Chapter 4
Over the next few days, everyone remained on high alert for encounters with the celebrity visitors.
Casey had been open enough with the locals for most of them, including Lydia, to consider him their particular friend, so he was often caught up in conversations while out and about.
He was also clearly on trash duty because he walked past the beachfront house most evenings.
He was always keen to have a chat, not at all conscious of the rubbish bags grazing the side of his brand-name board shorts.
He stayed longer if Juliet was there, which she almost always was.
She had abandoned even the most dramatic board game to run out and say hi to him.
Lily began to suspect that the trash run was merely an excuse to talk to Juliet.
The fact that the two other glamorous girls kept to themselves, and Dorian Khan was rarely seen at all, confirmed the view, formed early by Lily and now shared by everyone else, that they were not that nice.
So Lily was surprised when Juliet returned from a solitary walk down the south end of the beach chatting pleasantly—and even laughing—with Cecilia and Yumi.
They turned their reflective sunglasses toward the deck as Juliet introduced them to Lily and Nicola.
Then, with a great show of reluctance, they declined an invitation to stay.
“You’re so sweet,” Cecilia drawled. “We’d love to, really, later, tomorrow, for sure.” She and Yumi ambled off. Lily knew they had no intention of ever setting foot on their deck.
“We too suburban for ya?” Nicola murmured after them.
“No!” Juliet defended her new friends. “They’re lovely. Once you get to know them.”
“And did you?” Lily asked.
“Of course!”
As the week went on, Cecilia and Yumi continued to extend smiles and occasional invitations to Juliet to walk and swim but displayed little interest in getting to know anyone else.
The attention that Juliet took for sincere, Lily judged as exploitative.
They probably just wanted a local who would take them to the best places and protect them from the many natural dangers.
Most importantly, Lily thought, they wanted someone to whom they could meaningfully show off.
They told Juliet everything, and through her, Lydia and the younger ones extracted the most important details.
Casey and Dorian were starring in movies in Australia that autumn.
Dorian was doing some independent feature in Victoria and Casey was in a blockbuster on the Gold Coast. They chose Pippi for their holiday because one of Dorian’s school-teachers used to come here.
Cecilia was an influencer (“Ha! She couldn’t influence me to stand on one leg!
” barked Lydia). Cecilia also did Casey’s social media.
Yumi was her plus-one and stylist to all four.
The younger teens hung on every word.
“You can do my social media, Lily,” announced Rosie, “when I’m famous.”
“Lucky me.”
“I’ll be your stylist,” offered Nicola.
“Who can I be?” asked Juliet.
“Casey’s plus-one,” said Nicola.
Juliet blushed and protested loudly to cover how thrilled she was at the very idea.
“So, are they coming to Friday drinks again tomorrow?” asked Rosie.
“And more importantly,” said Nicola, “are they bringing Juliet’s dream man and Lily’s nightmare?”
Yes, Cece (as Juliet was now allowed to call her) had said they’d be there.
Sure enough, as the sun was sinking the next day, the quartet arrived at the community drinks, dressed as though for a beach-inspired fashion shoot.
Casey beamed and the two girls smiled from behind their hair and sunglasses.
Dorian Khan followed with the air of one being held hostage.
Casey and Juliet quickly found each other, while Cece and Yumi stuck close together.
Dorian hung back, clearly uninterested in their conversation, in everyone, or in being there at all.
Yet whenever his eyes flicked over the group, they always seemed to land on Lily.
“He’s looking at you.” Nicola poked Lily in the ribs.
“Who?”
“The man whose charms you are so resistant to.”
“Ha! You are ridiculous.”
“But he is!”
“You should be a chef, Nicola. Always stirring the pot.”
“You should be a dad, Lily. Always making terrible jokes and avoiding talking about feelings.”
“He’s not even looking at me.”
“Well, he was before.”
“The python was back this morning.”
“Stop trying to change the subject. But please tell me about the python.”
As Lily proceeded to tell Nicola about the big black python that had taken to baking in the morning sun across the path outside their house, her eyes drifted toward Juliet, who was smiling shyly in conversation with Casey.
Nicola followed her gaze. They both watched as Juliet talked and Casey listened and nodded as though his life depended on it.
“He looks like a bobblehead,” remarked Nicola.
“Rude.”
“Significant. Bobblehead nodding means he likes her.”
Lily looked at Nicola skeptically. “Then he’s head-over-heels for Bob-with-Two-Dogs.”
“His ripped undershirt makes him irresistible.”
Lily snorted into her drink.
“Anyway, she clearly likes him,” Nicola continued.
“Who? Bob?”
“Casey, you idiot. She’s doing that hair thing she always does when she likes someone.”
Lily’s stomach twisted in an urge to protect her cousin from whatever brand of trouble Casey might be.
“They’re cute together,” Nicola went on. “I reckon she should make a move. Tell her to make a move, Lily, she won’t listen to me.”
“That’s because most of your suggestions are highly unreasonable. And anyway, what do you mean, ‘make a move’? This isn’t an ’80s rom-com. They’re both grown-ups. If they like each other, they can just say so.”
Nicola rolled her eyes. “That is literally the very last thing grown-ups do when they like each other.”
“Aren’t we all a bit over playing games?”
“Games are fun!”
“Steeped in patriarchal norms? I mean, ‘make a move,’ what does that even—”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
“Ow! Stop doing that.” But when Lily turned around she was thankful for the sharp poke because Dorian Khan was navigating through the hubbub of muumuus and muscle tees right toward her.
Lily glared at Nicola, who just shrugged and smiled.
“Don’t you leave me—” Lily began, but Nicola was already stepping backward.
“What was that? I can’t hear you, my patriarchal norms are calling!”
“Nicola!”
“Byeeeeee!” and she was gone.
And Dorian Khan was standing right in front of her, a sweaty beer in his hand, complete with comedic souvenir can cooler, and a serious but not hostile look on his face.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Dorian.”
“Hi. Lily.”
“You’re Juliet’s sister.”
“Cousin.”
“And you live here.”
“Yes.”
Lily couldn’t help smiling. Had he come over just to make pronouncements about her?
And get half of them wrong? She wondered if he was working up to an apology for his remark last week, and if so, how would she respond?
For him to apologize would be to acknowledge what he had said and that she had overheard.
She should probably just jump off that bridge when she got to it.
“Are you hungry?”
That was not what she had expected. It was all Lily could do to stop herself from laughing. His serious expression, the red flush on his cheeks, the absurd question! She couldn’t wait to tell Nicola about it later.
“Um, I guess so,” she responded, wondering whether he expected her to ask him the same in return. That was how conversations worked, right? But never before had she had a conversation like this—if you could even call it that.
“There’s chips and dips,” Lily said. She gestured toward the sad plastic platter of supermarket nibbles and wondered if this guy ever laughed. “Flavor undetermined—I think that’s French onion and I think that’s just … yellow.”
“Would you like to come to dinner?” he asked in a rush, almost aggressively.
If Lily had been shocked by his first question, it was nothing compared to the utter bafflement she felt now.
“You mean now?” Wasn’t it only five thirty?
“Later.”
“After drinks?”
“Sure.”
What did that even mean? Was he inviting her or not?
“I can’t,” she said. “I have to make dinner for the family tonight. No one else knows how to work the oven.”
She smiled lightly and his eyes went cold.
It was true, as far as it went, that no one else had taken the trouble to learn the correct sequence of switches.
But she and Dorian both knew that this was hardly an excuse.
On a Friday night during the summer holidays on a virtual island, there was really nothing that would prevent her from going to dinner at the cliff house apart from her own disinclination.
She didn’t even say “maybe another time” to soften the blow and protect his feelings, if he had any.
Why should she lie to protect him from a perfectly reasonable refusal of an invitation that was so clearly inappropriate?
Or at the very least, too early? She hardly knew the guy, and what she did know was not inspiring.
He appeared to struggle to find his words for a moment but managed a gruff “Right” before marching away.
Lily felt no remorse or regret for declining and guessed that Casey had put him up to it. God, she thought, Nicola is going to die.
On the other side of the throng, Dorian stood with his fists in his pockets, his half-empty beer discarded on someone’s picnic blanket.
“Where’ve you been?” Cecilia sidled up to Dorian and draped an arm around his shoulder. He shrugged her off. Pretending not to care, Cecilia shifted her weight and followed Dorian’s gaze into the crowd. “Talking to that girl? God, she’s so boring.” She yawned.
Dorian said nothing.
“Just being honest,” she said, reading his silence as one of disapproval.
“You’re being rude.”
“I love it when you get all judgmental.”
Dorian was silent again.
“Oh, I’m sorry, do you like her?” Cecilia teased in a singsong voice.
Dorian rolled his eyes and strode away, muttering something about dinner.
“Oh my God, you do!” Cecilia giggled loudly after him, her over-the-top hilarity hiding her disappointment that Dorian had a crush on someone and it was not her.