Isabel opened her eyes. Her head felt like it had been stuffed with rocks. The morning light coming in around the edges of the curtains burned her corneas. The room tilted from one side to the other, like a listing boat. This was, by far, the worst hangover she’d ever had.
She raised herself up on her elbows and tried to blink. The details of last night were hazy—who had put her to bed? When had she gone to bed? How had she gotten so drunk? And then the glimmer of a memory came back to her. Mike. Seeing him at the surf shop. Their fight. Then a lot of Jack and Cokes.
From the direction of her nightstand she could hear a persistent buzzing, like a trapped insect. She felt around the table in the dim light for the source, and then located her phone. She turned it around so that she could see its face. It was almost too bright to look at. And then she saw the text from Mike.
No problem. Take care.
What the hell does that mean? she thought. Then she opened her phone and went to the text screen. There was her message to him, sent last night at 6:16 PM:
Don’t ever bother me again.
A stabbing pain shot through her head. She needed to go to the bathroom. She put the phone back down on the bedside table and saw that someone had left her Advil and a glass of water. She jiggled two maroon tablets out of the bottle and swallowed them with the water. Then she forced herself out of bed, splashed some water on her face, and sat on the toilet, trying to ignore the spinning bathroom.
So she and Mike were basically over. He wouldn’t show up on her doorstep and beg for her to give him a second chance. And then there was Evan. It was all coming back to her now in humiliating waves—Evan holding her head as she threw up in her bathroom, Evan helping her off with her dress and putting her to bed in, apparently, her underwear. It was all too embarrassing. She staggered back to bed and closed her eyes.
A knock on the door startled her back to full consciousness. “What?” she croaked, keeping her eyes shut tight.
The door opened, and Isabel heard her mother sigh. “Well, good morning, darling daughter. You look fresh as a rosebud.”
Isabel opened her eyes an inch to see her mom, still in her nightgown, whip open her curtains. “Please don’t do that,” she said.
“I want to know what you’ve said about this family,” her mom said. Painful bright light flooded the room.
Isabel roused herself from her pillow and tried to focus on the slim but blurry shape of her mother, standing at the foot of her bed. “What are you talking about?”
“Last night Mrs. Wilcox told me there’s a rumor going around about us. That we’re living in different homes. And I would like to know how that rumor got started.”
Isabel rubbed her eyes. “Are you serious? Did you really think that this wasn’t going to get out?”
“You’re not answering my question.” The harsh morning light made her mother’s crow’s-feet and frown lines alarmingly visible. “Who did you tell?”
“I’ve told everybody,” Isabel said. “Everyone I can. Everyone I see. Everyone who asks. They all get to hear all about it. Because I’m so obsessed with your life.”
Mrs. Rule picked up her silk dress, lying in a heap on her duvet, and let it drop back into a wrinkled pile. “Leave it to you to get drunk last night. Your father hasn’t seen you in weeks, and that’s when you get drunk.”
“Can you blame me?”
Her mother took a deep breath. “Don’t try to pin this on me. I’m not your excuse, Isabel. Don’t use me as a reason to keep doing what you’ve been doing for years.” She shut the door, and Isabel lay back in bed. Her headache was now unbearable.
Rory walked through the swinging door into the breakfast room, which was mercifully empty. In the center of the round rattan table was a leftover floral arrangement from the party last night, and at one end was a stack of newspapers, the same ones that she’d had to run out and buy every morning last summer. An array of vitamins and supplements lined Mrs. Rule’s place setting, as usual. At Rory’s place setting stood a jar of lemon curd—Mickey had figured out by now that she’d developed a fondness for it. Looking at it now, she realized how crazily pretentious that was.
She went to the credenza and poured herself a bowl of cereal from one of the twenty or so boxes on display. Her strategy was to eat quickly and hightail it back to her room. There were too many people in this house that she wanted to avoid.
Fee’s kind face peeked through the doorway. “Good morning, my dear. You all set out here?”
Rory put down her cereal and felt tears come to her eyes again.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Rory walked over to her and started crying in her arms.
“Here, here,” Fee said.
“Can we go to your room for a minute?” Rory wiped the tears with the back of her hand, but she could barely keep up with them.
“Of course.” Holding her by the hand, Fee led her swiftly down the back stairs and along the quiet hall to her room. She closed the door as Rory went to sit on the bed, and then pushed a box of tissues into Rory’s hands. “When you’re ready, I want to hear all about it,” she said gently.
Rory pulled multiple sheets of tissue out of the box and cleaned up her face as much as she could. “Connor and I…” She blew her nose. “Connor and I broke up last night.”
Fee didn’t look the least bit surprised. “Oh, my dear,” she said softly. “How did it happen?”
Haltingly, and with the help of more tissue, Rory managed to string together an edited version of what had gone wrong between them this summer, without mentioning the secret about Isabel’s real father. “Last summer was so much easier,” she said. “I don’t know why.”
Fee stroked Rory’s arm. “It’s always easier to be on the outside. Why do you think this is still my bedroom?” She gestured to the cramped space. “I love working for this family. But I’ve never forgotten I work for them.”
“So you’re saying it was a mistake to get involved with Connor?”
“No, not at all, dear,” said Fee. “He made you happy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be with someone who makes you happy.”
“I guess I thought if I tried hard enough, it would all work out.”
“That’s what your mother’s done to you,” Fee said softly. “It’s not your job to make things work out. It takes two people. And it doesn’t sound to me like he wanted things to work out as much as you did.”
Rory nodded. She blew her nose. “But now what? Do I leave here? Do I go back home? I still have my internship. How do I stay here and have it not be massively awkward?”
“It won’t be.”
“But what if he wants me to leave?”
Fee snorted. “You’re talking to the house manager. And you are my niece. Nobody is kicking you out of here without getting past me first. Now, let’s get you back upstairs for breakfast,” she said. “Is there anything special Mickey can get for you?”
Rory thought for a moment. “Blueberry pancakes?”
“Perfect,” Fee said, guiding her to the door.
“But only if you let me make them,” Rory said. “I haven’t so much as measured a cup of water since I’ve been here.”
“I think we can arrange that.”
After fortifying herself with pancakes, she decided to go speak to Connor. Better to confront him and let him say whatever else needed to be said. Maybe by now his anger had dissipated, and he’d be able to think and talk a little more clearly.
She walked up the stairs and knocked on his closed door. “Connor?” she said. “It’s me. Can I talk to you?”
He opened the door. His hair was wet from the shower. On his shoulder was his zippered gym bag. It looked very full.
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
“I’m gonna stay with my dad for a while, yeah.”
“Because of me?”
He didn’t blink. “You’re one of the reasons, yeah.”
“I know you’re mad,” she said. “If you have anything you want to say, I’m here. You can tell me.”
“What do you want me to say?” he said, glaring at her. “You’re the one with all the information. I’m the idiot who doesn’t know anything.”
“I didn’t tell you those things to hurt you. I hope you know that.”
“It doesn’t matter.” A muscle pulsed in his jaw, and he moved to walk past her. “Is there anything else you want to say?”
“No,” she said, feeling a knot form in her throat.
“Tell my mom if she needs me, I’ll be at my dad’s. And I guess you’ll be here?” he said, throwing her a sardonic look over his shoulder.
Before she could answer, he was heading down the stairs. She stayed on the landing and listened to him leave the house through the back door. A few minutes later she heard the whine of his engine as he started his car, and then the crunch of gravel under his tires. He was gone. But the Connor she’d fallen in love with last summer had left quite a while ago. It had simply taken her until now to see that.
Isabel’s bedroom door opened. A girl with a greenish-tinged face, bloodshot eyes, and tangled blond hair who faintly resembled Isabel, peeked out her head.
“Oh my god,” Rory said. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks for rubbing it in,” Isabel said. “I need to get to the kitchen, but I might throw up. Can I hold on to you?”
“Sure.”
Rory went to the door, and Isabel stepped out in a threadbare navy bathrobe that looked older than both of them put together. She grabbed Rory’s arm and made it as far as the stairs, then plunked herself down on the top one. “Ugh,” she said. “I still have the spins.”
“Why’d you drink so much?” Rory asked. “Was it because of our fight?”
“I saw Mike,” she said, holding her blond head in her hands. “In Montauk. I went there after I left you. We got into a fight. He’s such a jerk. I can’t believe I wasted one minute thinking about him.” She scratched at the tangled mess of her hair and then met Rory’s gaze. “Am I making this up, or did you and Connor break up last night?”
“You’re not making it up,” Rory said. “It’s over. He just left to go stay at his dad’s.”
“Of course he did,” she muttered. “I guess he’s still in shock. I wouldn’t take it personally. He’ll come around.”
“I’m not sure he will,” Rory said. “And I don’t think there was anything left to salvage anyway.”
“Well, that’s his loss,” Isabel said.
Rory rubbed her temples. “Maybe I should go home.”
“No,” Isabel declared. “You are not going home. Don’t even think about that.”
“Won’t it be awkward if I stay?”
“You think I want you to go because you broke up with my brother? No way.” She took Rory’s wrist again. “Okay, I have to get up again.”
Rory helped Isabel down the stairs one step at a time as if she were an elderly woman.
“I’m sorry if I was a bitch yesterday, by the way,” Isabel said, when she’d safely reached the bottom. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Me, neither,” Rory said.
“Everything I said about you being a doormat, that was just me talking out of my butt. I think it’s been hard for me, you going out with Connor. I’ve missed hanging out with you.”
“I’ve missed hanging out with you,” Rory said.
“Truce?” Isabel said, offering her hand.
Rory gave her a hug instead. “Whoa,” she said as she pulled away. “That’s a lot of Jack Daniel’s I’m smelling.”
“Hey, don’t judge me,” Isabel said.
“Never,” Rory said.