Chapter Twenty-Two
My longest relationship, with a woman named Chiara, was in college. She was raised in Italy by her two psychologist parents and moved to the states to attend UC Berkeley, where we met. She was perceptive but bossy and in hindsight the relationship was fairly miserable, but something she said, near the end, always stuck with me: “Liam!” she’d yelled in exasperation. “Why don’t you ever know how you feel?”
In truth, Chiara got me at my worst—from ages eighteen to twenty-one, privileged beyond belief and totally unaware, several years pre-therapy. Tragically, our relationship spanned the years where I was utterly destroyed by my father—so she was right, I hardly ever knew what I was feeling. It’s not that I was apathetic, but I hadn’t yet learned how to give names to the tension inside me.
I have now. A decade after my breakup with Chiara, I know when I’m happy, when I’m angry, when I’m frustrated, anxious, lonely, hurt, embarrassed, elated. I let myself feel things; I don’t shy away from big, consuming emotions.
So it’s bewildering now to be unable to identify this churning, rioting feeling in my gut.
Given what just happened between me and Anna, and the way all my previous hesitations about physical intimacy seemed to simply evaporate the minute she was on my lap, I would expect to be on a high from her proximity and the way she so frankly confessed that I have someone in my corner. I have never, not once in my life, had someone show up for me so deliberately and unreservedly without wanting anything in return.
But instead of feeling awash with gratitude, I feel the vague and disconcerting tendrils of anger.
So I bolt. I shower quickly, get dressed, and then leave before she can find me. I walk until I run out of beach, and then I sit on the sand and stare out at the unending ocean, trying to understand why my heart is pounding like something’s wrong with it, why the last thing I can make my body do is go back to the bungalow.
I prod at the feeling, trying to determine whether it’s related to the fight with my father, the awareness that I’m stuck on an island with him for another long stretch of days. But when I look at it, really inspect it, I realize that this simmering panic isn’t currently linked to Ray Weston. That I hate him is a fact unchanging.
And it isn’t linked to the loophole in the family trust, that terrifying pitfall I’m avoiding every step of this trip.
It’s the idea of seeing Anna again tonight that makes my stomach feel hot and uneasy. It’s the echo of her words that turn my gut into a bubbling cauldron of anxiety.
I want to be on your team.
I’m here for you.
I’m your ride-or-die, West Weston.
This feels like anger. Or dread. Or fear.
And that’s when I force myself to stop, because what I’m truly afraid of is giving this fear a name.
I SIT SO LONGthat the sun begins its slow descent into the horizon. Some time alone to just breathe is restorative; my thoughts settle, my pulse eventually eases. But as much as I am soothed by the idea of sleeping on this beach or—better yet—climbing into a boat and drifting to the next island over, I know I can’t stay away forever. At some point, I’ll have to throw myself back into the fray.
The packed agenda keeps us busy and all the socializing really does turn the island into a shoebox; every night there’s a gathering, a party, some way for my parents and the McKellans to display their enormous wealth. Tonight is no different.
I heard Jake and Kellan talking about the spectacle of it at our groomsmen fitting—something about an Old Hollywood soiree. Kellan confirmed that his mother applied for a waiver from the Indonesian government to adjust the number of allowable items visitors can bring to Pulau Jingga simply so she could ship two crates full of costumes here for the party. It’s just like everything else so far this week: excessive to the point of distasteful.
I wonder if Anna knows this; I can’t imagine how she’d react.
And as soon as I have the thought—of Anna back at the bungalow, alone, waiting for me, wondering what the fuck happened—that tightness is back, the feeling of something wrong inside me.
ANNA MUST HEAR MYfootsteps because she jogs around the lower deck to the wood slats of the bridge, throwing her arms up, hands resting on top of her head. She blows out a huge breath, turning in a half circle when she sees me. And the way it looks like she might cry makes me feel another strange wave of paradoxical anger.
I don’t get it. I have no fucking idea what’s going on with me.
“There you are,” she says, voice shaking. “Jesus Christ, West. I was about to go looking for you.”
I frown. “I was fine.”
“Where did you go?”
I know there’s no way around this, but the urgency to turn around and walk back along the bridge and down the beach to the quiet tip of the island feels like a second heartbeat in my torso. “I just went for a walk.”
“A walk?” she repeats. “You’ve been gone for like three hours.”
“I had to get some air.”
I feel her staring at me as I look out at the water. I can see this from the outside, how terrible this is, how fucked up I’m being after how things have been between us, after opening up to her, and after what she said.
I’m your ride-or-die, West Weston.
I know it’s not fair to sound so clipped, but I simply do not have the mental fortitude to walk it back. I don’t know how to explain what’s going on inside me. I feel like an uneasy, outdated version of myself, and I hate it. I know it’s not possible that seeing my dad has wiped out the years I spent working through this exact kind of thing, but I’m twenty years old again and staring down the barrel of emotions that are too big to wrap my head around.
“You’re being weird,” she says quietly.
Finally, I meet her eyes. “How so?”
Anna stares at me. “Seriously?”
“What do you want me to say?” I swallow as a shiver runs down my spine. “I just went for a walk. Don’t make it into something it isn’t.”
“Someth—?” She cuts off, jaw tight as she looks out at the water. I listen to her taking three deep breaths before she says a quiet “Sure. Okay. I say nice things and you bail. Nothing at all to read into there.”
“We barely know each other,” I say. “Just remember that.”
At the wounded look in her eyes, I immediately want to pull the words back into my mouth.
Anna huffs out a laugh. “Oh, I will.” After another beat of silence between us, she takes a final, deep breath and then turns fully to me, smiling in a way that feels both familiar and devastating. Everything in her expression looks the same as it always does, but her eyes are completely blank. “I took the liberty of choosing a couple options for you for tonight.” She lifts her chin to the inside of the bungalow. “I laid them out on the bed.”
“Thank you.” I thought that going for a walk, getting some distance from her, would make this feeling go away, but if anything, it’s worse.
It isn’t anger. It’s anguish.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.
“Actually, I did,” she says. “Everyone was going through the trunks, pulling what they wanted, and I didn’t know where you were. I was worried all that would be left for you was the dress Jack Lemmon wore in Some Like It Hot.”
I laugh dryly. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t smile back and of course she doesn’t. I’m being a dick. “You’re welcome.” She turns to go inside and then stops. “Will it make you weirder if I get ready in here tonight? I can go over to the spa and get dressed there if you’d prefer.”
“Anna,” I say, “it’s fine.”
“Cool,” she says, and disappears inside.
IT TAKES ME ABOUTfive minutes to get my tux on, and the remaining time before the party I spend on the deck, answering emails on my phone, responding to faculty texts and questions, and generally avoiding thinking about anything within a twenty-foot radius. Which is a strategy that is handily obliterated the second Anna walks out onto the deck in a cream satin dress that perfectly hugs her curves, and when she turns to blow out a citronella candle on the deck, I see that the dress dips so low in the back it reveals the twin shadows of her tailbone. The smooth expanse of her back is interrupted only by the tan line, which sends a fresh wave of frustration through me, and I look away, sucking in a deep breath.
Anna goes quiet, and then I feel her coming closer. “We have to be friends again,” she says quietly. “We have a show to put on.”
“We never stopped being friends.”
She laughs a little at this, exhaling a puff of air that fans warm and minty across my neck.
“You look nice.” She reaches forward to adjust my lapel and our eyes meet. Her smile has a tiny bit of the real Anna in it. A tiny bit of knowing. Does she see straight through me? Does she know that every time I look at her, I want to run? My nostrils flare and the urge to bail on this party and tell her to go ahead without me sends a chill across my skin. But Anna just stares up at me and then laughs. “You’re such a weirdo.”
She tucks her arm through mine, and we make our way across the bridge in silence. On the beach, she finally breaks. “Am I correct in believing that someone had these costumes sent here from the United States?”
I nod. “I think the McKellans organized it all.”
“Imagine shipping trunks of old glam outfits here just for a party!” She pauses and snickers. “What if they sent the wrong ones? Like, imagine Janet opening it to find a bunch of furry outfits.” She laughs. “Or, like, Lord of the Rings cosplay.”
“Random.”
“I’d have made you go as Gollum tonight.”
I fight a smile. My unidentified frustration is momentarily silenced by a rush of satisfaction that I knew she would make a joke out of this party.
“I dated a guy in a Lord of the Rings tribute band,” she says, and then amends, “or slept with him, I guess.”
Heat returns, spreading like wildfire under my skin, and I clamp my mouth shut.
“Aren’t you curious which character he was?” she asks.
I slide my gaze to her. “Gimli?”
She laughs. “Legolas. It was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. Trust me, Legolas would never be the drummer. Way too sweaty in that wig.”
“What would he play?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. Keytar?”
“I can see that.”
Anna looks up at me, bumping my shoulder. “Careful. You might use up your word quota, and you’re committed to being monosyllabic tonight.”
At this, my mouth seals shut again.
The party comes into view in the distance, a huge white tent set up on the beach, strung lights glimmering in delicate, parallel strands that stretch down the length of the interior. Bright, jazzy trumpet notes drift across the air.
“I mean, come on,” she says, gesturing to what’s in front of us. “We could all just drink Pacificos and lime on the beach and be completely happy. Is all of this necessary?”
“It’s probably the McKellans showing off to my parents.”
“Who knew grocers were so powerful?” she asks, and I try to resist the urge to explain it to her, but the words rise up out of me anyway.
“Dad’s power isn’t just about Weston Foods,” I tell her.
“What does that mean?”
“His hands are in everything,” I explain. “Every huge industry, he’s there. Here’s an example: He gave seed money to a few friends of Alex’s when they wanted to start a little website called Twitter—I refuse to call it X.” Anna snickers. “He invested early in Apple, Uber, even Amazon. He serves on the board of five different Fortune 500s. He knows everyone. Has dirt on everyone, too.” That one hits close to home, and I kick a stray branch out of her path so she doesn’t trip on it. “At some big dinner recognizing charitable CEOs, this one guy, a college friend of Dad’s from Penn, joked that he saw my father with his arm around a woman at a hotel bar. Maybe it was true—I suspect it was—but I think my dad would have destroyed him for starting a baseless rumor, too. He was an executive at a hedge fund and Dad leaked his personal financials to the board; this guy had to empty his retirement savings to pay off his wife’s credit card debt and the board found him unfit to advise clients. He couldn’t get another job and they had to leave New York and move back in with her parents. Last I heard, they’d divorced, and he was working as a bank manager in Tulsa.”
Anna lets out a shocked breath. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Do you honestly care that much about the money?”
I open my mouth and then close it again. I may not have the words yet for what’s going on between the two of us, but talking about the family trust opens up the trapdoor to feelings I can identify, feelings like guilt and obligation, panic and loyalty and dread. “I can’t just walk away. It’s not that simple,” I say, hoping she’ll leave it.
But this is Anna. She never leaves anything. “Then explain it like I’m a toddler.”
“It’s—” I cut off, shaking my head. “I’m not only here because of my inheritance. It’s much bigger than that.”
Her eyes go wide in disbelief. “Bigger than a hundred million dollars?”
I look over at her and nod, but that’s all I can do for now because we’re here, out in front of the party tent.
Anna threads her arm through mine and we step in together, taking it all in. It’s not technically a costume party, but I spot an attempt at Audrey Hepburn in the crowd, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz look-alikes, a Sammy Davis Jr., and a handful of Marilyns. A band plays in the corner, a backdrop behind them built to look like the Southern California skyline, complete with towering palm trees, art deco buildings, twinkling windows, and of course, the HOLLYWOOD sign. Long tables are dressed in glittering fabric and topped with vases of arching white ostrich plumes.
Gold dominates everything, from the towering croquembouche wrapped in golden spun sugar to yards of gossamer fabric and shimmering beads draped along the tent’s outer walls. It strikes me that there aren’t any flowers anywhere; instead, the real showstopper is a gilded tree in the center of the room, its branches heavy with pearls and teardrops of sparkling gems. I can only hope it’s all fake, because while what they’ve managed to pull off on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean is impressive, I agree with Anna: some beers and beach chairs would be preferable to this every time. If they wanted something this lavish, this elaborate, why not just host the wedding in California, where everything is right there?
But I know why. Everything—literally everything—is for show.
Even this woman on my arm.
Next to me, Anna looks out over the extravagance and whistles. “Just another simple family get-together. I hope I never get used to this.”
I drag my free hand through my hair. “Yeah.”
Anna turns to me, arms outstretched dramatically like she’s ready for me to waltz her across the dance floor. She speaks out of her mouth, playfully old-timey: “What do you say, old chum? Ready for some hotsy-totsy?”
I give her an apologetic smile. “I was thinking I might check in on my sister. I haven’t seen much of her since we’ve been here. I’ll find you when I’m done?”
Her face falls but in true Anna fashion, it bounces right back again. “Okay, yeah.”
With a little smirk, she stretches, kissing my cheek and whispering, “See ya later, weirdo,” in my ear before she walks across the room to the bar, where Jake and Jamie are talking. Feelings I thought I’d banished return, hot and insistent. Is she doing this on purpose? Walking to Jamie to make me jealous?
With a groan, I take a glass of wine off the tray of a passing waiter and pull in a deep breath. Anna’s right: I’m being a basket case. If my urge is to run from her, to disentangle myself from whatever it is we started and which tripped this strange, impatient feeling in my gut, then the best thing for it is to imagine her moving on, to remind myself that, in only a handful of days, we will both move on, and in a matter of months, we will never have to see each other ever again.
And yet here I stand, decidedly not finding my sister, instead watching heads turn as Anna crosses the room. This place is full of beautiful gowns, but nobody looks like her. Even if her dress is simple, it fits her like a glove—hugging the narrow dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, the decadent curve of her ass. Wherever fabric exposes flesh, her skin seems to glow under the strung lights.
Jake greets her with a kiss to the cheek, saying something that makes her burst out laughing bawdily. She does a little dance and Jake immediately joins in, sending the three of them into hysterics.
“What has you smiling like this?”
I look over at my mother, who has materialized at my side. I… hadn’t realized I’d been smiling. She’s dressed like Grace Kelly, in a fitted black top and full white skirt, her usual updo smoothed back into loose blond curls. My mother idolized Grace Kelly when we were growing up and has dressed as her character from Rear Window to at least half a dozen fancy Halloween parties. Now she tracks my attention to Anna standing with Jake. “Ah. I see.” My mother brings her glass to her mouth, taking a long sip of her dirty martini. “She looks lovely in that gown.”
“She does.”
“She seems like a sweet girl, darling.”
“She is.” I sip my wine. “Maybe you could ease up on her?”
Mom laughs. “Oh, I will. Eventually. That’s part of the deal, you know? Grandma Lottie scared the living hell out of me, now I get to do it.”
“Granny Lottie didn’t have a mean bone in her body.”
“To you,” she intones. “It’s possible to have varying experiences with people. Your sister would probably tell a very different story of your father than would you or your brothers.”
She’ll get no argument from me. Four siblings and we’ve all handled the fallout in our own ways. Alex turned into a desperate yes-man. Jake is the sunshine clown who looks for a joke to get out of every tense moment. And I’m the chronic overthinker who internalizes everything. No wonder I can’t make sense of my feelings today. We watch Jake as he animatedly tells a story. Anna says something that seems to refute whatever he’s saying and the two play-argue, pointing at each other. With a smile, Jamie sets his hand on her back, leaning in—
I’m moving before I fully register it, shouldering my way through the crowd, passing family and acquaintances and business associates of my father’s without engaging before coming up behind Anna so close that Jamie immediately withdraws his hand from her skin.
Skin that I hadn’t yet touched in that dress.
Anna startles when she feels me behind her. She turns, finding me standing barely inches away from her back. “West.”
Wrapping a hand around her hip, I nod to my brother, then to Anna’s ex. “Jake. Jamie.” I bend, kissing her shoulder. “Wife.”
My little brother smirks. “Liam.”
But when I look down at her, her brown eyes blaze up at me. And it’s only when she excuses herself and walks away, marching straight out of the tent that I finally register the unnamed cocktail of anguish that’s been churning in me all day.
It is the comfort of having an ally. It is the powerlessness of infatuation. It is the terrifying beginning of more.