“OH, MAN, I need an espresso,” Lark said. She opened her eyes. “Good morning, you.” She dived into Doe’s neck and snuggled for a moment. Then she flipped over and reached for her phone.
Doe turned over and grabbed hers. Two nights together this week; they were a couple now. They flicked through notifications, texts. Doe had two photos in Hamptons Magazine and one on the gossip website YSK, the one that everyone read. She got $250. It was a good week.
“Oh, God, I’m in seekrit-hamptons again,” Lark said, scrolling through her feed. “I look good, though. Whoa, you are busted!”
Doe’s pulse speeded up. “What?”
Lark showed her the phone. It was a different Hamptons account, Doe’s competition, called hamptoncomesalive! and Doe was standing close to Lucas in the background of a shot. Lucas had his hand on her ass.
Doe shrugged. “We go out sometimes.”
“It’s okay.” Lark hesitated. “It’s just, he’s sort of a dick, don’t you think?” She cocked her head and then lowered her chin and swept back her hair in a way that instantly conjured Lucas. “Hello, Beauty,” she mimicked in Lucas’s careless way.
Doe snorted.
“How about tonight is just us,” Lark said.
Doe joined in, lowering her voice and her chin. “Wait. I like the way that sounds…”
“Just us,” they said together and giggled.
“Yeah, he’s a dick,” Doe said.
“Honestly, this is awful, but I only dated him because he was Peter Clay’s son. I mean, come on, I was an art major, why wouldn’t I be intrigued? Daddy encouraged it, he was with Adeline then. I thought, What’s it like to hang out with the son of a genius? Then he turned out to be such a tool.”
Doe thought of Lucas on Sunday, crying. “Maybe he can’t help it.”
“Look, everybody can help it. That’s what medication is for.” Lark snuggled closer. “Speaking of therapy, you never talk about your parents. What’s the deal?”
“Dad died when I was thirteen, so, issues.” Actually he had been close to a one-night stand. Maybe a two-week stand? So. No issues except for not knowing quite who he was. Shari hadn’t known him long. Or very well, apparently, because he turned out to be married. When she told him she was pregnant, he wrote her a check and advised her never to contact him again. She said he was either Dominican or Brazilian, and didn’t seem to get that this would be a significant thing for Doe to want to know.
Doe had to scramble her thoughts together. “Mom: Miami version of prep.”
“Lilly Pulitzer.”
“Matching shifts, when I was a kid.”
“Do you visit much?”
“Not as much as she’d like me to. She moved to Minnesota.”
“Crazy.”
“Right? Married a guy who owns forests, or something.” Doe occasionally used this lie because nobody was from Minnesota. “Let’s see. She’s on the board of the ballet and walks like a duck. Buys vintage Mary McFadden on eBay.” Odd details were important to create the sense of a real person. Shari flashed into her head, but the details of her mother’s sad bio were off limits. Her father broke her arm when she was twelve. Ron paid for her boob job. Her big thrill is when Victoria’s Secret is 35 percent off.
“Mmm. My mom is in the fashion biz,” Lark said. “They might like each other. She’s awesome. She lives in Paris, though. Daddy hates her. He has a meme for everyone. She humiliated him by leaving him, so he calls her a drug addict just because he found Valium in her purse once. He can be ruthless that way.”
“What’s his meme for you?”
Lark’s gaze moved off in a way that Doe could now track. “Dream daughter slash loser. We had the hugest stupid fight yesterday. He gave me a deadline to apply for jobs. In the summer! He’s insane. I think it’s this political thing, I have to have the right profile or something. He wants to run for president in four years, he says why not run, now anybody can do it. He’s some sort of crazy libertarian, it’s embarrassing. But that means I can’t be a rich-girl slacker. Which I don’t want to be, by the way. I want to architect my life. So we have the same goal. He can be so amazing, I’m lucky, of course. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“I don’t know if I’m good at anything, actually.” Lark tried to smile.
“You’re good at caring,” Doe said. “About what you do in the world. That’s a start.”
“That’s a really nice thing to say.”
The sun hit the soft pressed sheets and Lark’s hair, and Doe wanted to snap the shutter and print the moment. Whatever this turned out to be, it would never be as good as right now.
Lark checked her phone. “Oh, crap, it’s him. He’s coming out tomorrow, and he wants to have dinner. Like I don’t have a life. It’s not an invitation, it’s a summons. I told him I was having dinner with you last night, and he said to ask you, too. I’m sorry!”
Doe felt pieces shift. This was scary but good. The first step. She’d been invited into the family. It had been more than a month since the party, since the photo of Daniel and Adeline made the New York Post. Daniel had fired the caterers, blaming them for the shot.
She knew how the household ran now. She knew Marisol wasn’t a housekeeper, she was a “household manager.” She knew the garage was called the “vehicle barn.” She knew the chef would make lunch if Lark told him she’d be home, and it was always a salad. She knew there were people around for security, people for laundry, people to drive the cars, and that Lark said it was a reduced staff because things were so relaxed at the beach. She knew that Lark had twenty-seven summer purses. She knew Lark would drop blouses on the floor and they would get picked up and dry-cleaned.
She knew a lot but she didn’t know Daniel. If Lark told Daniel how they met, how Doe had lost her shoes, Daniel might forget about the caterers and wonder.
She never backed out of things, though. Never out of fear.
“Sure,” Doe said.
From: Lucas Clay
To: Doe Callender
Wassup beautiful
From: Doe Callender
To: Lucas Clay
Zzz just waking up
From: Lucas
To: Doe
Sorry about the other day I was an asshole
From: Doe
To: Lucas
No argument here
From: Lucas
To: Doe
u know I’ll make it up to you I’m good at that…just us. You like the sound of that
From: Doe
To: Lucas
Maybe, my weekend is crazy busy
From: Lucas
To: Doe
Yah mine too
…
Btw do u know Jem fm the farm stand
From: Doe
To: Lucas
sure, Ruthie’s daughter you know that
From: Lucas
To: Doe
how old is she exactly
From: Doe
To: Lucas
15 i think
From: Lucas
To: Doe
looks older
From: Doe
To: Lucas
She’s in high school dude
From: Lucas
To: Doe
My friend Hale was asking guess I’ll tell him no
From: Doe
To: Lucas
wld be wise
it’s a crime you know
From: Lucas
To: Doe
Ya soooooo unfair considering how tasteee
From: Doe
To: Lucas
Gross
From: Lucas
To: Doe
lol