Chapter 3
Pippi Beach’s unique qualities attracted an eclectic mix of people united by their insistence that they were all very different from everyone else.
Of the hundred dwellings sprinkled across the beachfront, headland, and bush hinterland, only about twenty were permanently inhabited.
The rest were weekenders and holiday houses.
Everyone came here to escape, retreat, or regenerate.
For the younger generation, weekends and holidays at Pippi meant freedom: from school, organized sports, uniforms, shoes, routine, rules, and expectations.
As long as they appeared somewhere in view of their parents’ deck before nightfall, they were free.
Imaginations blossomed, anxieties dissipated.
Things that normally dominated their lives, like timetables and the news and who liked whom at school, were nothing; the only thing that mattered was the height of the tide.
The handful of young people who lived at Pippi went to school by ferry and appeared to lead a life free of care.
When Lily and Rosie had come to live here, age just twelve and nine, they could hardly believe their luck.
Lydia kept reminding them that someone still had to unpack the dishwasher and take the garbage out, but taking out the garbage was no hardship when it involved a walk along the waterfront to the public bins on the end of the jetty.
Even something as tedious as garbage, collected twice a week by barge, seemed romantic.
The morning after Friday drinks, Lily and Juliet sat together on the deck, sipping tea in silence as Lily wondered how long it would take for Juliet to steer conversation toward the celebrity guests.
“He was surprisingly nice, wasn’t he?” ventured Juliet.
“Yes, he was,” conceded Lily. No need for clarification. Casey was gorgeous and Juliet was quite clearly smitten.
“And really funny.”
“Mm.”
“And good-looking. Objectively, I mean.”
“Objectively, sure.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“Did you like him?”
Lily smiled as Juliet flushed.
“Oh, I mean—”
“I think he liked you.”
“Really?” Juliet’s face betrayed surprise and hope. “I mean, he was friendly with everyone.”
“He chose to sit down with you. Not Bob-with-Two-Dogs.”
Juliet smiled and shook her head.
“Shame about his friends,” Lily said.
“What do you mean? You didn’t like them? Why? They were so beautiful!”
“All the better to appreciate from a distance.”
“I think they were just shy.”
Lily laughed. “I don’t think anyone who wears designer gear at Pippi can be shy. But I love that you think it’s possible.”
Juliet was kind and smart, but she could be a little naive.
Casey Brandon was clearly special: generous, sincere, and unaffected.
These were rare qualities anywhere, and possibly even rarer among the young and rich.
Lily believed Cecilia and Yumi had been deliberately standoffish, and Dorian was just plain cold and unfriendly.
The three of them had lived right down to Lily’s expectations.
“I wonder what they thought of us?” mused Juliet.
“We know they didn’t think much of me,” laughed Lily. “But I think you made a good impression. Between you and the view, I think they can afford to overlook my shortcomings. And the catering.”
Meanwhile, up at the cliff house, Casey, at least, had nothing but praise for Pippi, its views, and its residents. “I wanna move here,” he announced as he looked out at the sparkling water.
“No, you don’t,” Dorian said with a shrug.
“This view, it’s insane. Nature. It’s everywhere. And the people, they’re just … they’re real, you know?”
“You’re so American,” said Dorian. “You’re hyper-sensitive to any sliver of authenticity—which, by the way, is only a sliver here. They’re just as obsessed with money and power as everyone else; they’re just too embarrassed to admit it.”
“Your cynicism is totally rotting your insides.”
“I’m just saying, don’t be fooled. Yes, they live in the middle of nowhere and talk with an accent—”
“You mean your accent.”
“But people can be just as grasping and obsessive here as in LA.”
“No one’s obsessing over you here, man; literally no one cares!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about? No, don’t answer that because I don’t care. Look at that sun! The water, the sand, the wilderness! My God!”
“It is indeed beautiful.”
“Then why don’t you just enjoy it!”
“I am. I’m going kayaking,” Dorian snapped. He proceeded to check coast maps and the weather report.
The tide was high.
For the kids at the beachfront house, high tide meant gathering at the end of the jetty to fling themselves up into the sky and down into crystal-clear water.
They did this over and over and when they got tired, they lay in the sun, glistening with salt, sparkle, and happiness.
This was their magic summer ritual and nothing could improve it.
The international celebrities in the cliff house became irrelevant again, and even Rosie seemed to forget about them entirely.
In the heat of late morning, the younger ones retreated to trampolines and tire swings in the valley around the back of Pippi, while Lily, Juliet, and their friend Nicola lay on towels in the shade and reflected on the life ahead of them with all the gravity of young adults who had very little to worry about.
“I’m just so glad school’s over,” murmured Juliet.
“Oh my God, yes,” exploded Nicola. “Finally. No more algebra, no more Shakespeare. And if anyone asks me for a piece of persuasive writing, I will say NO.”
“Me too. And if they ask why, I’ll tell them—with a killer introductory paragraph, several awesome body paragraphs, and a devastating conclusion,” laughed Lily.
“Can you stop being smart just for a second? Just to make me feel better?”
“She can’t help it,” said Juliet.
“Not smart,” added Lily. “Indoctrinated. How wonderful to finally be in the real world—not be judged anymore.”
“I’m still judging you,” said Nicola.
“That’s fair. But you’re not judging me against some arbitrary set of learning criteria set by a disgruntled ex-teacher.”
Nicola and Lily giggled. They had gone to the local high school, an establishment with a bit of a reputation for turning its teachers toward office jobs, stress leave, or out of the profession entirely.
The school’s biggest claim to fame was that its alumni included two world-class surfers.
Juliet, however, had attended an exclusive city girls’ school that had world-class everything.
Nicola felt sorry for her—the school seemed to put so much pressure on study—but Lily rather envied Juliet’s private-school education.
Lily could hardly complain about disadvantage—her teachers had gone out of their way and had even run advanced classes just for her, which would have been socially ruinous if it weren’t for Nicola.
But at the end of her time in high school, Lily found herself adrift.
She didn’t know what to do next. She was interested in so many things—literature, art, science—and her teachers and aunts had all told her she could do anything she wanted.
The problem was, she wasn’t sure what that was.
“Poor Lily.” Nicola pouted. “You know we’re in the real world now, right? Thinking is optional.”
“No thinking! How delicious,” added Juliet.
“Definitely no thinking while we’re away in America,” warned Nicola. All three girls had planned a gap year, and Nicola and Lily were off to Los Angeles for four whole weeks in the middle of it.
“I won’t know what to do with myself,” Lily laughed. “Imagine going to a museum without a busload of kids and a notebook!”
“We are not going to museums.”
“Not even to meet the love of your life while you’re both sketching the same sculpture?” coaxed Lily.
“The love of my life doesn’t sketch sculptures. And neither do I.”
“Going to a museum gala event would be fun,” put in Juliet. “Red carpet. Formal wear. Teeny tiny little canapés …”
“Champagne,” added Nicola. “And lots and lots of guys who look like they put some effort into their outfits.”
“There is nothing sexier than a man who cares about fashion,” Juliet said with a sigh.
“So, was that an Italian designer Casey was wearing last night?” teased Lily.
“No, American. A new ethical brand, really interesting. Casey said the fabric is recycled—” She stopped at their laughter. “What? What’s so funny?”
“There’s nothing sexier …” Nicola echoed.
Juliet loudly protested that they were just chatting, they had only just met, she was being polite, the designer came up in conversation and it didn’t mean anything, and it certainly didn’t mean she liked him.
The truth was, since her conversation with Casey Brandon the night before, she had thought of little else.
“I’m not attracted to him or anything. He’s good-looking, that’s all,” Juliet said with little conviction.
“He’s gorgeous,” agreed Lily. “A bit smiley for me, though. Too nice.”
“Ha! Of course, you like a bad boy,” said Nicola. “Someone with cheekbones and a moody glare.”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“And a stick up his potato?”
“Right up there.”
“I am so not interested in Dorian Khan.”
“Not even a little bit?” asked Juliet, glad to have the spotlight thrown somewhere else. “I mean, he seems really smart.”
“Acting superior does not mean you’re smart. And I should know, it’s my thing.”
“And he is really good-looking,” added Nicola, which sparked quite a discussion in which they agreed that Dorian was better-looking but Casey was more attractive and, in any case, in the greater scheme of things, what a person looked like was the least important thing about them.
“Anyway, the point is,” Nicole went on, “if Dorian walked up to you right now and said, ‘Lily, I love you, come away with me, my helicopter’s waiting,’ you’d be gone. In a second.”
“I can assure you I would not,” retorted Lily, laughing at the very idea. “I wouldn’t walk with him to the end of the jetty.”
“Liar!”
Of course, Dorian Khan didn’t turn up with any offers at all and remained locked away inside the cliff house for the entire day. But Lily meant what she said and truly did not care.