“My life sucks,” Avery announced loudly on Friday evening as she stomped into the Carlyles’ penthouse apartment. She slammed the door and threw her beige Miu Miu trench on the blue velvet wingback chair in the foyer that basically acted as an overpriced coat hanger.
“Hello?” Avery called again when no one answered. Someone better be home. All she wanted to do was order pizza, eat as much fattening food as possible, and forget about Metropolitan and lip glosses and bitchy assistants for the weekend.
“Hi!” Baby popped her head up from the gunmetal gray Jonathan Adler couch in the center of the gigantic living room. “Join the club—my life sucks too,” she called.
“What’s your problem? You just got back from vacation.” Avery eyed her tiny sister critically and stomped over to the couch. Baby’s hair was haphazardly piled on top of her head in sort of an Amy Winehouse–style beehive, and she wore baggy shorts and an oversize T-shirt, but somehow she looked like a supermodel instead of a drug-addled mess.
She was surrounded by the small, leather-bound photo albums they’d brought from Nantucket. Avery grabbed one of the albums lying by Baby’s feet and quickly paged through it. It was from the summer between eighth and ninth grade, when they’d spent every afternoon on the beach. In all of the photos, Baby was smiling, usually with several guys looking on. Avery picked up another album, this time of the triplets when they were toddlers. Even a picture of them when they were just three showed Baby running out of the frame. Typical. Avery was obsessively into creating lists and plans, while Baby just sort of floated through life.
“Mrs. McLean isn’t too happy with me.” Baby smiled ruefully. “I have to go to twenty hours of therapy. She’s making me.” Baby shrugged. “My first session was today.”
Avery plopped on the couch, causing their cat, Rothko, to meow loudly and run away. Was she supposed to feel sorry for Baby? Because she didn’t. In fact, she felt totally exasperated by her. Of course her sister could ditch school for a week and just get a slap on the wrist and mandatory therapy.
“What’d the therapist say?” Avery finally probed, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“I’m apparently overdependent on men and haven’t fully completed the detachment process from our dad, whoever he is.” Baby rolled her dark brown eyes and lay back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. Wasn’t therapy supposed to make you feel better about yourself?
“Oh,” Avery said blankly. “How are you going to fix that?”
“I have no idea.” Baby tried to force herself to smile. She picked up another photo album, desperate to find some type of clue into her inner psyche. So far, she had nothing. Maybe that was her problem: She never thought about what she was doing, whether it was running back to Nantucket or flying to Barcelona, she just… did it. And usually there was a guy involved. Was Dr. Janus right? Was she using boys to hide from herself? She shoved the photo album and it fell to the floor with a clatter.
“Hellooooo?” The thin, singsongy voice of their mother, Edie Carlyle, called out from the foyer. Edie was in her mid-forties, and if not for the laugh lines etched on her tanned face, could have passed for the triplets’ older sister. She had dark blond bobbed hair currently pulled into tiny twists, and wore a bright pink hand-dyed peasant skirt with a furry brown sweater that looked like it was made from gorilla hair. “Oh good, you’re here!” She clapped her hands together excitedly.
Yippee!
“I’m going on a date with Remington. Of course, I told you about him.”
Avery and Baby looked at each other. Back in Nantucket, their mother had never dated, preferring to be wholly engaged in her art—which could either refer to her children or her weird 3-D chicken-wire sculptures in their backyard.
Seeing the confused looks on her daughters’ faces, Edie went on. “Don’t you remember, darlings? My high school sweetheart? Oh, it was just so wonderful! Absolutely out of nowhere he showed up at the collaborative in Red Hook last week, and I could not believe my eyes. He looks very different now, of course, but just as handsome as ever….” Edie’s blue eyes glazed over at the memory of her high school love. “I was an artist, he was destined for business school, and in the end we went our separate ways. He worked in finance for years and years, but now he invests in the art world, which is how we ended up in the same place! Can you imagine?”
Avery stared at her mother blankly. She really couldn’t. “We’re going to walk to Brooklyn! How do I look?” Edie twirled again and glanced expectantly at her daughters.
“You look really colorful,” Avery finally mustered, grinning impishly at Baby. Actually, her mom looked great. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her so… glowy.
“Oh, you girls are impossible.” Edie’s sterling silver turtle-shaped earrings swung wildly back and forth. “I think I look fabulous,” she crowed as she floated off. “Don’t wait up!” she called as the front door of the penthouse slammed behind her.
“Move over.” Avery rolled off the arm of the couch and onto the cushion. How was it that her mom had a date and she didn’t? She was a dateless, errand-running nobody. “Did you know they’re calling me ‘the intern’ at work?” Avery asked, feeling extremely sorry for herself. She poked her sister’s arm to make sure she was listening. If Avery wanted to have a pity party, Baby had better be a good guest.
“Well, aren’t you the intern?” Baby shrugged.
“Whatever.” Avery sighed. The rest of the school year stretched ahead of her in week after week of thankless labor. She felt like a pre-ball Cinderella, with no Prince Charming in sight.
“Want to make cookies?” Baby asked unexpectedly, swinging her legs off the couch and wandering toward the kitchen. Avery stomped after her. Cookies would not make everything better.
Unless they’re the jumbo chocolate chocolate-chip cookies from City Bakery, that is.
Baby began flinging open cabinets and throwing the mismatched packages of spelt, granola, and brown sugar that Edie picked up at her favorite Park Slope co-op onto the counter. Edie didn’t trust any of the small gourmet grocery shops dotting Madison Avenue. Avery frowned as she examined the ingredients strewn across the large, stainless steel kitchen island in the center of the room.
“Let’s call this cooking our demons.” Baby winked, imitating their mom’s ridiculous white magic incantations. Avery smiled in spite of herself. Baby was irresponsible and maddening, but she was also her sister and would do anything to try to cheer her up. Avery picked up a half-open brown bag of flaxseed and dumped it in the trash.
“I need chocolate,” she announced. She climbed onto the granite countertop and opened one of the top cabinets, tossing a package of chocolate chips down to Baby.
As the two girls set to work, Avery smiled to herself. Maybe her life didn’t suck so bad. Really, what was so bad about spending a Friday night baking cookies?
Um, besides everything?
An hour later, the kitchen was filled with the aroma of baking cookies and Avery and Baby were sitting next to each other on the black granite counter, kicking their legs back and forth against the cabinets below as they companionably drank from a bottle of organic red wine that had been sitting on the counter forever. Avery took a large swig, swishing the liquid around her mouth thoughtfully. Back in Nantucket, she’d always imagined she’d be sipping champagne at fabulous New York City parties, not sipping homemade wine at home. This internship was becoming one more disaster she could add to an already long list of Upper East Side errors. And she’d been in New York for less than two months.
“Don’t be upset over the intern thing. It was only your first day,” Baby said, as if reading her mind. “Besides, it’s kind of cool that no one knows your real name. That way you can fly under the radar.”
“Thanks,” Avery said, meaning it. “You want real food?” she added. She hopped off the counter and began rifling through a basket full of menus, junk mail, and new-age hippie magazines that had recently come in the mail. Edie never opened the mail. Luckily, she had an accountant who handled all the bills, or else they’d be chased by debtors.
“I’ll take that.” Baby grabbed a magazine called Inner Healing. A picture of a heart that looked like it had been drawn by a four-year-old was on the cover.
“Why do you need that?” Avery asked suspiciously. “You already have a therapist.” Avery pulled out the menu for John’s Pizza and dialed the number. John’s was a totally touristy destination in Times Square, but they had other outposts, and the one over on York and Sixty-third had the best brick-oven pizza ever.
“I don’t think therapy will work for me,” Baby confessed, after Avery had ordered. The back of the magazine was full of weird ads for alternative healers. Color away your confusion with crayons! No thank you. Rebirth into the authentic you. No. Scream therapy. Hah. Find your inner ocean. Baby paused at this one. Are you looking to rediscover your natural self? the text read. That didn’t sound too dippy. And it was way better than Dr. Janus’s freaky Oedipus complex fixation.
“What’s that?” Avery asked nosily. Baby yanked the magazine away, suddenly shy. She didn’t want to tell Avery that she was actually considering trying to find her inner ocean.
“Whatever.” Avery lost interest as she opened the polished chrome door of the never-been-used-until-now oven.
“Are you making cookies?” Owen burst into the kitchen. Their brother had some kind of internal radar that always led him to food. “Yum!” He grabbed three and stuffed them in his mouth.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” Baby asked as she tore the find your ocean page from the magazine, folded it, and stuffed it in the pocket of her baggy brown corduroy shorts.
“She had… a game.” Owen paused. Was it field hockey? Tennis? He vaguely remembered Kelsey explaining to him why they couldn’t meet tonight, but he couldn’t remember what she’d said. Whenever they were together, he found it kind of hard to pay attention.
Wonder why?
“Maybe a tennis match.” Owen shrugged and grabbed two more cookies. “Did you order food already?” he asked, flicking through the menus.
“Yeah, I got the pepperoni-sausage heart-attack special just for you,” Avery teased. “But wait, didn’t you have a meet today too?”
“Yeah.” Owen nodded. “Actually, they made me captain.” Saying it sounded pretty cool, even though they’d lost the meet.
“Oh my God,” Avery squealed. “Congratulations!” She squeezed her brother’s arm affectionately. “What did Kelsey say?”
“I didn’t tell her yet,” Owen said. In fact, it might be awkward letting her know, since he was basically replacing Rhys.
In more ways than one.
“What?” Avery demanded. The only thing she loved more than nosing into her sister’s life was nosing into her brother’s. “How have you not told her yet? What do you guys do together, anyway?”
Owen’s ears turned bright red.
“Eew!” Avery squealed.
Owen grinned. He couldn’t help it. Just thinking about Kelsey made him happy.
Or horny. Close enough.
“You need to go on a real date,” Avery commanded, taking in her brother’s gross horndog face. When was he going to learn that city girls were more sophisticated, more mature, more everything than girls in Nantucket?
More uptight?
She pulled out her pink Treo and expertly typed with a maroon-polished fingernail. Owen stuffed two more cookies in his mouth. A date might not be a bad idea.
“I’m making a reservation for you at One if by Land, Two if by Sea for tomorrow night. It’s super romantic.” Avery nodded authoritatively, as if the deal was settled. If he was going to hold on to Kelsey, he needed to treat her right. “Pick her up in a town car and don’t forget to bring flowers.”
Owen smiled as he hopped onto one of the steel bar stools surrounding the kitchen island. It was sweet of his sister to organize this, but it almost sounded like she was the one who needed the date. He was about to offer to set her up with one of the swim team guys when the buzzer rang, announcing their pizza delivery.
Saved by the bell.