Scene Four
Charlie is drunk. We’ve been taking vodka shots by Olivia’s pool for the last hour, chasing them down with warm Diet Coke with lime.
I’d put Charlie’s and Olivia’s count somewhere around five.
I’ve been too nervous to have more than two shots, one and a half if you count the fact that I tipped most of the second one onto the deck when no one was watching.
I know alcohol technically relaxes you, but I don’t want to be silly by the time Rob gets here.
If we have to have a serious conversation, I want to be able to have it. Coherently.
Charlie is wearing a white halter top and a denim skirt and gold, dangly earrings she borrowed from Olivia’s mom’s bathroom.
Olivia’s family keeps full wardrobes here even though Olivia says she can’t remember the last time her parents came down.
Olivia is still in her bikini, but she has a see-through purple cover-up thrown over it.
I have on a sundress I’ve had since the seventh grade.
It’s one of those cotton ones from American Eagle Outfitters that Charlie hates.
She didn’t say anything tonight when I put it on, though. She just complimented my hair.
Olivia is wandering around with the vodka, haphazardly pouring it into red party cups.
“Who are those for?” Charlie asks, and cracks up laughing. She’s trying to fish a swimming noodle out of the pool and is teetering in her platform wedges, her drink sloshing over the side of her cup.
“You are an inch from catastrophe,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me.
Olivia comes over and tips the vodka bottle toward me, pouring me a full cup. “You need to drink more,” she informs me, and then taps her watch. “Any minute.”
Her cell phone blares. She answers it quickly.
“I told yooou,” she says into the phone, and then repeats some numbers, probably the gate code, and hangs up.
“They’re pulling in,” she says. Charlie nods, but her head doesn’t quite make it all the way back up.
My heart is racing, and I take a few tiny sips of my vodka.
It burns, and I wince. My hands feel numb, and I clench and release one fist and then the other, switching the cup as the three of us head back inside.
I can hear cars parking and doors slamming.
I see John Susquich and Jake first. Then they are in the pantry, pulling out Doritos. Charlie plods her way over to them.
“Yo, babe,” Jake says, stuffing a chip into his mouth and attempting to kiss her at the same time.
“I missed you,” she slurs.
John takes off with the bag, and Jake positions Charlie’s arms around him.
“You smell like a burger,” I hear her say, before they start making out.
Ben is here too, and he’s accepting a drink from Olivia, his hand on the back of her neck.
Where is Rob?
“Hey, Caplet.”
I spin around, but it’s just Matt Lester and Lauren. They probably drove down with John. Lauren’s always invited, but I think she’s come once in the last four years. And that was when her family was in LA for the weekend and they dropped her off at two and picked her up at five.
“Hi,” I say, giving her a wave. She seems to be wrapped up in something Matt is saying.
“What, did they, like, caravan down?” Charlie is behind me, breathing into my ear.
I shrug. “I guess.”
“Are they together?”
“Matt and Lauren? Doubt it.” Except I don’t. As soon as she says it, I realize that’s exactly what’s going on. Matt has the same look he used to give Charlie, and his hand is dangerously close to Lauren’s back. She’s pretty in a soft, natural way. They actually make a cute couple.
“Whatever,” Charlie says. “Who cares.”
She stumbles off, presumably in search of Jake, and I crane my neck to check Olivia’s entryway.
“Where’s Rob?” Olivia asks, suddenly and to no one in particular.
Jake and Ben glance at each other, and Ben talks first. “He’s parking.”
Olivia seems to accept this, but something about it doesn’t feel right to me. It only takes me another half second to realize why. I don’t even have to turn around and see him to confirm my suspicion. He has brought Juliet.
She’s wearing her signature sunglasses and carrying her gigantic bag.
Everything about her is the same as it has been for the last week, except for one glaring difference.
Instead of her halter dresses and skintight tank tops, she is wearing a sweatshirt.
One that swallows up her small frame so you can barely see the denim shorts poking out from underneath.
And blazoned across the front of the worn gray cotton is the word STANFORD.
Charlie raises her eyebrows at me, but she’s too drunk to sustain the expression and instead decides to take her irritation at Juliet’s arrival out on Jake.
Olivia hesitates and then goes to greet them, being a good hostess and passing them two drinks.
Juliet keeps her sunglasses on, and they’re so tinted, it’s impossible to see her eyes underneath, or what expression she’s wearing.
She takes the cup from Olivia, smiles, and exclaims, “Thank you!” but keeps herself glued to Rob, her arm through his.
Rob looks awkward, but just slightly. If you didn’t know him, you’d think he was just settling into the party, shaking off the drive.
But I know Rob better than that. He’s nervous.
He looks the same way he did on our date—or dinner, whatever you want to call it—last week.
He doesn’t look at me but goes over to Jake, who looks confused as to what to do.
Charlie stomps off in a huff, and Jake kind of stares after her.
The only one who doesn’t seem remotely concerned by this scene is Juliet.
She’s smiling and cheerful and looks completely at home in Olivia’s house. And in Rob’s sweatshirt.
“Rose,” she calls. “Hey!”
She crosses the room in three long strides and gives me an air hug. It’s the most physical contact I’ve had with her since she snapped my doll’s head off a decade ago.
“Hey,” I say. I’m not sure what to do. If I was Charlie, I would probably throw a drink in her face or blow her off, but there isn’t enough time to figure out how.
It’s not until she releases me that I realize she’s just won.
By being nice to me, she’s completely obliterated her chances of being perceived as in the wrong.
“It’s sooo beautiful here,” she says, sliding her sunglasses up on top of her head. “Have you been out back?”
What does she mean, “Have you been out back?” This is my best friend’s house. I’ve been coming here since I was thirteen. Of course I’ve been “out back.”
“Babe,” she calls, and Rob looks up. That one motion is like a knife in my side.
“My parents used to have a house at the Colony,” she says as he comes over, “but they sold it when things just got too busy. Now we have to come down and use the Pitts’.”
Rob stops a few paces from us and makes like he’s looking at the photograph hanging over Olivia’s couch.
It’s a picture of Olivia’s little brother Drew in a tin bucket, so I know he can’t be that interested.
Juliet is blabbing about Brad’s involvement in her dad’s charity when she stops, looks at me, and says, “Your parents don’t have a house down here, do they? ”
“No.” Considering that the average home in the Colony is about fifteen million, I’d say pretty definitively that they never will, either. “The beach isn’t really their thing.”
“What is, then?” Juliet looks amused. She eyes me up and down, slowly, like she’s taking inventory.
“Umm, hiking?”
She half laughs and then drops her voice low, so only I can hear. “Really? I thought you guys were just into backstabbing.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I tilt my head forward, convinced I heard her wrong.
Juliet crosses her arms and looks me straight in the eye. “You heard me.”
“What are you talking about?” My voice goes up at the end, and Rob shifts uncomfortably by the framed bucket baby.
“Oh, poor, little, delicate Rosie. Kept from all of life’s tragedies by her loving family.”
“Have you lost your mind?” I whisper.
“Maybe,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “I am in love, you know. I heard it makes you crazy.” Her eyes twitch slightly, and I recognize something in them, something primal. And it’s terrifying.
Juliet smiles, shakes her mane down her back, and turns, going over to Rob. She draws him into a long kiss, snaking her arms around his neck and up into his hair. I think I’m going to be sick.
I wander outside and try to suck in some fresh air. So, on top of stealing Rob, she’s now attacking my family. I mean, I know our parents had a falling-out a long time ago, but my mom and dad aren’t traitors. And where does she get off calling anyone a backstabber? Look whose face she’s sucking.
But there’s something nagging at me, something else. Rob’s mom sitting in our living room and what she said about Juliet’s family. That they wanted revenge. For what? Is this Juliet’s revenge?
The only other people outside are Lauren and Matt, and they’re in a corner, talking quietly.
I sit down on one of the gigantic striped lounge chairs and look up at the sky.
It’s getting dark now. Soon Olivia will propose that everyone go skinny-dipping, except she’ll conveniently leave her bathing suit on.
The same thing happened last time we were here about a month ago.
Rob was still at camp, but Jake and Ben came.
Olivia had heated the pool by accident, so it felt like a hot tub, and we kept jumping in and out, lying on the lawn chairs and cooling off.
I remember thinking about Rob. Wishing he were here.
Wondering if when he got back we would be snuggling together, sharing a towel, our feet dangling in the water.
I see Olivia and Charlie inside. They are standing around with Ben and Jake, and Rob and Juliet are right there.
The six of them. All at once I see the entire year stretched out before me like a movie reel, and it doesn’t involve getting back at Juliet at all.
Here’s what will happen: Charlie and Olivia will call her a traitor for a while, hold a grudge against her because she “stole” Rob.
Then they will start to spend more time with her, and it will become increasingly difficult to keep up that bitchy front.
She’ll wear them down. They will start to forget why they hate her so much.
She’s Rob’s girlfriend, after all. Then the six of them will be at a movie together.
Juliet will comment on how much she likes Olivia’s headband, and Olivia will tell her where she got it.
Juliet will suggest a shopping trip, maybe even in her dad’s limo.
Olivia will glance nervously at Charlie before accepting.
They’ll invite me. It’s been months, they’ll reason; we should all be moving on.
We’ll go. Juliet will talk about Rob, but not a lot.
She’ll reference Jake and Rob’s surfing trips.
Charlie will roll her eyes knowingly. They share something now.
Afterward we’ll go to Grandma’s and get bagels, and the boys will meet us there.
Everyone will pair off. Everyone, that is, but me.
“It’s cran apple, not cran grape,” Olivia says, wandering outside. She’s holding a juice container in one hand and a towel in another. Charlie trails behind her, staring into her red cup like she’s looking for something.
“There you are,” Olivia says. She sets the juice down and sits on the edge of my chair, throwing her towel down onto my legs. She pulls her cover-up off and tosses it onto the ground.
I shake my head. “No,” Charlie says, voicing my thought, “I don’t want to go skinny-dipping.
” She holds her hand up to stop Olivia from saying anything and crawls into my chair, stretching her body out next to mine and resting her head on my collarbone.
“I can’t believe she even showed up,” Charlie says.
Her breath smells like vodka, and I turn away, looking out at the ocean.
The moon is fairly full, and the water looks silver underneath it.
I remember once hearing that the only reason the ocean is blue is because it reflects the sky.
If you could see the water at night, maybe it would just look clear.
Maybe you could see all the way down to the bottom.
“Do you want me to kick her out?” Olivia asks.
I don’t answer, and Charlie mumbles something against my chest. Whatever it is, it isn’t adamant.
Partly because she’s drunk, of course, but partly because they are already getting over this.
Whether they know it or not, their protestations have rounded edges now.
The sting of this betrayal is wearing off, and their comments are beginning to sound repetitive and dull.
How many times can they tell me I’m prettier than her or that Rob is an ass?
It’s wearing on them, and it’s obvious. So obvious, in fact, that when Olivia announces, “She’s the worst,” Charlie barely nods her head in agreement.
There are so many competing thoughts floating around in my head right now.
My anger at Juliet, my confusion about her backstabbing comment, my feelings for Rob.
And that’s the problem, that I still care about him.
I still want him back. I can’t believe I can turn my head and look at him and at the same time not be able to speak to him.
I would settle for just his friendship now, but that’s over too.
I wish we had never shared that kiss, that we had never said those things to each other.
Maybe then we could still go back. Maybe then I wouldn’t miss him when he’s standing right here.
“Who’s up for the water?”
I tilt my head and open my mouth to turn Olivia down again, but it’s not Olivia who’s doing the suggesting.
It’s Juliet, and she’s standing over us, a light pink bikini pulled tightly over her chest. She’s smiling, her pearly whites beaming.
Gone are the grizzly teeth she bared inside.
Of course, there are other people around.
Olivia stands up and bounces slightly on her heels. “I was going to go anyway,” she says to Charlie and me.
Charlie waves her off with a hand and keeps nuzzling my chest. Olivia hesitates but then grabs her towel. She and Juliet descend the stairs to the ocean, their blond hair indistinguishable in the moonlight, so that after a few feet it’s impossible to tell who is who.
“Love it here,” Charlie murmurs, and even though she’s pressed up against me, I feel farther away from her than I ever have before.