Danika pulled back, confused. She didn’t have much time to ruminate, though, because before she knew it, people were flocking to her. Everyone wanted to know who he was, where he was from, where she had found him.Finally.
Danika straightened and focused, answering each question with enough information to satisfy and avoid suspicion while retaining intrigue, as was her practiced nature. Still, the more she spoke of Chat, the more she found her limbs and heart growing instinctively heavy. She scolded herself for this—she had promised herself that his presence wouldn’t derail her—but it was proving easier said than done. Everything about him sent her mind careening back in time—back to a world and life she’d run from all those years ago.
2
Because Augie was no longer in hiding, she turned straight onto Aldon Lakes Boulevard. Over the past two weeks, she’d been taking the long way around Lake Minnetonka to avoid the main drag, but now, there was no point. She had already worked her first shift at the Club, and word was out. Everyone knew she was back in town. That she had failed.
Augie clenched the steering wheel tighter as she drove along the lakeside street, which anchored the area everyone referred to as “downtown.” Having just returned from New York City, Augie found it ridiculous. It was only one short stretch of road with one side built up. The other gave way to sidewalks and the bike trail that ringed the lake. The area was more developed than in years past (the suburb had benefited from the pandemic and subsequent shift away from the Cities), but still. As Augie and her mom had noted when they’d moved from Maine nine years earlier, Aldon Lakes was a wealthy suburban bubble.
Augie focused on the pavement as she drove, ignoring all the white manicured coffee shops and steak houses and overpriced boutiques glowing in the summer sun. She barely even looked up at the crosswalks, not wanting to recognize anyone and force a patheticwave. She hadn’t even returned her friends’ messages—hadn’t reinstalled her social media.
Augie couldn’t help but glance out at the lake. Despite how much she hated it there, the town was undeniably beautiful. The water shimmered like spilled glitter, the trees were full and lush with green, the sky overhead cloudless and calm. Augie always found it frustrating when the weather didn’t match her mood—how exhausting it was to feel depressed under a bright, beaming sun.
At least today she was helping Aida out. While she had dreaded asking for her old job back only two weeks ago, Aida had responded to her email right away.Thank god, she’d written, explaining they were understaffed and had seven new people with the Harrison wedding fast approaching.What did I do to deserve this? What happened to New York? Xoxo.
Sitting at JFK, eyes puffy from crying, Augie struggled to respond. She’d sent back a simpleSee you soon.
Augie reached the end of the boulevard, passed the Hotel Harrison, and turned into the Club’s employee lot. She hated that this was part of her muscle memory, though it wasn’t exactly surprising. Augie had worked summers at the country club since she was sixteen. Now, at twenty-two, she’d made this drive six summers in a row. Augie reminded herself not to dwell on this today; it was high on her list of “Things Not to Think About.” Of course, now that she was thinking about what she was not supposed to think about, the memory of him landed in her mind: the guy from the weekend boat party—the third person she’d ever slept with.
Augie didn’t remember his name, and while she did not regret sleeping with him (or the way her stomach flipped as she remembered kissing him in the cramped boat cabin), she needed to let him go. As her best friend, Leah, had said, he was a rebound, nothingmore. She’d always encouraged Augie to sleep with at least three people. “It’s like a science experiment,” she’d said, “you need three trials to even out the flukes.” Augie would admit, it had helped dull the memories of New York Fuckboy, as they’d taken to calling her heartbreak from earlier that year. As usual, Leah was right. Number three: It had been worth it.
Augie walked fast across the employee lot, sweating by the time she reached the rows of Range Rovers and Audis and brand-new M5s. The day was hot and humid—typical for a Minnesota summer—and she wiped her upper lip as she climbed the final hill to the Club. Augie was grateful for her sundress in that moment, for the loose ponytail that gathered her thick dark hair, for how, in those last seconds, she looked as if she could be anyone: here to relax at the pool, or meet her parents for lunch on the patio. Soon, she’d be back in a fresh, starchy banquet uniform. She’d returned her old one last summer in what was now an embarrassing show of goodbye.
Augie paused as she reached the entrance, staring up at the massive building that reminded her of both a wedding cake and the White House. She swallowed and gave herself one last pep talk: “Everything will be fine,” she whispered. “Everything will be fine!” she said again, louder.
Yet, cutting through it all was another, stronger voice, the one she couldn’t quiet, the one that kept hissing:You deserve this, this is what you get.She didn’t know how to respond to that voice. It was the truth.
The wedding was at three that afternoon, and though it was only ten, Augie felt a rush to reach Aida. She knew her boss was stressed. This was one of their largest weddings of the season, and Aida was still trying to impress Mr. Dryer, the new general manager, who was hiredlast year for their first summer fully open since COVID. Mr. Dryer was as stuck up as the guests, but Augie recognized he was only trying to do a good job. When he’d started, she’d imagined him going home at night, making note cards to memorize members’ names so he could greet them on the golf course, saying, “Mrs. Cline, Mr. Anderson, it’s so good to see you both!”
Augie undressed quickly in the locker room, pausing only briefly to admire her tan lines in the mirror. She’d been amazed by how quickly white lines had bloomed beneath her bikini straps at the boat party, forming an X across her back. She was unable to fight another memory, then: the boy from the lake kissing the lines up and over her shoulder blades, down her back.
Augie shivered, buttoned her uniform, and rushed upstairs, breaking into the Club’s golden light. She was relieved she didn’t see any members as she snaked down the hall and turned into the cavernous ballroom, which opened like a giant clamshell, everything opal and pearly white. Immediately, she saw Aida in the center, the maintenance staff to her side. They were rolling tables on their edges as if directing wild, unruly animals—almost comically small under the massive chandelier, which hung directly above them, beautiful and bored.
“Aug!” Aida opened her arms and hugged her tight. “I’m so happy to see you. I’m so sorry we didn’t get to catch up properly at the happy hour. That was such a shit show. Did you know we went through a whole month’s supply of caviar?”
“Of course we did. People probably brought to-go bags.” Augie smiled. She and Aida always joked that the richest members were also the cheapest, hoarding the fanciest food.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stay till close. I was so wiped.” Augie left out the fact that after the incident with Mrs. Crawley, she couldn’t waitto get out of there. Breaking a tray of glasses was the last thing she had needed during her first shift back. She knew it was pathetic, but that simple mistake had sent her over the edge. She had cried the whole way home.
“Oh, don’t be sorry. I get it. And you’ll have to tell me about New York later, maybe at family meal?”
Augie fought a lump in her throat. “So, it’s all ten tops, then? Twenty-five total?” She put her hands on her hips, studying the room. “The Harrisons aresopopular.”
“I know, right? I don’t know how they think they’re going to fit. Sorry, Dr. Harrison, but the room will not become larger, no matter who you are.”
Augie laughed. While they both genuinely liked Dr. Harrison—he was retired and sweet and loved to hum Sinatra at all hours of the day—all the Harrisons were divas.
“At least it’s only his niece’s wedding. Mallory’s was a nightmare. Only daughter and all. Be glad that was before your time.”
Augie could barely remember a time when she wasn’t working at the Club. “I do think you could push those tables a little more into the bar area,” she finally said, pointing. “It’s going to cool off tonight. Most people will stay outside.” Augie instinctively looked out the glass doors, colorful stripes of golf course, lake, and sky stacked like a trifle cake.
Aida nodded down at the circles drawn and redrawn on her clipboard. “Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Let’s move sixteen and seventeen. Hector?”
Augie started toward the kitchen, but Aida suddenly grabbed her hand, looking straight at her. “Thank you, Aug. We really appreciate having you back.”
As usual, Augie was caught by Aida’s beauty. Aida was Somali,and her irises and eyelashes were so dark and striking, it felt almost physically good—comforting, like touching silk—when she looked at you.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’ll start on the dinner plates.”
