Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
“ Y ou ruin a poor old girl’s fun, you know that?” Nancy grumbled, the pool lounge chair creaking underneath her as it shifted.
“I’m just a horrible person,” I agreed, slathering her wrinkled back with thick SPF. The U in her polka dot swimsuit dipped far lower than it should’ve on a ninety-year-old “Putting sunscreen on you so you don’t burn to a crisp. Just a downright mean soul, I am.”
“I didn’t want you to do it. That handsome fellow?—”
“You can’t ask the staff to rub sunscreen on you.”
Nancy puffed out a breath. “Before, that nice boy, Trevor, did?—”
“Yes, and he stole four-hundred dollars from your purse while you were distracted. We caught him on the security footage.”
“I was just paying him for the wonderful service he performed, that’s all.”
My features twisted on their own accord at her words, unable to stop the instant disgust. “Just ask me to do it next time. Or better yet, ask my mother.” Or Yvette.
“I’m half-tempted to,” she said, turning her head as far as she could to look at me as I recapped the sunscreen. “Those ladies will do whatever I ask to just get on my good side.”
Tossing the sunscreen on the empty chair beside Nancy, I sat down on its edge, linking my fingers between my knees. “Is that how you convinced Mrs. Holland to bring you here today?”
Nancy gave me a wide smile, showing off her pearly dentures. “I might’ve dangled a little carrot. I suppose the charity for the dying bees doesn’t need the beach house in Florida.”
I didn’t smile back. “I heard about how weak you’ve been lately. How weak your heart is. This is too much for you.”
“Do you want me to die alone at home, then?” she demanded, finally showing the barb beneath her flippant words as she glared at me. “With Yvette sobbing at her soaps or Ally calling whichever flavor of the week, and where time passes in a crawl? Tell me, Margot, which would you prefer?”
I gave her a look. “Nancy, I just?—”
She twisted away from me to glower at the pool. “The others are too gushy, and you’re too suffocating.”
I stared at her pouting figure as her words shifted into my heart like a dagger. This is why no one likes to talk to you, dear.
“Sorry, I hope that didn’t take too long,” Sumner said in a breathless voice as he approached with a tray of two drinks. Much like how he’d been doing it when I first saw him, he held the tray incorrectly, its center of gravity tipping more to one side than it should’ve. If I were to have picked the glass up, everything would’ve toppled. “The girl at the drink station was chatty.”
I wondered what girl was working the drink station today, and whether or not I could fire her for being chatty .
“Oh, dear, I’m glad you’re back,” Nancy said as Sumner set the tray down at the foot of my lounger. “Help a little lady into the pool, would you?”
He paused in offering the pink drink out to Nancy, blinking. “I—I’m not a lifeguard,” he insisted. “I really think we should move to the other pool, where they’re on the clock?—”
“Surely a strong man like you can save me.” Nancy squeezed his bicep, making a face at it. “Well, we can work on this, hmm?”
Everything in me rebelled at the idea of allowing her to get into the pool. It would exhaust her ninety-year-old body, and all she had to do was lose strength in her legs, or slip, or anything , and she’d submerge like a stone. Nancy wasn’t a light little thing, and the pool’s shallowest footage was four feet. It would take both Sumner and me to pick her up if she fell. Letting her get in was an idea that practically made my skin crawl.
But instead of voicing any of those concerns, I simply said, “Drown if you want.”
“Maybe I will,” Nancy replied in her crotchety tone, and without waiting for Sumner to make up his mind, she pushed to her feet. She swayed enough that he reached out and caught at her arms, holding her steady. “There’ll be a conspiracy theory after that, you know. Margot drowned Nancy . Maybe I’ll do it just to spite you, so no one talks to you again. ”
Sumner looked back and forth between us with an increasingly worried expression. I felt a bit bad for him, caught in the crossfire of yet another pissing match of mine. However, it was clear that this one was different from the one with Yvette, and he picked up on it. “Ms. Nancy,” he said in a gentle voice, giving a sheepish smile. “No offense, but I’m actually trying to work on this with her.” He tipped his head at me.
“What’s that?”
“Trying to help her be a little bit happier. Looking at life a bit more positively. Not worrying about people accusing her of murder.”
Nancy squinted at him closer before turning to me. “Is this the waiter you macked on?”
I didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
“You said he was passably handsome. Margot, get your eyes checked, this is more than just passably !”
“ Passably ?” Sumner asked me with mild offense.
I ignored him. “You heard him. He’s trying to make my life more positive. Stop being such a batty old lady.”
“I will as soon as you stop being such a brat,” she replied, but she sat back down on the lounger. Her breathing had worsened in the brief moments standing, though it was clear she struggled to hide it. “Summer, was it?
He sat on the end of her lounger and allowed her to continue to hold his hand, offering her a smile. “Sum -ner , ma’am. It’s okay, though, everyone mishears it at first.”
“Sumner. Is there a story behind it?”
I tried to not look at him with interest, though my curiosity over the same question piqued. Sumner nodded with affection. “My mom thought she was having a girl her entire pregnancy. When she had me, and found out I was a boy, she changed it to Sumner.” He looked at me. “I’m glad she didn’t decide to try and make Summer a boy’s name.”
“We can still try,” I insisted. “ Summer .”
He rolled his eyes.
Nancy patted Sumner’s hand to draw his attention back, clearly bothered by sharing it with me. “You do know she’s engaged, right?”
He hesitated before answering. “Yes, I know.”
I picked up the other drink Sumner had brought off the tray, the grapefruit and lemon taste causing my tongue to wither. Non-alcoholic. Boring.
Nancy leaned into Sumner and lowered her voice. “Do you have any plans to steal her away from her fiancé?”
He jerked back, eyes going wide at the same time that the apples of his cheeks reddened. “No! Definitely not. No plans at all—none. You don’t have to worry about that, truly.”
Such a quick and fierce denial, I wanted to say. I might’ve, if his response hadn’t knocked a quivering blow to my already teetering ego. He could’ve denied it, but did he need to deny it so vehemently?
Nancy still gave him a knowing smile. “I’m rooting for you over that stuffy boy. I’ve always told Margot she needs to get out of this toxic circle. A working-class boy as yourself would do just the trick!”
I raised my eyebrow at her. “Did you just tell me to marry him because he’s poor? ”
“I didn’t say poor, I said working-class .”
“It’s still rude.”
She copied me in raising her eyebrow. “Since when have you ever cared about being rude?”
“I take it you two know each other well?” Sumner asked, cutting between our bickering once more, clearly amused as he glanced back and forth. He leaned closer to Nancy. “Got any good gossip about Margot?”
Nancy, never one to pass up gossip, sat up a bit straighter. “She used to smoke.”
“Smoke? Like cigarettes?”
Nancy waved her hand. “A teenager’s desperation for her parents’ attention, that’s all.”
I gave her a flat stare. “Don’t forget to tell him that you were the one who gave me my first pack.”
“You weren’t supposed to actually smoke them.” Nancy patted Sumner on the shoulder to draw his attention back to her. “I thought she’d look cooler carrying them around. She had a hard time fitting in around here, so she should at least have looked tough, don’t you think?”
Sumner didn’t look inclined to agree, but he at least knew better than to argue. If there was one thing Nancy loved more than gossip, it was a debate. “Anything else?”
“She loves mashed potatoes, but hates it when there’s garlic butter on them. Loves avocado toast, too. Don’t keep her from her avocado toast.”
“He’s done that one already,” I said.
“She went to boarding school for those younger years,” Nancy went on unprompted, reaching deeper into the pot of Margot’s Secrets. They weren’t necessarily anything scandalous, nothing embarrassing, so I let her go on. Anything to distract her from the pool. “She came back to Addison just before she started high school.”
Sumner looked at me in surprise. “Boarding school?”
“Can’t you tell from my manners?”
This time, he nearly laughed.
It was as if Nancy didn’t hear our side conversations. “Margot’s never had a boyfriend. With the way she dresses, I think everyone around here thought she swung the other way?—”
I, in fact, shouldn’t have let her go on. “Nancy.”
“—but I caught her looking at quite indecent photos of men on my computer once, so I think it’s safe to say she’s into your team, Sumner?—”
“ Nancy .”
She huffed a little and took a drink of her lemonade while Sumner pressed his lips together, fighting a smile that still sparkled in his eyes. The sun was hot on my back, leeching into the black material of my vest.
“Oh, and she got into some fancy fashion school in New York out of high school,” Nancy added. “But her parents wouldn’t let her go.”
I stiffened with the words. Even more than me looking up inappropriate pictures on her computer, I wished she’d kept that to herself. It felt contradictory, hypocritical, for the truth of it to come to light.
“Fashion school?” Sumner turned to me again, but I refused to meet his gaze this time.
“In New York,” Nancy explained. “One of those big expensive ones that don’t accept a lot of people, but she got in. Her parents wouldn’t let her go, though. Wouldn’t pay the ungodly amount of tuition, and made her major in business instead, even though they have no intention to let her take over their company unless she’s married?—”
“Alright, that’s—” I began, at the same time a new voice called, “Nancy!”
The three of us turned to find Mrs. Holland rushing out of the country club’s doors while waving her arms in the air. She was a woman in her mid-sixties and had large sunglasses on her head to push her gray hair back, and despite her swimsuit, she had on a full face of makeup that sunk into her wrinkles. “We were supposed to meet at the west pool—” She faltered at the sight of Sumner, batting her lashes. “O-Oh, hello.”
Sumner inclined his head in hello, offering her the country club’s signature smile.
“I know you,” Mrs. Holland exclaimed, pointing a finger at him. “You’re the waiter Margot kissed at the fundraiser!” Her eyes scanned him up and down, lingering on his chest. “So, are you Margot’s gigolo now?”
Sumner cleared his throat quite uncomfortably, while Nancy just looked tickled at the prospect. “Uh, no—no, they hired me as her secretary.” His eyes cut to mine, and he lowered his voice. “People say that unironically?” His lips echoed the word gigolo .
I sipped my lemonade. “Only the rich.”
“And Aaron Astor doesn’t mind that such a… fine young man is hanging around you, Margot?”
Truthfully, I didn’t know how Aaron felt about it all. Perhaps that was why Aaron ditched the videocall today, because he was more put off by the whole kiss than my parents told me. It made sense they’d keep his reaction from me—they were afraid that if I knew it’d caused a scene, I’d do something like it again.
When she realized I wasn’t about to answer, she turned her sights to the little old lady before me. “Nancy.” Mrs. Holland’s voice carried a whining sound to it, the same one she had initially come over with. “I told you, the westside pool, where there’s the kitchens and?—”
“It’s too crowded there, too many screaming kids. If I wanted to be around kids, I would’ve had my own.”
Mrs. Holland sidled up close to Nancy on the pool lounger, waggling her eyebrows. “I scoped out the joint, and the hot lifeguards are on duty today.”
It was the perfect thing to say in order to get Nancy moving. “Well, you should’ve checked earlier. Let’s go.”
Both Sumner and Mrs. Holland helped her into her wheelchair—I suspected she played helpless in order to have him touch her again.
“I’ll see you the next time you drop by without announcing it,” she told me as Mrs. Holland wheeled her around. She gestured at Sumner. “Make sure you bring him, too. As a friend .”
I hummed a soft noise under my breath in reply, and with that, Mrs. Holland wheeled Nancy away from the pool area.
Sumner sat back down on the lounger opposite of me, our knees bumping with how close the two chairs were. “That’s your frenemy who asked about my butt, huh?” he asked as he picked up my drink, taking a sip of it. I watched where his lips met the glass. “She’s nice. Sort of gives off that fun grandma vibe you can bicker with?— ”
“Don’t you have to get back to work?”
He blinked at my tone. “I’m hanging out with you. If my manager says anything, I’ll just say you asked for me.”
“You shouldn’t lie. It’s a bad testament of character.”
“Haven’t you ever told a white lie?”
“Of course. But my character has already been called into question.”
We fell quiet for a moment. Sumner shook the drink just enough for the ice to clatter. I could feel his eyes on me, but I was too busy looking at the pool. “Fashion school, huh?”
In the grand scheme of things, it was a ridiculous thing to be embarrassed about, but this was Sumner. He’d thrown away his degree to pursue something else, to find something he was passionate about, something I didn’t have the guts to do. I felt naked with the knowledge out in the open, like the fa?ade I’d donned had been shattered to pieces that scattered around me. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You told me you didn’t want to pursue fashion.”
“I also said I don’t want to talk about it.”
Sumner laid his hand on my knee, and I dropped my attention to it. His fingers were long, his knuckles a shade darker than the rest of his skin, and I could trace the tendons on the back of his hand with my eyes. He gave my knee a shake to draw my attention. “Why not?”
I smacked his hand off. “Because I don’t want to.”
“You do realize you sound like a little kid, right?” He waited for me to argue. “You applied to art school, got in, but your parents made you major in business instead? Why? Because it was more practical? That tends to be the go-to argument, doesn’t it? ”
“I don’t know why,” I told him honestly. “I never asked.”
“You gave up on your dream and never asked why?”
Something uncomfortable tickled the back of my throat. I swallowed it. “You make it sound so dramatic. I was seventeen. It makes sense to pursue something practical over fashion. Especially when I’m going to be inheriting the family business.”
They were the words my parents had implanted in my head. I didn’t mean them. I just didn’t want him to see the resentment underneath. Though I’d said it to him earlier, I was really the one who was a tiny little Maltipoo who rolled over and showed her belly when I tried so hard to give off a Doberman demeanor. Unbothered. Uncaring. I refused to let him—anyone—see me any other way. Sumner could call me his friend all he wanted, but there were some sides I would never let him see.
Sumner took another sip of his drink as he watched me, and I watched him watching me. With the sun glaring down, I felt far too hot in the material of my suit, even with the jacket off. “How did it go with Aaron?” Sumner asked.
Yet another side I wanted nothing more than to bury. Yvette, my father, Aaron—all of it came creeping back like a dark fog rolling over me. He isn’t interested in a video call . They didn’t matter; it didn’t matter. Perhaps Aaron was right—perhaps it was a better idea to meet in person, to be able to play off each other’s energies face to face. Perhaps… perhaps…
I turned to face the pool, focusing on the soft ripples on the surface. It needed skimming; there was far too much debris floating along the surface. My mother would’ve had a heart attack if she saw, sending any staff within a ten-mile radius into the pool to fish it out with their own hands.
“Margot.”
I still didn’t look. It didn’t happen , I knew I should say. He was too busy . The admission, though, seemed too humiliating, which was ridiculous. Sumner would say something absurdly supportive; it was why I hadn’t sought him out to begin with.
“I don’t want to talk about him with you,” I said, digging my fingers into the material of my pants. “He’s all anyone ever wants to talk to me about. No one ever asks about me ; they ask about him . I want you to be my one person I don’t talk about him with. The one person who doesn’t ask.”
And at first, it almost looked as if Sumner wasn’t going to agree. His lips parted in what must’ve been surprise, lashes fluttering as he blinked. Ultimately, though, he nodded. “All right.”
Discomfort settled on me once more at the thought that I could’ve offended him—he’d only been trying to make conversation. Maybe it was because I shut the conversation down so rudely, refused to answer his question. This is why no one likes to talk to you, dear.
“So.” Sumner drew the word out, linking his fingers between his knees as he leaned forward, his bubble of space pressing against my own. The sun glimmered in his hair, reflecting in his eyes. “You thought I was handsome, huh?”
“I said passably .”
“You also said hot .” I opened my mouth to object when Sumner cut me off. “When I told you a woman wanted help with her sunscreen, you said that she shouldn’t get felt up by a ‘hot guy in his twenties.’”
I resented the way he said it. When I’d first seen Sumner, one of my initial thoughts had been that he was handsome. Handsome in a way that he could’ve fit into the diamond life perfectly. I remember thinking it, and I remember it being a throwaway thought. One I would’ve admitted aloud, easily, without a second thought.
Now, saying those words felt far more charged.
Clearing my throat, I got to my feet. Sumner tipped his head back to peer up at me. “Hey, I called you pretty the other day. You’re allowed to compliment me, too.”
“I’m not complimenting you.” I scooped my jacket up from the pool lounger and threaded my arms through, despite the fact that I already felt close to passing out from heatstroke.
“So, I’m not hot?”
“No.”
“I’m not handsome?”
I didn’t like how he was looking at me, like he’d somehow discovered the upper hand. I didn’t like it one bit, but my mind blanked on any ways to tip the situation back into my favor. My beautiful mind, one that could come up with ways to best anyone at the drop of the hat, was a well that had run completely dry. “Passably,” I muttered, and walked toward the country club, once more fidgeting with the stupid vest buttons. Sumner laughed as he caught up behind me.