When Reese came out, he was leaning on Indigo, much of his face lost in the thick faux-fur collar of her coat. Whatever he whispered in her ear made her laugh. Unaware of Pearl in the dark, they passed his car in favor of Indigo’s old Skylark.
Pearl sank into her driver’s seat, working her lips over her teeth, the familiar resentment back again, eating away at her. She started her engine when Indigo started hers.
She followed them down Harbor Road, the ocean a massive, brooding presence to her left. She kept her distance, watching the silhouettes of their heads in the headlight beams. The Skylark fishtailed lazily. Leave it to Indigo to drive on summer tires year-round. She was nineteen, living on her own, doing whatever she damn well pleased.
Pearl lived on Abbott Street, Reese on Ocean Avenue, but they wouldn’t turn in there, she was certain. She stayed on them until the stop sign, where the Skylark went into a slow spin, swinging into Main Street and stalling out in the path of a plow truck. The horn bellowed. Pearl reached out as if to catch them, her lips parting without sound.
The Skylark rumbled, gunned, and reversed into the opposite lane, dodging the plow by what looked like no more than a foot. It sat cockeyed for a few beats; then the tires spun, and it drove on.
Pearl released a shuddery breath. Knowing those two, they were laughing right now. Look what we almost did. Look how close we came.
Or maybe they were laughing at her. Maybe they’d known she was there all along, stalking them through a nor’easter with her heart pounding, nose running, clothes full of the smell of roasting duck, only to confirm what she already knew: they were going back to Indigo’s apartment, to her bed, and what they did there would be more than Pearl had ever done with anyone, because the only person she’d ever wanted to do it with was Reese.
She went home to the silent little house on Abbott. She showered, left a light on for Dad, who wouldn’t be back until four a.m., then curled up under the covers, staring at the wall. She’d never been so sick of herself. She wanted to wriggle out of her skin and kick it away like a clammy bathing suit, somehow erase the memory of kissing Reese back, right in front of everybody, the perfect, desperate fool.
Sleep shunned her until almost midnight. Outside Pearl’s window, snow continued to fall.
At the same time, on the other side of Tenney’s Harbor, the Garrisons were burning in their beds.
Two
Six Months Later
THE BOYS HAD been in the sun—tennis, maybe, or just back from the yacht club. Their brows were damp, postures loose, recuperating. They sat around the table like young guys do, taking up a lot of room, unconcerned by the stares they drew from members and waitstaff alike, lips moving in whispered conversation.
Pearl watched them, breathing shallowly, feeling panic, exhilaration. He never sat in her section. Now here he was with his entourage, the boys of summer, owning the place.
She gathered three menus and went to them, playing the part. “Can I start you gentlemen off with some drinks?” Her voice sounded stiff, an octave higher than usual.
If Tristan Garrison knew her, he gave no sign. That was the way with summer people; they were perfectly comfortable not knowing the locals who prepared their food, changed their sheets, or those, apparently, who were drowning in the undertow of their personal tragedy. “Water, please.” His voice was quiet, dismissive. He did not look at her.
Tristan’s fair skin bore the touch of late June sunshine, but he’d grown thin since winter, still leanly muscled from the racquetball court and hours on the treadmill. Pearl knew the raised veins on his forearms, the faint frown line between his brows that hadn’t smoothed even with the arrival of his wingmen. She studied him whenever he came into the dining room, gripped by the physical and emotional recoil she—and most everyone else—felt in his presence. Alone. He was so alone, even in a room full of people, and maybe in that they shared some kinship.
“Iced coffee. Cream, sugar, shot of espresso. Don’t put too much ice in it.” The boy across from her sat tipped back in his chair, his white tank top contrasting against his deep brown skin, designer ball cap cocked at an angle. The club had done away with the gentlemen-must-wear-a-jacket-and-tie policy long before Pearl began working here, but there was still a certain dress code to be maintained, and Akil Malhotra was way below par. Pearl knew him by sight. Everybody knew the Indian kid who’d stolen the golf cart last summer.
The boy on the left was one of the Spencer grandchildren. He had the look: shaggily blond, deeply tanned from living at the family compound in North Carolina the rest of the year. He smiled at her, his gaze moving from her face to her breasts and back again. “Surprise me.” A faint southern accent, honeying every other word.
She blinked. “Very good.” One more quick glance at Tristan before she left.
She took orders at two more tables, meeting Reese’s gaze on her way to the kitchen; he was waiting on Mimi Montgomery-Hines and her friends, a tableful of elderly ladies who wore ropes of beads and big hats and bright lipstick, like an inverted version of a little girls’ dress-up tea party. Mimi adored Reese; the ma?tre d’s knew to seat her in section three without being told. Reese dropped Pearl a wink without breaking his stream of banter, and the sun-washed room rang with women’s laughter.
The bar was unmanned, so she grabbed a bottle of San Pellegrino from the cooler herself. Tristan always drank San Pellegrino. Someone’s fingers stole over the back of her neck, and she smiled, knowing it was Reese.
“Hiya, twinkle toes.” He went around the bar, took the lid off the blender, and dumped in ice, lime juice, triple sec, tequila.
“You’d better get out of there before Chas comes back.”
“Hey, he’s taking a whiz, my table needs drinks. You think I don’t know how to make a margarita?” He put a swizzle stick in his teeth, commenced chewing. “C’mon, c’mon, what do you need?”
“Iced coffee: cream, sugar, espresso. And I’ve got a guy who wants me to surprise him.”
“Slap on some pasties and come out singing, ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President.’ Works every time.” He pulled the coffee pitcher out of the fridge and poured.
“You know from experience, huh.” She waited as he gave the blender a blast. “Isn’t it kind of early in the day for those?”
“Haskins. What have we learned about the rich?”
She sighed. “That it’s socially acceptable for them to drink more in a day than we do in a week.”
“Right. And since it’s now”—he checked an invisible watch—“just a hair past noon, Mimi and her cronies need a pick-me-up so they can make it till cocktail hour. Salt some glasses for me.”
Looking over her shoulder (you never knew when Meriwether might decide to do a walk-through, attending to her assistant managerial duties with grim fervor), she went to him and ran a lime wedge around the edge of the margarita glasses, dipping them in coarse salt. Being this close to Reese O’Shaughnessy was like standing beside high-tension power lines. She felt the energy thrumming through his wiry, not-quite-six-foot frame, and the abruptness of his movements, careless, sloppy, but still getting the job done. His auburn hair fell into his eyes, and she put her hands in her pockets to resist smoothing it back. Friends didn’t stroke each other’s hair. She was pretty sure that was in the manual somewhere.
“Who let the Prince of Darkness out?” Indigo’s low voice made Pearl turn. The girl leaned on the bar, one hip angled out, watching Tristan. She somehow managed to make the uniform of green-and-gold-striped tie, white blouse, and black slacks look like sex on wheels, as if it had been specifically tailored to her. Pearl’s size-small blouse hung loosely, and she had to wear a belt to keep the slacks from slipping down her nonexistent curves. “Looks like the posse’s back in town.” Indigo turned her cool gaze on Pearl. “Lucky you.”