by Jane Green
“But we don’t have the money to fix it up.” Landon grins, not caring in the slightest.
“You do have Sidney, though,” adds Grace.
“True. But at this point, Sidney needs more fixing up than the house does.”
“Good point.” Grace grins, explaining that Sidney lives in one of the cottages on Landon’s family estate, and has been the caretaker since his grandparents lived in the house. Now in his early eighties, Sidney can take care of the dogs, but not much else.
“Is your house like that too?” Eve asks Grace.
“Nooooo.” Landon lets out a whistle with a shake of his head. “It’s the opposite.”
“It’s complicated,” Grace says. “My dad is kind of more like Landon’s family. If he had his way, our house would be just like Landon’s.”
“That was before he married the General,” Landon adds.
“That’s what he calls my mom.” Again, Grace grins. “I think she’s offended, but because she’s so impressed with Landon’s lineage, she pretends to think it’s hilarious.”
“Your mother wouldn’t live in our house if you paid her.”
“Yes, she would!” Grace adds. “She’d kill for your house. She’d just do a major renovation first. She puts her hand up to her mouth with a stage whisper and a knowing nod. “New money,” she explains.
Landon laughs again as Grace explains. “My mom’s got this whole perfectionist thing going on. She’s all about order, and cleanliness, and rules.”
“Oh my God! The rules!” Landon sighs. “She has them laminated and up on the wall of the mudroom so everyone sees them as soon as they walk in.”
Eve is intrigued. Rules? There have never been rules as such in her house. Perhaps there are, but they are unspoken. The idea of having something taped up is bizarre to Eve. “What kind of rules?” she asks.
Landon clears his throat. “‘Number one. All shoes must be removed and placed in the correct cubby before entering the house. Coats must be hung. Guests may line their shoes up neatly on the boot rack.
“‘Rule number two: Please do not help yourself to food. Ask before taking.
“‘Rule number three: After eating, please rinse plates and cups and place in dishwasher. DO NOT LEAVE IN SINK. Please push chair in to table and mop floor with your tongue before exiting…’”
“Landon!” Grace starts laughing too. “It does not say that! But the rest is true. Isn’t it so embarrassing?” She turns to Eve. “The only good thing is they’ve been up so long, they’ve just become part of the furniture.”
“Now I’m starting to worry,” Eve says. “She sounds like she would hate the idea of you bringing a stranger back. Isn’t she going to go nuts?”
“No,” Grace laughs. “She can be pretty uptight, but she also likes all our friends being at our house. That way she feels she can keep an eye on us. We have the basement as our space, and we’re pretty much left alone. She’s much happier knowing we’re under her roof.”
Eve thinks of her own mother, imagining her with a houseful of kids, but she can’t picture it. When she was young, she was desperate for siblings, for a large, happy, noisy family. A family much like Grace’s, yet her family also feels as if it is exactly how it was always meant to be.
“I can’t imagine my mom with a bunch of kids,” muses Eve, “but she wouldn’t be a rule person. She gets caught up in these projects, and she doesn’t really notice what happens in the house. She likes it to look pretty, but she’s all about character rather than perfection. Our house is cozy more than anything.”
Grace sighs. “I love cozy. I wish our house was cozy, but cozy and perfect don’t exactly go hand in hand.”
“Where does it come from, this need for perfection?” Eve leans forward.
“She comes from nothing, and fell in love with my dad, who was from this old New England family, and I think she always felt really insecure. She says she used to study my grandmother, to try to learn how to dress, how to entertain. Even how to talk.”
Landon laughs some more. “Your mom does have the craziest accent I’ve ever heard. She’s like something out of an old black-and-white movie. I still want to bow every time I see her.”
Now Grace cracks up again. “I keep telling you it’s all fake. She’s from Queens, and nobody else I’ve ever met from Queens speaks like that. I swear she makes it all up.”
“But why would she need to do that?” Eve is confused.
Grace shrugs. “It’s just how she is. I guess because she doesn’t feel good enough, she tries super-hard to be better than everyone else at everything. She has to have the perfect house, the perfect kids, the perfect life.”
“Isn’t that really hard for you? Don’t you feel under a huge amount of pressure all the time?”
Grace finally stops smiling. “It is hard,” she says quietly. “I love my mom, but … it’s hard. Nothing anyone does is ever good enough. Or, anything I do. The boys get away with everything. She’s hardest on me because I’m the only girl. And my dad. She’s pretty rough on him.”
Landon reaches over to take Grace’s hand, squeezing it gently, not taking his eyes off the road, slowing down to turn slowly into large stone pillars.
Grace’s eyes snap open as she shakes her head in a bid to change the direction of the conversation. “Enough about my crazy family. Here we are. Home sweet home.”
The car crunches around the gravel driveway, passing two old stone barns on the way, the barn and the guesthouse, before the house comes into view.
Perfectly symmetrical, it is low-slung, gray, with pretty iron window boxes filled with lilac hyacinths and trailing ivy. Stone greyhounds flank the front steps, with formal gardens of low, perfectly clipped boxwood in front of each wing, standard hydrangea trees in the middle of each garden, topiary myrtles in old iron pots between each window.
It is as if a small, elegant chateau has been lifted up from France and flown over the Atlantic, dropping quietly down in the leafy splendor of New Salem.
“It’s perfect!” Eve whispers, getting out of the car and taking it in. “It’s the most perfect house I’ve ever seen.”
“Toldja!” Landon squeezes her shoulder as he passes her to get the bags from the trunk, just as two Labrador retrievers round the corner from the house, tails wagging furiously as they run over, sniffing excitedly, circling their legs, and pushing wet noses into hands for a rub.
Grace crouches down to rub them, circling her arms around them and resting her head on their backs. “Say hello to Monty and Bruno. My babies.” She croons at them, kissing them on their noses before leading Eve around the corner, into the mudroom with the infamous Rules up on the wall, and on into the biggest kitchen Eve has ever seen.
“I’m starving,” Grace says as Eve follows her to the fridge, gaping at the four-inch-thick marble countertops, the heavy glass pendant lights, the giant La Cornue range.
A steel bar hangs from the ceiling above the island, holding a cluster of gleaming copper pots, not a mark on them, with a polished concrete slab on antique French iron legs serving as a breakfast table in front of the island.
Grace turns from where she is crouching, rifling through the contents of the fridge, to see Eve paused by the table, running her hands over the top.
“Poured concrete,” she says. “Waxed. Calacatta gold on the exterior countertops. Waterworks faucets. Apparently.” She grins. “I think my mom actually hates this whole entire kitchen, but she read it was the latest thing, so we had to have it. She refuses to say she misses our old wood table, even though we keep catching her sneering at the concrete.” Turning back to the fridge, she lets out a sigh. “There’s nothing to eat. And I’m starving.”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to take food without asking?” Eve ventures, remembering the Rules.
“We’re not, but we do,” Grace says. “She did that when we were all really young and the boys would just eat the entire contents of the fridge. Not that they don’t do that now, but she buys fo
od for them and fills the drawers with it.… The drawers!” Grace stands up and moves to the counter, pulling open what turn out to be refrigerator drawers at one end. “Yum!” She pulls out an aluminum tray of lasagna, and grabs the phone to text. “I just have to check it’s okay.” A few seconds later, she smiles as her phone vibrates, takes the lasagna over to the oven just as footsteps are heard bounding up the basement stairs.
He is a male version of Grace. Her long limbs, dirty-blond hair, green eyes. He is long-limbed and, Eve thinks with a start as he stretches in the doorway, his T-shirt lifting up to reveal a taut, muscled stomach, almost unbearably gorgeous.
“Hey, sis!” he says, now noticing Eve. “Oh. Hey. I didn’t realize anyone else was here. Hi.” He walks over as Eve wishes she had gone to the bathroom, checked her hair, put some lip gloss on. “I’m Chris. Grace’s fantastic older brother. I know who you are! You’re the hot girl on Facebook!” He grins as Eve shakes his hand, introducing herself, furious that she is blushing, hoping he doesn’t notice the hot flush creeping up her face.
“Ignore him,” Grace says. “He’s the creature from the deep. He only comes up for air when he smells food.”
“Speaking of which”—he peers at the oven—“what smells so good?”
“Lasagna. Mom said heat it for thirty minutes. You’ll have to wait.”
“Okay. Want me to make a salad?” He saunters over to the fridge, pulling out vegetables as Grace gapes and Eve gazes.
“Do you have a fever?” his sister asks. “Seriously. I’m worried. Should I call the doctor? You’re definitely not yourself.”
“Oh, ha-ha.” Chris grabs a knife and starts chopping cucumber into rough slices.
“You might want to peel it first?” Grace grins. “It makes showing off so much easier.” She slides behind Eve, whispering in her ear, “He’s doing this for you!”
“You’re right,” Chris concedes, laying the knife down and walking round to the other side of the island, sitting on the stool next to Eve and turning toward her. “Grace, you ought to make the salad. I’m going to sit here and get to know your friend.”
“Let me!” Eve jumps up, embarrassed, wanting to talk to him, but not wanting to blush again, or sound like an idiot, for the power of speech appears to have temporarily left her.
“No,” Grace says. “I’ve got it. You stay there. Or go downstairs—Landon’s probably planted himself in front of the baseball game, right?” Chris nods. “I’ll give you a shout when it’s ready.”
“Are you sure?” Eve hesitates, but Grace is adamant, and tucking her hair back behind her ears, she follows Chris down the stairs, to a light-filled room, where almost every conceivable teenage need appears to have been taken care of.
Battered surfboards cover one wall, a couple of huge beanbags scattered in front of the TV, sectional behind. Vintage pinball machines are tucked in a corner, with a popcorn machine alongside.
“It hasn’t worked for years.” Chris shrugs, showing her around. “But it looks great. How are your Ping-Pong skills?” He walks over to the table, picks up a paddle with a challenging look in his eye.
Eve grins. “That’s one place you don’t want to go,” she teases, starting to relax as she walks over to the table and picks up the paddle on the other side.
“Oh, really?” Chris grins. “Do I detect a competitive edge to your voice?”
“When it comes to Ping-Pong, very much so,” Eve says. “In fact, you may find that despite being, as you so clearly are, the consummate athlete, I may be about to wipe the floor with you at Ping-Pong.”
“I like a woman who uses the word ‘consummate’ in a sentence.” Chris smiles.
“I didn’t mean that kind of ‘consummate,’” Eve mutters. Don’t blush. Don’t blush. Don’t blush.
“So.” He ignores it. “Ready?”
Eve nods, picking up a ball and acing it over the net, so quickly that Chris barely even has a chance to move.
“O-kay.” He smiles again. “Now I know what I’m up against. And here I was about to be a gentleman and let you win—”
“Bring it on,” she teases as he slams a serve over the net that she shoots back as fast as lightning, Chris yelping as he manages to return it, after which they rally back and forth, laughing at impossible shots that each manage to get, their game so fast, so accomplished, that Landon tears himself away from the game to come over and watch.
“Where did you learn to get so good at Ping-Pong?” Landon asks. “I’ve never seen anyone able to take this family on before. None of us will even bother playing with them anymore.”
“I gotta tell you.” Chris puts down the paddle. “You are the first worthy opponent I’ve played with in years. You’re really good.”
“Thank you.” Eve is gracious. “My dad taught me. He’s Ping-Pong obsessed.”
Landon shakes his head. “Chris doesn’t know what that’s like at all, do you, Chris?” and he laughs as Grace’s voice comes floating down the stairs, calling them up to eat.
* * *
“You truly have no idea how awful it was.” Grace and Eve have regaled the boys with stories of the horror of the New York girls, with Grace including, much to Eve’s embarrassment, the tale of the Blow Job Queen.
“I knew it.” Chris slaps the table before looking at Landon. “We’re in the wrong town. I’m moving to New York. What’s the name of that girl again? What’s her address? You said Allegra, right?”
“Yes, and if you want to catch some horrible disease, go right ahead. I’ll introduce you,” Grace says. “The whole thing was skanky.”
“Grace.” Chris is now serious. “It’s not like that stuff doesn’t happen here. You and your friends may not do it, but you know it goes on.”
“Of course I know,” Grace says. “And we all know who the girls are, but it wasn’t so much that they’d done it than their attitude about it. They all seemed bored. By everything.”
“But that’s the same out here,” Chris says. “Kids who have everything and nothing at the same time.”
Grace sighs. “I know. How did we turn out so well?” before catching Chris’s eye as they both say at the same time, “Dad,” and laugh.
“Their dad is amazing,” Landon explains to Eve.
“It certainly isn’t Mom.” Grace gathers the plates, helped by Eve, as the boys sit chatting quietly. Eve stacks the plates in the dishwasher, realizing for the first time in months that she is smiling.
For the first time in months, she can breathe.
Grace sees her smile. “Are you having fun?”
“I really am. I guess I haven’t been dealing well with all the changes coming up. I’ve found the whole transition thing kind of stressful. This is the first time I’ve felt … normal.”
“You’re not sick or anything?” asks Grace tentatively.
“No! Why would you ask that?”
“Just that you’re really thin. I didn’t want to ask, but—”
“It’s okay. I guess when I’m stressed I don’t eat.”
“Lucky you. When I’m stressed, I dive straight into piles of chocolate,” she laughs.
“And my stomach just closes up,” Eve lies. “I’m getting kind of tired. Would you mind if I went to bed?”
“I’m tired too. Let’s go up now. Landon’s sleeping over so the boys well sleep in the basement.”
* * *
Eve is first to wake up, despite the jet lag. She reaches for her phone, sends a text to her mom saying she’s having a great time, then grabs a magazine from Grace’s shelves, planning on staying there quietly until Grace wakes up.
It’s hard to concentrate, knowing that Grace’s brother is downstairs, that she’s going to be seeing him again very soon, and she puts the magazine down, staring at Grace, willing her to wake up so she can spend more time with Chris.
Nothing happens. Eve coughs, then gets up and goes to the ensuite bathroom, ensuring she makes enough noise that Grace couldn’t possibly stay asleep.
&
nbsp; Sure enough, when she walks back into the room, Grace is stretching, letting out a big yawn. “Hey,” she murmurs, smiling at Eve. “Have you been awake long?”
“Hey, you. Not long, but I didn’t want to go downstairs until you were awake.”
“Good!” Grace says. “My mom has some big fund-raiser thing today and we’re supposed to stay out of the way. We should get Chris to take us to the diner. They have chocolate chip pancakes to die for. Let’s go and see if the boys are up.”
“Should I change?” Eve says uncertainly, gesturing to her plaid pajama pants and vest.
“I’m not,” Grace says. “This is pretty much the uniform out here. Wear my flip-flops and we’re good to go. We’ll sneak out the front door so Mom doesn’t see us.”
Chris is awake, watching sports, as Grace informs him of the plan, and the three of them tiptoe up the stairs, Eve and Chris locking eyes again, relief washing over her that this wasn’t something she imagined: he is as hot as she thought, and it does seem like he may be interested in her.
The three of them move quietly through the formal part of the house, Eve pausing only as she passes a table piled with photographs of the family. There’s Chris, looking impossibly handsome, tallest in the family group, a huge smile on his face.
She hesitates, leaning forward to see better, wishing she could slip the photograph into her bag, before incomprehension, confusion, then shock cross her face.
And with a gasp of horror, Eve’s legs give way, sending her plummeting down to the marble floor.
Part Two
21
Maggie
The ball arcs high in the air, my left arm points high, triumphantly, toward the sky as satisfaction sets in. I’ve got it. This is the shot that will win us game, set, and match. In slow motion, enjoying every second, my arm sweeps back and at the perfect moment slices forward into the thump of contact with the ball as I smash it over the net at the speed of light.
Kim doesn’t stand a chance. Venus Williams wouldn’t stand a damn chance. It might well be the greatest shot of my life, and Lara and I grab each other to do a small victory dance as Kim pretends she’s totally fine with me, her archnemesis, finally beating her.
