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“Yes!” Brooke says, raising her arms over her head in aVfor victory. “I’ll text you!”
Caroline returns to the kitchen cradling Isaac’s camera. She raises it and pans around the room, focusing on one image (the champagne bottles with their bright orange labels), then another (Dru-Ann’s Balenciaga hobo bag slouching like an actual hobo on the blue silk chaise). Brooke is attached to Dru-Ann like Velcro—until Dru-Ann turns to Tatum.
“Sorry I made that crack about the price tag,” Dru-Ann says.
Tatum locks her arms across her chest and gives Dru-Ann a cool look. Caroline edges the camera closer.What have we here?
“I don’t care anymore what you think of me,” Tatum says. “If you don’t like my wine, don’t drink it.”
Don’t worry, I won’t,Dru-Ann thinks. But as she studies Tatum—the woman has barely aged, and she has great hair, though it’s maybe a littleCharlie’s Angels—she remembers something that happened at Hollis’s wedding. Dru-Ann made a joke and Tatum took it the wrong way. Big-time. Dru-Ann would apologize now, but it’s probably better not to bring it up.
She rattles the ice in her glass. “I drink tequila.”
Then Dru-Ann notices the camera trained on her. She gives it the middle finger.
Despite herself, Caroline smiles. What would her mother’s fans think ofthat?
Tatum’s playlist segues from “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats to “Vienna” by Billy Joel.
Caroline films the four stars crowded around the cheese board as they construct perfect bites. There’s a lot of eating, a little bit of singing along:But then if you’re so smart, tell me why are you still so afraid?(This is Hollis, terribly off-key.) The only person talking is Brooke:Oh, my goodness, Hollis, you must have been pulling this together for days, these pecans are addictive, the Five-Star Weekend is such a clever idea although I couldn’t do it, I haven’t talked to anyone from high school since my mother sold our house and moved to Boca.
Caroline considers shutting off the camera; even Hollis’s most devoted fans would be bored to tears. But instead, she zooms in on the other women’s faces. All of them seem to be in their own worlds—even her mother.
Hollis is thinking about how Jack’s arms felt when they were wrapped around her. She’s probably making too much of it. This isn’t going to be like a romance novel where the lonely widow is reunited with someone from her past and things are even better than when they were young because not only are they both more mature, they have no agenda but to enjoy each other’s company and revel in the glow of their second chance at love. Things like that don’t happen in real life.
Tatum is pissed at herself for not checking the wine she brought for a price tag. Tatum knows that Hollis doesn’t care about hostess presents or how much they cost; she could have shown up empty-handed and it would have been fine. Dru-Ann is just intent on making it known that she has money and Tatum doesn’t. Which has been the problem from the beginning (the bachelorette party at the Ritz in Boston; the searing comment about the pearls).
Tatum should have just gone through the albums at home and brought snapshots. She realizes now that it wouldn’t have mattered if she was late. The fourth chick hasn’t even shown up yet.
Dru-Ann wonders if she should take Tatum aside to explain the stress she’s under.I’m in the middle of a public relations crisis! Twitter wants my head on a platter!Would Tatumgetit? Why, oh, why did she not keep her mouth shut about the price tag? Maybe Dru-Ann will tell Tatum that the man she’s involved with has just put things on hold.I finally found a man I care about and then this mess happens!Dru-Ann might even confess to Tatum that she’s fallen in love with Nick.ThatTatum will understand; she seems obnoxiously happy with her own husband.
She watches Tatum pick up an olive, sniff it, then set it on her cocktail napkin. Dru-Ann pops an olive into her mouth. “They’re good,” Dru-Ann says in the tone of a mother trying to persuade a child.
“I guess my palate isn’t assophisticatedas yours,” Tatum says.
Dru-Ann closes her eyes.
Brooke realizes she’s the only one talking. The others are nodding along, murmuring,Mmm-hmm,but Brooke doesn’t feel like they’re reallylistening. It’s hard to concentrate on anything other than the magnificent grazing board in front of them. Brooke wants to exercise restraint but the bacon-rosemary pecans are so delicious they should be illegal, and the cheese straws are made from scratch with some combination of aged cheddar, grated Parmesan, and herbs picked from Hollis’s garden. Brooke washes one down with more rosé, then looks around the table.
“When is Gigi getting here?” she asks.
WhenisGigi getting here? Hollis wonders. Hollis has texted her three times: asking for her ETA, giving her the address of the house, then finally asking if everything is okay. Gigi hasn’t responded to any of the texts, and at seven o’clock, when Hollis finally calls, she’s sent straight to voice mail. She’s tempted to say,You’re still coming, right?But instead she leaves a bright, cheerful message: “Just checking in, no hurry, take your time, we’ll see you when we see you!”
Then, for the seven thousandth time, she thinks:What kind of idiot invites someone she has never met to her house for the weekend?If this is truly Hollis’s “life story in friendship form,” then what does it say about her that her best friend from midlife is someone she met online? Is it a sign of the times or a sign that Hollis’s standards are at an all-time low?
She should have invited cute Zoe Kern from her barre class back home.
But Hollis wanted Gigi. She still wants Gigi. Where is Gigi?
“Tatum?” Hollis says. “Will you come outside and help me with the grill?”
Tatum knows Hollis doesn’t need help with the grill. Hollis was raised by Tom Shaw; she can start a fire with a pile of dry leaves and a dirty look. Hollis probably wants to give Tatum a talking-to about being nice to Dru-Ann. She can say whatever she wants, but Tatum has a score to settle.
Then she remembers something.
“Okay,” Tatum says. “Just let me run to the ladies’ room real quick.” She heads down the hall to her Fifty Shades of White guest suite, which is like something straight out ofSelling Sunset. Right after Hollis left Tatum in the room to “get settled,” Tatum whipped out her phone, took a video, and sent it to Kyle. There’s a white “soufflé” bed (this was what Hollis called it) with a fluffy ivory duvet and a trillion pillows in shades from French vanilla to pure driven snow. A clear egg-shaped swing chair hangs from the ceiling. Hollis showed her the “fireworks chandelier”: hundreds of tiny LED lights attached to fibers that explode out in all directions so it looks like a fireworks display over the bed. (Tatum has to admit this is very extra.) Tatum understands that the white is “understated luxury,” but all she can think is how quickly this room would be decimated if Orion were let loose in here with his Cheez-Its, his Oreos, and his markers.
Tatum rummages through her bag until she finds Orion’s rubber snake. She knows that Dru-Ann is staying in the guest cottage by herself. (This tracks; Dru-Ann issucha diva.) Tatum slips out the side door and crunches across the white-shell driveway to the Twist. The real “twist,” Tatum thinks, is that this cottage is where Hollis and her father used to live. Tatum spent countless hours sitting on the shag rug in Hollis’s Pepto-Bismol-pink bedroom, mooning over Rick Springfield’s picture on the cover ofWorking Class Dog.Tatum sees the house has been renovated—it has that whole groovy-retro midcentury vibe going on, lots of curves and pops of color, red leatherette chairs in the kitchen, an art deco bar cart so when Frank Sinatra comes over, he can make himself a martini. Tatum heads to the bedroom and slips the snake between the sheets of Dru-Ann’s bed.
