While Avalon settles onto a stool at Hollis’s kitchen island, wondering if it would be egregiously rude to help herself to a morning bun (yes, it would, she decides, and all the sugar and gluten would interfere with her teaching and most likely give her heartburn), Dru-Ann is kicking around under the covers. Something is wrapped around her leg—yes? No? She’s having a dream? She lifts the sheet and shrieks. There’s a long, thin black thing coiled around her shin. A snake? She leaps from bed and the snake falls to the ground and lies there. Dru-Ann squints. It’s not moving. It’s rubber.
What the hell? she thinks. Do they call this place the Twist because of surprises like this?
Her heart is beating so fast she doesn’t need the Peloton, but she powers out a forty-five-minute HIIT and Hills ride with Tunde anyway. When Dru-Ann climbs off the bike, dripping with sweat and smelling very strongly of last night’s tequila, she feels a tiny bit better. She heads out to the kitchenette and grabs a water out of the vintage icebox. Rubber snake aside, the interior of the Twist is a midcentury dreamscape. There’s an angular, tangerine-hued sofa in the living room flanked by two chairs upholstered in wavy olive-and-white stripes. There’s a standing lamp that looks like a birdcage on a wooden tripod; the rug is a cool yellow-and-white geometric pattern, and on the walls are groovy abstract prints. In a little niche in the far wall is a Bakelite turntable over which hangs a framed 45 record. Dru-Ann has no idea why they call it the Twist. Is it a cocktail reference—a twist of lemon or lime? Or maybe it’s called the Twist because you’re expecting more beachy decor but instead you feel like you’re walking onto the set of That Girl. It makes Dru-Ann want to wear patio dresses and throw fondue parties.
These thoughts serve as a nice little distraction—but suddenly, Dru-Ann can’t wait another second. She snatches up her phone.
On Twitter, she checks for #TeamDruAnn. Only one person has retweeted her post—Dru-Ann’s assistant, Jayquan. That kid is getting a raise.
There’s a text from JB: Tried calling. Is your phone off? Plz listen to voice mail. There’s also a text from Nick. Finally! Dru-Ann thinks. It has been her rule to keep the upper hand in every romantic relationship, and because of this Dru-Ann Jones can honestly say that at the age of fifty-three, she has never had her heart broken. She’d assumed Nick Wofford cared for her more than she cared for him, but the way she’s been feeling since he said he needed to “hit the brakes” tells her she might be wrong about that.
Nick has two older sons by his (dreadful) first wife, Artice, to whom Nick still pays a seven-figure alimony. The boys, Sean and Declan, work for Nick at his hedge fund, and Nick is a hard-ass with both of them. Posey is the only child from Nick’s second marriage, to a woman named Catherine; she died of ovarian cancer when Posey was eight. Catherine was the love of Nick’s life—she was kind, sweet, and generous. (Saint Catherine is how Dru-Ann always thinks of her.) It makes sense that Nick coddles Posey, but can’t he see that he should have demanded that she honor her obligation to finish the tournament? It was one round of golf. She could have hopped a plane to Edinburgh as soon as the trophy was in her hot little hands.
What a mess! Dru-Ann can’t believe how this has played out.
She listens to JB’s voice mail first.
“Dru-Ann, the situation is escalating. What possessed you to post that tweet yesterday? Hashtag Team Dru-Ann? Are you serious? It has blown up and not in the way you intended. Two more clients are dropping you, Sharese Morris and Kendall Hennaker, though Kendall says she’ll stay if you issue an apology. I’ve e-mailed you the statement that Legal drafted. You must sign it today. There’s no other way to get back to good. I think we can lure Linzy back too; I spoke to her mother, who said she was on your side in all of this.” There’s a long pause. “But Linzy’s mother is very much in the minority, Dru-Ann. Your shame is the company’s shame. If you don’t issue the apology today, I’ll be forced to take next steps. Thank you.” There’s another pause. “I hope you listen to this.”
Dru-Ann deletes the voice mail. She won’t be issuing an apology. She has never liked Linzy’s mother but she’s happy to have at least one ally in the world.
She opens the text from Nick, fully expecting an apology and/or a declaration of love. It says: FYI, Phineas just eagled 14 and broke into the top ten.
Dru-Ann snatches up the remote and flips through the sports channels, though she knows U.S. coverage of the British Open won’t start until this afternoon, and even then it’ll be minimal until the final round tomorrow. She fires up her laptop and checks the standings, and sure enough, Phineas Pine is in ninth place at four under; he’s on the sixteenth hole of the round now. The top of the field is close; McIlroy is the leader at seven under. Phineas is three shots back with twenty-one holes to go.
There are no phones allowed at St. Andrews so real-time developments are hard to come by. Is Posey somehow texting Nick? Or did Nick fly to Scotland? Dru-Ann wonders if Nick feels that Phineas’s remarkable showing somehow justifies Posey’s decision to quit the Dow. He had a dream he was going to win. Maybe Nick thinks it’s romantic, Posey sacrificing her own nearly certain victory to be at her boyfriend’s side.
It’s not romantic, Dru-Ann thinks. It’s pitiful!
While Avalon is making herself an herbal tea in the kitchen and texting Hollis yet again—Hi, I’m here! Should I stay or should I?—Dru-Ann snaps her laptop shut, clicks off the TV, and powers off her phone. She needs a shower.
Brooke is lying in bed in the Board Room with her fingers between her legs, masturbating. All the talk of the night before has gotten her worked up. She thinks about being in the center of the circle last night, dancing, only in her fantasy, she’s naked.
She hears someone in the hallway whispering, “Hello? Hello? Namaste?” It sounds like the person is right outside Brooke’s bedroom door, but Brooke double-checked that the door was locked and so this heightens Brooke’s excitement. The yoga instructor is only a few yards away from where Brooke is lying, but she has no idea what kind of eye-rolling, toe-curling, back-arching ecstasy Brooke is experiencing.
Who needs yoga to find enlightenment? Brooke thinks. She’s finding it here all by herself.
The door to Gigi’s room is ajar, and Avalon takes this as an invitation. She wants to find someone before she leaves. She taps on the door and says, “Hello? Hello?” And then, to identify herself as the goddamn yoga instructor, she adds, “Namaste?”
There’s no answer, and Avalon boldly pushes the door open. This room is as swoon-worthy as the rest of the house. There’s deep green jungle-print wallpaper, a rattan sleigh bed sheathed in white and hibiscus pink linens, a simple sisal rug, and a trunk at the end of the bed inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The far end of the room is a living garden—there are hanging succulents, two potted palms, a white shelf displaying a row of bonsai trees. Again, Avalon whips out her phone and takes a few quick pictures, despite her mounting frustration. Avalon steps out—really, what is she doing prowling around like this?—then notices a door at the end of the hallway, and through the window she spies a slice of turquoise. The pool!
Avalon hurries down the hall, thinking maybe the joke is on her, maybe everyone is out on the pool deck, waiting for her.
But the pool deck is empty. What the hell? Avalon thinks.
Gigi has taken a walk on the beach. She sees seagulls, sandpipers, oystercatchers, and, in the distance, a red-and-white-striped lighthouse on a bluff. She does not see another living soul, which suits her just fine.
She sits in the sand, drops her face into her hands, and cries.
Back at First Light, Avalon packs up her Camry and leaves. That was a yoga fail, she thinks—but at least she has a morning bun, swathed in a napkin, for later.
20. Shotgun I
As they’re all climbing into Hollis’s Bronco to go to town, Dru-Ann says, “Guess what I found in my bed? A rubber snake.”
“What?” Hollis says. “That’s impossible. I made up all the beds fresh yesterday.”
“It’s like that scene from The Godfather!” Brooke says. “Remember the horse head?”
Tatum, who is sitting shotgun next to Hollis, says, “It sounds like someone was trying to send you a message.”
Well, Dru-Ann thinks, that mystery is solved.
21. Stone Alley
Brooke expects they will all stroll through town together, but as soon as they climb out of Hollis’s Bronco, Tatum says she has an errand to run and that she’ll meet everyone in an hour.