by Kate White
It’s kind of a moot point, anyway, I think as I finally drift off to sleep. If Nick’s recent history is anything to go on, his relationship with Hannah is hardly likely to progress beyond a sex-fueled fling.
When I wake the next morning, Gabe’s side of the bed is empty, and I find a note from him on the dresser explaining he’s at the tennis court hitting balls with Henry. I’m shocked to discover that my watch says it’s eight o’clock. Peering out the window, I see that it’s another drop-dead gorgeous day, the kind of weather that reminds me I should be relishing the week ahead, but I still feel oddly unsettled—about yesterday’s recording session, and about Hannah.
After a quick shower, I start up the path to the house, where I know Claire and Bonnie will have set the sideboard on the patio with a continental breakfast. Fortunately for me, late sleepers are never penalized here. Off in the distance, I hear friendly shouts from the tennis court and the plock, plock of a ball in play.
Nearing the house, I pass one of Claire’s larger gardens and a favorite of mine. It’s an extraordinary mix of not only colors but textures, too, and abuts a grove of boxwood clouds, bushes that have been pruned into massive balls of green with a small glade in the middle, like something from the pages of Alice in Wonderland.
There’s a wrought-iron table at the edge of the garden, and this morning a mug is resting there along with a floral plate hosting a half-eaten piece of dry toast. Thinking they’ve been left behind, I start to grab both to take indoors, but then notice that the mug is filled with what looks like tea.
A moment later, I hear murmuring and the snap of a branch as Wendy steps out from behind one of the boxwoods, talking quietly on her cell phone. She’s dressed in a filmy, pale orange tunic and white capris, with a thick gold bangle on her wrist. I view the loose top—along with the dry toast—as an additional hint that she might be pregnant.
It takes her a second to notice me, and when I see that she’s about to jump off the call, I shake my head to convey that I’ll catch her later. But she quickly murmurs a farewell, disconnects, and moves toward me.
“Sorry,” she says. “Work. Clients don’t consider Saturday an off-duty day.”
“Blake said you’ve been on the road a lot lately, too.”
“Unfortunately, yes. I’ve got a client in Palm Beach I see several times a month. And two in Texas. One’s a friend from Yale who’s already made a fortune in oil and gas.”
That’s something else that works Gabe’s last nerve—Wendy doesn’t like to let a conversation go by without a reminder that she went to Yale.
“Are you feeling more pressure now that you have the gallery?”
“A bit, but I so prefer running my own show. Of course, what I do comes down to helping very rich people sell pictures to other very rich people, as opposed to, say, trying to solve the climate crisis.”
“Well, what would the world be without art?”
“Ah, thank you, Summer. By the way, Blake told me about your play. It sounds brilliant.”
“Well, I don’t think I’d use the word ‘brilliant,’ but I’m excited. It was great, by the way, to catch up a little with Blake last night. It’d been way too long.”
“Yes, he’s been crazed at work, too. Sometimes I sense that he’d like to bag it and never look at another squamous cell carcinoma again. As long as he can still get his hands on Botox, I’m fine with that,” she says, grinning, and I notice the lack of lines on her high, smooth forehead.
“Ha, I’m going to need that myself before long . . . . Do you know if anyone’s still at the breakfast table?”
“Keira and Hannah were both having coffee when I left. They might still be there.”
Okay, that’s interesting—Keira sharing a meal with her husband’s ex. I wonder what that must be like for her.
“Oh, good, I’ll join them . . . . It’s nice, isn’t it, that Nick could bring someone out for the week?”
I know I’m fishing here, but it’s just a line in the water, to see what bites.
“Yes, though frankly, I’ve started to lose track of the names of some of his objects of affection.”
I quickly glance around the area, making sure we still have it to ourselves. “I noticed you sat near Hannah. Did you have much of a chance to chat with her?”
“I did actually. And of all things, we ended up talking about dressage for a while. It turns out she trained, too, so it gave us a lot to discuss.”
Dressage. Until I was about twenty-five, I thought it was French for putting on fancy clothes for a night on the town, but it’s actually a kind of horseback riding. Apparently, Wendy studied it as a kid, part of her equestrian training. Though she didn’t grow up in a family nearly as well-off as the Keatons, Gabe heard no expense was spared on her and her brother when they were young.
“That must have been fun to connect over.”
“It was. I almost never meet people who’ve done it.”
“Well, I’d better hightail it to breakfast. See you later.”
“You bet. Ciao.”
I return to the path and close the distance to the house. Through one of the side kitchen windows, I spy Claire at the table, glued to her iPad. She wouldn’t mind me dropping in, but over time I’ve noticed that she likes to have this part of the day to herself, or to spend with her husband. Usually Ash is sitting next to her, but not this morning.
As I round the corner, I spot Keira at the table on the patio, and Hannah standing to the side of her, dressed in white shorts and a cropped yellow top. She’s even more svelte than I realized last night, as if she hasn’t consumed a bad carbohydrate in her adult life. She finishes her conversation with Keira and leaves a moment later without appearing to notice me.
“Morning, Keira,” I say, approaching the table.
“Morning. Sleep well?”
“Yup; you? You’re in the main house, right?”
“Yes, in the guest suite at the far end of the second floor.”
“You didn’t want to give the carriage house a try?”
She presses her lips together. “I don’t love being away from the main house. And there’s a little kitchenette in the suite, with a toaster oven and a half fridge, so we can fix stuff there if we need to.”
I’m not sure why they’d need a toaster oven—there’s one here on the sideboard, along with a Nespresso machine and a carafe of brewed coffee. There are also bowls of strawberries and raspberries, baskets of croissants and the bagels Gabe and I brought, a wooden cutting board topped with artisan bread, a large glass jar of granola, as well as small containers of yogurt set in a basin of ice water.
After making a cappuccino and grabbing a yogurt, I join Keira, who’s wearing a white cover-up over a bathing suit that looks damp.
“So how’s it going with Hannah?” I say, lowering my voice. “Any awkwardness?”
“No, it’s actually fine. To be honest, the main reason I didn’t want to be in the carriage house was because she’d be there, but Marcus is clearly a very distant memory for her.”
“And Marcus—is he okay with it, too?”
I can still picture him at last night’s table, his eyes glued to Hannah and his face set like stone.
“He says it’s fine, too.” She glances left and right, making sure we’re alone. “She was nothing more than a blip on the radar. He’s just glad Nick at least gave him a heads-up before they arrived.”
“She clearly feels comfortable with you.”
Her deep brown eyes register puzzlement.
“I saw you talking when I came around the corner.”
“Oh, that. She’s actually going to do me a big favor. This director she’s working with on the Netflix show is involved with some major clean water initiatives, and Hannah said she could convince him to do a luncheon with some of our clients. That could really help move one of our initiatives along, plus it would assure I’d win a few points in my new job.”
Okay, I see what Hannah’s up to. Her modus operandi this wee
k is a full-on charm offensive. I’m sure Claire and Ash have been subjected to it, too, though last night she seemed to have no interest whatsoever in wooing me. “How thoughtful of her,” I say, using my best fake sincere voice.
After Keira excuses herself to change out of her wet swimsuit, I finish my cappuccino at a leisurely pace and decide it’s an okay time to pop into the kitchen. Claire’s still in the room, fussing at the counter, with the dogs hovering nearby.
“There you are, darling,” she says. “How is your morning so far?”
“Lovely.” I stoop down and give both dogs a pat, and they immediately roll over in anticipation of having their bellies scratched. “How do you think Henry did last night?”
“He says great. I heard his toilet flush around six, but I assume he fell right back to sleep.”
“On his way to being a big boy. Now tell me how I can help you with lunch.”
“We seem to be all set, so just enjoy the day.”
“Okay, but let me know if you think of anything. I’m going to go grab my tennis shoes and head down to the court.”
But when I open the door to the cottage a couple of minutes later, I spot Gabe’s tennis racket leaning against the couch and notice the steady drum of shower water upstairs.
When it ceases, Gabe calls out, “That you?”
“Yeah,” I shout back. “I was hoping to hit some balls with you.”
“Sorry, we all called it quits. It’s getting too hot.”
Two minutes later, he bounds down the stairs, dressed in swim trunks and a T-shirt that matches his blue eyes, and smelling of mango-scented bodywash.
“How’s Henry’s game coming?” I ask.
“Really good. He’s probably never going to be the kind of kid who ends up starring on the school basketball team, but he’s definitely good at tennis. We ended up playing against Nick and Hannah, which was fun, and then Hannah hit with him for a while.”
Okay, this is starting to get ridiculous.
“So she’s a tennis player, too?”
“Not a superskilled one, but she’s game.”
“Speaking of Hannah,” I say, grabbing a spot on the couch, “there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
Gabe sits down next to me and sweeps a hand through his short dark brown hair. “What’s up?”
“She told me a lie last night. And I can’t figure out why.”
“A lie? What do you mean?”
I explain: her weird deception about the showcase, plus Billy’s intel about the missing money and necklace. As I speak, Gabe’s brow furrows in obvious concern.
“Is that who you were talking to after I went to bed?” he asks.
“Yeah. I was texting with him but it seemed easier to speak on the phone.”
His brow wrinkles even more. “Jesus.”
“I know. I’m a little concerned by it.”
“No, I mean Jesus, I can’t believe you were calling up a friend in the middle of the night to try to dig for gossip about my brother’s new girlfriend.”
I was not expecting this reaction. “Gabe, it wasn’t in the middle of the night—and it’s not idle gossip. I found it really odd that she would lie that way, and I wanted to look into it a bit more—for Nick’s sake.”
“Hannah probably just forgot the show. Or she’s embarrassed about her performance and didn’t want to discuss it. As for the missing money, I wouldn’t trust anything Billy Dean tells you.”
He’s never liked Billy. Not for a second.
“I know he can be a jerk, but he doesn’t have any reason to make this up, Gabe.”
“Maybe not,” he says. “I just hate the way he flirts with you in front of me. Regardless, Hannah seems nice enough, and I don’t see the point in focusing on some old rumor.”
Wow, I’m getting nowhere fast.
Obviously sensing my frustration, Gabe gives me a wry smile. “Besides,” he says, “you know as well as I do that in a month, Nick will be dating someone totally new.”
“Fine,” I say reluctantly. “I’ll drop it.”
“Thanks for understanding. I want everything to be as harmonious as possible this week.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just been so long since we’ve seen Blake and Wendy, and Nick’s been hard to pin down lately, too. Plus, since Marcus and I need to talk to Dad about work stuff, I want him in a good mood. He gets on edge if he thinks there’s any sibling friction.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll let it go. What are you planning to do for the rest of the morning?”
“Henry wants to swim now, so I told him I’d play lifeguard. You want to join us?”
“This afternoon, for sure. I should work on my play for a little bit now. And get a walk in before lunch.”
“See you later then,” he says. He plants a quick kiss on my lips and springs up from the couch.
As the door shuts behind him, I reflect that he’s probably right, that just as I thought earlier, this might be the last time we ever see Hannah. She’s not worth the mental energy I’m devoting to her.
I grab my laptop, wander outside, and settle at the table on the small patio. Though my play’s been accepted into the festival, I still have the opportunity to fiddle with it, and I need to make sure the dialogue is as strong as possible and do some work cementing the theme.
The stakes of the festival are high for me. After I arrived in the city straight out of college, I managed through a combination of luck and hard work to land some TV commercials, a bunch of under-five parts on television shows, two small roles in limited-run off-Broadway plays, and a ton of roles in off-off-Broadway productions. Those were held in so-called black box theaters—where the minuscule audiences are almost entirely composed of the casts’ blood relatives and friends, many of whom probably wish they were someplace else—but I was able to work pretty consistently and felt like I was on a bit of a roll.
But several years ago, it became clear, to my utter dismay, that my career was stalled. Yes, it’s a brutal business and I’d seen pals from college bag it altogether, but I also knew plenty of people who were working, especially with so many opportunities opening up in streaming. Was the problem because at twenty-nine I was no longer an ingenue? In my world you can never be sure. Rather than collapse into a heap on my apartment floor, however (which I was briefly tempted to do), I began seriously going after the voice-over work. And I also decided to start writing plays. If I can make some headway as a playwright, it will garner me respect and possibly jump-start my career.
I know my play’s amusing—the judges stressed that—but I want to guarantee it’s more than a sketch. A good play, even a short one, needs an arc with a central question at the core, and I feel I still need to crystalize my question.
But as hard as I try, I can’t seem to focus this morning. Because I’m having a hard time shaking my conversation with Gabe.
Maybe Hannah really didn’t steal the money and the necklace. But what if she did and stealing is a regular habit with her? What if she were to steal something from the house here, something of real value to the Keatons? I think of all the cherished items they’ve brought back from their travels, as well as the miniature sterling silver animals by a British artist Claire collects. And since the rooms have an enchanting, unfussy dishabille—cashmere throws tossed on sofas rather than folded neatly, books splayed on chair arms—it might be days before anyone noticed something was missing.
But above all, there’s Nick to consider. Even if this is a short-term thing for him, there’s still a chance he could end up hurt.
I get that Gabe, the perennial peacekeeper, doesn’t want any friction. He’s always been the one, for instance, to smooth over the occasional issues that arise between Marcus and Nick, and this is our hard-earned vacation week, after all.
But something just doesn’t feel right about Hannah. I know it. And I hate that I seem to be the only one who does.
4
Instead of trying to focus on my play any longer
, I decide to head outside now and come back to it later in the day when my mind is clearer. I collect my hiking boots and lace them up, then leave the cottage, veering off the flagstone path and moving north across the expanse of sloping lawn. Eventually, it gives way to a wide grass path flanked and topped by rustic trellises and running through a lightly wooded area. Though I appreciate the manicured parts of the property, this is where the real magic happens for me. Relishing the stillness, I walk at a moderate pace, and after a couple of minutes I emerge from between the trellises into a meadow of riotously colored wildflowers. When she designed it, Claire meant for it to be a total surprise to the eye, and no matter how many times I come upon it, it always makes me smile.
I traipse through the meadow, admiring the endless mix of pink, red, blue, orange, and yellow. At the far side, a totally different meadow begins, this one consisting of various wild grasses, some of them really high. There’s a distinct path through it, but one Claire designed in an enchanting, serpentine way, so that when you meander along, you almost feel as if you’re in a maze.
Finally, I reach the far side and after tramping a bit farther come to the stream that gushes along the border of a heavily wooded area, a continuation of the woods behind our cottage. I hadn’t planned to be gone for too long, but I lower myself onto a rock beside the gurgling stream and savor the sound of it. There’s an old bird blind a few yards ahead of me and to the right of the stream. Sometimes Henry and I will brush away the cobwebs inside and sit for a while, watching and waiting. Or we’ll search the nearby area for deer antlers or abandoned box turtle shells. I’ve made many happy memories with him here.
But mostly I love this spot because it’s where Gabe proposed to me.
We’d met around six years ago in a wine bar in the city, where I’d gone with several nonactor friends to celebrate one girl’s acceptance to business school. The wine bar owner was Gabe’s client, I later learned, and he’d only stopped by that evening to say hello. My friends and I were clustered by the bar and Gabe was sitting on a stool behind me. At some point I turned, as if drawn by a force field, and when I met his gaze, I felt as if I’d been struck by the proverbial thunderbolt. Maybe it was those slate-blue eyes, or hawk nose, or fetching dark scruff, or the way he held his wineglass like such a pro. We chatted for a couple of minutes, exchanging first names and a little bit about our professional lives, and what was so special about the Bordeaux he was drinking—he had the bartender pour me a taste—but then my friends were dragging me off to another location, and I couldn’t think of a slick way to say, “Here’s my number.”