Kass
Kass slid the glass door closed and stepped out into the yard, feeling the dewy grass under her bare feet. The early autumn air was pleasantly cool and fragrant with jasmine. As she lifted her face to the dark sky, a cloud passed, revealing a full moon.
A full moon! Maybe that was why she was feeling so blue? But that was an old wives’ tale, and Kass didn’t believe in such unscientific nonsense.
She plopped down on a green-and-purple Adirondack chair—she’d painted it herself soon after her father died, because green was his favorite color and purple was hers—and hugged her knees to her chest. She could hear the faint chatter and laughter coming from the dining room inside.
Another Sunday Night Dinner. And another not-so-subtle attempt by her mother to fix her up with Mr. Right. Likely, that was what was making her feel so moody and edgy, not the moon.
Tonight, it was Kat’s accountant’s nephew Dwight, who liked to talk with his mouth full. (Really attractive, watching bits of lasagna flying across the table while he pontificated about the merits of Bud versus Heine.) Last week, it was Kat’s favorite salesclerk from Saks, who was nice enough but obviously gay. (Could her mom be more clueless?) And before that, there was Pippa’s boring, pretentious son, Parker. He and Kass hadn’t gotten along when they were five. Why would they get along now?
And could Kamille shut up already about being a supermodel or whatever? Her agent, Giles, had gotten her an early draft of her perfume ad, and she had passed it around at dinner like it was an Oscar or Nobel Prize or something. Granted, the Annie Leibovitz–style shot was stunning: Kamille sitting in a blue velvet antique chair, one leg draped provocatively over the armrest, her indigo eyes wide and childlike as she gazed straight on at the camera. The caption simply said: Innocence in a bottle. Lolita. Kamille did have that perfect combination of sweetness and sensuality.
Still . . . couldn’t she handle her good fortune with humility and grace? Instead, she had to go on and on about it . . . and oh, did she happen to mention that a paparazzo had taken a picture of her this morning as she was leaving Giles’s office with him? And did she also happen to mention the hot date she had tomorrow night with a hot music producer—okay, music producer’s assistant—she met at some sick party at the Thompson Hotel that Giles invited her to? Blah, blah, blah . . .
“Kassie!”
Kass glanced up, startled. Kamille was walking across the lawn toward her. Oops. Hopefully her sister hadn’t suddenly developed telepathic abilities.
“I thought you might need this,” Kamille said, holding up a bottle of Chardonnay and two glasses.
Kass smiled, relieved. “Thanks, that’s nice of you,” she said.
Kamille sat down next to her. She poured two glasses and handed one to Kass. “What’s wrong, doll? Everyone’s worried about you,” she said gently.
Kass took a sip. “What do you mean? I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not fine. I’m your sister and your best friend, remember? I know you better than you know yourself.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. What can I do to help? You wanna talk? Or go out? Or, hey! Maybe we should take a few days off and do a road trip! When was the last time we did that?”
Kass tried to remember. “Santa Barbara, when you dragged me to that spa,” she said after a moment. “No, that was in June! It was July, when we went to Vegas for my twenty-first birthday. Mom and Beau were not happy that we snuck off without the rest of the family.”
“Yeah, I remember. They figured out where we were and surprised us. I think we were a little out of it when they found us.”
“Yeah, just a little.” Kass winced at the memory of their mother, Beau, Kyle, Benjy, and Bree walking into their suite at the Bellagio—a suite that Kamille had somehow talked the manager into comping them—and finding the two girls semi-passed-out on the floor like a couple of winos. Kass had never been able to handle liquor well, and Kamille had drunk enough for four people.
“It’s Mom, isn’t it?” Kamille said suddenly.
“What?”
“All those lame guys she’s been inviting to the Sunday Night Dinners, trying to hook you up. That’s what’s depressing you. I would be depressed, too.”
And you haven’t helped with your celebrity princess attitude, Kass thought wryly. “Mom’s just being Mom. But yeah, those guys are pretty awful,” she said out loud.
“Hey, I know!” Kamille reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She began typing. “We need to do this ourselves!”
“Do what ourselves?”
Kamille didn’t reply. After a moment she held the phone out to Kass. “What do you think of him?”
Kass stared at the screen, at a head shot of an attractive blond guy in a turquoise polo. “Cute, I guess? Who is he?”
“I have no idea!” Kamille giggled.
“Huh? Kam, are you wasted?”
“Not yet! Kassie, this is the website for one of those online dating services. We’ve gotta sign you up so you can meet him—and other guys like him, too!”
Kass shook her head so hard that she spilled half her wine on her skirt. “Oh, no! No way! I am not doing online dating!” she protested.
“Why not? Would you rather go out with Mr. Beer Gut inside? Oh, and what about Parker Ashton-Gould? Yeah, I could tell you were really into him when he and Pippa came over. The sparks were flyyyy-ing!” Kamille waved her hands in the air, cracking up.
Kass made a face. Grrr. Why did her sister have to be right? “Fine! God! Let me see that phone,” she mumbled.
Kamille beamed and scooted her chair closer to Kass’s. She scrolled through the website. “Check him out. And him! Oooh, he’s a hottie! It says that he’s a . . . huh? . . . lin-guis-tics major at UCLA. What in the hell is that? Does that have something to do with linguine?”
“No, you idiot. Linguistics is the study of language. Really? Where does it say that?”
The two girls continued scanning the website. Kamille polished off the rest of the bottle of wine while Kass stuck to what remained of her glass. Still, she must have gotten a wee bit buzzed, because by the time they went back inside, she had let Kamille talk her into signing up for a thirty-day trial membership to Lovematch.com.
Was she nuts? Probably. But it was definitely better than putting up with another Sunday Night Dinner with another Dwight or Parker . . . or worse.