“I couldn’t correct Michael Marquand,” he said. “He discovered Dense Keys.”
“Who or what is that?”
“Are you kidding me? Ellie, you’re a Philistine. How can you know so little about music when your stepfather is Luke Weston?”
“I don’t know. We talk about other stuff, I guess.” We headed down the wide, carpeted stairway that led to the pool-level lower floor.
George said, “So who’s Aaron and why are we so happy he’s coming to LA?”
“He’s Michael’s son by his first wife.”
“So the wife I just met is number two?”
“Three, actually. There was this young actress in between.”
“Crystal isn’t exactly old.”
“This one was even younger. I believe the words ‘cradle robbing’ were used, but I’m not telling you by who, except it was my mom. It didn’t last long.”
The hallway at the bottom of the stairs ended in glass doors that led out to the back of the resort. George held one open for me and I stepped through. “Wow, it’s really beautiful here.” I stopped to look around. Torches were lit all around us, outlining the paths to the pool and the beach, and their flickering glow tinged everything burnt orange. Palm tree leaves stirred against the blue-black sky. You could hear the ocean from where we were, but the sound was just a gentle rise and fall behind the uneven clash of voices laughing and talking from the patio restaurant. I breathed in the salty-smoky air and closed my eyes briefly to enjoy it. “Why is anyone inside when they could be out here? Why would anyone be anywhere else in the world right now?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice.”
I glanced over my shoulder and he was watching me, but his gaze quickly shifted away. “I know what you’re thinking,” I said.
“I doubt it.”
“You’re gloating because you were right—this is just as good as Tahiti would have been. Maybe even better.” I flung my hand around. “I mean, this is perfect. You can’t get better than perfect, can you?”
“I didn’t deliberately not choose Tahiti because you wanted it, you know. This was the best choice for a lot of reasons.”
“Still, you were right and I was wrong. I admit it. Now let us never speak of it again. Want to go down to the beach?”
“Yeah.” As we walked along the curving path, he said, “You never finished telling me about Michael’s son. Do you know him?”
“He’s my future husband.”
“Really? What crime did he commit to deserve a sentence like that?”
“Don’t be mean. We’re like the same exact age and his father and Luke are best friends. And—” I stopped. If I’d been with one of my girlfriends, I might have also said something about how Aaron had grown from a reasonably cute tween when I first met him to one of the best-looking guys in the world. I’d seen him briefly a few months ago when he was visiting his father and he kind of took my breath away. He had gotten tall and broad-shouldered and his hair was this bronze color and wavy, and he had these light blue eyes and this perfect jaw. . . .
“And . . . ?” George prompted.
I shrugged. “And so he’s destined to be my husband. I’m just not sure which husband. I don’t want him to be my first, because obviously that one’s not going to last—”
“Obviously.”
“And I want my last husband to be much younger than I am so he can take care of me when I’m dying. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Maybe number three?”
“Would that put him in the middle? Or still toward the beginning?”
“I’m hurt,” I said. “How many husbands do you think I’m planning to have? I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Obviously,” he said.
I nudged his elbow with mine. “Come on. Let’s go down to the water.”
When we reached the sand, I kicked off my flip-flops and said, “You’d better take your loafers off, too, unless you like gritty shoes.”
He removed his shoes and socks, then cuffed his pants. “How stupid do I look?” he asked as he straightened up.
“You don’t want to know.”
“‘Don’t worry, George, you look fine. Not stupid at all.’”
“My mama didn’t raise no liars.”
“Just . . . come on.” We left our shoes and he led the way down to the edge of the water. We stood there in the semidarkness, hearing the waves better than we could see them. The water looked black at this hour. Black with white frills that caught the moonlight. The few couples I could see were spread out along the beach, as far from one another as they could be, greedy for privacy.
“Why is the ocean so wonderful?” I asked after we’d gazed in contented silence for a while.
“I don’t know,” George said. “People can’t survive without water, so maybe we’re biologically programmed to want to be near it.”
“You just managed to suck all the poetry right out of this.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Doesn’t this make you want to do something?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I circled my hands in the air, frustrated by my inability to put the feeling into words. “There’s something about how beautiful it is—and how the waves look—and the sound, too . . . and it’s like we should go out and build castles or fight evil or just run around in circles screaming. Don’t you feel that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s so big and we’re so small. It makes you want to be bigger. To matter.”
“Right.” I turned and we started walking along the shore. “The sand’s freezing. My feet are getting numb.”
“You want to go back inside?”
“Soon. Not yet.” I glanced sideways at him. “So what could we do that would matter? Build hospitals? Slay evil dictators? Write the great American novel?”
“We could write the great American novel about an evil dictator while sitting in a hospital,” he said. “But what we’ll really do is walk away and forget that feeling within about five minutes and end up like the rest of the world, working any job we can get and leading lives of quiet desperation.”
“You’re a cynic.”
“No—a realist.”
I glanced up at the resort and saw a couple strolling toward the ocean, holding hands. “Isn’t that Mom and Luke?”
“I think so,” George said, and we headed toward them. There were a few other couples trailing them, acting all casual and indifferent but clearly sneaking glimpses at the famous TV star. At least they were all keeping a respectful distance.
“What are you two doing down here?” Mom asked as we came together.
“I had to get out of that room,” I said. “Jacob threw a fit—he was screaming and throwing his food. I ran into George in the lobby and we thought we’d see what the beach was like.”
“Jacob had a tantrum?” Even in the dim light, I could see Mom’s brow furrow. “He’s been having so many lately.”
“It’s just because he was on a plane all day,” Luke said with an easy shrug. “After a six-hour flight, I’m ready to throw things, too.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. “And most kids scream on airplanes. It’s sort of amazing he didn’t.”
Mom didn’t respond to that.
By the time I got back to the room, Jacob was asleep and Grandma was watching TV with the volume down low—some reality show about a bunch of swollen-lipped women who were drinking wine and yelling at one another.
I curled up on the other bed—Jacob was in a rollaway crib—and texted Heather. I wanted to tell her that Aaron Marquand was coming to live in LA.
He’s the cute one, right? she texted back. With the blue eyes? She hadn’t ever met him, but I’d shown her photos.
Yep. AKA my future husband.
Squeal.
seven
The breeze was blowing strands of hair against my sticky-glossy lips. I had to keep reaching up and pulling them away with my free hand. I wish
ed I’d put my hair up. Or not worn lip gloss.
Jacob’s hand was sweaty in mine as Luke made a toast to Mom. I glanced down at my little brother, who was wearing a soft dark-green top over white pants. His thick, wavy hair was neatly brushed for once—it was on the long side because he hated having it cut and would scream when anyone tried, but at least it looked cute that way. He also didn’t like having it brushed, but I’d won that battle this morning by bribing him: an M&M for each pass of the brush and he got to watch TV the whole time.
He was pretty adorable all dressed up. Kid-model cute. He held my hand tightly and stared up at the slowly rotating fake-palm-leaf fan above us.
We were in a room with floor-to-ceiling glass doors facing the ocean, all of them open for the party. We could hear the waves and feel the breeze, but we had a wooden floor under our feet and three walls to keep the event private. For added security, George had also asked the hotel not to use Luke’s real name, so the event schedule down in the lobby read “Anniversary of John and Jane Smith.” I took a photo and texted it to Heather with a jaunty Maybe we’re related.
“I am so brilliant,” I crowed to Jonathan after the toast was done, and waiters had started passing around drinks and hors d’oeuvres. “Don’t you think this was a brilliant idea? Don’t Luke and Mom look happy?” Mom’s face had lit up when Luke said that the last five years had been the happiest of his life, and their kiss at the end of his toast had looked pretty passionate from where I was standing.
“It’s great,” Jonathan said, and squeezed my shoulders.
“It’s really pretty here,” his fiancée added. Izzy had straight dark eyebrows and straight dark hair. She always seemed very serious and intense to me, but it’s possible I was reading too much into the eyebrows.
They moved on to talk to Luke’s business manager. I helped myself to a glass of champagne and raised it to Luke, who had caught my eye from across the room. He blew me a kiss. I had definitely lucked out in the stepfather department. And not because Luke had become so rich and famous. Because he was Luke.
My grandmother beckoned to me. She’d had her hair blown out by a professional that morning, and it looked sleek and shiny, instead of frizzy and bumpy like it usually did. Between that and the neatly tailored blue silk dress Mom had bought for her, she looked great. “Are you sure you should—” she began, but then she saw something that distracted her. “Is that a piece of cheese? Why would she give that to him? He eats way too much dairy.” She ran toward Mom and Jacob.
George came up to me. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey. Were you waiting until my grandmother left to come talk to me?”
“She’s a lovely woman. I respect her enormously.”
“Try waking up with her in your room.”
“Words cannot express to what extent I’d rather not.”
“You get drunk enough, anything could happen.”
“I’m fairly certain not that.”
“That’s the same suit jacket you were wearing last night,” I pointed out, looking him up and down. “It looks better with the matching pants. And a shirt that doesn’t clash.” The funny thing was, he looked younger in the suit than he did in his usual jeans and oxford shirts, like a teenager borrowing his dad’s clothes for a prom. I forgot sometimes that he was only a couple of years older than I was; he felt a lot older because he was done with college already, and because he was so Georgeish.
“There’s sand in the pockets from last night,” he said. “I can’t figure out how it got there.”
“Lax immigration laws? You haven’t said anything about how I look.” I spun around so the ballerina skirt on my dusty-pink dress rose up slightly and then settled back down into place. “Nice, right?”
“You know what your problem is?” he said. “Low self-esteem.”
“A compliment wouldn’t kill you.”
“I could never flatter you as well as you flatter yourself.”
I folded my arms over my chest with a humph. “I take back all the nice things I said about your suit.”
“What nice things? All you said was it didn’t look as bad today as it did last night. Not that I remember asking for your opinion.”
“Does anyone help you pick out your clothing? Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment. I’m sure that shocks you. What about you?”
“I have lots of girlfriends.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh, you mean like a girlfriend with a penis?” It’s possible the champagne was getting to me. “Nope. Never had one.”
“Seriously?” His surprise seemed genuine. “I would have assumed you went through a dozen a year. Aren’t you Miss Popularity?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I would never date in high school. It would be way too embarrassing to look back on.”
“Don’t you think that depends on who you went out with?”
“There isn’t a guy in my grade who I haven’t seen asleep in class with his mouth open and drooling. Ugh.”
“I hate to break it to you, but guys fall asleep in college, too. A lot.”
“I’ll skip all my morning classes so I won’t have to see them.”
Before he could respond, Jonathan and Izzy appeared at my elbow. Jonathan said, “Georgie, the manager thought I was you and wanted to know when they should serve dinner. Can you go talk to her?”
“Georgie?” I repeated with delight.
George moaned. “I can’t believe you just gave her more ammunition to use against me.”
“I would never!” I said. “I’m not like that. Georgiekins.”
“I’m going to go talk to the manager,” he said, stepping back. “And then I’m throwing myself in the ocean. Tell Mom and Dad I loved them, Jonny.”
“Jonny’s not embarrassing,” I called after him as he walked away. “Not like Georgie.”
“Poor Georgie,” Izzy said seriously. “He’s so sensitive.”
eight
I spent the next two days digging my toes in the sand while I read and dozed in the sun. They went by way too quickly; I blinked and we were packing.
I was hoping the mellow vacation vibe would stick around, but it was business as usual with George when he showed up for tutoring on Wednesday. “You’re going to take an entire practice SAT today,” he announced briskly as soon as he walked in the door. “We only have a week before school starts and we won’t be able to get as much done then. I want to pinpoint whatever you’re still struggling with so we can focus on it.”
“I’m not struggling with any of it,” I said, following him into the kitchen.
“Prove it. Take the test.”
“That takes hours!”
“Where else do you have to be?”
“I have a life, you know.”
“Want me to text your mother and ask her what she thinks?”
“It is so uncool to constantly be threatening to tell my mother on me. You know that, right?” I dropped into a chair. It had turned really hot, brutally hot, the kind of hot LA only gets in late August and early September. The air-conditioning was blasting throughout the house, but I was wearing my shortest shorts and a tank top because I could see how hot it was through the window.
“I’d hate to have you think I’m not cool,” he said stonily.
“Yeah, that ship has sailed. . . . Can I at least have Heather come do it with me so it’s more fun?”
“If it will cut down on the whining. I can print up two copies.”
I texted Heather and told her to come over but didn’t tell her why, because I didn’t want her to say no and I knew she hated taking tests.
She wrote back: Okay. My mom says we should pay for my half of the tutoring tho
Tell her you make me work harder and we should be paying you to come
That’s ridiculous
We’ll talk about it later
I didn’t want her money. George was my tutor and she only came as my invited guest, and that’s how I wante
d it. I liked being the one in control.
Once he had finished printing up the tests, and we were just waiting for Heather to arrive, George started firing vocabulary words at me. “Define euphemism.”
“Polite word for something that isn’t polite. For instance, instead of saying that someone puked, I would say that they ‘prayed to the porcelain god’ or something like that.”
“Avuncular.”
“Behaving like an uncle to someone. Michael is very avuncular toward me. But when I marry his son, he’ll be more paternal. Do you want some tea?” I stood up.
“No, thanks. Fatuous.”
I put a tea pod into the coffee maker and hit the start button. “I’m not sure I can define it, but I’m pretty sure you’re an example of it.”
“Wrong,” he said. “It doesn’t mean wildly handsome.”
“Oh, well played, Georgie! You win that round.”
Soon after that, Heather buzzed in at the gate. “I have good news and bad news,” I told her as we walked along the hallway toward the kitchen. “The good news is we’re going shopping later.”
“And the bad news is that I can’t afford to buy anything.”
“Yes, you can. I’m treating.”
“Then the bad news is that it’s so hot, my car will melt before we leave.” She was dressed for the brutal heat in a pair of Daisy Dukes and a gauzy tee.
“Not that either.”
“Then what’s the bad news?”
We entered the kitchen and I gestured toward George, who was sitting there in his usual jeans and oxford shirt—dressed for a completely different climate. “First we have to take a practice SAT.”
“Oh no,” she said, backing away. “You didn’t tell me we were going to do that. That’s not fair.”
“Come on.” I took her hand and pulled her toward the table. “It’ll be fun. We’ll do it together.”
“No, you won’t,” George said. “I’m putting you in separate rooms. You need to take this seriously or there’s no point.”
“You go ahead,” Heather said. “I’ll wait. I can watch something or talk to George.”