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Dru-Ann snatches up the remote and flips through the sports channels, though she knows U.S. coverage of the British Open won’t start until this afternoon, and even then it’ll be minimal until the final round tomorrow. She fires up her laptop and checks the standings, and sure enough, Phineas Pine is in ninth place at four under; he’s on the sixteenth hole of the round now. The top of the field is close; McIlroy is the leader at seven under. Phineas is three shots back with twenty-one holes to go.
There are no phones allowed at St. Andrews so real-time developments are hard to come by. Is Posey somehow texting Nick? Or did Nick fly to Scotland? Dru-Ann wonders if Nick feels that Phineas’s remarkable showing somehowjustifiesPosey’s decision to quit the Dow.He had a dream he was going to win.Maybe Nick thinks it’s romantic, Posey sacrificing her own nearly certain victory to be at her boyfriend’s side.
It’s not romantic,Dru-Ann thinks.It’s pitiful!
While Avalon is making herself an herbal tea in the kitchen and texting Hollis yet again—Hi, I’m here! Should I stay or should I?—Dru-Ann snaps her laptop shut, clicks off the TV, and powers off her phone. She needs a shower.
Brooke is lying in bed in the Board Room with her fingers between her legs, masturbating. All the talk of the night before has gotten her worked up. She thinks about being in the center of the circle last night, dancing, only in her fantasy, she’s naked.
She hears someone in the hallway whispering, “Hello? Hello? Namaste?” It sounds like the person is right outside Brooke’s bedroom door, but Brooke double-checked that the door was locked and so this heightens Brooke’s excitement. The yoga instructor is only a few yards away from where Brooke is lying, but she has no idea what kind of eye-rolling, toe-curling, back-archingecstasyBrooke is experiencing.
Who needs yoga to find enlightenment?Brooke thinks. She’s finding it here all by herself.
The door to Gigi’s room is ajar, and Avalon takes this as an invitation. She wants to findsomeonebefore she leaves. She taps on the door and says, “Hello? Hello?” And then, to identify herself as the goddamn yoga instructor, she adds, “Namaste?”
There’s no answer, and Avalon boldly pushes the door open. This room is as swoon-worthy as the rest of the house. There’s deep green jungle-print wallpaper, a rattan sleigh bed sheathed in white and hibiscus pink linens, a simple sisal rug, and a trunk at the end of the bed inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The far end of the room is a living garden—there are hanging succulents, two potted palms, a white shelf displaying a row of bonsai trees. Again, Avalon whips out her phone and takes a few quick pictures, despite her mounting frustration. Avalon steps out—really, what is she doing prowling around like this?—then notices a door at the end of the hallway, and through the window she spies a slice of turquoise. The pool!
Avalon hurries down the hall, thinking maybe the joke is on her, maybe everyone is out on the pool deck, waiting for her.
But the pool deck is empty.What the hell?Avalon thinks.
Gigi has taken a walk on the beach. She sees seagulls, sandpipers, oystercatchers, and, in the distance, a red-and-white-striped lighthouse on a bluff. She does not see another living soul, which suits her just fine.
She sits in the sand, drops her face into her hands, and cries.
Back at First Light, Avalon packs up her Camry and leaves. That was a yoga fail, she thinks—but at least she has a morning bun, swathed in a napkin, for later.
20. Shotgun I
As they’re all climbing into Hollis’s Bronco to go to town, Dru-Ann says, “Guess what I found in my bed? A rubber snake.”
“What?” Hollis says. “That’s impossible. I made up all the beds fresh yesterday.”
“It’s like that scene fromThe Godfather!” Brooke says. “Remember the horse head?”
Tatum, who is sitting shotgun next to Hollis, says, “It sounds like someone was trying to send you a message.”
Well,Dru-Ann thinks,that mystery is solved.
21. Stone Alley
Brooke expects they will all stroll through town together, but as soon as they climb out of Hollis’s Bronco, Tatum says she has an errand to run and that she’ll meet everyone in an hour.
“Okay?” Brooke says. The cleft between her first and second toes was rubbed raw by the sadistic sandals from the day before, so Brooke is wearing a pair of purple Skechers that make her feel like the kind of woman who walks at the mall. “Where shall we meet up?” She surveys the scene on Main Street: There’s a line of glowing young people in yoga clothes at Lemon Press; the Bartlett’s Farm truck is parked on the corner, its sectioned flatbed bursting with ears of corn, zucchini, carrots, and radishes with the frilly green tops still attached; a balding gentleman in horn-rimmed glasses reads the newspaper on a bench with a golden retriever lying at his feet. “I’d like to go to Murray’s Toggery. I want to buy a Nantucket Reds skirt.” She looks to Hollis for validation or instruction of some kind, but Hollis is gazing down Centre Street.
“I’ll be right back,” Hollis says. “I’ll text if I can’t find you.” She moves around a couple pushing a double stroller and darts off after Tatum.
Brooke tries to summon the mellow afterglow that she felt that morning in bed, but it’s gone. She’d thought that they would be like five stars in a constellation, doing things together. (Was this silly?) While Brooke tried on her skirt, the others would browse, and when Brooke popped out of the dressing room, they would give her a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. That’s what girlfriendsdid.
“There’s a store I want to check out, but it’s on the other side of town,” Dru-Ann says. “It’s the only place that carries Dries Van Noten.”
“Dries Van…” Brooke has no idea what Dru-Ann is talking about; it sounds like she’s speaking German.
“I’ll meet you later.” Dru-Ann waves a hand in the vague direction of Pacific National Bank and takes off down the street.
Brooke turns to Gigi with a forced smile. “Looks like it’s just us,” she says. She feels like they’re the last two kids picked for a team in gym class.
Gigi is wearing her straw fedora, a pair of dark round sunglasses, and the cutest white T-shirt dress with her Vejas. “I wanted a chance to get to know you better anyway,” she says. “We barely got to talk last night.”
