Chapter Two
Savannah Rigsby dabbed at the sweat gathering along the back of her neck with a crisp white towel that had her initials stitched neatly into one corner. She didn’t wave back at Antonio, the resident tennis instructor, as he walked through the gate leading back to the country club.
Antonio, with his tousled dark curls, muscular tanned thighs peeking out of his white athletic shorts, and teeth so straight Savannah guessed they were veneers, had thought nothing of wrapping his hot, sweaty arms around her in an attempt to “fix her backhand.” Savannah had quickly stiffened and pulled away.
Next time, she’d ask the club concierge for another instructor, and depending on how her day went, might just get Antonio fired for inappropriate behavior.
She sank into the green mesh bench, slid her Wilson into the racket bag, and fished her cellphone out of the front pocket. Then she tapped the screen, ignored the two hundred thirty-one Instagram notifications, and went straight to her emails.
At the very top of the list was an email from Helen Beard asking for a retraction of Savannah’s review of her debut novel.
Savannah would rather cut off her own leg and tattoo I’m a fraud across her calf than take back a single line she had said.
Wild Summer Roses was a historical romance so agonizingly slow-paced that it was like waiting for the last suitcase at baggage claim.
It didn’t matter that Helen had attempted to capture the taboo nature of a lesbian romance in the Victorian era if there hadn’t been any actual romance.
Two hundred pages in, Savannah had literally begged Tammy to snap the laces off Bromilda’s corset and pull her into a breathless tangle on the velvet settee.
But nope. Tammy preferred the longing glances over lukewarm cups of tea.
Unfortunately for Helen, Savannah did not.
Another notification came flying into her inbox. It was a follow-up to Elise Mercier’s email from the previous month. Savannah had expected it, yet seeing Elise’s name again made her stomach squeeze tight. And not in a good way.
“You really don’t give up, do you?” Savannah muttered, hovering her finger over the delete icon. But who was she kidding? Curiosity had the ability to drag her in by the collar.
She opened the email. Please reconsider. You’re exactly what we want on the show. Please, just think about it. What can I do to convince you?
The answer was nothing.
Savannah could not be convinced to star in a reality television show.
Especially not something as tacky as Outlast Her.
Not only would it be bad for her brand, but Savannah couldn’t survive a single night sleeping on anything other than the Tempur-Pedic neck pillow she kept inside a silk pillowcase.
The thought of sitting on sand and bathing in the ocean was quite literally her version of hell.
So too was whatever celebrity edition Elise had planned.
Without meaning to, her thoughts drifted to Amy Sandler.
Despite being barely famous, Savannah had recognized her immediately.
The oversized tortoiseshell glasses, the blonde curls, the semi-chic librarian cardigan and the soft yet dangerous curves that her high-waisted Levi’s could barely keep in.
But even so, Savannah hadn’t expected to see her there in New York.
Didn’t Amy Sandler live in Nowhere, Oklahoma?
Thinking back on it now, Savannah might have reacted a little too aggressively during their encounter.
But then again, Amy had chosen to pick a fight on the one morning Savannah’s patience was already spent.
Savannah had been forced to cancel her weekend plans at INNESS up in Accord, where she was supposed to check into one of the ultra-minimalist luxury cabins overlooking the Catskills.
Savannah loved nothing more than when she was on vacation and the tequila and jalapeno collided with a splash of fresh lime.
Instead of relaxing at one of the two pools with an out-of-office autoresponder on her emails, she’d dragged herself to Barnes & Noble to claim a copy of Luna’s new book.
Luna’s publicist had accidentally, though completely on purpose, forgotten to send an advance review copy.
Every email Savannah’s assistant, Jess, had sent Luna’s publicist had gone unanswered.
It was as if Luna thought she could escape Savannah’s review by ghosting her way out of it. Ha, as if.
“Ruining any lives today, Savage Savannah?”
Savannah snapped her head toward the gate. Marjorie Manning was walking toward her. Her pastel-pink pleated tennis skirt hung just above her knees, and her white knit Ralph Lauren polo was perfectly pressed. Her blonde ponytail had better swing than Jan from the Brady Bunch.
Savannah rolled her eyes. After five years at the country club, Savannah had developed a particular irritation whenever Marjorie launched into nonsense about whose husband was being secretly audited by the IRS or campaigned to redecorate the dining room with Chinoiserie wallpaper.
Even a delayed flight couldn’t annoy Savannah quite as much.
Yet, somehow, despite Savannah’s best efforts, they’d settled into a sort of reluctant friendship that involved accepting each other’s invitations.
“People who murder ruin lives,” Savannah said, standing up and stretching out her legs. At her age, sitting too long made her knees stiff. Though some would say forty was the new thirty. “I merely review books. There’s a big difference.”
“Not to the people who spent months working on their manuscript only for you to rip it apart like a grocery receipt.”
Savannah didn’t think Marjorie even knew what a grocery receipt looked like.
She suspected the housewife paid an assistant to handle something as tedious as buying food.
“I didn’t realize you had a heart for struggling writers.
” There was an ache in Savannah’s back that she attributed to passing out cold on the sofa after staying up all night reading a new manuscript before finally dragging her half-conscious body to bed.
“Oh, you know,” Marjorie said, trailing a diamond-ringed finger along the edge of the bench’s backrest. “I like to help aspiring writers where I can. My poor, divorced sister just signed up for a creative writing class. Who knows? Maybe she’s the next Colleen Hoover.”
Savannah scoffed. She doubted that. “Is that all you came here to tell me, or do you have a tennis lesson with Antonio? Watch out, his hands like to wander during the backhand drills.”
“That’s the whole reason I play tennis.” Marjorie laughed.
Then she checked her diamond-encrusted Cartier Tank watch, which was supposedly an anniversary present from her husband.
Word on the street, or more accurately on the white-bouclé daybeds in the powder room, was that the watch had been an apology gift after her husband slept with his secretary.
A painfully cliché cliché. “I’m hoping Antonio will rub me up and down with those manly hands of his. ”
Savannah let a smile slip out. But just this once.
“Well, then, I’ll leave you to it,” Savannah said, swinging her bag over her shoulder. Though she knew better. Marjorie’s lesson wasn’t until eleven, and by the looks of things, she had something else on her mind.
“The girls are all getting together next month,” Marjorie said at the exact moment Savannah swung open the gate.
Three hundred feet away was the white brick clubhouse wrapped in green ivy, and just beyond it was the sunbaked parking lot.
And in Savannah’s case... freedom. “We’re going to watch the new season of Outlast Her, and I thought you’d like to join us. Because, well, you know.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Savannah replied, walking toward the gate, letting it go unsaid that they didn’t need to summon the only lesbian they knew for validation. “I’ve got plans that day.”
“It’s a month away,” Marjorie said. “I didn’t even say which day.”
“I’m sure I’ll be busy. My schedule looks like a Jackson Pollock painting right now.
” Savannah started across the brick path, despite knowing that Marjorie would follow right along.
One thing about Marjorie was that she always needed to have the last word.
Unfortunately for Marjorie, Savannah did too.
Experience told Savannah that the conversation would end only when she slammed the door of her Porsche shut and drove off into traffic.
“You know, Abi said you would say no if I asked.”
“That’s not going to make me change my mind,” Savannah replied, though sticking it to Abi sounded mildly tempting. She was married to a famous neurosurgeon and never missed the opportunity to start every sentence with “As a doctor’s wife...”
“Fine, I get it,” Marjorie said, still hot on Savannah’s tail as she jogged up the steps toward the wrap-around veranda where sun-bleached linen umbrellas shaded tables piled high with half-eaten Nicoise salads and sweating glasses of rosé.
Socialites from all across the West Village lunched as if they had nowhere better to be.
And they didn’t, not until their afternoon hair appointments.
“You just don’t want to watch Outlast Her because you know you could never do what they do,” Marjorie said, then let out a laugh that turned a few blonde heads at the nearest table.
“Can you imagine Savannah Rigsby eating rice and beans every day and getting a little dirty during challenges?”
“And you think you can?” Savannah stopped in her tracks right outside the grand, paneled double doors leading into the main dining hall, where a massive brass-trimmed fireplace sat waiting to heat up the room in winter.
Marjorie nearly slammed right into her. Her white tennis shoes squeaked loudly against the floor.
She tucked back a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and said, “Before I met Ken, I spent a year hitchhiking along the East Coast. I lived out of a backpack, slept in a tent, ate whatever I could cook over a tin-can campfire, and showered maybe twice a week. Otherwise, it was wet wipes to wipe the bits. I know how it feels to rough it, honey.”
This was surprising. Shocking, in fact. Savannah looked at Marjorie with entirely new eyes.
She opened her mouth to ask how a woman whose diamond necklace alone could feed four families for a year could ever have survived showering once or twice a week.
Instead, she narrowed her eyes. “Did Abi say I couldn’t handle it?
” It was exactly something Abi would say, though the woman literally fainted when she chipped a nail.
“She did.”
“That bitch.”
If this was Marjorie’s plan, well, damn it, it was working.
“Fine,” Savannah muttered. “I’ll see you in a month.
” Then she flew through the main entrance hall, where plaques covered the walls of every tennis tournament the club had ever hosted, and burst out the front doors onto a rose bush-lined flagstone path, straight to her car.
She tossed her bag into the trunk and then climbed into the driver’s seat. Instead of starting the engine, she pulled out her phone. She didn’t even bother penciling in Marjorie’s invitation. She opened the email from her deleted folder before hitting reply to Elise’s email.
I’m in, Savannah typed. Send the contract.