by Janna King
“School of life. Best education and no debt.” Cole lifted his glass to Mia.
A rocking cover of Free’s “All Right Now” started to play from the stage. Mac was at the mic, singing and jamming on the guitar with his band. His bluesy voice and cocksure presence inspired the girls around the stage to cheer.
The song ended and he introduced his bandmates, rounding it out with, “I’m Mac, and we’re Tidepull.” To more wild cheering, they dove into another rousing rock cover.
As the seasonaires watched, Presley grinned. “Interesting. I might just let him in my drawers.”
“Dude, you would so bone that guy.” Grant nudged her.
Presley pushed him away. “Hey! I’m still a virgin!”
“What? Get out!” Grant cackled.
“The golden ticket requires four carats, princess cut.” Presley wiggled the fingers on her left hand.
“But you just said you hook up,” said Grant.
“Business up front. Party in the back.” Presley sipped her daiquiri.
Grant leaned into Vincent with a scoff. “American girls, oui?”
“Non,” replied Vincent. His eyes were on two hot guys playing darts.
Grant paused.
By the time the band hit their third song, the house was in full groove. Presley’s attention was on Mac, except when his eyes landed on her. She looked away as she waved her arms in the air, swaying her hips. Mia never went clubbing in Southie, so she let herself move to the beat. The night became a gyrating, sweaty, alcohol-fueled dance party.
When the band finished their set, Presley grabbed the Lyndon Wyld shopping bag and took to the stage. She tossed T-shirts into the crowd that went crazy, lunging and grabbing at the swag. Jade, not to be outshined, joined her, helped up by two guys whose hair looked like it took longer to style than Presley’s.
“You should go up there, chérie,” Vincent said to Mia. “I’ll get some good shots for Lyndon.”
“I’m not an onstage kind of girl,” said Mia.
“Well, that better change.”
Mia cringed and relented. She climbed up to meet Presley and Jade. With all the commotion below, she looked like a deer in the headlights. Drunk girls removed their tops to replace them with the tees. Vincent took photos of Grant, Cole, and J.P. laughing as they watched.
Mia loosened up with all the cheering. She hopped off the stage, picked up a pool cue at the pool table, and returned to bat the tees to the back of the house. Whoops and screams exploded. She saw Cole lift his phone to take photos of her, which spurred her on. As Mia picked up a tee, she noticed Mac high-five the Wear National girl at the side of the stage, her blond and violet-streaked hair now piled messily on her head. Putting extra finesse into her swing for Cole’s snaps, Mia wondered if Cole captured the thin packet of white powder between their palms. At least that’s what she thought she saw before she caught Mac’s eyes and turned away.
SEVEN
Breakfast with the beach view could almost make Mia forget about any weirdness from the night before. No one else seemed to care about the view as she brought over her coffee and a bowl of fruit. Faces were buried in phones as everyone checked their social.
“Morning,” said Mia.
“Hey.” Cole was the only one to look up.
Mia sat next to Presley. She wasn’t going to mention the possible drug swap. It was a party and there were drugs at parties. No big deal, right? She turned her attention to Instagram because she’d already Snapchatted that morning—a selfie with the dog-face filter. She’d captioned it:
Morning dog breath
She was surprised to see that her Instagram followers had tripled overnight. “Wow!” she exclaimed.
She noticed she was tagged in Cole’s post of her batting the T-shirts.
What a swing! #BeWyld #tomboy
“My elbows could be higher,” she remarked to Cole.
“Well, I was impressed.” He smiled.
Presley scrolled through her phone. “I guess hashtag ‘tomboy’ is trending.”
“Are you stalking me?” Mia laughed.
“I’m supporting you, sugar. See?” Presley reposted.
Mia noticed all the comments on Cole’s post:
Love you @miamamasgrl! from her Freshman Fifteen friend, Liz.
Always could hit! from another high school friend. Then, dozens of comments from followers she didn’t know:
Get it!
Adorbz
Baller
#likeaboss
This attention was new to her. She grinned at Cole, who offered an easy shrug.
Grant made everyone Bloody Marys to kick off touch football, which ended up being a lot of touching and not much football. He managed to get his hands on each female ass until Cole hoisted him toward the ocean, where he was dropped, laughing hysterically. The girls created what Presley called “a masterpiece sandcastle.” They buried the guys from the neck down and wrote “Lyndon Wyld” in the sand with a piece of driftwood.
Vincent caught it all on video. Though they were happy hanging out at the shore below the estate, he encouraged them to take a walk down the beach for some stills. A family from a neighboring estate was picnicking. A little boy skipped over to Mia with a bucket full of sand, holding out a broken shell for her.
“You have treasures!” Mia exclaimed as Vincent snapped a shot of the sweet moment before the boy trotted back to his parents. Cole’s eyes were on Mia.
Presley jumped on Grant’s back, taking a video as he galloped. After a few yards, she dismounted and Snapchatted.
As they all made their way along the shore, a savory sage-meets-skunk scent wafted through the salty air. They looked to see the Wear National girl lounging under a red-and-white-striped umbrella next to two rail-thin guys with shaggy hair. That was the brand’s look: nineties heroin chic mixed with seventies boho, a little hipster-nerd thrown in. The girl was smoking a joint, which she passed to the guy on the right, but not before blowing smoke in his open mouth then kissing him. As their tongues touched, his sterling bolt glinted. He passed her a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. The guy on the left was lazily strumming a ukulele. While the girl snapped a pic of him, the wind blew a pack of rolling papers off their oversize beach towel toward the surf. Mia grabbed them before they hit the tide.
“Finders keepers,” said Grant.
“It’s cool. We have more.” The girl grinned.
“I don’t smoke,” said Mia, walking the rolling papers to the threesome. “Well, I tried it once. Ended up in a corner thinking everyone was staring at me.”
“That’s what we’re all here for, right? Attention,” replied the girl. “I’m Ruby. This is Axel.” She kissed Ukulele Boy. “And Quentin.” She kissed Tongue Bolt, who ran his hand up her thigh, which had a rainbow tattoo cresting into her bikini bottom. With a wasted grin, she took the papers from Mia.
“Looks like we’ve wandered into the ghetto,” Presley sneered, then looked at Jade. “No offense.”
Jade gave her the finger.
“It’s so early in the summer to be such a hater,” Ruby said to Presley, her grin never faltering.
Presley’s sneer remained. “I’m not a hater. I’d have to care to hate you.”
“You don’t know me. We all just got here. No one knows anyone, right?” Ruby looked at Mia.
Mia shrugged at Presley. “She’s right.”
“Your top’s in the wrong place,” called out a nasally male voice that made Vincent look up from the camera lens he was cleaning.
“Otto Hahn,” whispered Presley to Mia with disgust.
Otto stepped across the sand from the sprawling estate with the Wear National flag. He wore seersucker pants, a bright orange button-down, and a white bucket hat on top of his thick, bushy brown and silver hair. His mutton chop–handlebar mustache and white-rimmed sunglasses topped off the sleaze vibe. An antique box camera hung around his neck.
“You gonna let their tits outshine yours?” He motioned to Axel and Quentin as he untied Ruby’s
bikini top. It dropped to the sand. Ruby didn’t attempt to pick it up, but instead shifted her body toward him so he could properly appreciate it. Otto pushed his white-rimmed sunglasses up on his head.
Mia averted her eyes, feeling like she needed to take a shower.
Otto surveyed the seasonaires. “You aren’t mine.” He squinted at Presley. “You wear too much makeup,” he said, then turned to Mia. “But you are a sweet little nymph.”
“Ew,” Presley muttered and strode off.
Cole touched Mia’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Mia lingered, oddly fascinated as Otto moved to hug Vincent, who didn’t hug back. “Where’s the love, love?” Vincent refrained from response. “How long are you going to let Lady Macbeth squash your talents with her glossy, high-brow, and very dull dookey?”
“As long as the checks clear,” answered Vincent, walking away.
“You’re missing out on treats.” Otto twisted the cap off a vial and tossed white pills to Ruby, Axel, and Quentin. Ruby washed hers down with Jack Daniel’s from the nearby bottle.
Otto turned to Mia and Cole. “Treats?” He shook the vial.
“I’m good, thanks,” said Mia. As she moved off with Cole, Ruby waved. Her face was open and friendly. Mia and Cole caught up with Vincent and the rest of the seasonaires down the beach.
“That chick is a hot fuckin’ mess,” said Grant.
“I read he doesn’t pay the models in his ads.” J.P. stepped around a plastic shovel left in the sand. “Sometimes he takes photos and doesn’t tell them. One chick ended up on a Times Square billboard. Surprise!”
“When you work for him, he can do anything,” said Vincent, staring out at the water.
Mia looked at him, then glanced back at the group under the umbrella. Otto was hunched over his box camera, aiming it at her. She quickly turned around and walked faster.
EIGHT
That night, while Presley slept soundly, pink satin sleep mask on, Mia tossed and turned. She picked up her smartphone and started scrolling through Instagram, checking out Wear National’s account, which was filled with NC-17 posts cast with the 1977 filter. Morbid curiosity prompted her to open her laptop and Google search Otto Hahn. She quickly found his origin story: two decades earlier, he founded the clothing line in his Bard dorm room, where he made cotton tank tops between classes.
As a child, he immigrated with his parents from Germany to New York. His mom had been a seamstress who taught him how to sew. The tanks were a hit with the coeds, and he couldn’t make them fast enough. Word spread and when he graduated, he set up shop in an abandoned Brooklyn auto garage, where he sold the goods out of a service window. Wear National went from that one window to two hundred stores worldwide. The company won Retailer of the Year, knocking Zara off the top of the retail hierarchy. Lyndon Wyld dropped to third. Otto’s credo was “Make for the asses, sell to the masses.”
Otto triumphed despite his very public controversies, both personally and professionally. Besides openly admitting to relationships with several of his young employees, female and male, he often walked around his Manhattan office in a kimono and nothing else. There were a couple sexual harassment suits that were ultimately dropped. He had the same refrain as so many powerful men facing the same allegations: “All are untrue.”
Mia closed her laptop, wondering how much of the legend was true and how much of it Otto spun. She went to sleep, trying not to think of Otto’s box camera aimed at her.
The next morning, she and the other seasonaires dressed in the required “nautical chic” for the yacht Lyndon had chartered.
“I’ll never understand why Wear National is even allowed here in Nantucket,” said Presley. “There are architecture guidelines that don’t allow tacky homes to ruin the aesthetic but the powers that be allow that garbage.”
“It’s commerce, Presley.” J.P. put on a captain’s hat with a logo of a finch on the band. “Otto Hahn pays the pricey rent and brings more tourists.”
“Well, while his brand sluts give each other stick-and-poke tattoos and hepatitis, we’re going on a gorgeous yacht.”
They hopped in the G and headed for the Boat Basin, where they found The Lady Mary—all one hundred feet of her with her shiny green hull.
“Lyndon loved Downton Abbey,” Presley informed the others. “She told me she was crushed when it ended. Lady Mary was her favorite character.”
“My mom used to watch that show while I studied for my SATs,” said Grant. “So fucking boring, except when the servants dressed those rich bitches. That was hot.”
“Bet you crushed those tests,” said Jade, letting a crew member help her onto the yacht.
“Does it matter? I’m here,” answered Grant. “Right, Mia?”
Mia climbed onto the yacht without help. “Yep.” Grant’s comment stung. Mia had actually done pretty well on her SATs, yet he was the one who’d managed to go to college.
They spent the warm, cloudless day at sea just outside the Sound, lounging on The Lady Mary’s deck, drinking mimosas and working on their tans. Lyndon sent a care package of sunscreen especially for Mia. When Mia couldn’t reach her back, Cole lent a hand. Lying on her stomach, with the sun and the breeze caressing her body, she released a long sigh.
“Magic hour,” exclaimed Vincent right before sunset. “In this light, everyone looks très magnifique.” He snapped Grant at the yacht’s bow, shirtless.
“My ab game is strong.” Grant ran a hand along his eight-pack.
After capturing more photos of the group, including one with the grizzled captain, who left them to their devices, Vincent made his way inside the yacht to edit and post.
The champagne ran out, so orange juice was paired with vodka for screwdrivers.
Mia sat, crossed-legged, on edge of the deck, staring out at the calm sea. Cole brought her a cocktail. “I’ve had more to drink in a week than I have in my entire life,” Mia remarked.
“We’re all going to need new livers by summer’s end,” Cole replied.
“Well, I know a lot of decent doctors,” said Mia. Cole gave her a curious look. Mia added, “I’ve been taking care of my mom for a long time. She has cancer.” The words came out before Mia could catch them.
“I’m sorry.” Cole’s kind face put Mia at ease.
“Drinking didn’t fit in,” she continued. “It wouldn’t have been great if I was buzzed and gave her the wrong meds. Or got a DUI on the way to her treatments.”
“That’s gotta be rough.”
Presley rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses as she lounged nearby with Jade. “How about a little Truth or Dare?”
“Yaaaaas! The dare is to strip down and hit the water!” Grant rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
“Since it was my idea, I’ll start,” said Presley. “Grant, truth or dare? When did you lose your virginity?”
Grant took the dare, mostly to shock khaki-and pearl-necklace-wearing country clubbers on a nearby yacht by mooning them and flipping into the water. The uptight ladies’ expressions were priceless.
“Truth or dare, Mia?” Grant called, treading.
Mia was a crappy swimmer so the dare wasn’t an option. “Truth.”
“Have you ever cheated?”
“Yes,” she answered, avoiding Cole’s gaze.
Presley gasped. “Saint Mia!”
“Looks can be deceiving,” said Jade.
Mia finished off another screwdriver and turned to Jade. “Truth or dare? Who do you love more, your dad or your mom?”
“That’s a truly fucked-up question,” snapped Jade.
“So you’re taking the dare,” said Presley.
“Always.” Jade pulled her strapless one-piece down from under her sundress and stepped out of it, then lifted the dress over her head. She dropped it in J.P.’s lap and did a swan dive off the deck. Presley snapped a photo and posted to her Insta Story, tagging Jade:
We have the clothes. Some of us can’t keep them on. @1jaded.1 #sorrynotsorry<
br />
Jade swam to the yacht’s ladder and hung on the side. “J.P., truth or dare? Before this summer, have you ever had a job?”
After a long beat with all eyes on him, J.P. removed his board shorts.
“Didn’t think so,” said Jade. Grant swam over and grabbed her from behind. She cackled raucously as they splashed. “Keep your shrunken pinky dick away from me!”
Everyone laughed as Jade swam away from him.
A motor cut above the laughter as a powerboat wrapped in the Wear National colors with a red logo flag sped toward the yacht. Axel was driving, with Quentin next to him. Ruby was passed out on the backseat, an open bottle of Cuervo between her legs.
“Losers starboard!” shouted Presley.
Axel, whooping, cut in toward the yacht, getting perilously close to Grant and Jade in the water.
“What are they doing?” Mia grabbed Cole’s arm.
“I don’t know.”
The powerboat came back around and cut in again, its wake swallowing Jade. Her arms thrashed, head barely above the surface, mouth trying to find dry air. Grant was pushed farther away from her. J.P., still naked on the yacht’s deck, dove in.
The powerboat did one more doughnut, then zipped away with Axel’s and Quentin’s war cries.
J.P. managed to drag Jade out of the wake.
The water calmed and the three climbed onto the yacht. Mia put a towel around Jade, who coughed and shivered.
Presley’s phone buzzed with an Instagram notification:
lyndonwyld tagged you in a post.
She opened it to see one of Vincent’s postcard perfect shots: all the seasonaires on the deck, beaming in the golden pre-sunset light:
Magical. #BeWyld
NINE
At the estate, Vincent retired to the guest cottage without saying goodbye to the group. His smartphone was to his ear.
“It was the usual summer telenovela.” He sniffed, lighting up a Gitane and side-eyeing Grant, who stormed into the main house. “We have one hothead.”
In the living room, Cole suggested a game of Monopoly “because nothing cheers you up like passing Go and collecting two hundred dollars.” The mood brightened as houses and hotels were purchased.