AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gigi relaxes a bit; this kind of chat is unusual for her. She has never had close girlfriends. At SAS, Gigi occasionally befriended a girl whose parents had been relocated by a bank or corporation, but the stint in Singapore was always temporary—the parents got transferred or the family couldn’t adjust to the oppressive heat or the strict laws and they left after a year or two. Gigi’s classmates at Embry-Riddle were nearly all men, and this carried through to her life as a pilot. On the rare occasions that the female flight attendants Gigi works with invite her out for drinks, she says yes—and after a few cosmos or negronis, the talk always turns to sex. Always.
Gigi takes a sip of wine. “Let’s change the subject,” she says. “How do you all feel about faking your orgasms?”
The table sits in stunned silence.
Oops,Gigi thinks.
Caroline is so glad she has the camera rolling. This woman is awesome.
Tatum takes a swallow of pinot grigio, which goes down like water—headache tomorrow for sure—and says, “I’ve never faked an orgasm in my life.”
“Liar,” Dru-Ann says. “Everyone fakes. It’s the reason men are so insecure. They can never be sure if it’s real or if we’re pulling a Meg Ryan.”
Who is Meg Ryan?Caroline wonders.
“I. Have. Never. Faked. An. Orgasm,” Tatum says. “Kyle knows how to make mescream. He stands behind me…” She stops. “Do you want to hear this?”
“Uh,no,” Dru-Ann says. “We’re eating.”
“I want to hear,” Brooke says.
“I have to admit,I’mintrigued,” Gigi says.
“He lifts me off the ground with one arm and rubs me with two fingers of his other hand.” Tatum shrugs. “Sometimes we do that in front of a mirror. Very hot. That always works, but he has other tricks. I taught him what I liked back when we were both young, and he knows I haven’t been with anyone else, so there’s no one he needs to compare himself to. But I never fake. Why would I?”
“Damn,” Dru-Ann says. “I fake to, you know, move things along.”
“Because you have a chicken in the oven,” Hollis says. “Or you just want to go to sleep.”
Ew,Caroline thinks. She’d hoped Hollis would recuse herself from this part of the conversation.
“I’ve never had an orgasm with Charlie,” Brooke says.
Again, the table goes silent. From outside, they can hear the waves breaking, then the suck of water back to the sea.
This,Caroline thinks,is what’s known as a mic drop.
Finally Dru-Ann clears her throat. “Now I understand why you want to decentralize him from your life.” She pauses. “Never?”
“Never with Charlie or any other guy, actually,” Brooke says. “Only with myself.”
“DoesCharlieknow this?” Hollis asks. She can hear her voice becoming high-pitched and she’s probably one sip of wine away from slurring. She should switch to water, but she doesn’t want to. This is the kind of frank, intimate talk thatshouldbe happening this weekend. Gigi Ling understood the assignment.
“He has no idea,” Brooke says. “He thinks he’s a porn star.”
“You poor child,” Dru-Ann says. She’s developing an actual fondness for Brooke. The woman issucha basket case, it’s endearing. “We need shots. Now.” She goes to the kitchen for shot glasses—Hollis has two dozen on display; she must use them to serve gazpacho or some nonsense—and grabs the bottle of Casa Dragones and the bowl of cut limes. Back at the table, she pours five shots and passes four around: Brooke, Tatum, Hollis, and Gigi.
Dru-Ann hoists her shot glass. “To satisfaction.” She winks at Brooke. “We’re gonna get you some, girlfriend.”
They all throw back the shots. Hollis winces, Brooke winces, Tatum winces; Gigi squeezes a lime into her tequila, and her gold bangle chimes against her watch as she throws the shot back with undeniable elegance.
Where did Hollis find this woman? Caroline wonders. She’s a queen.
Hollis is a little unsteady as she stands to get dessert, the peach cobbler with a hot sugar crust, which has been warming in the oven. She brings the cobbler out and sets it on a trivet, then scoots back to the kitchen to whip the cream. For a few moments she stares into the bowl as the whisk beats around and around. She hears laughter in the other room over the strains of Bon Jovi and she thinks,This is working.Just as surely as the cream turns from liquid to solid, her friends are coming together. This metaphor might not apply, but there is no denying that things on the deck are going much better than they were earlier. Gigi’s appearance has done wonders. Everyone is on her best behavior.
Hollis suspects that Gigi is fibbing about her mother’s Cantonese cooking, but she thinks it’s endearing. Hollis has lied about her own mother in the past—oh, has she. She and Gigi are so…simpatico.
For an instant, Hollis feels pleased with herself.Shebrought these amazing women together, and she has curated theperfect Nantucket weekend.
