangentially through David, so why can’t she leave it in the tangents? She doesn’t know; she answered Juliana’s summons; she’s drawn in. She studies Taylor, trying to figure it out. Either she knows about her husband and Juliana and has come to confront her, or she knows about them and has come to engage in some mindfuck game without confronting her. A third option: she doesn’t know, but is somehow, at this awkward visit, about to find out.
“Who kayaks?” asks Taylor, nodding at the pair of paddles down on the dock.
“Oh, nobody. I mean, I keep them for guests. I don’t go in the water. I don’t like to swim.”
“You don’t like to swim?” asks Mo. She gazes at Juliana like she’s an exotic creature recently brought over on the ferry, the way the island’s first deer were in the late sixties.
Allison brings out the drinks and asks Nicola if she wants anything. No, thank you, she doesn’t. She notices that Juliana’s hands are shaking, and she sees her grip one hand over the other to try to hold them both still. By the time she takes she champagne flute from Allison she has them under control. There’s one unoccupied love seat in the circle. Juliana perches on the edge of it and signals for Nicola to sit beside her, which she does. Continuing the charadethat this drop-by falls closer to normal on the spectrum of normal to bizarre than it actually does, Nicola asks, “What are you guys up to after this?”
Mo says, “A little more exploring, I think. It’s our first time here, me and Michael. Ever since Taylor got the house she’s been promising to let us visit...” Taylor rolls her eyes and says they haven’t had it that long. “Then we’re going for drinks at... what’s it called, Tay?” Mo looks at Taylor expectantly.
Tay.Hearing a nickname, meeting two of her high school friends, Nicola is able to see in this haughty version of Taylor a younger version—less ice queen, more teenager. Because the fact is that tall, willowy women like Taylor are often gawky and graceless in high school: legs too long, feet too big, breasts too small to fit the idealized version of a high school girl. Then around college they hit some sort of Gisele Bündchen level of beauty and nobody can believe that they ever did anything but glide effortlessly through life in extra-long size zeros.
“The Oar,” says Taylor. She points across Great Salt Pond in the general direction of the place.
What Nicola is trying to articulate is that for an instant, she can see a vulnerability in Taylor, an openness that many of us have when we are our teenage selves. Nicola supposes this is because that’s when we form truly intimate friendships for the first time, peeling ourselves away from our families layer by layer and giving our minds, our bodies, our hearts to others.
“Love The Oar,” Nicola says because she feels like she should say something. And also because she did love The Oar, the one time she went there.
Mo is sipping her champagne, but when Nicola glances at Juliana’s glass there’s only a quarter remaining. Ed Sheeran has barely touched his beer. Taylor’s hair glows even more goldenly as the late afternoon light turns to early evening light.
“We should come to one of your parties!” cries Mo.
“Absolutely,”says Juliana smoothly, glancing at Taylor. “Come on Friday.”
“Yeah? Really?” Mo sits forward eagerly.
“We’re leaving Thursday,” Michael reminds her.
“We don’t have to, though,” says Mo. “We can leave on Sunday instead. Right?”
“I don’t think so. My parents are expecting us in Bar Harbor on Friday.”
“What are these parties all about?” asks Taylor. The aggressiveness of her question, the suddenness of it, makes it seem like she’s interrupting but actually nobody else is talking at the time.
“About?” asks Juliana.
“I mean, what’s the point? Big parties are so muchwork.”
“I’m not doing the work,” says Juliana. “I’m paying oth—”
“Well, no, of course not, obviously. But what do you get out of throwing them?”
“Oh,” says Juliana. Nicola watches her wrestle with herself. “It’s good for the brand. Free publicity, you know.” She can’t say anything about the IPO, and Nicola can see how badly she wants to.
“I wouldn’t call it free,” snorts Taylor.
