Rick and Melody’s house, just off a bumpy dirt road off Surfside Road, was the opposite of Darcy’s. Modern, sleek, boxy, it was an upside-down house, with the bedrooms on the ground floor and the living rooms on the second floor. Second-floor decks of silky smooth pine boards extended across the ocean side of the house, providing fantastic views. Outdoor furniture and huge pots of flowers turned the deck into another room, and as Darcy parked her car and walked up to the house, Jordan and Melody waved at her from the deck.
Jordan called something down to Darcy—it sounded like “I have to talk to you!” but that couldn’t be right. Darcy would be in the house in a minute and she’d talk to Jordan right away. She always did. Well, she always had, before she was with Nash.
It had taken some courage to enter a party by herself. Jordan had always been her go-to person, the face Darcy would look for in a crowd, a momentary anchor. Now that Darcy knew the gang, she didn’t have to make a beeline for Jordan, but she planned to do that anyway. While she and Jordan were chatting, Darcy could casually search out Nash.
His red pickup was parked down the road. So she knew he was here.
The Holdgates were arriving now, so Darcy entered the house and went up the wide spiral stairs chatting to Tina Holdgate about how fast the summer had gone.
“You must have had a fab summer,” Tina told Darcy. “Girl, you look awesome!”
“Thanks,” Darcy said. The compliment was exactly what she needed. She knew it made her cheeks glow. She’d never felt prettier than now, and she knew she was turning a few heads as she made her way through the crowd toward the deck and Jordan.
“Martini? Cosmo?” A waitress held a tray of drinks for Darcy to choose from.
“For now, just sparkling water,” Darcy said, lifting a tumbler of ice and water. She wanted to be sober when she approached Nash. She was already high on nerves and hope.
“Hi, Jordan,” she called, waving as she did a sideways squeeze between a cluster of guys replaying the recent Red Sox game.
Jordan returned a wave that seemed more like a stop sign. Jordan was frowning, no—not frowning as such, more like her face was squeezing up like she’d just sucked a lemon. Darcy hoped Kiks was all right as she slid past a woman resting against the door jamb, a tall man leaning down to speak to her….
She couldn’t breathe. Her knees buckled.
The woman in a formfitting slip of black silk, her blond hair shimmying against her shoulders, her pretty young face radiant, was Kate Ferguson. She’d been in the women’s chorus with Darcy. She was a nurse. She was nice.
She was beaming up at Nash, who had his hand resting on the doorjamb as he talked to her, leaning toward her, clearly taking possession, marking his territory.
Darcy stumbled. A man—she couldn’t think of his name, she knew him, he was somebody’s husband—caught her arm and kept her from falling.
“No more gin for you,” he joked.
“Right,” Darcy agreed, not bothering to hold up her glass of water. She was nauseous. She was cold. Her fingertips and lips felt icy. She was filled with an enormous scream that pushed against her throat, her lungs, her belly….
She wanted to collapse on the deck and die.
She continued to walk, robot-like, toward Jordan.
“Oh, honey,” Jordan said, putting an arm around Darcy and swiveling her so they both faced the ocean as she talked. “I was trying to warn you.”
Darcy choked out a few words. “Have you—has Nash?”
“I haven’t seen Nash with her anywhere before now. I don’t think he’s been seeing her or I’d know through the grapevine. I don’t think they’re a thing yet, Darcy.” Jordan squeezed Darcy’s arm. “Come on. Buck up. Don’t let him see you looking all sad and desperate.”
“I can’t stay here.”
“Yes, you can. Stick with me. Slap a smile on your face. They’re bringing out the cake any minute now. It’s early, I know, for the cake, but everyone here has to work tomorrow, so it’s not going to be one of our normal drunken orgies.”
“I’ll leave when they bring the cake out.”
“Okay, fine, but until then you’ve got to fake having fun. At least look as if you’re glad you’re alive.”
“I’m not sure I am.”
“Suck it up. It’s not the end of the world.”
Feeling was returning to her fingers, and the shock was draining away from her mind, replaced by a dark, rational, and overwhelming grief. “I think I really messed up, Jordan.”
“That’s not for you to decide right at this moment in time, Darcy. What will people think if you go all pathetic and wretched at a party?”
“You know what, Jordan? I don’t care what people think. Here, please take this.”
Darcy handed her untouched glass of water to her friend. Without another word, because she had no strength to speak another word, Darcy walked across the deck to the far end and went down the outside steps to the lawn. She heard Jordan hiss “Darcy!” but didn’t turn back. She had been hit by lightning. A tree had fallen on her life. A tsunami raced toward her, its towering waves threatening to crash down on her, and all she could think of was getting away.
She took off her stilettos and carried them as she ran to her car. Once inside the relative privacy of her Jeep, she tossed her shoes and small party purse on the seat, stabbed the key in the ignition, and drove away from the house, the party, the doorway where Nash leaned possessively over beautiful little young Kate. She turned onto the Surfside Road and drove to the parking lot overlooking the Atlantic. The beach was still crowded with swimmers, bodysurfers, and groups of friends sharing seaside cocktails and munchies. She wanted to be on the beach, but if she went down to the ocean and screamed like she felt like screaming, she’d frighten everyone and probably get hauled off in a police car.
So she drove to the far end of the rutted dirt road and parked in front of a house with no lights on and no sign of life. She kept her windows rolled up as she buried her face in her hands and wept.
—
Darkness fell. Darcy watched the beachcombers walk up the sandy hill, carrying coolers, beach umbrellas and chairs, sleepy children. She gazed numbly at these fortunate people tucking kids into car seats, reminding each other to fasten their seatbelts, and finally hitting the headlights that flashed over Darcy’s Jeep as they turned in the lot and drove back toward town.
She had cried herself out. She had thought this all through. Nash wouldn’t date a sweet young woman like Kate on any kind of a whim. He wasn’t a frivolous man. Nash was done with Darcy. He had moved on.