The time Nicholas and Rebecca spent apart was exquisite agony, Aurelia Maupassant proclaimed, before spending two and a half Bexicon pages glossing over my bikini period, Nick’s apparent dustup with Gaz, and a variety of other juicy transgressions she could’ve unearthed if she had wanted to confront reality. Instead, she claimed we were saintly hermits:
They devoted their time to self-enrichment, firming up the deep strength of character with which they will lead this great nation into the future. While Nicholas bravely fought for our shores, Rebecca immersed herself in professional pursuits and charitable endeavours, and, as the consummate sportswoman, to perfecting her tennis game.
“That ball was out, Bex. DRINK,” Gaz bellowed.
“Too close to call,” Lacey said from a deck chair that was doubling as an umpire’s seat. “That means you both drink.”
“What’s the score?” I asked.
Lacey blinked. “Whoops. Six? Is that a thing in tennis?”
Gaz invented Drunk Doubles years ago, because he said he wasn’t comfortable letting someone club a yellow missile at him unless he was off his head. The rules change a lot because no one ever quite remembers them, but it starts with guzzling something potent if you lose a point or a set, if you ace a serve, at deuce, and at match point. The longer it goes, the harder it gets to see the ball, much less hit it, so it devolves into ineptitude and arguments and offers of replacement dares. I had already played an entire game wearing Gaz’s trousers, my partner Joss served backward, and for the last two points, Cilla had worn socks on her hands. Freddie had been right; the weekend was not, perhaps, a bucolic PBS-style affair.
We’d drawn up to the three-story ivy-covered manse late Friday night and woken in the morning to an actual rooster crowing and Bloody Marys on the peaceful terrace. Freddie’s warnings had seemed misplaced, until lunchtime came, and with it, a steady stream of thirsty guests. By the time we’d reached this late-afternoon stalemate at Drunk Doubles, there was an equally boozy game of lawn bowling down by the vegetable garden, suspicious smoke wafting from the tree house, and some convoluted gin-soaked swim relay. The estate teemed with the kind of young, preppy aristocrats who regularly retired to the country to escape the rigors of day jobs they bemoaned yet could never explain in specific terms. I vaguely knew a handful of them from Clive’s glossy party reports, but I wasn’t sure how they connected to Cilla, and she was too busy snogging Gaz on the court to ask.
“I think we win by default,” Joss declared.
“Hang on, you can’t punish a man for being in love,” Gaz shouted.
“Love means nothing in tennis,” I said. “Literally, in fact.”
As I reclaimed my pint from a peeling wooden bench, I spied Clive sitting by the pool, tapping away on his laptop and chatting to the dreaded Gemma Sands and Lady Bollocks—the former of whom I’d still never met and didn’t care to, and the latter of whom I was equally pleased to avoid. There were several single guys milling around whom Cilla had invited as a favor to those of us who were likewise uncoupled; one of them, appealingly, resembled Brad Pitt in his prime. He was playing a game of (non-strip) croquet with Freddie, and he was bracingly hot.
“Now that is a view,” Lacey said, slinging an arm around my neck. “You want dibs?”
“They’re all yours,” I said.
“Well, yeah, I know you don’t want Freddie,” she said. “But that other guy might do nicely.” She grinned naughtily. “For either of us, if Freddie doesn’t get his act together.”
“May the best Porter win,” I said with a smile.
She pulled my ponytail. “Done. But we have to clean up first. You look like you were just electrocuted.”
*
Cocktail hour coincided with one of England’s more cinematic summer twilights, scented by a blooming, exuberant garden growing up around the old stone terrace where we congregated. Movers were coming to the house in three days to clear out the antiques worth keeping—Cilla’s brother-in-law bought it furnished—and the rest of the gabled building and its picturesque patio would be demolished and built into something bigger and more modern and probably uglier. I wondered if Cilla’s sister had even seen it; to me, its cracks and chips gave this old place character.
I didn’t get to luxuriate in any of it, though, because Lady Bollocks marched right up to me as soon as I walked through the terrace doors. I’d hoped to summon enough sorcery to escape her entirely, but the sight of her so inflamed—angular brows, squinting eyes, sequined minidress shooshing as she stomped toward me—against such an august backdrop was so amusing that my nerves abandoned me.
“That isn’t awful,” she greeted me, flicking a finger at my slim-fitting patterned dress. “Which can only mean you didn’t pick it out yourself.”
“Oh, buzz off, Bea,” I said. “If that’s all you have to say, then go back to ignoring me.”
Bea took a sharp bite out of her martini olive. “Someone had to pick Nick in the divorce.”
“Most people had the strength of character to choose both,” sassed Lacey from her perch on the low stone wall of the terrace, where she was nursing a bottle of something orange-flavored called Hooch.
“Frankly, I’m beginning to see why Nick should have picked you, having been forced to endure all the other nitwits coming after him lately,” Bea said.
“I’m sorry my breakup has been so difficult for you,” I said. “How’s your sister?”
“Fucking great,” said a raven-haired girl who uncoiled herself from a chair near Lacey.
I peered closer at her. “Pudge?”
“I go by Larchmont Kent now,” she said. She was groomed to within an inch of her life, with luxurious long hair, and wore a slouchy white romper that was insanely ugly in that annoying way where it also looked fabulous. She appeared to be sans underwear.
“She’s modeling,” Bea said, prickly pride masking a bit of concern. “Discovered by a scout who was in rehab with her at the Priory last time. She just did Japanese Vogue.”
“Fashion is redemption,” Ex-Pudge said dreamily. “No judgment. Just an embrace.”
Bea squinted at her. “Are you high now?”
“If you mean high on serenity, then yes,” she said patiently. “I was meditating. I may need to find the koi pond.”
“There’s a koi pond?” I asked Bea, looking at her sister’s retreating figure.
“Focus.” Bea snapped her fingers in front of my face. “I will only say this once, so listen well. You are far less irritating than Nick’s other options, so I need you to get back together.”
“Oh! Well, if that’s what you want,” I said.
“It is,” Bea said, missing my sarcasm. “You were good for him. He was so much lighter with you. If only you’d met last year, it would have been considerably easier for everyone.”