4
I woke up before dawn with a savage hangover pulsing at the backs of my eyeballs, my mouth cottony and gym-sock rank. I shuffled dizzily into the bathroom and drank some water out of my cupped hands, then turned the faucet on full blast and stuck my whole head underneath it for good measure. I straightened up, blinking in the blue predawn light trickling in through the window before turning toward the door and sklonking the shin of my busted leg on a decorative step stool. I swore under my breath—at least, I meant to swear under my breath, but it must have been louder than I thought because a moment later I heard a door creak open down on the second floor, the investigative click of Whimsy’s nails on the hardwood followed by a set of human footsteps. Mr. Kendrick peered up at me from the landing.
“Uh-oh,” he said with a laugh. He was already wearing his bathing suit, plus a light pink polo shirt and a Black Dog baseball cap. He looked like the slightly manic string-bean character in a children’s cartoon about a gang of mischievous vegetables. I tried to picture him in jail—even minimum-security, countryclub–esque, Martha-Stewart-knitting-a-poncho kind of jail—and emphatically could not. “You kids overdo it a little bit last night?”
“Oh no,” I said quickly. The last thing I wanted was to get busted for being obliterated my very first night in his house. “We weren’t—I mean, we didn’t—”
“Relax, Linden.” Mr. Kendrick cut me off. “I was young once. And I always say to my guys, we’d rather you do it here.” He smiled. “A quick jump in the ocean will sort you right out.”
“Uh.” I shook my head. “Thanks, but I think I’m just going to head back to bed.”
“Bullshit,” he said cheerfully. “Go grab your suit; I’ll wait.”
Which was how I wound up bobbing neck-deep in the freezing-cold Atlantic before the sun was even all the way up, my balls trying to retreat all the way into my body and my headache significantly worse than it had been when I woke up.
“Better, right?” Mr. Kendrick asked once we’d finally waded in toward shore, a spring in his step as he crossed the wet, chilly sand. I trudged along behind him, trying not to shiver. “There’s nothing like it.”
Birdie was already in the kitchen when we got back up to the house, coffee gurgling away in the fancy machine on the counter. “How about a couple of egg white omelets, Birdie?” Mr. Kendrick asked. “And a Bloody Mary for my friend here.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I said immediately, “I’m good.” I’d met Birdie and her husband, Dean, the day before; they were the housekeepers and caretakers at August House, and lived on the island year-round in a cottage that had been converted from a barn down the road. Birdie was probably about my mom’s age, a little older than theKendricks, and having her around doing stuff for me—picking up my empty water glass, setting out little enamelware bowls of chips on the patio—made me feel hugely uncomfortable.
Also, it was seven o’clock in the morning, and Bloody Marys are gross.
But Mr. Kendrick was undeterred. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said in the same jocular voice he’d used to cajole me down to the beach. “Hair of the dog, et cetera.” He smiled, but I couldn’t tell if I was imagining something steely underneath it. All at once I remembered a phrase we’d read in history that year:an iron fist inside a velvet glove.Which was ridiculous, right? Even if hehadbeen in prison, it wasn’t like Jasper’s skinny, slightly nerdy dad was about to force me to chug a vodka cocktail against my will first thing in the morning.
But: I drank the Bloody Mary.
“There you go.” Mr. Kendrick nodded as Birdie slid a perfectly cooked omelet onto my plate, complete with a little tuft of parsley from the garden as a garnish. “Like I always tell the kids,” he said, “better to do it in the house.”
After breakfast I limped back upstairs and passed out for another hour, the kind of sweaty, restless sleep that doesn’t actually make you any less tired. I probably would have kept my head stuffed underneath the pillow until noon, but Jasper banged on my doorbefore letting himself into the bedroom and kicking lightly at the four-poster bed.
“Come on,” he said, “I want to go into town and get chips and stuff for later. And the girl who works at the coffee place on Friday mornings is extremely fucking hot.”
That was…enough to lure me out of bed, honestly. “Get more avocados,” Eliza instructed as we passed through the living room. She was lying on the sofa in running shorts and a tank top, her tan feet slung over one side. “And take the big car.”
Jasper pulled a face. The Kendricks had three cars that stayed on the island full-time and referred to them all by size, like the Three Bears; the big car was a Land Rover that looked like something Prince William would take on safari, but none of them liked to drive it because it handled like shit. “Why?” he asked.
“Because,” Eliza replied. She wasn’t looking at me; she hadn’t looked at me since we’d come into the room, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d tried to kiss her last night outside her bedroom, or because I hadn’t managed to get the job done. “Meredith and I are going to yoga.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Jasper said, “far be it from me to inconvenience you andMeredith.” He said her name the same way he had yesterday, like it had spoiled in the fridge and he hadn’t realized until he’d swallowed a huge mouthful. I remembered the way his easygoing features had twisted last night when we were playing Lies around the bonfire. I remembered what Eliza had told me about how everything had gone to shit.
The girl behind the counter at the coffee place was, in fact,extremely hot—though, I suspected, out of both my league and Jasper’s, with dark hair braided into a rope so thick you could have used it to hoist sails, and sleeves of colorful tattoos snaking up both arms. We got bagels for second breakfast and ate them at a table outside, watching the late-morning crowds stroll by. The whole island looked like the set of a TV show about precocious teenagers trying to lose their virginity while up-tempo pop songs played in the background: the tiny bookstore, the homemade ice-cream stand, the souvenir shop with its racks of pastel sweatshirts and locally drawn postcards out front. The sidewalks were all lined with cobblestones. Brightly colored flowers spilled from terra-cotta pots.
“So,” I ventured finally, swallowing the last of my bagel. All morning I’d been trying, and failing, to figure out how to bring this up casually. My hangover was mostly gone, but my head felt dull and slow from the nap; there was an anxious feeling gnawing away at my synapses, the sneaking suspicion that I had forgotten something important. “Last night at the bonfire.”
Jasper raised his eyebrows behind his Wayfarers. “What about it?” he asked.
“No, nothing.” I hesitated, trying to figure out a diplomatic way to say this, or if I really wanted to say it at all. “I don’t know. When we were playing Lies, you just kind of seemed—”
“Like a total fucking dick?”
That made me laugh. “I mean, yeah,” I agreed, relieved that he’d been the one to put it out there. “Maybe a little.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, leaning back in his patio chair and not sounding particularly sorry, “you’re probably right.”
“Eliza said—”
“Eliza said what?” Jasper’s mouth thinned.
