9 Marley
Marley
“This is unbelievable, Marley. Do you want me to poison Marshall’s drink tonight? Because I will.”
Marley, seated on the edge of Suzy and Sean’s bed with the dog next to her, laughed half-heartedly.
She’d just told Suzy what had happened last night with Marshall, and she felt better for having gotten it off her chest. But as Suzy continued to futz with her eye makeup in the bathroom, leaning in toward the mirror so far Marley couldn’t even see her face, she couldn’t help missing Lily.
Lily would have rushed back into the bedroom, eyes half done, and hugged her.
She would have sat next to her on the bed and held her hand while she told the whole story.
Suzy was a good listener, but she wasn’t the cuddly type.
Right now, Marley could really use a cuddle.
She settled for methodically stroking Wintour’s back instead.
“Where’s Juliet?” she asked.
Suzy finally came to the door of the bathroom, looking party ready in a tight black dress that shoved her breasts toward her neck, her dark hair piled atop her head to accentuate the dangling sapphire-and-diamond earrings tugging her earlobes taut.
“I haven’t seen her since just after lunch. Have you told her yet?” She walked over to the dresser, picked up a few rings, and started shoving them on her fingers. “I bet she has some sort of pharmaceutical-grade stuff we can murder Marshall with.”
Marley laughed again and got up. Dizziness hit her like a freight train, and she closed her eyes, staggering sideways.
“Oh my God!” Suzy lunged forward and grabbed Marley before she could hit the deck. Marley clasped her friend’s cold hand. Her own felt hot and clammy in comparison. “Marls? Are you okay? Speak to me.”
Marley shook her head. Outside she could hear shouted voices, clanging and beeping as the caterers finished their preparations. She breathed in deep and focused on the sounds. Yes, okay, she hadn’t been taking care of herself lately. But this wasn’t just random weakness from hunger. This was new.
“I’m fine,” she said when things felt steady again. “Maybe I didn’t eat enough at lunch. Or it could have been the lobster. It doesn’t always agree with me.”
Just thinking about the mayonnaise-y sandwich brought on a wave of nausea.
“Come on. We’ll find Juliet and get Magdelena to make you some toast or something,” Suzy said.
Marley nodded, and together they walked the length of the hall to the stairs leading up to the third floor.
Juliet’s room was at the back of the house on the top level, facing the trees.
Juliet had claimed the room on their very first trip out here fifteen years ago, arguing it had the best feng shui.
Marley’s room was right beneath theirs, though, and after years of trying to sleep under them, she had a feeling they wanted to be removed from as many people as they could so that they could make as much noise in bed as they wanted.
They’d inspired more than one memorable night between herself and Marshall, though, so she couldn’t complain.
Along the way, Marley noticed the new artwork Suzy had mentioned at lunch and absently wondered where Lily’s art had ended up.
Some of the paintings had been purchased at galleries, but a lot of them had been painted by Lily herself.
Marley sincerely hoped Lincoln was storing them to send to Lily once she settled somewhere, because as far as she knew, Lily hadn’t seen them in the months since the divorce was made final.
She made a mental note to ask him later.
“Knock, knock! We’re coming in!” Suzy shouted as she shoved open the already ajar door to Juliet’s room.
Marley stopped in her tracks, hit by another wave of dizziness. Juliet was sitting on her bed, hysterically crying, and Gemma, of all people, was comforting her.
“Juliet? Are you all right?” Marley asked, rushing over. She knelt at her friend’s feet in her sequined, ankle-length dress, which, unlike Suzy’s, was flowing enough to allow such things. Suzy just hovered over them, standing straight up and down like a Barbie doll.
“What did you do to her?” Suzy demanded of Gemma. Then her eyes flicked to the bed. From her angle, Marley couldn’t see what had caught Suzy’s eye. “Omigod. Did Josh—”
“She didn’t do anything,” Juliet said, casting a glance toward the bathroom, where Marley could hear there was a shower running. Josh must have arrived while Marley was getting ready. “Can we get out of here?”
Marley nodded and stood, hauling Juliet up.
Suzy grabbed something off the bed, crushing it in her fist. Gemma came along, and they rushed back down the stairs to Suzy’s room, where Wintour stood in the middle of the bed.
Gemma closed the door behind them, and they formed a tight circle as Juliet wiped under her eyes.
Marley noticed that one of Juliet’s gel nail tips was gone, leaving the nail bed jagged and ugly.
If there was one thing Juliet always took care of, it was her nails.
Tomorrow she’d be dragging them into town trying to find a salon that could match the intricate design on the others.
“What the hell happened?” Suzy asked.
“Josh . . . he got a note,” Juliet said, looking pointedly at Suzy. She sniffled noisily.
Marley’s heart dropped. From Juliet’s tone, whatever the note had said was not good. She gripped the footrest on the bed. “What did it say?”
Juliet hesitated, fiddling with her rings and looking away. Her long blond hair stuck to the tears on her cheeks, and her eyes were bloodshot.
“It said that I’ve been screwing around with Lincoln, and the baby . . . might be his.”
“Wait, what? You and Lincoln?” Marley was completely blindsided. In a million years she never would have predicted two of her married friends hooking up. But Juliet nodded miserably, confirming the worst.
Marley shook her head. She felt foggy and not entirely there. “I don’t understand. What baby?” she said. They all stared at her for a long beat, and then realization suddenly struck her. Beckham. Juliet’s baby. Josh’s baby. “Oh my God.”
“I still don’t understand,” Gemma said.
Glancing over at the woman made Marley feel even more off kilter. Lily should have been there. And instead, here was this total stranger.
“Juliet’s son. Beckham. He’s nine months old,” Suzy stated.
“Oh,” Gemma said, then glanced over at Juliet. “Oh! So you and Lincoln . . .”
Juliet nodded.
“And it was after he and Hazel . . .”
Juliet nodded again, silent tears streaming down her face.
“Oh, Jules,” Marley said, unable to keep the sadness and disappointment out of her voice.
Juliet sat down on the bench at the end of the bed and collapsed forward, hands covering her face.
Suddenly Marley wanted to grab Juliet and shake her.
How could she do such a thing? Everyone knew how devoted Lily was to Lincoln.
How much she adored him and would do anything for him.
Maybe they were divorced, but still. In Marley’s mind, Lincoln belonged to Lily.
And yes, everyone also knew that Juliet, to put it bluntly, had a hard time keeping it in her pants. But Lincoln?
And then, of course, there was Hazel. She’d been cheated on for real. But then again, she’d been the one Lincoln cheated with on Lily, so Marley felt slightly less empathy for her.
“So . . . wait, who knows about this?” Marley asked. “You couldn’t have told that many people. Whoever you told must have written the notes!”
Juliet turned her head to glare at Suzy.
“I already told you, I had nothing to do with this!” Suzy threw up her hands.
“You knew!?” Marley demanded, disbelieving. Wintour barked twice in protest. Suzy was incapable of keeping a secret. In no way could she imagine Suzy having information of this magnitude and not telling her. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or offended.
“She told me in Cabo,” Suzy said. “Over Christmas. A couple months after Beckham was born.”
Cabo. A girl’s trip Marley had had to bail on because they’d had a meeting with a promising mother-to-be. Which, of course, hadn’t worked out.
“But I swear to God, Juliet, I haven’t told a soul. And there are details in those notes I couldn’t possibly have known.”
“It makes no sense,” Juliet said. “The only other person in the world who knows is Lincoln. And there’s no way he wrote the notes.”
“Are we sure about that?” Suzy asked.
“I’m pretty sure,” Marley said. There was no way Lincoln had written what was in her note. Why would he ever want her to know he’d talked Marshall out of adopting? Besides, she’d seen his handwriting. Chicken scratch was being generous.
“Is it possible someone saw you?” Gemma asked.
Once again, Marley was struck by how odd this was. That this intruder was part of such an intimate conversation. She was about to tell the woman to back off, but then Juliet’s expression changed, her brow furrowing.
“Juliet, when did this happen? And where?” Marley asked.
“We only did it once,” Juliet said, running her hands up and down her arms as if she was freezing cold. “At a fundraiser after-party. Everyone was doing Molly and coke, and we were so messed up. I don’t even remember it, practically.”
“So . . . someone could have seen,” Gemma said.
They all looked at her.
“I mean, did you . . . sorry, I just . . . Did you go back to a room or something or did you . . .” She turned an unnatural shade of red and pressed her lips together. “I’ll stop talking.”
Juliet chewed on her lower lip. “I guess it’s possible someone saw.”
“Where were you?” Suzy asked.
“In a coat closet. At the W Hotel.”
“Juliet!” Marley blurted.
“In my defense, I seriously doubt we were the first people to ever have sex in there,” Juliet replied.
Now it was Marley’s turn to sit down. “Holy crap. I can’t believe this is happening. Was anyone else there that we know?”
Someone who might have written the notes? she thought.
“I mean, I obviously knew most of the people there,” Juliet said, turning her palms up. “It was my fundraiser. I set the guest list.”
“But was anyone there that is also here?” Suzy demanded.
Juliet looked completely confused. She kept tugging on the finger with the missing nail.
“The notes! Someone who could have written the notes!?” Suzy shouted. Wintour lost it again, barking like mad, and Suzy picked her up to quiet her.
“Oh, no. No! I don’t know,” Juliet said with a childish pout.
“What are these notes you keep talking about?” Gemma asked.
Suzy groaned, and Marley looked up at her.
There was a tingling sensation all up and down her spine.
Should they tell Gemma? They didn’t know anything about the woman other than that she had influencer twin daughters, she read books for a living, and her husband had atrocious taste in alcoholic beverages.
Where had these people even come from, and why were they here?
Finally, Suzy shrugged, like, She’s already heard a lot. Marley, for her part, couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to find a way out of explaining.
“We all got notes when we arrived. In our rooms. On little blue stationary cards,” Marley explained, watching Gemma closely.
“Not me,” Gemma said, blinking.
“You didn’t?” Suzy asked. “What about Greg?”
“Grant,” Gemma corrected. “He didn’t either. And I don’t think the girls did.”
Marley and Suzy locked eyes. This was an interesting development.
Why would they all have gotten one except for the newbies?
It had to mean something, but what? Maybe it was because they didn’t know Lily or hadn’t been a part of the previous Hamptons weeks.
Or maybe it was because they were staying out in the guesthouse.
Had that always been the plan? If the family had been moved last minute, it was possible their notes were sitting untouched in one of the other guest rooms.
Something creaked in the hallway, and they all froze. Then Gemma turned and whipped the door open. Trevor stood there. He didn’t look surprised or caught, exactly, but he did quickly rearrange his expression back into its usual cool aloofness.
“Were you eavesdropping?” Suzy demanded.
“No, of course not. Hazel sent me up here to see if you needed anything.”
Marley bristled at his calling Hazel by her first name. Lily always had her employees call them Mr. and Mrs. Foster.
“Actually, yeah, I could use some tampons,” Gemma said flatly. “Think you could gather a few of those up for me?”
Trevor balked, but Gemma raised an eyebrow at him. “I . . . guess?” he said.
“Good.” Gemma closed the door in his face.
Juliet snorted. “Well played.”
“Thanks. Now where were we?” Gemma asked.
Marley hugged herself. “Does anyone know if Hazel got a note?”
They all shook their heads.
“What did these notes say?” Gemma asked.
Marley swallowed hard. “Mine said that Lincoln convinced Marshall to give up on adopting.”
“What? Marley! You didn’t tell me that!” Suzy said. “You just said Marshall wanted to quit trying.”
“All you’ve ever wanted was to be a mom,” Juliet put in.
“That dumbass,” Suzy added. And now she did sit next to Marley and put her hand on her back.
“What did yours say?” Marley asked.
Suzy glanced up at Gemma, clearly weighing whether to say anything in front of her, but then she sighed. “It said Sean was going to lose his job thanks to Lincoln. And Sean’s pretty much said the same thing.”
Marley’s stomach swooped dangerously. She’d been so focused on Juliet, she’d ignored a crucial detail. “So wait, Sean got a note too?”
“Yeah, why? Didn’t Marshall?”
“I don’t know,” Marley said, dread seeping into her every pore. “I haven’t asked him.”