“How do you stay so thin?” Brooke asks.
Gigi dabs her lips with a napkin. She’s a movie star, Brooke thinks. A Bond girl. Her pixie cut is a little damp around the ears; her skin glows from the sun; her pareo is knotted between the breasts. “I savor every bite,” Gigi says. “And when I’m sated, I stop eating.”
Sated. What an elegant word. (Brooke thinks she knows what it means but she’s going to look it up later to be 100 percent sure.) Brooke brings the BLT to her mouth, thinking, I will savor this bite.
She tries, she really does, but then her thoughts start whirring. Why wouldn’t Gigi like Dru-Ann better than Brooke; she’s far more interesting; maybe Brooke should try harder with Tatum, but if she does that, will she alienate Dru-Ann? Dru-Ann and Tatum don’t get along. The problem with having an odd number of people is that someone is always left out. Hollis and Tatum are a pair and now maybe Gigi and Dru-Ann are, leaving Brooke by herself. As she’s thinking this, she crams first the BLT and then the lobster salad into her piehole. She flops down on her chaise, her entire body feeling bloated and leaden, and decides to try again with her beach book—she has now read the first paragraph four times; when is she supposed to get invested? Her eyelids droop. There’s no hope; the book falls into the sand.
Caroline is in her bedroom reviewing the drone footage. It’s incredible, if she does say so herself. She captured the majesty of their property—you see the house, the pond, the pool, and the ladies on the beach all from overhead, like God is watching—before swooping in for a closer look. The shots of the seal swimming are delightful; you feel like you’re right alongside him. The traffic on her mother’s website will go through the roof thanks to this; Caroline is sure of it.
She prepares a clip to send to Isaac. It’s technically a landscape study, but it’s better because of the human element.
She hears someone knocking on the front door. “Mom?” Caroline calls out. There’s no answer. Everyone must be out on the beach having lunch. She heads for the front door. The guy with the sandwiches came a little while ago, though this could be some other delivery. For one terrifying second, Caroline wonders if she’s going to find Sofia Desmione on her porch.
More knocking, then a male voice calling out something Caroline can’t understand. When she opens the door, she recognizes the man standing there, a perspiring, red-faced dude in khaki shorts, a blue oxford unbuttoned over a FREE BRADY T-shirt, a pair of flip-flops, and a green Red Sox hat, the kind Irish people like to wear.
“Caroline!” the man says, opening his arms wide and stumbling forward.
Instinctively, Caroline steps back. “Hey, Mr. Kirtley,” she says. There’s no chance she’s letting Charlie Kirtley hug her. The few times that happened when she was in high school, the hugs were too tight and lasted too long. And anyway, what is he doing here?
“Can you get my wife for me, please?” he says. He is ever so slightly slurring his words, which isn’t exactly surprising. Mr. Kirtley is a fun-haver. When Caroline was in middle school, this had seemed cool. He was the parent who would take all the kids sledding on snowy Saturdays. His office had a suite at Boston Garden and he’d brought all of Will’s and Whitney’s friends to Celtics and Bruins games, and on the way into the city and back, he’d play whatever music they asked for at top volume, even if the lyrics were explicit, especially if the lyrics were explicit. But as Caroline got older, she realized Charlie Kirtley was the kind of man who had never really grown up. When he walked into a party at Owen Gaither’s house to pick up Will and Whitney, he’d knelt and done a beer funnel. When the kids all cheered, he pumped his fist in the air. Did Caroline need to say more? That moment defines Charlie Kirtley.
“Okay?” Caroline says. She knows the polite thing to do is invite Charlie Kirtley inside and offer him a big glass of ice water, but Caroline gets a troubling vibe. Doesn’t Charlie understand this is a girls’ weekend? What’s good with him showing up out of the blue? Charlie turns around, sits on the top step of the porch, and drops his head into his hands. Caroline very quietly closes the front door and hurries to find her mother.
27. Calm and Present
Dru-Ann leaves the beach right after she finishes lunch. Brooke is fast asleep on the chaise next to her, faceup and snoring loudly; Gigi is reading, and Hollis is cleaning up but refuses any assistance, claiming it’s her Zen. The only person Dru-Ann could talk to is Tatum, and that’s obviously not happening. Dru-Ann puts on her cover-up, grabs her towel and sunscreen, and goes over the dunes, around the pond and then the pool, out a little gate, and down a flagstone path to the guesthouse. The cool, dark air of the cottage feels good. It’s quiet; Dru-Ann is alone. She takes one breath, then another. You’re so present. So calm. Dru-Ann is amused—and a little flattered—by this description. In real life, Dru-Ann is never “present.” She rushes from one moment to the next; she likes to get it done, then move on. And calling her calm is downright laughable. Dru-Ann is calm only when she’s asleep, and sometimes not even then.
Is Dru-Ann calm and present enough to open her laptop and check the standings of the players at the British Open? Probably not, but she does it anyway—and what she sees makes her do a double take.
Phineas has advanced to third place. He’s at five under, behind McIlroy and Hovland.
He had a dream he was going to win, Posey said.
Well, he’s not going to beat McIlroy, and he probably won’t beat Hovland, but third place at the British Open is nothing to sneeze at. He’ll take home a tasty share of the purse and he’ll be seen in a whole new light where sponsorships are concerned. One tournament does not an elite golfer make, but even so, good for Phineas.
Yes, Dru-Ann actually thinks, good for Phineas.
Today’s round is over; there’s only tomorrow’s round to go. Will Phineas be able to tough it out and hold on to third place? As a sport, golf requires as much from a player psychologically as it does physically. If she were Phineas’s agent (he’s repped by some underwhelming minion named Gannon at ISE), she would advise him to pretend he’s playing golf at a bachelor party for bragging rights and free drinks. Smile, relax, enjoy yourself. That’s how he’ll play his best. But Gannon is probably talking to Phineas about the Eye of the Tiger.
Dru-Ann closes her laptop and stares for a moment at her phone. She hates the thing so much, she fantasizes about setting it on fire. But that would change nothing. It’s not her phone’s fault she’s in this predicament.
Dru-Ann presses the button and the famous bitten-apple icon appears. Maybe, she thinks, there will be a sweet text or a voice mail from Nick. They haven’t spoken in two and a half days, and she misses him the way she’d miss hot running water or a second pillow: She’ll survive, but it’s not at all pleasant. She closes her eyes as her phone comes back to life with buzzes and dings. This goes on for a while. So many people want to talk to her, she figures one of them must be Nick.
Dru-Ann starts to scroll. There are three missed calls and a voice mail from JB; a voice mail from Jim in Legal; a voice mail from Zeke, her producer at Throw Like a Girl; a voice mail from Dean Falzarano, her editor at New York magazine (this is somewhat troubling because she and Dean have never spoken on the phone; they communicate only by e-mail); and a missed call from Rosemarie Filbert, the president of Dru-Ann’s neighborhood association. Rosemarie is the nosiest person in Lincoln Park. She’s a Realtor and makes it a point to know everyone’s business—divorce, bankruptcy, pregnancy, ailing parents—on the chance it might lead to a purchase or sale.
There are no missed calls from Nick.
Dru-Ann clicks into her texts, thinking, Come on, baby, you know you miss me. But there’s nothing from him, not even an update on Phineas’s miraculous finish on the day. There is, however, a text from Dru-Ann’s cohost, Marla Fitzsimmon: Nantucket? I’m jealous! Isabel Marant is getting so much publicity, she should be paying you.
What? Dru-Ann thinks. How does Marla, who is sleeping with half the White Sox bullpen and spends every Saturday at Comiskey Park, know that Dru-Ann is on Nantucket, and what does that comment about Isabel Marant mean?
Oh no, she thinks. That annoying TikTok song plays in her head: Oh, no, no, no, no, no!