AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gigi squeezes Brooke’s forearm and it’s this tiny kindness that makes Brooke’s eyes burn with tears. Probably Gigi pities her. Brooke digs through her purse, finds an elastic, and ties back her hair.
Tatum can’t wait another second; she lights the cigarette. They are, after all, in a convertible. She inhales deeply, then blows smoke out the side and dangles her hand outside the car as well. Nobody complains. Gigi has her eyes closed and her head back. Hollis is watching the road and, Tatum would bet, dreaming about Jack. The two of them reverted right back to their seventeen-year-old selves. It was hilarious to watch.
Tatum takes another drag. She feels her tension ease a bit but then Dru-Ann whips around. “Are yousmoking?You are—and you just blew smoke right into myhair!”
Tatum nearly exhales in Dru-Ann’s face, but that’s a step too far even for her. She lets the smoke slip out the side of her mouth and taps off her ash. “I most certainly did not.”
“Who smokes in a car full of people?” Dru-Ann says. “Talk about trashy.”
Tatum leans forward. “What did you say?”
“What you’re doing is beyond inconsiderate.”
“You called metrashy,” Tatum says. “I heard you.” Here it is, then, solid proof of what Tatum has suspected all along. “I’m sorry I don’t make six figures like you.”
Try seven,Dru-Ann thinks, but she doesn’t say it and now she wishes she’d kept her mouth shut because she doesn’t want Tatum to hate her any more than she already does. “It’s not about money,” Dru-Ann says. “It’s about manners.”
“We’re in a convertible!” Tatum says. She flicks the cigarette away. “But whatever, I’m sorry.” She hates herself for apologizing to Dru-Ann, though, really, she’s apologizing to Hollis. “I hope your hair survives.”
Hollis is tempted to speak up on Tatum’s behalf—the poor woman is awaiting biopsy results—but if she does, Dru-Ann will no doubt say,Why do you always protect her? You’ve been doing it your whole life,and then Tatum will jump in and say,Because she’s known me her whole life. Hollis is quiet, and everyone else is quiet, and Hollis exhales, hoping that’s the end of it. The ride home, she thinks, is a three-star experience, maybe only two stars. When they pull into the driveway, the only person smiling is Gigi.
Thank God for Gigi,Hollis thinks.
25. Maybe: Sofia
When Caroline wakes up for the second time on Saturday, there’s a note on the kitchen table from her mother.Shopping in town. Back at noon,it says.Hallelujah,Caroline thinks. She has the house to herself. Breakfast has, of course, been cleaned up (her mother is so type A, she’s triple A), but Caroline finds the morning buns wrapped in an origami of wax paper and she makes herself a bowl of café au lait with almond milk. She repairs to her favorite spot on the property—the footbridge over the pond.
The bowed middle makes a fine perch from which to survey the Shaw–Madden kingdom. Caroline sits cross-legged in the sun, enjoying the breeze across the pond and the view of the beach over the dunes. She sips her coffee, devours the first morning bun in three bites, then tosses pieces of the second bun into the pond. There’s a soft plashing sound as the fish break the surface of the water. A dragonfly hovers over Caroline’s bare forearm.Nature,she thinks. Introspection. Is she having a moment? Maybe, but it’s fleeting. She thinks about the night before and how strange it was that Dylan didn’t try to sleep with her. Caroline didn’t particularly want to have sex with him, though it would have been nice to feel desired. If Caroline told Isaac that she’d slept with her longtime crush, she knows he would be happy for her because Isaac’s generous heart would not want Caroline to be alone. After all,heisn’t alone. He’s with Sofia.
Caroline pulls out her phone and googlesIsaac Opoku and Sofia Desmione—and then, like the pathetic weenie she is, she starts to scroll.
There’s the article from theNew York Poston December 5, 2018, speculating that Isaac and Sofia were dating (“It’s the crossover we didn’t know we needed!”). Next is a picture of Isaac and Sofia on the red carpet at the 2019 Oscars—Isaac looking absolutely fine in a midnight-blue velvet Oscar de la Renta tux, Sofia in Givenchy. There’s a link to aNew Yorkmagazine article predicting that documentaries are the only kind of films that will survive into the next decade; Isaac is mentioned. Finally, Caroline lands on Sofia’s Instagram page with its 19.3 million followers (a lot of them Italian; Caroline has checked before). There are five pictures of Isaac in Sofia’s feed. Four of these are at public events—the Toronto Film Festival, Sundance, Cannes, and the Givenchy show during Paris Fashion Week. (Caroline takes a moment to feel awe that she has slept with Isaac, and Isaac has won awards at Cannes, making Caroline Cannes-adjacent.) But the best and most heartbreaking picture on Sofia’s feed was taken this past April, after Caroline submitted her application for the internship but before she’d been chosen. The photograph is of Isaac sitting on the white Kagan sofa in the loft. He’s wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and white Chucks; theNew York Timescrossword puzzle is open against his thigh, and there’s a cup of golden tea on the table in front of him. It seems as though Sofia has caught him by surprise, as if she called his name and he looked up. His brown skin is luminous; his eyes are wide and soulful. In the other photos, Isaac’s expression is guarded, but in his face here, Caroline can see the nine-year-old boy who lost his mother. Caroline is arrested not only by his beauty but by his vulnerability.
The caption reads, simply,My love.
A text comes in and Caroline assumes it’s Hollis with their ETA, but when she looks, she sees it’s from a number with a 917 area code, and the caller ID readsMaybe: Sofia.
What?Ever so gingerly, Caroline swipes on the alert. The text says:Hi, Caroline, how is your weekend?
Caroline sets her phone down on the planks of the bridge; even touching it seems dangerous. Sofia has never, ever texted Caroline before. Sofia doesn’t have her number. She must have gotten her number from Isaac. Or taken it out of Isaac’s contacts.
Hi, Caroline, how is your weekend?It’s definitely Sofia; the syntax is what you’d expect from someone who’s fluent in English but isn’t a native speaker.How’s your weekend going?is how a person would ask if she really wanted to know, which Caroline assumes Sofia does not.
What is happening here? Caroline has a solid understanding of social media and she knows that you can’t tell when someone is looking at your account unless that person Likes or comments while you’re watching in real time, and Caroline has done neither. Sofia would be able to see if Caroline was active on Instagram if Caroline followed her, but she doesn’t. It’s a very spooky coincidence that Sofia textedwhile Caroline was stalking her page.
What can Caroline think but that Sofia has found out about her affair with Isaac? Maybe she checked Isaac’s phone and saw Caroline’sI miss youtext. It was stupid to send that, so stupid! Maybe one of Caroline’s blond hairs turned up on the pillow. (Isaac said he was going to wash the sheets, but did he?) The text could be explained away—Caroline sent it to Isaac by mistake. Ditto a stray hair; Caroline worked in the loft, her DNA was everywhere.
Caroline decides to play it cool. Isaac probably told Sofia that Caroline was away for the weekend filming this thing for her mother and that he’d lent her his equipment as a mitzvah. Maybe Sofia found the idea intriguing; maybe when she was in Sweden she’d had a personality transplant and now cared about little people like Caroline. Or maybe—this was most likely—Sofia had aninklingsomething was going on but she wasn’t 100 percent sure. Or maybe Isaac broke things off with Sofia and she wants to cry on Caroline’s shoulder. (Not a chance.)
Caroline knows she shouldn’t respond, but she’s worried that silence implies guilt.Hey,she texts back.
A second later, Caroline’s phone starts to ring. It’sMaybe: Sofia.
Nooooooo!Caroline thinks. She can’t pick up. She might be able to come across as casual and unconcerned via text, but on the phone, her voice will betray her:I slept with Isaac, I fell in love with him. He ended things before you got home. I am heartbroken.
Caroline declines the call, then types:Sorry, can’t chat, I’m filming rn. I’ll call u later.
To which Sofia immediately responds:K.
