Chapter 10
The days between Christmas and New Year’s at Pippi seemed infinite. Time, already warped by Pippi’s isolation, became completely abstract. There was no sign of the celebrity visitors, which was disappointing to many, especially Juliet, but Lydia had already set her sights on new entertainment.
“Let’s all get into our sexiest bikinis and meet the first ferry! No reason! It’ll be fun!”
Ha, thought Lily. She wouldn’t fall for that.
She already knew that a gang of French backpackers was coming to work on the renovations of the gum-tree house, owned by Bob-with-One-Dog.
Her mother must have discovered that today was the day.
Lily shuffled down to the jetty in her pajamas with the others, but only to make sure that no one made too much of a fool of themselves.
“What? Backpackers? French? On this ferry? How wonderful! Don’t mind me, just lounging around in my red bikini my daughter disapproves of!” laughed Lydia.
Lydia, Rosie, Kat, and the French backpackers were all delighted to meet one another.
“Need help?” Lydia thrust herself forward to grab the handles of a shopping bag filled with six-packs of beer and was soon halfway down the jetty chatting away to two Frenchmen half her age, no doubt about to invite herself over for a drink.
And Lily was suddenly face-to-face with a good-looking guy of about twenty-two, with curly sun-bleached hair, a tan, and a smile as warm as the sunrise.
She couldn’t help but notice his eyes were the exact green of the water currently being churned up by the departing ferry.
Oh dear, she was turning into her mother.
“I’m Alex,” he said, and Lily was surprised his accent was British. “This the welcoming party, is it?”
“You’re from England?” chirped Rosie. “I thought you were all French, but that’s okay, we’ll allow it.”
Alex smiled politely, with just the right amount of flirtatious twinkle.
“I’m Rosie,” she continued. “And this is my sister, Lily, and cousin Kat and cousin Juliet.”
“Nice to meet you, cousin Kat, cousin Juliet,” he said with a half laugh. “And Lily.”
Lily smiled and said hi and felt Juliet stifle a giggle next to her.
“That’s our house,” Rosie said, pointing to their front deck. “You’re totally welcome to stop by whenever, everyone does that here. How long are you here? Oh my God, that’s so awesome, you have to stay for New Year’s! It’ll be so great …”
As she chattered on, Lily noticed Alex’s eyes drift and lock elsewhere.
She followed his gaze over Rosie’s shoulder and saw him focus on two kayaks paddling out in the morning sun.
It was Dorian and Casey, passing close enough for her to see Dorian looking intently at the group at the end of the jetty, as though searching for the answer to a particularly important question, then turn away in what could really only be described as disgust. Lily was surprised at how mean he looked.
She glanced back at Alex, whose face had clouded over with shock and possibly a little anger.
Or was it fear? Rosie, too engrossed in detailing her party plans, noticed nothing.
Lily watched as Alex blinked and returned his attention to her sister, though something in his face showed he was still thinking about what he had seen.
Lily exchanged a look with Juliet, who confirmed it. I saw that too, her face said, and it was weird. But they didn’t have long to dwell on it.
“Juliet!” shouted Casey, waving madly. As the French backpackers and their enthusiastic bikini-wearing entourage made their way down the path, Juliet flew as fast as her injured ankle would carry her to the beach to meet Casey, where they had a long conversation in the shallows while Dorian idled out in the deep.
“Casey!” he called eventually. “The time.”
Lily watched from the deck as Casey obeyed his friend and paddled back out to join him, while Juliet drifted back to the house, beaming happily.
“They’re just anchored over at the Point,” she said, and smiled. “He was so sweet, he couldn’t stop apologizing. They left so early, he didn’t want to wake us. Dorian wanted to explore. But they’ll be back for New Year’s.”
It would be sooner than that, Lily guessed, if Casey had anything to do with it.
Bob-with-One-Dog’s modular cottage was on the green stretch back from the beach, behind the waterfront.
What he lacked in water views, he was making up for with grand vision—an extensive renovation that involved gutting the entire place and adding a second floor and a sweeping deck.
To that end, he had turned the vacant lot next door, which he also owned, into a mini camping village for himself and his crew of cheap French labor.
On the first night, he put on welcome drinks to show off his new battalion of muscle and introduce them to the Steves, Joels, and Sues who would help out with sourcing materials, boats, and any work that required signing off with a license (plumbing, electrical, or engineering). He invited everyone.
Usually, Lily would avoid a local booze-up at Bob-with-One-Dog’s place.
It wasn’t fun to watch the adults getting loose and loud, and she wasn’t really needed.
Rosie and Kat would flirt outrageously, but they wouldn’t get away with much drinking, and it was hours before her mother would have to be talked out of jumping off the jetty.
But Lily had to acknowledge to herself that this evening was different.
She actually wanted to go. She wanted to get to know Alex.
Her main concern was that Wilson would get in the way.
Wilson had been playing a new online video game about climate breakdown all afternoon with Martin, so Lily hoped it would keep his attention.
No such luck. Wilson declared that there was nothing he would rather do than join a spontaneous event, and he was used to mingling because Stacy Black frequently hosted cocktail parties for visiting European filmmakers on her yacht.
They arrived to find music blaring. Lydia was already making good headway on a six-pack of cider and dancing with a muscly Frenchman.
Rosie and Kat were giggling in their bikinis (“What do you mean, put something on? I have something on! Don’t judge me!
’), playing some sort of shrieking catch-and-freeze game with the two youngest French boys, who didn’t speak any English but were very good at catching.
Wilson accepted a beer from Bob-with-One-Dog with much thanks and a smiling correction that no, really, he’s not American at all.
“Born here, actually, but my accent is everywhere. Mid-Pacific, they call it in the film business.”
When Bob-with-One-Dog started paying more attention to throwing the ball for his fox terrier, Grommet, Wilson attached himself to one of the Frenchmen.
“J’adore Paris. I’m more of a Rive Droite man; most people just don’t get that there’s so much more to it. Oh—Bordeaux? Yes, of course, never been myself, but Cannes—I’m in the film business, so—”
The Frenchman grabbed Rosie’s waist, she slipped out of his grasp, and he took off after her.
“Good one!” Wilson shouted after him. “Ha, got you!” He grabbed at Kat, who brushed him off scornfully.
Lily slipped away to the steps up to the building site overlooking the green, where she could get a good view and easily fend off—or invite—anyone who came near.
She was pleased when Alex spotted her, waved, and pointed at a cider with a question on his face.
She smiled, nodded, and tapped the empty space on the step beside her.
“Magical, no?” he said as he joined her. “I can’t believe such beauty exists. I feel like I’ve stumbled on a lost civilization.”
Lily laughed. “It will get less civilized as the night wears on.”
“You speak from experience?”
“Years of it.”
“You spend all your holidays here?”
“I live here.”
Alex was impressed. “Really? Permanently?” and he demanded to know everything.
The routine, the locals. He loved every detail and was especially delighted with the feud between architect Steve-with-the-White-Hair and Bob-with-Two-Dogs, which had started over who was supposed to mow the green and when.
“So how did you end up here?” asked Lily.
“Luck. I was just hanging out with Theo in this god-awful two-bedroom in Bondi—seven of us—and they asked me if I wanted to join them here for a building job. Why not? Strangely enough, I’d already heard of this place, though.
One of my housemasters at school grew up over at the Point, used to tell us boys all about it.
The fame of Pippi Beach extends farther than you might think. ”
“Yes,” mused Lily. “When you arrived it actually looked to me like you saw someone you knew.”
“Here?”
“Kayaking past.”
“Oh. OH.” He smiled. “You saw that. Well. Surely everyone knows the great Dorian Khan?”
“Not the way you know him, I suspect.”
“Ah. No. Funny thing, we were at boarding school together for a while. Had that same housemaster, now that I think of it. Maybe that’s how he ended up here too. Has he been here before? Do you know him?”
“Not really. I mean, we met—but only briefly.”
She told the story of Juliet’s accident, her evenings at the cliff house, and how she’d be quite happy to avoid everyone there in the future.
“Me too,” confessed Alex.
“So you weren’t friends at school, then?”
“On the contrary—we were best friends. Both very much into dramatics and that sort of thing. I got him into it, really, in a sense. He came back to England from Australia when his parents split up, and I’d been through something similar so we bonded, I suppose.
Schoolboy productions. I believe I made a rather brilliant Titania to his Bottom. ”
They both laughed. Lily couldn’t help noticing how natural and unforced his manner was, especially in contrast to the more self-conscious behavior she’d witnessed recently.
“It was one of those schools—boaters and blazers, etcetera. Anyway, long story short, someone saw us and signed us up. Started going for the same roles. Age fourteen. So cute we were. Two little Shakespeare aficionados, auditioning side by side for roles as streetwise hoodlums. Wot talked like ’at, guv. ”
“I’m sure you were gorgeous. So what went wrong?” What could have led friends to exchange the looks she’d observed on the jetty that day?
“I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Of course. Sorry, I don’t mean to be nosy.
” Short silence. Lily quickly assured him he didn’t have to talk about anything and changed the subject.
“Did I mention my mother drinks a little?” Lydia, at that moment, was loudly trying to teach Theo how to say “Yeah, nah, yeah, nah.” Alex laughed, a little sadly, but he steered her back. He wanted to tell, he said.
“Usually I don’t, but there’s something about you that makes me feel safe.
Not that there’s much to say, really. We grew up.
He and I both got a part in a movie—you wouldn’t know it, some god-awful period drama—and embarrassingly enough, the producers thought I was all right and they expanded my part. ”
“Oh. Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Well, yes. But by this time the Dan Danger thing had just started to take off for Dorian. God knows why he was threatened by little old me—maybe because I got him the part in the first place. Oops, did I say that out loud? Anyway. He wasn’t happy about the attention I was receiving and got me fired. ”
“Fired?”
“Replaced. I know.”
“Seriously?”
“Serious as cancer. So I was out on my ear, lost my agent, who of course sided with the money, and Dorian saw to it that I’d never work in the industry again. Which I haven’t.”
“That’s terrible! But couldn’t you—I don’t know—tell people what really happened? I’m sure if people knew …”
“Oh no. Dorian Khan’s connected. Honestly, the business at the top is worse than high school—everyone knows everyone—and he’s a bankable name now. No one would dare provoke him. Call it luck, call it talent, call it a way of looking moodily up from behind a perfectly cascading fringe …”
Alex copied Dorian’s signature look so perfectly that Lily had to laugh.
“Stacy Black, the producer.” Wilson’s voice drifted up from the green. “You know her? She has two Oscars. Two. I know.”
“Your cousin?” asked Alex.
“Family friend,” Lily corrected. “Also in showbiz. Apparently.”
“Stacy Black IS showbiz. And so is Dorian, really. Which is why I don’t want anything more to do with it. Don’t tell them I told you. Let’s just keep the past in the past.”
“Of course.”
Lily smiled at him. How wonderful to meet someone who so emphatically confirmed everything she already believed to be true: that the movie business was cruel; that Dorian Khan was an egotist; that success came most readily to those who were already privileged, lucky, and vindictive—not necessarily to those with talent.
And how much more pleasant it was to sit here among building materials drinking warm cider with Alex than it was to be up in the cliff house watching the moon with anyone else.