Great

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  Then I heard the oven timer ding.

  “That’s the mac and cheese,” I told her. “I’ve got to take it out to cool.”

  “Mac and cheese?” Jacinta repeated, looking confused. “Like Kraft mac and cheese?”

  “No way,” I said. “I don’t mess with that Kraft b.s. This is the real deal. Homemade with fancy cheeses.”

  Jacinta looked a little relieved that I had made a properly pretentious version of comfort food. I left her on the couch and went to the kitchen to get the dish out of the oven. Then the doorbell rang, and it was Jacinta’s housekeeper with the snickerdoodles. Then I realized I still hadn’t set the table on the deck, or made fresh lemonade.

  I bustled about, feeling like Suzy Homemaker, and set out what my mother would have called “an exquisite spread” on the table on the back deck. I was so consumed in my activity that I jumped a little when the doorbell rang.

  Delilah Fairweather stood on the front porch wearing a red shirtdress that had probably been a gift from Ralph Lauren himself. She looked like the epitome of an all-American girl. Skags would’ve scolded me for the thought, pointing out that America is a vast mosaic of individuals of different ethnic backgrounds, colors, shapes, etc.—but Delilah certainly had that classic Barbie look down pat.

  “Hello there,” Delilah said.

  “C’mon in,” I said, ushering her into the foyer.

  “Your house is beautiful,” she cooed. “Your mother has perfect taste.”

  “She’s an expert shopper,” I said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “You couldn’t do a mimosa, could you?” she asked mischievously, her big blue eyes sparkling.

  “Sadly, no,” I said. “I know I sound like a nerd, but my mom would flip if she found out I’d opened any of her champagne.”

  “Oh, that’s no problem,” Delilah said. “I forget that most people’s parents actually notice if they steal their alcohol. Merilee isn’t the most—attentive mommy.” She giggled.

  “I just made some lemonade. Want any?”

  “You made it yourself?” Delilah sounded truly impressed. “Of course I’d like some!” Then her eyes widened in surprise. I looked over my shoulder in the direction she was looking, and there in the doorway to the living room was Jacinta Trimalchio, pale as could be in her little dress and elf boots. Delilah instantly generated a friendly smile and looked at me expectantly.

  “Oh,” I said, a little confused. “Delilah, this is my neighbor, Jacinta Trimalchio.”

  Delilah gave a squeal of delight.

  “Oh my gosh,” she said, grinning wide. “I adore your site. It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you.” Jacinta appeared frozen by some invisible force, so I gamely put my arm around her waist and pushed her forward. I may get a case of the Nervous Naomi Babbles now and then, but I don’t think I’ve ever appeared this terrified when being introduced to a new person. Jacinta, on the other hand, was looking at Delilah as if she was a ghost.

  “Jacinta,” I said after an uncomfortable silence. “This is Delilah Fairweather.” It was such an unnecessary statement that I immediately felt embarrassed.

  “Why don’t you sit down and tell me all about the site,” Delilah suggested, and I felt a rush of gratitude toward her. Here she was, confronted with a freakishly silent girl, and she was really making an effort to make her comfortable. Without a word, Jacinta obeyed. The two girls sat on opposite ends of the living room couch staring at each other, while I stood with hands awkwardly clasped in front of me.

  “For how long have you been blogging?” Delilah asked politely.

  “S-since I was fourteen,” Jacinta said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Four years.”

  “Well, I’ve been a huge fan for the past three,” Delilah said, soldiering onward. “I remember the first time you featured me in a Spotlight, when Mom and I did the red carpet for the Whitney Museum benefit. I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited.”

  “That’s lovely,” Jacinta said faintly.

  I could tell this was going to be a complete disaster. Jacinta was acting completely out of character. Okay, so it occurred to me that I didn’t exactly know her character very well, but she sure wasn’t the confident, bubbly girl with whom I’d gone to lunch.

  “I’m going to get some lemonade and cookies,” I announced in an unusually high-pitched voice. “Be right back.” I turned on my heel and left, and heard someone rush after me.

  “I’m freaking out,” Jacinta whispered urgently as we walked into the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered. “You were so excited about meeting her.”

  “I’m just—I guess—oh, I don’t know,” she fretted as I poured three glasses of lemonade and set them on a tray. “I’ve wanted to meet her for so long, and now I just don’t know what to say. She’s so—her, you know?”

  I tried hard to conceal my growing annoyance. I hate awkward social situations, and it feels like they’re always happening around me. I put some snickerdoodles on the tray and pushed it toward her.

  “Here,” I said in a voice that sounded oddly like my mother’s. “She’s your guest. You bring her the cookies and lemonade.”

  “Don’t leave me alone in there with her!” Jacinta pleaded.

  “I have to make a phone call,” I said, sounding colder than I’d intended.

  Practically shivering, Jacinta sighed and picked up the tray, walking into the other room. I got out my cell phone, walking out onto the deck and shutting the door carefully behind me.

  “What’s up?” Skags asked when she picked up her phone. “How’s everything in the land of moneybags and Botox?”

  “Completely weird,” I said. “I had Delilah over to meet this girl who lives next door, Jacinta. She’s this style blogger who thinks Delilah is the next big supermodel, and she threw this crazy party the other night with a Ferris wheel and carnival games and fireworks in the backyard.”

  “Look at you, socializing,” Skags said. “Your mother must be delirious with excitement. Her little girl’s making plastic friends!”

  “Ugh,” I said. “I don’t think Delilah’s going to be my friend after this. This girl Jacinta is acting crazy. It’s like she can’t even talk because she’s so starstruck.”

  “Starstruck?” Skags snorted. “Over Delilah Fairweather?”

  “They’re in the living room right now, and it’s just so awkward,” I said.

  “You left them alone?” Skags laughed. “Yeah, you’re a really great hostess, Naomi.”

  “Well, what else am I supposed to do?” I hissed. “Jacinta’s the one who made me have Delilah over, and I made lunch for us and everything, but I seriously don’t think I can suffer through another hour of this weirdness.”

  “Dude, I don’t know what to tell you,” Skags said. “But I gotta go. I’ve got a tennis date at two.”

  “With that hot girl we met at the courts that one time?”

  “Nope.” Skags sounded very self-satisfied. “You’ll never guess who I’m playing tennis with.”

  “Carter?” Carter was our extremely preppy gay guy friend. He was always trying to get us to play tennis or croquet or some other fancy activity.

  “Jenny Carpenter.”

  “What?” I gasped. “Just the other day she was buying a burrito from you, and now you’re tennis buddies?”

  “Dude, I told you,” Skags said. “The girl freaking loves me.”

  “No way. Absolutely no way. That girl is straight as an arrow.”

  “She asked if I wanted to play tennis. It’s totally a date.”

  “But—but—we’re talking about Jenny Carpenter. The Queen Beast!” I was thoroughly baffled. “I mean, she doesn’t even talk to girls who don’t have Louis Vuitton purses.”

  “Well, she talks to me,” Skags said a little huffily. “I gotta go. Good luck with Barbie and her web stalker.” She hung up abruptly, and I felt a little guilty for dismissing her Jenny Carpenter fantasy.

  I groaned aloud. I
knew I had to go back into that living room, but I really, really, really didn’t want to. I stalled in the kitchen for a few minutes, wiping down surfaces that didn’t need to be wiped down, before I resigned myself to reentering the living room.

  When I returned to the living room, I was confronted by a sight that confused me even more than Jacinta’s earlier behavior had.

  Jacinta and Delilah had both kicked off their shoes. Jacinta sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her, her head propped up in her hand, her elbow resting on the back of the couch. She was leaning toward Delilah, her eyes rapt with attention. For her part, Delilah had stretched out on the couch and draped her legs over Jacinta’s lap. When I walked in, Delilah was laughing gently at something Jacinta had said. The energy in the room couldn’t have changed more drastically. The two seemed like the absolute best of friends.

  I stood in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity before Delilah looked up and noticed me.

  “Oh, Naomi!” she exclaimed in her sweet girly voice. “We’re having the best time. I can’t believe I finally got to meet the girl behind The Wanted.” She shot Jacinta a look I couldn’t read, and Jacinta appeared to stifle a giggle.

  “Oh, um, that’s great,” I said, waiting for Jacinta to look at me and say something. But she remained facing Delilah, her expression blissful.

  “Did you guys want lunch?” I asked lamely.

  At this, Jacinta turned and smiled at me. “I was just asking Delilah over to see my house, love,” she said. Then, almost as if an afterthought, she added, “And you’re welcome to come, too. But then, you’ve already seen it.”

  “Not the whole place,” I said. “Like the non-blue bedrooms. Maybe after that we could come back and have lunch?”

  “Of course,” Jacinta said, and she and Delilah rose to their feet.

  We walked over to Jacinta’s mansion, the girls murmuring and giggling conspiratorially in front of me while I trailed after. It wasn’t hard to feel left out, though my feeling of exclusion was trumped by my absolute astonishment at the 180-degree turnaround in the girls’ attitudes. “I must see the pool first,” Delilah announced, and Jacinta obliged her by leading us out back to the river pool. Delilah squealed with delight at the waterslides, the footbridges, the whole setup.

  “It looks like it’s got a current,” she said with wonder, looking at Jacinta.

  “It does,” Jacinta said. “You should come over to swim. Or just to float.”

  “I’ll come every day,” Delilah said, and she almost sounded as if she really meant it.

  Then it was time for the tour of the indoors, which took quite a while because the place was so huge. Turns out I’d only seen part of the house. On the first floor, I was familiar with the bathroom, main kitchen, dining room, living room, foyer, slightly smaller second living room, cigar room, billiards room, and library. But I hadn’t seen the home theater or the greenhouse attached to the far side of the house, the side not facing my mother’s place.

  That greenhouse was really something. When we walked in, I heard Delilah gasp. The whole place was blooming with red and white rosebushes. She looked at Jacinta in wonder.

  “It was empty when I got here,” Jacinta said by way of explanation. “I put in a big order at the nursery.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Delilah whispered reverently.

  “Better than the snickerdoodles?” Jacinta asked. I cast a curious glance at her. One thing didn’t seem to have much to do with the other.

  “I don’t know. . . the snickerdoodles were pretty great,” Delilah said.

  “Would you call them ‘scrumptious’?” Jacinta inquired. This cracked Delilah up for some reason. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was a truly unnecessary addition to this little social gathering—a real third wheel.

  “Oh, but you haven’t seen the upstairs yet, love!” Jacinta suddenly cried, and Delilah clapped excitedly. Delilah held her hand out to Jacinta, and Jacinta’s eyes widened. When she took the proffered hand, you could fairly see the electricity crackle up her rail-thin arm. Together, she and Delilah floated in some invisible soap bubble out of the green room, down the long hall and into the foyer, where they ascended the stairs as if by magic. I couldn’t have been less a part of their world if I’d actually left the house and gone home—something I was strongly considering.

  Upstairs, we went through the rainbow of rooms and bathrooms in reverse order—indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and finally red.

  “This is my favorite part of the entire house,” Jacinta said proudly, pointing to what looked like a closet door.

  “Is it a walk-in?” I asked, trying to re-insert myself into the conversation. Both girls looked at me with surprise, as if they’d completely forgotten I was there.

  In response, Jacinta flung open the door to reveal a set of display shelves, dramatically lit from above. On the shelves was a series of similar-looking handbags in a rainbow of colors. They didn’t look too impressive to me, but Delilah seemed bowled over. She stared at the bags, her blue eyes filling with tears.

  “They’re—they’re so beautiful,” she said softly, her voice catching a little. “They’re all Birkins, aren’t they?”

  Jacinta nodded.

  This was unprecedented. I’d never seen Delilah cry, ever. I’d never even seen her get teary-eyed. And suddenly it occurred to me that I was an intruder in a private moment I hadn’t been meant to see, and though I couldn’t imagine why or how it had all come to this—Delilah Fairweather crying over handbags in the bedroom of some blogger—it was time for me to go.

  “I’m going to go put the macaroni and cheese back in the oven,” I said. “If you get hungry for lunch, come over.” I turned around and left them there, not waiting for a reaction, since I was pretty certain one wasn’t forthcoming anyway.

  I walked back across the lawn in the shining afternoon sun and cleared the table on the deck. I stored the mac and cheese and salad in the fridge and grabbed my cell phone, intending to call Skags. Instead, I found myself dialing Jeff Byron.

  “How’s it going?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Too weird to explain,” I said honestly. “Want to come over and watch a movie?”

  “Screw the sunshine,” he said.

  He was over in fifteen minutes.

  Jeff stayed through dinner, and I served him the meal I’d intended to give my original guests. While he scarfed down two bowls of mac and cheese, I told him all about Jacinta and Delilah.

  “That’s so bizarre,” he said. “And by the way, adding bacon to this was a genius move.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “So what do you think? I mean, does Delilah usually cry at handbags?”

  He laughed. “Delilah doesn’t usually cry at anything. That girl’s life is perfect.”

  “It was so weird,” I said with a sigh, spearing a piece of watermelon with my fork.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said through a mouthful of mac and cheese.

  “Yeah?”

  “Those chicks are totally making out right now,” he said, cracking himself up.

  “Gross!” I said, throwing a balled-up napkin at him. He laughed harder and tossed it back at me. I threw some watermelon at him, and he returned with a volley of arugula. We were about to launch into a full-scale food fight when my mother swept into the room.

  “Hello, darlings,” Mom said brightly in the super-fake voice she only uses in front of important strangers. “Jeffrey, lovely to see you again.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Rye,” he said.

  “Hi, Mom,” I giggled.

  She looked at the small mess we’d made and opened her mouth to say something, then shut it and smiled tightly.

  “I’ve had a very long day,” she said. “Naomi, take care that all the lights get turned off, yes? I’m going to bed.”

  She disappeared upstairs, and pretty soon Jeff and I were back in the home theater in the basement. We stayed down there long after the movie ended.

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It’s weird how plans change.

  Before I got to New York for the summer, I figured it’d be the usual routine each day—wake up when my mother yelled at me, eat some of her amazing food, dive into some books, break for lunch, hit the books again, and have dinner at home alone while she went out to some social function or another. Of course, there would inevitably be times when she’d drag me against my will to the Horticulture Society benefit or some boring polo event, and on certain days I’d actually feel like trekking to the beach for a bit, but generally my life in the Hamptons would follow a very familiar pattern.

  Then Jacinta Trimalchio entered my life, and everything changed.

  Because of what happened on the Ferris wheel at her party, I had a boyfriend for the first time in my life. We didn’t use that word or anything, but it’s basically what Jeff Byron instantly became to me.

  We hung out all the time, watching movies—or pretending to, anyway—going to the beach, hiking, and trying the lobster rolls at every beach shack and fancy restaurant for miles around. Jeff said he wanted to learn how to cook, so I taught him how to make his favorite things: mac and cheese, pizza, spaghetti with meatballs, and even pad Thai. He took me waterskiing, which was mildly terrifying but also incredibly fun. We talked about politics and history and lay around listening to NPR podcasts, our fingers intertwined. Once my mother walked in on us quizzing each other on SAT words in the living room in the middle of the night.

  “It’s two o’clock in the morning,” she said wearily. “As long as you’re awake, shouldn’t you be at a bonfire on the beach or—or something fun, dears?”

  “This is pretty fun,” Jeff said.

  “You two are perfect for each other,” Mom said, sighing. She turned around and went back to bed.

  I liked almost everything about Jeff except for the fact that my mother approved so wholeheartedly.

  During the hours when I wasn’t with Jeff, I was with Jacinta—and, usually, Delilah. They were always throwing little tea parties and slightly-more-adult-beverage parties over at Jacinta’s house in the afternoons. Ainsley Devereaux would come over and divide her time between kissing up to Jacinta and fawning over Delilah. The Fitzwilliams sisters would show up, and a pair of girl cousins whose family owned the New York Times, and other girls whose names I had trouble remembering. They seemed interchangeable to me—they all had horses, and long shiny hair, and bright white teeth, and plans to go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton or wherever their fathers and grandfathers had gone. A few of them carried that type of bag Jacinta had stockpiled upstairs—the Birkin, Delilah had called it.