DOE ENDED UP driving into the village of East Hampton. She bought an iced coffee and sipped it, window-shopping down Newtown Lane. So many thin white people. So many pairs of white jeans, so many straw hats.
She saw Lucas ahead, jingling his keys, looking at his phone. He hadn’t seen her. She had time to reverse direction but she didn’t. She counted off a couple of slow breaths.
“Look who’s here,” he said. “You meeting your mom for a little lunch? Is there a Hooters I don’t know about?”
“Just killing time before Lark’s party. Sorry she forgot to invite you. I hope you weren’t too humiliated.”
“I heard about you two. Like it will last.” He reached for her wrist and pushed up the long sleeve of her linen shirt, and she stepped back.
“Relax, I just wanted to see if you were wearing a watch.” He studied her over his sunglasses. “Because I’m missing mine. It disappeared after the storm.”
Doe shrugged. “Did you check under the dresser?”
“I saw you looking at it.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Hale’s? I hear he’s missing some cuff links. Maybe it’s a set.”
“Fuck you, I got it for my graduation.”
“Right. Do you know, the entire time we hung out, all you did was complain about not having enough money? Do you remember that date we had back in July? After the Montauk party?”
She couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses. He stepped back and raised both hands in a what the hell gesture. “Am I supposed to remember every stupid date we had? Please, I’d like to forget I ever asked you out.”
“When you cleaned out your mother’s storage unit,” she said. “That was me in the passenger seat, remember?”
“So?” Had he forgotten, or he just didn’t care?
“Lark told me that you discovered a painting. A major find, she said.”
“Amazing, right?”
“Lark said you found the painting in the storage unit. Such a big surprise, she said. For me, too. I remember you throwing everything out.”
“Not…” She sensed him searching, his mind adjusting. “She had another unit I didn’t know about. They called me.”
“Same place?”
He nodded and pushed his sunglasses tight against the bridge of his nose.
“Funny,” she said.
“What.”
“That you didn’t know.”
“Not really,” he said, using the bored voice that meant he was about to lie. “My mother was a drunk. She didn’t exactly fill me in on what she was doing.”
“So there were two separate—”
Suddenly he grabbed both her elbows, hard, startling her. He smiled, as though they were playing. A man looked over and he dropped her arms.
“Don’t fuck with me,” he said.
Doe wasn’t afraid. They were right on Newtown Lane. “Remember what happened the last time you grabbed me like that?”
“Yeah. I almost got a scar. So I’m in the mood for payback. Are you hearing me, Dora?”
“I hear you,” Doe said. “Asshole.”
“At least now I know why you were so lousy in bed. A dyke.”
She leaned closer. “I’m the only person who really sees you. So why don’t you back off?”
“You’re out of your league, Beauty,” he said, and moved away with his great assurance, already lost in the happy crowd.