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She grins. “Tell me it’s not blue.”
“It’s blue.”
She studies my eyes, as though she’s not sure whether to take me seriously. What’s going on? Am I pushing things too fast?
She pulls out her phone, swipes around, then groans. “Carly has two day-long can’t-miss dates to run lines with her girlfriend,” she says. “They’re trying to get leads in the fall production. I forgot they carved those out for this long weekend.”
“Have her bring her girlfriend. Trust me, we have the space.” I trace the shell of her ear. She’s caving.
“Of course, they might not get much studying done. Two of the guys from One Direction have rented the place next to mine. They might be rehearsing for some kind of duet tour. It could be distracting.”
Her jaw falls open. “Seriously?”
“Would I joke about something like One Direction?”
“This feels like blackmail,” she says. “If I don’t say yes and she finds out, she’ll literally kill me.”
“That would be terrible,” I say.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Henry
Carly has Vicky’s laugh, Vicky’s eyes, and definitely Vicky’s spirit.
But while Vicky has brown hair, Carly is a fiery redhead. It’s amazing to see them together, to see Vicky in girl mode, laughing and pointing with Carly and her sarcastic friend Bess as I take off over the city.
Carly says soothing words to Smuckers, who’s in his little case in the back and not loving the ride.
We land on the helipad at the estate garden house.
It’s fun to see the three of them experience the grandeur of the place, which was built in the 1920s by one of the Vanderbilts. They make me love it all over again.
Vicky goes to help the girls settle while I give instructions to Francine, the head of the staff. “I know it’s not what you’re used to,” I say to her.
“It’s a breath of fresh air,” she says.
“You know how messy teenaged girls are?”
“It’s thrilling to see you have…friends here. We’re all so pleased.”
I’m about to protest that I bring friends here. But I don’t.
The two of them stake out the bedroom on the very end of the south wing. We order in wine and soda and gourmet pizzas. They stay exactly ten minutes. It’s hard to compete with the promise of two guys from One Direction.
Vicky and I drink wine and talk about everything—even a little business. She wants to make sure we got the software Mandy requested. She changed her mind about it soon after I started taking her on facility tours. I tell her it’s in place.
Now and then the girls come through with reports that they heard music, and they carry on detailed analyses of whether it was recorded music or if it was the guys in jamming mode.
And as Vicky and I are fucking that night on the edge of the hot tub on the top veranda, and again as we have slow, lazy sex the next morning, I think to write One Direction a fan letter just for how completely they keep Bess and Carly glued to the other side of the mansion.
“You take good care of her,” I say that afternoon. Vicky and I sit on the porch overlooking the expanse of lawn, which ends in a pool, a cluster of cabanas, and the beach, edged in sea grass, deep blue-green water beyond.
Perched under an umbrella at the edge of the actual beach, Bess and Carly are in full teen girl splendor mode, running lines and staking out the neighbors, and Smuckers is a streak of white, running all around the lawn. The umbrellas are Locke blue, a fact that Vicky makes fun of.
“We’re all each other has,” she says simply.
I try to get more about her earlier life, but she’s vague, and eventually I find the conversation has circled around to her desire to know why I wear dark suits in the city and beige linen suits in the Hamptons.
