CHAPTER 9
For the past three years, Jamie had been attending Alderton-Du Ponte’s book club.
When reading was suddenly in on the Connecticut coast, the moms of the country club started a reading circle where they’d read one book a month and meet up weekly to chat about it.
It sounded like hell to me, honestly, but strangely enough, Jamie liked it.
And Nellie, like the good sister she was, always went with him.
But she, too, would rather die than read a book picked by Mrs. Conan or any of the other stuck-up socialites.
“Why do you come with him to these, anyway?” I asked her now, leaning my head so close to the table that I nearly was lying on it. My sketchbook was flipped open in front of me, and I worked in my realism style. “Jamie’s off in the library, and you’re just in here by yourself for an hour?”
We were in Alderton-Du Ponte’s game room that had a few tables and a chessboard set up near the window.
The sun was still high in the sky, since it was only six-thirty, but it was comforting.
Soft piano music filtered from the speakers embedded in every room at the country club, creating the perfect, calming soundtrack to sketch to.
“Well, during the school year, it was fine because I had homework.” Nellie, across the table from me, actually was lying her head on the tabletop. Her cheek was smushed against the surface, her words slightly muffled. “And doing homework here meant I could pick up a drink from the café.”
“Bummer that they’re closed for maintenance tonight.” I thought of the art store. Story of my life.
Nellie gave a theatrical sigh. “A travesty, is what it is. T-R-A-V-E-S-T-Y.” She smiled, her squished cheek giving her grin an almost demented look. “But I’m not alone tonight. Tonight, I’ve got my bestie.”
Right. I usually never joined the twins on book club night.
Mom usually got home around five-thirty, which meant I could’ve tagged along to hang with Nellie while Jamie was chatting it up with the elderly, but after school and watching the kids, I hadn’t usually felt like tagging along.
But tonight, Mom had surprised us by coming home early with McDonald’s, and the guilt over how I’d left things with Jamie on Monday had been crushing me.
I’d reached out to Nellie first this time, asking if I could tag along.
I still couldn’t believe the way I’d talked to Jamie the other day. You’re a good liar. I’d only said it to hurt him, which, in and of itself, was blasphemy. But he’d toed too close to the college demarcation line, and I’d fired at him without thinking twice.
I continued sketching in my book, watching as Kit came to life.
I sketched him behind the wheel of a car, the perspective peeking through a shattered windshield I planned to draw, with the front grille crushed in.
Eventually, I’d get there. Now, I focused on Kit’s eyes.
They were normally brown, with a dark ring around the iris.
“How’s everything been with your sister?” I asked Nellie as I sketched. “When are she and her boyfriend going back west?”
“Friday. It’s been nice having her home.” Nellie lifted her head, propping her hand under her chin. “She’s been trying to convince me to go back with them for a week.”
“Are you going to?”
“As if I’d ditch you and Jamie right as you start your fake relationship. I’m thinking after the Fourth of July—things should be quiet by then.”
Right. Because by then, per Jamie’s prediction, Dalton would be over it.
Nellie’s eyes traced me. “How’s everything been with the kids?”
“Fine.” I reached up and discreetly brushed my fingers against my eyebrow. The skin hadn’t bruised too badly from Junie’s elbow to the eye, much to my surprise. It was still tender, but nothing noticeable. “Junie’s had some big feelings lately. We’re working on it.”
I’d tucked her in Monday night and sat on the side of her bed, flicking her hair out of her face. “What’s up with the aggression lately, Junie? First the cup, now fistfighting Penn in the hallway?”
She’d pulled her blankets up to her chin and had given her shoulders a small shrug.
“It’s not nice to hit people,” Ivy had called lightly from her bed a few feet away.
“Butt out, Ivy.”
But Junie hadn’t given me more than a whispered “sorry, Daisy,” and squished her eyes shut.
So, yeah. It was something I should’ve brought up to Mom, but Tuesday she’d come home with makeup smudged around her eyes, but a grin on her face with the kids, and my throat had been too tight to say anything.
“Are they doing any summer camps or anything?” Nellie asked. “They did last year, right?”
“Junie and Ivy did. They’re expensive nowadays.
” Before graduation, I’d spent nights scrolling through websites and social media profiles, trying to find camps that’d be a good fit for all the kids except Penn, because I knew she’d refuse to go.
There weren’t many options, spots that filled up fast, and even fewer with reasonable rates.
Another crappy thing about living in a neighborhood surrounded by rich kids—everything was expensive.
“The rates at the camp they went to before doubled from last summer.”
“So you’re just going to keep the kids yourself for the whole summer?”
A wave of unease swept over me at the thought. This last week, between finishing school and the kids finishing school, was my last true break. After Friday, they’d be home all day, every day. There’d be no reprieve.
I drew in a deep breath, forcing my voice to brighten. “It’s not that big of a deal. The summer camp last year was only two days a week—it won’t be that different. It won’t be that bad.” It felt like wishful thinking.
“I don’t mind babysitting here and there,” Nellie said immediately. “If you ever need a break.”
My pencil skimmed a little across my page, drawing a shadow in an area of Kit’s face I hadn’t wanted.
It looked like a scar. Or, weirdly enough, it looked like the dimple on Jamie’s cheek.
“It’ll be okay. Penn’s good to watch Ivy and Junie for a few hours, and I can take Theo if I ever need to run errands or anything. ”
It hadn’t been the first time Nellie had offered to babysit the kids. I knew she was coming from a good place, but my skin prickled in a way that left me feeling itchy. Antsy. She already watched me too closely because of Dalton; I didn’t need her worrying about anything else.
That was another thing I didn’t really talk about with Nellie or Jamie—home life.
I loved my friends, but they lived in a gated community, and their only other sibling was a sister seven years older than them.
I wasn’t sure they’d understand if I really got into the details of everything.
They didn’t know about the darkness that sometimes reared its head, and they didn’t know about the snaps of resentment.
I was too afraid of seeing what their reactions would be, if they’d hate me as much as I hated myself in those moments.
Ultimately, and blessedly, Nellie let it all go. “You and Jamie were kind of gross on Monday.”
My stomach folded over itself, but I looked at her with a large grin. “We were good, huh?”
“Scarily good. I didn’t realize how great of an actor Jamie would be.”
“What about me?”
“I mean, yeah, you’re good, too. But I expected it. Jamie’s like… weird. Like when he took your cover-up off? I almost gagged.”
I could remember it perfectly. Jamie’s fingers slipping under the strap, slowly easing it off my shoulder, dark eyes following the movement of his touch. I shivered, too, but for a very different reason. “We underestimated him.”
You don’t want me to be Mr. Darcy, he’d murmured to me.
You can’t be Sydney Carton, either.
No. The resolve had been hard in Jamie’s eyes. I can’t.
“Do you think it’s working?” Nellie asked. “You know, Operation: CDE? Did it seem like it was working on Monday?”
Crush Dalton’s Ego. His face had been very red at half of what Jamie told him. “I think so. He seemed super jealous, didn’t you think?”
Nellie slowly sat up straighter, her hair falling over her shoulder. “Jealous,” she echoed, frowning. “Not, like… resigned?”
“Resigned?”
“That was the goal, wasn’t it? To show him that you’ve moved on so that he leaves you alone. Not to make him jealous.” She lowered her chin as she watched me. “Right?”
“It’s—similar.” I stared at my sketchbook pages, wishing I could disappear between them. “I mean, it’s no big deal to make him a little crazy with jealousy, too, right?”
I held my breath, but when Nellie spoke, her voice was soft. Gentle. “He’s no good for you, Daisy.” Nellie stretched her hand across the table and brushed my knuckles. “I never wanted to say anything before—I always supported you no matter what—but I… I never liked him.”
I couldn’t help but snort. “Spell poker face, Nell.”
“P-O-K-E-R F-A-C-E.”
“Yeah, you never had a good one of those.”
Dalton was the popular upperclassman who was too loud in class and too crass to get a reaction.
The kind of boy you’d either laugh with or roll your eyes at.
Nellie hadn’t liked him because loud-mouth boys were on her imperfect list. Jamie hadn’t liked him because there was nothing loud about Jamie.
And I’d liked him initially because… well… he’d been cute.
“I just can’t see what you saw in him,” she mumbled, shaking her head.
I sketched more lines in my original character.
Kit’s face was nearly complete, with a stoic line to his mouth, his eyes studying some faraway spot I hadn’t drawn yet.
“You’ve had a lot of cute boys interested in you before. Shane from PE.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Shane from PE was into any girl who had a bra size bigger than a B.”
“Then there was Marco, on the lacrosse team.”
“Never trust a blond guy.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Beck’s blond.”
“Beck’s a dyed blond. Speaking of.” I lifted my gaze to hers once more, but this time, I gave her a longing look. “How was your ride home in the convertible yesterday?”