‘It’s only a hundred extra per day to upgrade. It’s a no-brainer,’ Emily said, her back pressed against the red car.
The three of them stood in the executive line at the National Car Rental in McCarran airport. They’d just stepped off a Virgin America flight – where Emily, unsurprisingly, had booked all three of them in first class – and had been debating whether to drive a Ford Explorer (Miriam’s vote), an Audi sedan with a nice sunroof (Karolina’s), or the BMW convertible that Emily had been hawking as if her life depended on it.
‘We’re going to be driving five hours through the desert. Anything could happen. A convertible isn’t safe,’ Miriam announced, sounding very momlike.
‘Isn’t safe how, exactly?’ Emily asked.
‘Isn’t it obvious? If the car flips over, there’s no top to protect us. We’d be crushed.’
Emily rolled her eyes. ‘When was the last time you flipped your car?’
Miriam rolled hers right back. ‘I’m just saying. Nobody rents a convertible for a five-hour drive through the desert.’
Karolina held up her hand. ‘It’s like neither of you remember that I’m headed to “rehab”! The A4 is a good compromise, and I’m paying, so no more arguing. Come on, guys, let’s get going.’ They gathered their rolling suitcases and carry-on totes, but a minute before they made it to the car, a young couple tossed their lone bag into the trunk, swooped into the front seat, and roared out of the garage without a word.
‘They knew we wanted that one!’ Miriam cried, reaching after them.
‘Sign from God that we were meant to have the convertible,’ Emily said, popping the BMW’s trunk. ‘Not a ton of room, I admit, but we’ll make it work.’
‘And get melanoma,’ Miriam murmured.
‘Have you heard of this amazing thing called sunscreen? It’s so cool! You rub a little on your face and you don’t get sunburned. And guess what? I have some right here in my bag!’
Miriam glared at Emily but climbed into the backseat. ‘When we’re picking bugs out of our teeth and our hair is wrapped in knots and our scalps are burnt and we’ve lost our voices from screaming to be heard over the wind, I’m going to say I told you so.’
Emily gave Miriam the finger, and despite herself Karolina smiled, realizing she had never taken a road trip with friends in her life. Karolina had been modeling by age fourteen. She and Graham had traveled extensively – it was one of the things they both loved – but Graham had always balked at renting cars in foreign countries. Flying all over the world was a different kind of adventure, but still, how was it possible that in thirty-six years she’d never taken a proper road trip?
Karolina slid behind the wheel and, once they hit I-15, set the cruise control for eighty-five. They flew down the open road in the midmorning March sun. When they passed the Vegas Strip, Emily cracked them all up with a highly detailed description of her newest business idea, which involved selling tours for men to travel to Vegas with their friends, where they’d get a group discount on vasectomies, after which they’d recover in a luxe hotel room while strippers iced their balls.
‘Oh my God. It’s brilliant,’ Miriam screeched from the backseat. ‘Not only is it an easy sell for the husbands, but you don’t have to take care of them afterward. You are definitely on to something.’
‘You haven’t even heard the best part. We offer a two-for-one rate and call it the Vegasectomy. I think it’s going to be a massive hit.’
Karolina wanted to laugh with them, but she couldn’t ignore the queasy anxiety and uncertainty that seemed to plague her all day, every day. Not that it stopped her from eating like a whale for the first time in her life. Hours later, when they were all so starving that the only possible thing to eat besides gas-station snacks were giant, oozing McDonald’s sundaes that they ordered from the drive-through, Karolina inhaled hers. ‘I can’t believe I just ate dairy,’ she moaned, clutching her stomach.
‘You didn’t!’ Emily said. ‘It’s all chemicals. No milk whatsoever.’
Just after dark they arrived at Amangiri and were met by the general manager, Emily’s ‘old friend.’ He promised them complete discretion.
‘I chose our most private accommodations,’ he said after leading them outside and swinging open glass doors to reveal a suite that looked like it had been carved from a single slab of gray cement. A huge sitting area in the middle featured all-white divans and chairs facing the desert. A small bonfire roared on their porch. The private lap pool glittered like an oasis from the sand, flanked on all sides by mountain ridges. White lounge chairs and white umbrellas with perfectly folded white towels. The master bedroom had a king-size platform bed and a bathroom with a double-rain indoor-outdoor shower and an oversize tub looking out floor-to-ceiling windows.
‘You can have this suite,’ Emily announced. ‘Miriam and I will take the double next door. You’ll need all that extra space and solitude to focus on your sobriety.’
Miriam and Emily went to their room to get ready for dinner, but Karolina changed into a swimsuit and lowered herself into the lap pool, which felt more like a hot tub. Almost immediately, her phone rang with a 212 area code. She took a deep breath. She was ready. Emily had told her exactly what to say.
‘Hello? This is Karolina Hartwell.’
‘Karolina?’ The voice on the other end was young and female and sounded surprised. The woman probably never expected to have her call answered.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Susanna Willensky from the New York Post. Is it true you’ve left Greenwich and are giving up visitation rights to your son?’
Karolina inhaled. She’d been prepared for the rehab question, but the accusation of abandoning Harry? That wasn’t supposed to be part of the equation.
‘Ma’am?’ The woman was insistent.
‘I haven’t and won’t give up visitation. Nothing could be further from the truth.’
‘And the rehab? For a problem with alcohol? After your arrest? Is it fair to say you’re seeking treatment?’
Karolina paused to make sure she remembered Emily’s exact wording. It was important to be precise – not lying but not telling the whole truth either. ‘I have taken some time to travel out west to clear my head. I think the fresh air and the change of scenery are what I need right now.’
‘Out west? Can you elaborate?’
‘No, I’m afraid that’s not possible.’ Emily had been insistent on those two words: ‘not possible.’ It implied that Karolina would happily share her location if only there weren’t strict confidentiality rules regarding her stay (in rehab). There was no way any remotely intelligent reporter could hear that and not bet her entire life savings that Karolina was checked in to the ultra-luxe treatment center in Montana that was part high-end dude ranch and part luxury hotel.
‘I see. Anything else you’d like to add about—’
‘Thank you, that’s all the time I have now.’ Karolina pressed ‘end’ and was relieved it was over. Emily would be pleased.
‘Would you ladies like to join us in the desert lounge?’ asked Tim, the waiter. ‘A local astronomer will be giving a stargazing demonstration.’
Karolina looked around the table.
‘There will be a s’mores workshop as well. Dark chocolate, milk, Reese’s, peppermint—’
‘I think we can stop by for a few minutes.’ Emily smiled sweetly. As he walked away, she gazed after him. ‘If this joint weren’t charging five grand a night for a room, I might think they were running a male whorehouse.’
Miriam laughed. ‘He’s a child, Emily! Like, twenty, maybe.’
Emily held up her hand. ‘I’m just saying … one is more gorgeous than the next. And Timmy here is my personal favorite.’
‘Yes, well, if you hadn’t noticed, there are an awful lot of single women around here,’ Miriam offered. ‘Maybe they switch up the staff according to their guest profile each week.’
All of them turned to the nearby table and stared as the group of a dozen women – girls, really – broke into laughter. It was clear they were a bachelorette party, since the bride wore something emblazoned with BRIDE every chance she got, but beyond that, they were a loud, attractive mystery.
‘Just so long as they’re focused on themselves and not us. The last thing we need is for one of them to recognize Karolina and leak it to the press that we’re hiding out at a luxury hotel and not a twelve-step program.’
‘I don’t understand who has a dozen friends that can afford to come here,’ Karolina said. ‘And they’re young. Like, twenties.’
‘I’m sure one of their fathers or fiancés is paying for it,’ Emily said.
Karolina turned to her and raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s sexist! We’re all here together, and it’s not my father or husband who’s paying for it.’
‘Emily’s right though,’ Miriam said, downing the last sip of her wine and motioning for yet another glass. They were on glass number five, and no one could catch the slightest buzz. Finally, Tim had clued them in to the statewide drinking laws that allowed only four ounces of wine to be served at a time. They called it the ‘Utah pour.’
‘I am?’ Emily asked.
‘Her father is paying for the weekend. Although her fiancé certainly could. But he’s currently treating his friends to a weekend in Ibiza.’
‘How did you figure that out?’ Emily asked.
‘It wasn’t hard,’ Miriam said. ‘They’ve been taking selfies like crazy. I searched hashtag “Amangiri” and found a few pics they’d posted. I followed the one we know is the bride back to her page. From there, it was easy to see who her fiancé is, since there are make-out and proposal pictures all over the account, so I Googled him because his Insta was private and saw he’s a managing director at the largest hedge fund in the U.S. Incidentally, they got in some legal trouble a few months ago over accepting money from some Bahraini sheik on the terrorist watch list, but that’s neither here nor there.’
‘Wow,’ Karolina murmured.
‘I haven’t even told you the most interesting part. I saw on her account that an older man, presumably her father, had tagged her on a photo he posted on Facebook. Or actually, whoever runs the social-media accounts for the Swedish royal family. Long way of saying that she’s a Swedish princess who grew up in a palace in Stockholm and came here for boarding school and her MRS degree.’
Emily whistled. ‘I’m officially impressed.’
Karolina’s eyes widened. ‘You found out all of that without knowing any of their names.’
‘Digging up dirt was a fairly big feature in my previous life, before I only wore spandex and went to sex-toy parties.’
Emily said, ‘Your skills are needed now. By us. Can you find out anything about Graham that we can use against him? No one – especially douchebags like him – is totally clean.’
Karolina recoiled at Emily’s casual viciousness and then got angry with herself. She shouldn’t feel badly about anything in light of what Graham had done to her.
Miriam leaned across the table. ‘Tax evasion? At the very least, you probably had a nanny or a cleaning lady at some point who wasn’t legal.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Karolina asked. ‘He’s had political aspirations forever. You think he was going to risk hiring an illegal alien?’
‘Okay, then what about drugs?’ Emily asked. ‘He seems like a cocaine kind of guy.’
‘Not really. Maybe a couple times when we first met? But who cares? Obama admitted to trying coke.’
‘Karolina. I know there’s something. You need to tell us.’ Emily’s manner had switched from lighthearted to angry.
Karolina’s mother had always told her it was a good quality to be a bad liar. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You have something on him, I know you do. It’s written all over your face.’
Karolina met Emily’s gaze. ‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ she said.
Two or three years into their marriage Graham lay in her arms after they’d made love, and he’d wept. She’d never seen him cry before that night or after – not when his father died, or on the anniversary of his first wife’s death, when he took Harry to the Hamptons beach where he’d scattered her ashes. After nearly an hour of soothing and promising, he told Karolina, and when he did, she couldn’t breathe. It was the twenty-fifth birthday of a girl named Molly. Or would have been, had she lived to see it. More than twenty years earlier, when Graham was seventeen, he hit and killed four-year-old Molly Wells near his parents’ summer home in Amagansett.
Emily slapped her hands on the table hard enough for their wineglasses to rattle. ‘We’re all the way out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, talking about some Swedish princess, while your husband – the man you are refusing to sell out even now – has basically kidnapped your child, ruined your reputation, and thrown you out like yesterday’s garbage.’
‘Emily,’ Miriam warned.
‘It’s bullshit,’ Emily hissed. ‘She has something on him. I can tell! We’re trying to get her life back, and she’s not willing to help.’
‘I’m tired,’ Karolina said, trying to suppress the tears. It had been an amazing day filled with rock climbing and hot-stone massages and floating in the pool, and she didn’t want to ruin it. ‘I’m going to sleep. Have a s’more for me. I’ll see you guys at breakfast.’
‘Lina, sweetie, Emily and I are worried about you. You seem awfully tired and lethargic. I know things are hard right now, but are you holding up okay emotionally?’ Miriam asked, placing a hand over Karolina’s.
‘What she’s trying to ask is if you’re planning to jump off a bridge,’ Emily added.
Karolina looked between her two friends. ‘I really am just tired,’ she said, standing up. ‘Thank you for your concern, but I promise I’m not planning on swallowing a bottle of pills any time soon.’
As soon as she stood, Tim reappeared like magic, helping Karolina move her chair out of the way. ‘You’re not going to miss s’mores, are you?’ he asked.
‘Maybe next time,’ she said, and he made an adorable pouty face but moved on to the next table.
Emily nodded. Miriam gave her the thumbs-up. As if on cue, Tim turned around and grinned at her.
‘I’m going back to my room. I love you both, but I’ve had enough,’ Karolina said. She heard Miriam call after her, but she pretended not to and walked out of the restaurant. A handful of glass lanterns lit the path to her suite. The bed had been turned down and the lights lowered, and the outdoor fire pit on her private patio had been lit. Karolina pulled a bottle of Perrier out of the minibar and settled onto the cushioned sun bed next to the fire. The desert stretched out before her, completely silent, but she couldn’t see much beyond the tall cactus a few feet away. Harry would love this, she thought. She had tried him before dinner her time, which was right about when he went to bed, but he’d rejected her FaceTime and replied with a text: sorry mom cant talk sleeping at jasons 2nite call you tmrw. She wondered why on earth Graham was letting him sleep at a friend’s house the night before a game. But of course she knew. Regan.
Karolina heard knocking off in the distance. A woodpecker? It came again, more insistent this time. She walked back into her room and realized someone was at her suite’s door. ‘I’m already in bed!’ she called to Emily and Miriam, despite the fact that she was fully dressed.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ a male voice replied.
She turned the deadbolt and opened the door. There, with a shy smile, stood Tim. The waiter. Who was now freshly showered and looking better than ever in an untucked button-down with rolled sleeves and a pair of jeans.
‘So sorry, Mrs. Hartwell. I hope I’m not disturbing you. Your friends said you needed help with something in your room?’
‘Something in my—’ She stopped. She wanted to murder Emily. This had her name all over it.
Tim’s smile widened, and he gave her what could only be described as a mischievous look. ‘I think they said it was a bug? Perhaps a scorpion? I’m here to, um, help you remove it.’
‘A bug? Yes, that’s right. A bug.’ She stepped back to let him pass, and she knew exactly what was transpiring. ‘It’s a very big bug.’
‘Yes, that’s what they said. I’m so sorry about that. Let me see what I can do.’ He kicked the door closed behind him and started to kiss her. It happened so fast, and there was so much to process – the sensation of kissing someone with a beard, someone who wasn’t Graham, and how instantaneously turned on she was, literally, like a light switch – that she couldn’t do anything except kiss him back. In a minute he’d scooped her up, movie-style, and laid her on the bed, and when he lowered himself on top of her, she thought she might lose her mind.
‘What?’ he asked gruffly, running his hands through her hair.
‘Wait one second,’ she whispered.
He stopped instantly. ‘You okay?’
Karolina smiled. He was even cuter up close, if possible. ‘Just one thing.’
‘Anything.’
‘Please don’t call me Mrs. Hartwell. Like, ever again.’
Tim laughed and buried his face in her neck. He slowly undressed her. When, finally, they were both completely naked, he stopped, sat up, and looked her up and down with obvious appreciation. ‘Wow,’ he murmured, and it was obvious he meant it. ‘You are one beautiful woman, Karolina.’
Karolina reached up and pulled his face down to hers. ‘Shhh.’
They made love twice. After the second time, they fell asleep, and when Karolina woke up, the gas fire pit outside was still burning. It was five a.m., the sky just starting to lighten. She slipped out of the bed and walked, naked, to the glass door that offered a spectacular desert view. She was thirty-six years old. And this was her very first one-night stand. Of course, they would be there for two more nights, there would be ample opportunity to … Karolina stopped herself. No. It had been perfect, exactly what she needed. One amazing night of sex without emotion.
An hour later Tim had sneaked out of her suite with the finely honed skills of someone who did so all too frequently. The night had been too delicious to share, to dissect, to listen to Emily’s probing questions, or to watch Miriam sit in quiet judgment. No, thank you, Karolina thought. This would be hers and hers alone.