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Gigi responds immediately:Not a bother. I’m here. How are you doing?
In this way, a friendship was born.
But,Gigi thinks now as they call the 3:25 flight,it’s a friendship built on a massive deception.Gigi stays in her seat as the other eight passengers line up to board, then as her name is called over the loudspeaker. She whips out her phone and checks flights back to Atlanta—there’s a direct at eight o’clock. She thinks about just staying in Boston; she loves the hotel Fifteen Beacon. Or she could hop over to Martha’s Vineyard.
A third text comes in from Hollis.Is everything okay?
Gigi’s fingers hover over her screen. She types, but doesn’t send,Sorry, something came up.My conscience, as it turns out,she thinks. She should never have agreed to come in the first place; it was positively psychotic.
Except, Gigi thinks, shewantsto go. She wants to meet Hollis in real life; she wants to see the house; she wants to hear the stories (doesshe want to hear the stories?). If it gets weird or uncomfortable, she can leave.
She approaches the desk. So sorry, she missed the 3:25, is it possible to get the next flight, the 4:40?
The 4:40 is sold out, the gate agent, Bonnie, tells her in a tone that’s on the corner of unfriendly and impatient (but Gigi has sympathy; a gate agent’s job is frustrating). Ditto the 5:15, Bonnie adds, and ditto the 6:05. “I’m sorry,” Bonnie says. “It’s a Friday in July.”
Gigi’s heart sinks. Back to Atlanta, then?
“I do have one seat left on the six-fifty flight, arriving Nantucket at seven forty,” Bonnie says.
“Yes,” Gigi says. “I’ll take it.”
“Are you sure you’re not going to ‘miss’ it again?” Bonnie says, using air quotes. “I saw you sit through our announcement, you know.”
Oops,Gigi thinks.Busted.“If I told you why I didn’t get on the three-twenty-five, you wouldn’t believe it. But yes, I’m sure.”
Bonnie lets a fraction of a smile slip. “That’s all I need to know.”
16. Happy Hour II
Hollis opens the wine that Tatum brought as a hostess gift and pours two glasses, one for herself and one for Tatum. Dru-Ann picks up the bottle and scrapes the price tag off with her fingernail.
“Twelve ninety-five,” she murmurs. “Classy.”
“Dru-Ann, shh!” Hollis hisses. Back when Hollis and Matthew got engaged and then married, there was all kinds of friction between Tatum and Dru-Ann. That’s ancient history, but—as Hollis knows only too well—no one holds a grudge like Tatum McKenzie. “Tatum brought me this wine because it’s one of my favorites.”
“If you say so,” Dru-Ann says.
“Sorry it’s not a Montrachet,” Tatum says. “I finished that bottle this afternoon.”
Touché,Dru-Ann thinks.
Brooke reaches for the bottle of Whispering Angel rosé resting in the ice bucket. Her hostess gift is an ocean-breeze-scented candle, but now that Brooke has seen the relaxed elegance of Hollis’s home, she worries the candle is down-market, maybe even cheesy (what does an “ocean breeze” smell like, anyway?), and because Brooke bought it on sale at the Christmas Tree Shop, it cost even less than twelve ninety-five.
Hollis wants to raise her glass for a toast—she wants to thank everyone for putting their lives on hold and coming to spend the weekend with her—but they should really wait for Gigi.
It’s six o’clock and there’s been no word from her.
Will this end up being a four-star weekend?she wonders.
She needs to change the energy in the room. The music is, maybe, a touch too angry? Hollis presses Shuffle on Tatum’s playlist. REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Lovin’ You” floats down from the speakers. It’s suddenly the 1980s.
When Hollis sets out the cheese and charcuterie board, Brooke whips out her phone and starts taking pictures. She wants to post this on Facebook as soon as she can; she wants Electra to see what she’s missing: melty baked Brie in a golden pastry crust, thinly cut salami fashioned into flowers, tiny bowls of Marcona almonds, purple olives, and cheese straws. There are dishes of mustard and chutney, a winding river of seeded crackers, clusters of frosted grapes, plump strawberries, dried apricots—and in the center of the board, a pile of Hollis’s famously addictive bacon and rosemary pecans.
“I hope this is dinner,” Dru-Ann says. The tequila is doing its job; she feels her joints loosen. She’ll ignore the tension between herself and Tatum the same way she’s ignoring her real-life problems. She has left her phone in her bag, and her bag is on the blue silk chaise at least ten feet away.
“Send me those pictures,” Dru-Ann says to Brooke. She types her number into Brooke’s phone, then chooses the only decent photo of the food and texts it to herself. “Now you have my number, but it’s to be used only in case of emergency.”
Brooke beams like a Girl Scout who has just won the award for selling the most Thin Mints, and Dru-Ann feels herself softening. The woman can talk the face off a clock, but she’s actually kind of sweet, and would it be so bad for Dru-Ann to have an ally this weekend? “For example, if you’re at the Wellesley Country Club and you see some twelve-year-old on the tennis court serve her way to victory, you can text me. Because that could be my next client.”
