“Where’s Dad?” you ask. “Might as well get all my hugging in at once.”
“Oh, he’s with his pickleball team,” your mom says. “Have you heard? He’s turning into quite the athlete.”
You deliberately donotmake eye contact with your sister, because you won’t be able to keep from laughing. “I think Noemi mentioned that,” you say casually. “That’s great.”
“Back to Kai,” Noemi says abruptly, breaking away from the fraught topic that is pickleball, “we saw him on TV the other day. He was in a yogurt commercial.”
“Oh, yeah?” you say. “Yeah, that’s his deal with Kefi. I don’t watch TV a lot, so I haven’t had him just randomly show up on my screen. I’ve seen the rough cut, though.”
Noemi raises an eyebrow. “I liked the shirtless look,” she says archly. “You haven’t seen your man on national television? Half-naked like that?”
“He looked like a studmuffin,” your mom opines.
You can’t help the grin that’s tugging on your lips. “I’ll be sure to share your comments,” you tell them seriously.
Your mom is making chicken salad for lunch in the kitchen, but it won’t be ready for a little while. Noemi says that she is almost done with the chapter in the book she’s reading upstairs, but that she’ll be down to eat. That leaves you to excuse yourself out the back door, to the little guest house where you stay when you come to visit.
It smells clean in there, like someone recently went through and mopped—which, knowing Margo Grayson, she probably did. You drop your bag on the small couch and walk through thepocket door into the bedroom to drop onto the bed, realizing that you forgot to ask anyone for pain relievers.Ugh.You quickly decide that getting up again isn’t worth it, and shuffle your body on the bed until you get comfortable, then toe your shoes off and over the edge. It was probably your mom who drew the curtains over the windows, and you are grateful for those, too. Grateful for the dark shading of the paneled walls, grateful for the softness of the duvet under you. Throwing your arm over your face, you breathe slow and steady and inhale the inimitable scent ofhome: Ivory dish soap, New England breezes, and a little bit of dust. Your phone says that it’s just past one. You’ll close your eyes for a second.
When you wake up (because it turns out that you definitely fell asleep), it’s getting dark. It’s a little alarming that you wasted the whole afternoon, as you are practically allergic to meaningless days. Behind the drapes, it’s the wrong side of sunset. Your stomach is making angry noises, displeased by the fact that you have officially not eaten all day.
Then, you realizewhyyou woke up. There’s a soft, but persistent knocking on the door of the guest house, and your sister’s voice.
“Ster? Sterling. Comeon. Are you dead in there?”
Your throat is raspy, and you cough to clear it before speaking. “‘S open, Noemi. Come in.”
You hear the door open, a faint squeaking.
“Are you decent?” she asks.
“Would I have told you to come in if I wasn’t?” you ask, indignant, but without getting up off the bed.
Gracefully, Noemi pads into the room, barefoot. There’s a covered plate in her hand; you can smell it right away. It makes your mouth water. She clicks on the lamp beside the bed, and glares down at you.
“Jesus, Mom was right. You reallydidpass the fuck out.”
“Don’t judge me,” you whine. “I was literally just on the other side of the world the night before last.”
“Poor baby,” she coos sarcastically. “It must have beenso roughsleeping on your private jet all the way from that five-star resort in Madagascar…”
“It was Seychelles.”
“That five-star resort inSeychelleswith your hot hunka strapping boyfriend,” she concludes smoothly, without missing a beat. She sets the plate down on the bedside table. “Eat this, or Mom’s gonna have a cow. She says that you probably haven’t eaten all day.”
“Mom doesn’t know my life,” you mutter, glancing over at the plate. Homemade pasta salad is heaped on one side, mixed with Italian dressing and loaded with black olives, diced cucumbers, onion, halved cherry tomatoes, and mozzarella balls. Your mother always liked a good pasta salad in the summer. Beside it, two planks of grilled chicken glazed in barbecue sauce are piled up, along with a generous mountain of baked beans. You already know that you are going to devour the entire plate, and then go cruising for seconds, regardless of how many calories are involved.
“Just eat,” Noemi prods you. “You’re looking at that food like you just did a 20-year stint in Alcatraz.”
She hands you a knife and fork, and you tear into the food. The first bites make you want to moan with howgoodit is. Your private chef is a James Beard award winner who manages to perfectly balance your macro nutrients with fresh, farm-to-table fare, but you’re pretty sure nothing will ever compare to your mother’s cooking.
“I’m surprised Mom didn’t come herself,” you say, talking with your mouth full.
Noemi sinks into the chaise on the other side of the room. Pulling a tie off her wrist, she scrapes her long hair into a ponytail. Even in the low light, her natural highlights are more reddish than your light brown ones.
“I told her I’d come out,” she shrugs. “I wanted to talk to you.”
That makes you pause with your forkful poised in midair. “What did I do?”
