Chapter 9
Juliet’s ankle was better enough the next morning for her to limp down the steps.
Casey insisted on carrying her on his back across the sand and delivered her onto her own deck, where she collapsed into a chair with much laughter, thanks, and friendly touching of hands and arms as he knelt beside her and made sure she was okay.
Aunts Lydia and Jane, cousins Lily, Rosie, and Kat, and even a reluctant cousin Martin clustered around the two of them in a cloud of thank-you-so-much and no-problem-at-all and really-I’m-fine.
Casey wasn’t ten meters away down the path before Lydia, with eyebrows raised, exploded in a burst of whoops—more childish even than Rosie’s and Kat’s—and pretty much everyone said, “He is SO into you!” so loudly that Casey must have heard.
“Stop it! He’s just a nice guy, that’s all; he’d have done the same for anyone, even Martin.”
“I wouldn’t have twisted my ankle,” grumbled Martin, but nobody heard.
Everyone was busy peppering Juliet with questions and supplying their own surmises and opinions. Had they kissed yet? What was it like? Does he always look that good? Are you in love?
Lily just shrugged her shoulders at the helpless Juliet and snuck off for a quick swim.
She knew the truth and Juliet confirmed it herself later that day.
Juliet was smitten—and they hadn’t kissed.
Yet. While their eyes had spoken volumes, nothing definite had been done or said.
Juliet was worried that Casey was just being nice out of friendship, but Lily knew better.
She could see that he was just as smitten as she was, and Lily was glad.
Having spent more time with him, she was sure that his interest was genuine.
With Juliet on the mend, and a new romance brewing, Lily needn’t have much more to do with the rest of the cliff house occupants.
Christmas that year was wet, but nothing could dampen the family’s holiday enthusiasm.
Aunt Jane prepared an amazing meal; Lydia made cocktails and a pavlova.
Everyone, even Martin and Aunt Jane, jumped off the end of the jetty in the rain.
Most ran shrieking back to the house. Lydia floated back to shore in the inflatable flamingo, singing “Jingle bells, fat man smells” at the top of her lungs.
Jane’s husband, Charles, had turned up on Christmas Eve with a boatload of food, drink, and presents.
He was the life of the party for ten hours straight, then promptly fell asleep on the deck, where he stayed for the rest of his holiday, only waking occasionally to jump enthusiastically into a kayak or a dinghy with whomever cared to join him.
Jane found it delightful; Lydia was glad to have a man around to pull the boats up and down the sand for her.
Juliet spoke to her parents, who were enjoying their time skiing in the French Alps.
Aunt Kitty called from Melbourne; she would be up to see them in January.
Aunt Mary, who lived in India and worked for an international environmental organization, sent each niece and nephew notice of a donation she’d made in their name and a note asking them to match it instead of calling her to say thank you.
She was uncontactable anyway. There were stockings filled with presents like nail polish, jigsaw puzzles, books, board games, new bikinis, bangles, and sketchbooks to divert them.
The kids weren’t really kids anymore, but Christmas at Pippi was no less magical.
The occupants of the cliff house were not to be seen, but everyone assured a slightly anxious Juliet that it was just the rain keeping them indoors.
Then, when their yacht disappeared early on Boxing Day, everyone decided it was just respect for family time that had kept Casey from saying anything, and wasn’t that sensitive of him, and good that the overseas visitors were taking the opportunity to explore the harbor even though the weather wasn’t exactly perfect.
The household had something else to consume their attention: a visitor, whom everyone, especially Lily, was most curious to see again after many years.
Wilson Collins was a few years older than Juliet and Lily.
His mother, Charlotte, had been best friends with Aunt Jane and Juliet’s mother, Lizzie, when they were young, and Juliet had vague memories of being forced to play with a pale boy who sulked when he lost at games and wouldn’t share his building blocks.
But that was a long time ago, and although Aunt Jane still kept in touch with Charlotte, she didn’t really know much about Wilson.
His social media was all pictures of Los Angeles vistas and expensive cars captioned with inspiring aphorisms.
Wilson, although Australian, now lived in the United States.
His parents had separated about fifteen years ago and his mother promptly met and married an American property developer while on holiday in Bali.
They moved to Beverly Hills, where Charlotte reinvented herself as a luxury real estate agent and socialite.
She curated pictures of herself living a beautiful life wearing white linen in spacious living areas, with captions exhorting her Australian friends to visit.
So when Lily expressed interest in traveling to the US, Aunt Lizzie got in touch with Charlotte, who was only too happy to offer Lily and her traveling partner, Nicola, use of her guesthouse whenever they liked.
“We’d love to have you both here,” Charlotte had emailed. “Wilson will take good care of you! He misses Australia so much, you’ll have so much in common and so much to talk about! He’ll reach out to you next week!”
That was six months ago. Lily still didn’t know how much in common she had with the mysterious Wilson, or how much they had to talk about, because he had never contacted her.
But in early December, Charlotte had sent another email full of exclamation marks to say that Wilson himself would be in Sydney for Christmas visiting his father; maybe he and Lily could meet up then?
So Aunt Jane invited him, through Charlotte, to Pippi for New Year’s, and Wilson, through Charlotte, accepted.
Lily was curious—and hopeful. She hadn’t had time to think too much about her trip, but now with school over and Christmas done, the new adventure of traveling to the US was becoming real.
She hoped she and Wilson would become friends.
Everyone trooped down to the jetty to meet Wilson’s ferry, dressed in their array of swimwear and summer clothes, barefoot and tanned.
There, in among the locals with carts of groceries, cases of beer, and parts of boats, was a young, trim man in a floral dress shirt, pants, shoes, socks, and a tie.
Colorful resort wear, but still, a tie? It was probably the only tie worn at Pippi since Zen married Michelle at the north end, and even then, Zen had worn it with a T-shirt.
“Omigosh, look at you all, this is so magnificent, it’s like Malibu, only Australian.
Look, there’s so many of you, I hardly know which is which!
Wow. This jetty is adorable! A baby Santa Monica Pier!
Oh no—don’t take that one—DON’T touch it.
Sorry to scare you, that’s got my laptop so—” He snatched a leather briefcase from Rosie, who was trying to be helpful for the first time in her life and was only too happy to relinquish responsibility for carrying anything.
Everyone else gathered up his enormous collection of matching designer luggage and dragged it up to the house, while Wilson kept up a constant commentary in a nasal, faux-LA accent that blared up and down the beach like a bugle call.
“Wow, I feel like I’m home. We talk about this place all the time, and you, you’re my family.
Now, which one of you is Lily? Don’t tell me, don’t tell, I want to guess.
” He ran his eye flirtatiously across the girls until he settled on Lydia.
“You! You don’t look a day over seventeen!
Ha ha, just kidding. You’re gorgeous, by the way.
” He switched his focus to Juliet. “Lily? Is that you?”
Juliet smiled, shook her head, and pointed toward Lily, who was hanging back, already starting to wonder if a month was too long to stay anywhere as a guest.
“Of course! Lily! I recognize you now. You and I,” he said, actually starting to laugh, “are going to have the BEST time together, I know it, just you WAIT. I mean, this is beautiful, but you wait till I show you Beverly Hills.”
Dinner that night was loud. Though their number had only increased by one, Wilson’s over-the-top manner brought out the loud in everyone else as well.
With enough grasping energy to power a speedboat engine, and an ear-splitting accent that dipped in and out, he made the house that comfortably slept twelve feel like it was bursting.
The party had known nothing of Wilson and his new life in America when he stepped off the ferry, but after one hour over dinner, nothing about him was a mystery.
“Yes, my boss is Stacy Black. Now, do NOT believe what you have read about her; that lawsuit should never have been brought—Oh, you don’t know her?
Yes you do. You know her work. Name any good movie from the last twenty years, she produced it.
Or told someone else to produce it. Oscar-nominated period drama, check; gritty star vehicle, check; art-house thriller, check; war movie, check; blockbuster, check check check.
You know the spy franchise Daniel Danger with Dorian Khan?
Well, that is Stacy’s. What? He’s here? Dorian Khan?
No, he’s not, he’s in London. Must be someone who looks like him.
Casey Brandon too? Wait—let me see …” He bent over his smartphone for some minutes, then triumphantly rose to reveal what everyone at the table already knew, with many extra details (which invited no farther conversation beyond admiring remarks) about the two stars’ past, present, and future schedules and their very close relationships with Stacy Black.
“She is so generous. I’m at her house in the Hills literally all the time.”
Lily could still hear Wilson’s voice ringing in her ears as she went to bed that night. She’d heard enough about Stacy Black and Wilson Collins for a lifetime. How could she survive a month of it?
The next morning, Lily and Juliet slipped out to prepare Nicola. She would be over later to meet him and they felt she needed some advance warning.
“He’s very … consistent,” Lily explained.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, he’s nice,” insisted Juliet. “He just wants to make an impression.”
“I know. I just feel like I don’t need to be that impressed.”
“I do. I love being impressed. Is he good-looking?” asked Nicola.
“Yes,” admitted Juliet.
“I guess.” Lily frowned. Wilson’s looks weren’t striking, but she had to admit he was very well put together. He’d said himself that everything about his appearance, from his tan to his teeth, had been very expensive.
“Good morning!” called out Wilson as he emerged from the beach, dripping wet, his chest bare, abs showing. He was flexing very, very hard. “You must be—”
“Nicola.”
“So nice to meet you, I can’t wait for you to visit LA. I’m so sorry.” He paused and unexpectedly removed a phone from his board shorts. “Don’t worry, it’s waterproof. It’s New York; I have to get this.”
The girls tried not to laugh as he turned his dripping-wet back to them and ambled off shouting into the phone.
But as they spent the day getting to know him while swimming, walking, and eating together, Lily had to admit that Juliet was right: Wilson’s heart was in the right place and all he really wanted was to be liked.
Lily just wished she could like him more.
“So when was the last time we saw each other?” said Wilson later, sidling up to Lily during a family walk along the beach.
“Long time ago now,” Lily replied.
“I remember you. We used to play this HILARIOUS tickling game, do you remember?”
“No,” said Lily.
She knew what he was doing. Wilson liked to collect and show off his luxuries, and a girlfriend was one he was missing. Unfortunately, it seemed as though Wilson had decided that Lily was his best chance.
“Well, it was a super fun game,” Wilson said, undeterred. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we, like, played it now? Ha ha! I’m kidding. Unless you want to?”
“Oh, I don’t think it would be fair,” she said. “I haven’t been practicing! Better get some training in now and I’ll let you know when I think I’m good enough.”
She ran ahead to Nicola, bursting with laughter, and recounted the whole conversation to her.
“Ew!” Nicola screamed. Lily looked back, but Wilson had already attached himself to Martin. (“The beaches in California are just so much bigger. Overdeveloped? I don’t think so. A lot of people think that, but actually no, you’re wrong.”)
“He’s such a squid,” said Lily.
“Too slimy?”
“Too many tentacles and no backbone.”
Her impression of him had proved correct, but Lily resolved the best way to deal with Wilson was just to tolerate quietly, and where possible, avoid.