Dominic grimaces, though she’s not sure if he’s reacting to the question or the exercise. “You realize I wouldn’t need to put the fear of God in Kit and Olivia if they’d stop running their credit cards for thousands of dollars to celebrate the fact that it’s Tuesday,” he points out.
“Dad,” she says again. “Come on.”
Her father sighs. “I put the house up as collateral,” he confesses, back still braced against the wall in his invisible chair. “Last year, right before the Six-Foot Stromboli debacle.”
Lilly winces. “Oh, Dad.”
“Six-Foot Stromboli was a good idea!” Her father bristles.
“Six-Foot Stromboliwasa good idea,” Lilly agrees, though if it had been up to her she’s not sure she would have staked their family home on it. It’s like this, with her father: the fact of his past success does suggest that at some point he knew what he was doing, even if lately it feels like he’s operating his business in a world that no longer exists.
She waits for him to tell her he’s handling it; she waits for him to tell her this isn’t her problem to solve. She waits for him to tell her not to worry, but he doesn’t, and after a moment she just squeezes him on the shoulder, feeling the muscle bunched belligerently underneath his skin.
Back upstairs she tries to work for a while, but Olivia and Kit are blaring EDM on the patio and her mother is down the hall in the primary bedroom consulting noisily with Joaquin Shannonregarding the feasibility of replacing her father’s closet with a steam shower. Mari clomps inelegantly down the hallway in a pair of platform boots, a hiking backpack slung over her pale, narrow shoulders. “To sell my eggs,” she replies when Lilly asks where she’s going, which may or may not be the truth.
Still, it’s no louder or more disruptive than any other day, and if Lilly is being honest with herself, none of it has anything to do with the real reason she can’t concentrate. It’s pointless, spending her days screwing around with the punctuation in a screenplay that’s never going to go anywhere, that’s never going to pay the bills or save the house or prove she’s anything but a flighty, campy never-was. Nobody gives a shit about lady vampires. Not even Lilly herself.
She sighs and closes out the window, opening a new blank document. Staring at the empty page. She surprised herself at Charlotte’s restaurant the other night, telling Will about the novel. She hasn’t told anyone, not even June. Not that there’s anything to tell, really—it’s an idea, that’s all, a few sentences scribbled in a journal in the middle of the night, and if there’s a tiny part of her that wonders if it might blow her mind and her heart and her career wide open—
Lilly shuts the laptop. She’s being ridiculous, that’s all. Dreaming the goofy, grandiose dreams of a person who ought to know better.
Her phone trills on the nightstand just then, June’s name appearing on the screen over a picture of the two of them as babies, sunning themselves in matching hats at the beach. Lilly picks up right away. “What’s wrong?” she asks, heart already pounding. In her experience phone calls are for emergencies and emergencies only: Her father clutching his chest or Kit getting arrested on adrunk and disorderly. Joe’s mother calling, her voice tight and formal, to ask if Lilly knew where he was.
“I fainted doing burpees,” June reports now, sounding deeply miserable. “Can you come get me? I cracked my head on the floor.”
“Holy shit,” Lilly says, already springing guiltily to her feet. Sheknewit, she knew June hadn’t eaten anything, but still she let her just—“Are you okay?”
“Probably?” June says. She sounds dazed. “I have a bump.”
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Lilly’s heart stutters inside her chest. She thinks of Junie at sixteen, ninety pounds with no period to speak of. She thinks of Joe on the floor in the bathroom at their apartment, his skin gone cold and gray.
“No,” June says immediately. “I mean, I don’t think so? I just, like, probably shouldn’t drive home.”
“Okay,” Lilly says, swallowing down a disproportionate panic. She feels like the worst sister in the world. “I’m on my way.”
The Honda is still in the shop, so she jams her sneakers onto her feet and heads across the development, the sun warm on the back of her neck. She manages not to sprint, but barely; still, by the time she turns up at Charlie’s front door twenty minutes later there’s sweat dripping down her spine inside her T-shirt, her damp hair sticking to her neck.
“Did you... walk here?” Caroline asks when she answers the doorbell, her gaze flicking up and down Lilly’s body.
“Yes?” Lilly replies, not entirely sure why that’s relevant. She peers past Caroline into the house, knowing she’s being rude and not particularly caring. She wants to put her hands on Junie’s face. “How’s my sister?”
“Better,” Caroline says, still peering dubiously in Lilly’s direction like she’s here to sell vacuum cleaners or convince them toaccept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. She’s wearing an immaculate white sports bra and a pair of spandex shorts that makes her ass look like two Royal Verano pears from Harry & David. “Come on in.”
Lilly follows her through the light-filled living room and out to the patio, where June is sitting by the pool with a fancy electrolyte-replenishing drink on the table beside her. “I’m sorry,” she says immediately, covering her eyes with both hands. “I feel like an idiot.”
Lilly shakes her head. “You’re fine,” she promises, smoothing a palm over her sister’s hair. She doesn’t know why she feels like she’s about to cry. “Why are you apologizing?”
“I wish you’d said something, Junie sweetheart,” Caroline puts in, squeezing June’s arm in a warm, sisterly way that makes Lilly want to growl. “Theo’s workouts really aren’t meant for beginners.”
“Evidently,” Lilly says, holding her hand out to pull June upright. “You ready?”
“Yup,” June says. “My car keys are in my purse.”
She gathers up her things and they say their goodbyes to Caroline; they’re headed for the front of the house when the door from the mudroom opens into the kitchen and in walk Charlie and Will.
Lilly stops so short she almost trips over the tasteful marble coffee table. Will doesn’t smile. He’s wearing shorts and a Juilliard T-shirt that’s been washed so many times it looks like it’s made of tissue, the jut of his collarbone just visible at the stretched-out neck. In the moment before she puts the thought firmly out of her head, it occurs to Lilly that she would like to bite it.
“Hey!” Charlie says, his face breaking into the kind of open,radiant grin that nets him thirteen million dollars a picture. “What are you doing here?” Then, looking from June to his sister and back again: “Everything okay?”
