“No,” Brooke says. “Maybe later this weekend, but not right now.”
Gigi relaxes a bit; this kind of chat is unusual for her. She has never had close girlfriends. At SAS, Gigi occasionally befriended a girl whose parents had been relocated by a bank or corporation, but the stint in Singapore was always temporary—the parents got transferred or the family couldn’t adjust to the oppressive heat or the strict laws and they left after a year or two. Gigi’s classmates at Embry-Riddle were nearly all men, and this carried through to her life as a pilot. On the rare occasions that the female flight attendants Gigi works with invite her out for drinks, she says yes—and after a few cosmos or negronis, the talk always turns to sex. Always.
Gigi takes a sip of wine. “Let’s change the subject,” she says. “How do you all feel about faking your orgasms?”
The table sits in stunned silence.
Oops, Gigi thinks.
Caroline is so glad she has the camera rolling. This woman is awesome.
Tatum takes a swallow of pinot grigio, which goes down like water—headache tomorrow for sure—and says, “I’ve never faked an orgasm in my life.”
“Liar,” Dru-Ann says. “Everyone fakes. It’s the reason men are so insecure. They can never be sure if it’s real or if we’re pulling a Meg Ryan.”
Who is Meg Ryan? Caroline wonders.
“I. Have. Never. Faked. An. Orgasm,” Tatum says. “Kyle knows how to make me scream. He stands behind me…” She stops. “Do you want to hear this?”
“Uh, no,” Dru-Ann says. “We’re eating.”
“I want to hear,” Brooke says.
“I have to admit, I’m intrigued,” Gigi says.
“He lifts me off the ground with one arm and rubs me with two fingers of his other hand.” Tatum shrugs. “Sometimes we do that in front of a mirror. Very hot. That always works, but he has other tricks. I taught him what I liked back when we were both young, and he knows I haven’t been with anyone else, so there’s no one he needs to compare himself to. But I never fake. Why would I?”
“Damn,” Dru-Ann says. “I fake to, you know, move things along.”
“Because you have a chicken in the oven,” Hollis says. “Or you just want to go to sleep.”
Ew, Caroline thinks. She’d hoped Hollis would recuse herself from this part of the conversation.
“I’ve never had an orgasm with Charlie,” Brooke says.
Again, the table goes silent. From outside, they can hear the waves breaking, then the suck of water back to the sea.
This, Caroline thinks, is what’s known as a mic drop.
Finally Dru-Ann clears her throat. “Now I understand why you want to decentralize him from your life.” She pauses. “Never?”
“Never with Charlie or any other guy, actually,” Brooke says. “Only with myself.”
“Does Charlie know this?” Hollis asks. She can hear her voice becoming high-pitched and she’s probably one sip of wine away from slurring. She should switch to water, but she doesn’t want to. This is the kind of frank, intimate talk that should be happening this weekend. Gigi Ling understood the assignment.
“He has no idea,” Brooke says. “He thinks he’s a porn star.”
“You poor child,” Dru-Ann says. She’s developing an actual fondness for Brooke. The woman is such a basket case, it’s endearing. “We need shots. Now.” She goes to the kitchen for shot glasses—Hollis has two dozen on display; she must use them to serve gazpacho or some nonsense—and grabs the bottle of Casa Dragones and the bowl of cut limes. Back at the table, she pours five shots and passes four around: Brooke, Tatum, Hollis, and Gigi.
Dru-Ann hoists her shot glass. “To satisfaction.” She winks at Brooke. “We’re gonna get you some, girlfriend.”
They all throw back the shots. Hollis winces, Brooke winces, Tatum winces; Gigi squeezes a lime into her tequila, and her gold bangle chimes against her watch as she throws the shot back with undeniable elegance.
Where did Hollis find this woman? Caroline wonders. She’s a queen.
Hollis is a little unsteady as she stands to get dessert, the peach cobbler with a hot sugar crust, which has been warming in the oven. She brings the cobbler out and sets it on a trivet, then scoots back to the kitchen to whip the cream. For a few moments she stares into the bowl as the whisk beats around and around. She hears laughter in the other room over the strains of Bon Jovi and she thinks, This is working. Just as surely as the cream turns from liquid to solid, her friends are coming together. This metaphor might not apply, but there is no denying that things on the deck are going much better than they were earlier. Gigi’s appearance has done wonders. Everyone is on her best behavior.
Hollis suspects that Gigi is fibbing about her mother’s Cantonese cooking, but she thinks it’s endearing. Hollis has lied about her own mother in the past—oh, has she. She and Gigi are so… simpatico.
For an instant, Hollis feels pleased with herself. She brought these amazing women together, and she has curated the perfect Nantucket weekend.
But as she’s walking toward the open slider, she overhears the conversation on the deck.
Brooke says, “That cobbler could be on the cover of a magazine!”
And Caroline says, “My mother’s life always looks good from the outside. It’s the only thing that matters to her.”
The table goes quiet. Hollis wants to reverse her steps, go back to the kitchen, go even farther back, to two weeks ago before she sent the invitations, before she thought this weekend would save her.
But then Tatum catches her eye. “Hey, sis,” she says.
Hollis holds the frosted bowl aloft. “Whipped cream,” she says feebly.
Tatum leaves the table, and after a beat, Dru-Ann stands up and follows her down the hall. Tatum disappears into the powder room. Dru-Ann hears the hum of the fan, the roll of the toilet paper, then the toilet flushing and water running in the sink.
The door opens. When Tatum sees Dru-Ann, she rears back. Then she sets her mouth in a grim line and tries to breeze right past her but Dru-Ann grabs her arm. “Do we have a problem?”
“Let go of me, please,” Tatum says. “Everything’s fine.” As long as you stay out of my face, she thinks.
“I can’t believe you’re still bent about a joke I made a million years ago,” Dru-Ann says.
“The thing is,” Tatum says, “it wasn’t a joke.” She sees Gigi coming down the hall toward them and clamps her mouth shut.
“Are you two all right?” Gigi asks.
No, Tatum thinks.
No, Dru-Ann thinks. But she’s not dragging a stranger into this. She cocks an eyebrow at Gigi. “I notice you didn’t answer your own question. Do you fake your orgasms?”
“Well,” Gigi says. She pauses dramatically. “I’d rather be a Tatum than a Brooke.”
Both Tatum and Dru-Ann laugh. Tatum forgets she’s angry for a second; Dru-Ann thinks, All right, score one for Gigi. (Though Dru-Ann notices she didn’t actually answer the question.)
Caroline is a few yards away, filming. That’s a moment, she thinks. Hollis’s fans are in for way more than they can imagine.
Hollis is, somehow, left at the table with only Brooke. Where did everyone else go? Hollis is tempted to start clearing. Would that be rude? Would Brooke feel slighted, feel as though her company wasn’t enough? (Yes.)
Brooke realizes she has Hollis all to herself. Now is the time to tell her that she had drinks with Electra. Because what if Hollis finds out another way? Hollis won’t find out, how would she—and isn’t it a free country? Can’t Brooke have drinks with whoever she wants?
Brooke won’t mention it. Uttering Electra’s name at all would be dropping a stink bomb on an otherwise flawless evening.
But she can’t just sit in silence. It’s too awkward.