“Oh, Lord, I don’t know about you, but Colin would be really disappointed if he tried that,” Augusta said.
“You don’t think he could make it work?” asked Bailey curiously.
“I mean, he’d get there, but I’m sure he’d just flop down on the bed and start stroking away and then realize that it’s actually a whole process,” Augusta said thoughtfully.
“Like that the house has to be totally empty?”
“And you can’t be too hungry or too full.”
“And you have to clear your mind. No work or kids or anything stressful.”
“God, no. If it’s been a stressful day just forget about it.”
“This could actually be a really useful exercise,” mused Fran. “I mean, maybe if RJ spent a day trying and failing to get off, he would improve his whole foreplay routine.”
“Oh my God, he totally would!” said Augusta, her cheeks pink with amusement. “He would take the kids out for the entire day and leave you alone with a case of wine and a stack of those hockey romance novels.”
“I feel like I just learned a lot about you, babe,” said Bailey, and Augusta splashed her.
You weren’t allowedto take boats to the regular part of Crane’s, but this far down, around the point of Steep Hill, locals zipped back and forth between the beach and the Neck, dragging the little aluminum boats up on the sand, or anchoring fiberglass ones in the shallow water. It was a festive, happy scene, with families wading up to the beach with coolers on their heads, Jet Skis zipping by, teenagers cannonballing from the far rocks.
Augusta fed the baby on a towel while her daughter Jane wove a bracelet out of tiny rubber bands and the little boys collected sticks up by the dunes to build a fort.
“I think that if I had to go onSurvivorI’d bring those boys with me.” Caroline nodded at London, Hale, and Charlie.
“You can have them,” Fran joked.
“I saw them hunting fish earlier, now they’re building a shelter out of sticks. They would slay the whole thing,” Caroline mused.
“They’d probably love it,” agreed Augusta. “They wouldn’t have to shower or brush their teeth and they could pee outside all day.”
“Bad news, though,” Fran cut in. “They only eat chicken fingers and pizza, they need a nightlight and stuffed animal to sleep, and if youdon’t have enough wine on the island, you’ll probably lose your mind by the third day.”
“Ah, fair.” Caroline grinned. “I actually knew a guy who was onSurvivor.This actor with tribal tattoos. We went on a few dates, and he kept finding ways to bring up the show in every conversation.”
“Cringe.” Fran wrinkled her nose.
“I went to his apartment once and he casually had an old issue ofEntertainment Weeklyout on the coffee table with a picture of himself.”
“Red flag,” said Augusta.
“Gross,” agreed Bailey.
In the lateafternoonBailey moved her beach chair under an umbrella and opened a can of Diet Coke. She watched as Caroline and Vanny took off on a walk together, Vanny pointing out at Plum Island, pointing up at the castle. Bailey imagined he was telling her about the nesting habits of piping plovers or the history of New England fisheries. Vanny was a hopeless nerd and Bailey smiled to herself. Now that she was older, she was starting to realize that she’d been unfair to Van over the years. She knew he felt more strongly about her than she felt about him, but instead of cutting him loose she always sort of kept him waiting in the wings, someone to fall back on between boyfriends, someone to give her an ego boost when she needed it. It wasn’t that black-and-white, though. Sometimes she’d thought she might love him, or that she might grow to love him, or that they could have one of those deals where if they were both forty and single, they’d just go ahead and get married. But instead, Van had found someone new, and Bailey realized she might have fucked it all up.
“Is it difficult to watch them together?” Max asked quietly. Bailey hadn’t realized she was being observed and she flushed.
“No, no, it’s not.” She shook her head.
“You don’t resent Caroline?” he asked. Max had been with Eben for years and Bailey had hung out with him at countless birthdays and barbecues, but he still sometimes surprised her. He was French, and he was direct in a way that nobody else was. She could feel her friends keeping an eye on her when Vanny and Caroline were around, but they went to great lengths to act like everything was normal. It was like they were afraid that if they pushed too hard the careful bubble of their friendship group would pop. She had thrown off the delicate balance with her pregnancy and it affected everyone. Max was tangential to the group, he relied less on keeping it all intact, so he could afford to say the things nobody else would. Or, maybe because he was French, he was just more comfortable with the shifting boundaries of romantic relationships. Didn’t they all just have torrid affairs and then go home for elaborate dinners of leeks and snails with their wives?
“Max. I think Van and Caroline are cute together. I’m fine,” Bailey said firmly.
“This group is so incestuous,” Max said, and rolled his eyes. “So secretive and sneaky.”
“You love us,” Bailey teased.
There were goingto be fireworks after eight, so they had packed dinner, pasta salad with grilled veggies, ham and cheese on baguettes, cucumber and tomato salad, brownies with bits of salty pretzel baked in. Eben and Max helped Bailey shake the sand off the blankets and set up the picnic. There was a plastic Tupperware carefully labeled “Adult Brownies” that Fran and the guys had been snacking on all afternoon, and Bailey kept those off to the side. They tied a trash bag to the handle of the wagon and gathered a dozen empty cans in another.Eben was wearing expensive sunglasses unlike anything he would have worn in high school and a tank top that showed off his sculpted arms.
