Postcards From Last Summer (15 page)

D
arcy leaned onto her windowsill and met her reflection in the glass, diamonds winking in the grandiose splayed setting of the Cortez necklace, the gems shimmering like icicles above the swell of her breasts barely covered by a hot pink bikini. If she looked up she could see Andre's naked chest as he leaned over her and tentatively touched her shoulders. Beautiful Andre . . . sexy, gorgeous, and a little too naïve for Darcy's tastes.

But the diamonds were thrilling—stunning—far more exciting than jewelry-store-heir Andre, a Great Egg boy she'd sought out after her life came crashing down at her feet with the end of the Kevin and Darcy Bliss Package. He'd been involved with another Great Egg girl, some simple Sara whom Darcy had seen around the ritzy neighborhood, a high school lacrosse player. Not too hard to bump out of the picture, when Darcy put her mind to it. But it had been a shallow victory, wrangling Andre, bringing him out here to show off like a tournament trophy. She'd even talked him into finagling the necklace, a loaner from one of his father's stores, thinking that possession of the fine gems would bring their relationship to a new height of passion.

But it wasn't working. The only sparkle in this room was coming from the Cortez necklace. The Cortez heir was definitely lacking in glamor, and as Darcy stared out past her own reflection, she had to admit that she wasn't happy.

It just hurt too much, losing Kevin.

After the incident of the rocking van, Darcy had retreated back to Great Egg, where she'd holed up in her bedroom, turned off her cell, and slept for most of the next day. When she woke up, her mother confronted her, annoyed by Kevin's incessant calls and a bit put out by Darcy's sudden appearance. Meaning, having Darcy in the Great Egg house obviously put a damper on Melanie's social schedule, cutting into quality time with the hunky tennis pro. So Darcy used her father's secretary to book a suite at the Plaza in Manhattan, then drove in for a few days of shopping and spa treatments at Elizabeth Arden.

She'd been in the middle of a cucumber facial when the attendant in pink begged her pardon and an irate Lindsay burst into the room, grabbing a towel to mop sweat from her brow. “Christ, what's the deal with these people? I thought this was a spa, not a maximum-security facility.”

Darcy had lifted the pads from her eyes with a gasp. “What are you doing here?”

“You've had me so worried! When your mother told me you left the house I rode in on the Hamptons Jitney to track you down.”

“Linds, that is so sweet.” Darcy nodded at the attendant. “Giselle, can you get my friend Lindsay some water, please, and add her on for my one-thirty pedicure.”

“Of course, Ms. Love.” Giselle poured water from a pitcher floating with ice and lemons, handed it to Lindsay, and exited to make the appointment.

Darcy stretched like a cat under her pink robe. “We'll get our toes done together, then I'll take you to Balthazar's for a late lunch. My treat.”

“Sounds nice, though it's so hot in the city I think my toenails are even sweating. And when you hear what I have to say, you might want to shoot the messenger. Kevin is getting desperate. He's stopped into Old Towne Pizza every day since you left the Hamptons, and he just sits there at the counter with a Coke and begs for my help getting you back. It's embarrassing.”

“Pathetic.” Darcy felt a tremor of relief that he was suffering, too, but there was no forgiving what he'd done, screwing around with her archenemy. In Darcy's book, just fucking around with someone else would have been reason to cut him off flat, but Kevin had taken it all to a new level of treason.

“And then, last night, he actually came to my house and said he wasn't going to leave until I got you on the phone.”

“No! What did you do?” She shot a look at the door. “You didn't! Tell me he's not outside!”

Lindsay lifted a heavy clump of hair from the back of her neck and shook her head. “He would be if I'd let him. The poor guy doesn't know what to do without you. All those years you could barely get him to look at you, and now he seems to think you're his lifeline.”

“How did you get rid of him last night?”

“Mary Grace McCorkle to the rescue. Ma sat him down, served him tea and snack cakes, listened to his tales of woe, and told him how it was when she was a kid. That took, oh, I don't know . . . about ninety hours.”

“Well, thank God for your mother,” Darcy said, wishing for the zillionth time that she had just one parent with a protective bone in their body.

“He's serious about getting you back, Darce. I don't even think he's drinking anymore. I mean, every time I've seen him he's been on soft drinks and tea. Not like the old Kevin at all.”

“Really?” It was all intriguing, but still, there was no going back with him. He'd crushed her dream, smashed it beyond repair. Darcy leaned back on the pillow and replaced the cool cucumber-scented pads on her eyes. “Maybe he can sober up and really feel the pain.”

“Darcy! That's just rotten.”

“And what he did to me . . . with
Elle!
” She ripped off the pads again. “Whom you're still aiding and abetting, I take it?”

Lindsay took a long sip of water, her eyes on Darcy.

“Now that's just twisted. I'd think that now, finally, everyone in the world would recognize how crazy she truly is.”

“You don't know what she's like now, everything she's been through.” Lindsay went to the counter and poured herself some more lemon water. “Besides, I like crazy. I'm friends with you, aren't I?”

Back in her bedroom, Andre leaned up against her, rubbing his hands over her perfect body as if he'd just discovered a hidden art treasure. Could he tell she wasn't into it? She shifted her shoulders and the diamonds shimmered, sunshine on the ocean. So beautiful. All dressed up and nowhere to go. Of course, she had made a point of taking Andre around the Hamptons, to the beach and a few restaurants and clubs, just enough to get the word out that Darcy Love had bounced back, that she was still on top of her game, that neither Kevin nor that bitch Elle could put a ripple in her happiness for long.

But honestly, she didn't feel comfortable taking him everywhere. For a Great Egg boy he was a bit of a bumpkin, and she didn't want too many people to hear him talking about Mommy and Daddy, and his only other girlfriend, Sara, and—God forbid—his dog Florence.

Although hooking up with Andre and the diamond dynasty had helped her save face, it couldn't ease the swelling of her heart, the bad feeling that she'd lost the one thing that mattered so much, the family of two she'd worked so hard to create for herself. Andre was young and a little naive, easily bruised by her sarcasm and so grateful for sex that she could only guess Sara the lacrosse player had kept her legs la-crossed.

Ironic that here she was, decked in diamonds on a beautiful August night in the Hamptons and she couldn't even keep her mind on her new boyfriend, who was trying so hard to please her.

“How's that?” he asked, flicking his fingers lightly over her nipples.

“That's great, but I've got a few other moves you might like to try by the pool.” She turned in his arms, noticing his excitement as she pressed against him. Beautiful Andre, the boy with a diamond factory. So young and . . . unformed. Very nice to look at, but the thought of educating Andre made her feel weary.

He pulled her close, breathing heavy, and squeezed her butt so hard it was painful.

She pushed him away, extracting herself. “Stop doing that.” Was that too cold? She didn't want to hurt his feelings, something she'd never really had to worry about with Kevin. “Let's go down to the hot tub.”

“Do we need clothes, or can we go naked?” he asked.

“Sure.” Whatever. Nessie had seen worse.

And nothing seemed too important these days. Hot-tubbing with Andre today, get a hot-stone massage tomorrow; did any of it really matter?

A
lthough it was late in the season for fireworks, I fully expected a sonic blast once Elle and I stepped inside the Salt Pond Inn. If everything went according to plan, in about five minutes an unsuspecting Darcy would enter the restaurant with Tara, who was bringing her here under the pretense of having lunch. Once Darcy spotted Elle, all bets were off. I sank behind a white linen tablecloth and adjusted the display of fresh lilies on the table so that they'd block the immediate view of Elle from the door.

“Clever,” Elle said. “You don't happen to have a fake mustache in your purse, do you?”

As the Salt Pond was this summer's place to see and be seen, more than half the tables were taken, some with recognizable celebrities. Beside us the anchorwoman for a national morning show shared a table with her two children and husband. They were relatively quiet compared to the polo players at the big round table, lifting pints of ale and shouting rejoinders to each other. The quiet table in the corner was dominated by power brokers of film, two mighty producers, an actor turned director, and an actor who was so recognizable on the streets of New York he didn't even try to hide behind sunglasses or a hat. And those were just the players I recognized.

“Typical Hamptons.” I shook my head. “You go for a low-key lunch and you walk onto the set of
Entertainment Tonight.”

“Beg pardon? I'm sorry, but just seeing foie gras on the menu makes me salivate—even if I am nervous about Darcy. You don't think she'd kill me in front of all these people, do you?”

“Relax. She won't draw blood in front of a celebrity crowd like this.”

Elle's eyes shifted curiously. “Who? Where?”

“You've been out of the country way too long.” Elle had never been a fan of television. One summer we'd had to force her to watch reruns of
St. Elsewhere
to bring her up to speed on “life as we know it,” Darcy had insisted. “But don't sweat it. Nothing a few days in front of the TV with a few Blockbuster moments won't fix.” With the menu to my face, I filled Elle in on who was dining around us. I was whispering about the anchorwoman/supermom when Darcy and Tara appeared at the patio entrance, Darcy chatting up the maître d'.

A small handbag dangled from her arm, catching the sunshine. Shaped like a duck and covered in sequins and bangles, it was a beacon, leading all eyes to Darcy. Dressed in a spaghetti strap sundress in a beachy turquoise and white print that gave her aquamarine eyes a chimerical quality, her hair swept back from her eyes in golden ringlets trickling down her back, Darcy brought to a halt a few conversations in the room. Certainly the polo players were on point.

I felt their eyes follow Darcy to our table, felt their curiosity over the change in her expression from salacious to furious. The maître d' leaned closer, as if trying to apologize, but she shoved him aside and strode over to the table, right up to me.

“Et tu, Brute?” Darcy asked, twisting her spine into a delicate, S-shaped pout.

So Darcy—ever the drama queen.
I tapped the empty chair beside me. “Have a seat, before those producers over there flip you an Oscar.”

“I really shouldn't,” Darcy said with a steamy hiss, but she did.

Since the table was square, that put Darcy directly across from Elle, who tinkled her fingers in a wave and smiled. Elle had moussed and spiked her red curls that morning, and I bit back a smile, thinking she resembled a fairy who'd gotten a wing caught in an electric socket. “Me again. Your worst nightmare.”

“So not funny.” Darcy snapped her head to Tara, then to me. “And I resent the setup. You know I wouldn't have come if I knew . . .
she
would be here.”

“Of course. Hence the subterfuge.” Tara flipped open her napkin and pressed it onto her lap, cool and unruffled. Today her auburn hair was curled under at her shoulders in a simple A-line—exotic and mystical—and I was struck by her versatility, with a range of looks from surfer girl to Cleopatra.

“Well, now that you're here,” Elle began, “let me say how sorry I am for . . .”

Canoodling your boyfriend?
I bit my lip, wondering how Elle would bail.

“. . . everything. I mean, this last thing was just wrong, I know. I guess I was still harboring some ill feelings from years ago. My bad.” She shrugged, as if years of resentment and anger could roll right off her narrow shoulders like springs over the rocks of a waterfall.

This is going better than expected,
I thought.

Darcy held up one hand, a wall of cotton candy pink nails blocking off Elle. “Apology not accepted.”

“Okay, then,” I sighed. “I knew it couldn't be that easy. Guess we need to transfer from the express train to the local.”

“But the last thing we want is to dredge up negative issues from the past,” Tara said. “Lindsay and I are here because we love you guys and want this feud to end. We've been friends too long—all those years, digging for sand crabs and pouring cold water down each other's backs. You can't tell me you're going to let that all go over a guy.”

“He wasn't just a guy to me,” Darcy snapped, “and you all know that.”

“We do,” Tara said, “but we also realize that Kevin has a drinking problem, Darce. He's headed down a scary road, and I'm not sure you want to go there.”

Darcy shook her head. “That's got nothing to do with this.”

“He's got to be responsible for his behavior,” I said. “Okay, Elle was wrong to go for it, but if she didn't come along, another girl would have been right behind her.”

Elle snagged a carrot from a plate of crudités on the table. “What they're saying is, be pissed at me, but don't blame me for the breakup with your boyfriend.” She bit into the carrot with a cracking sound.

“Exactly,” I said. “That's called transference.”

“Let's leave the technical terms to the experts,” Darcy said. Her piercing blue eyes shot through Elle, then she turned her head. “I've managed to avoid you the past few weeks, and I'm very comfortable with that situation.”

“But we're not,” Tara said. “We're all friends, and Lindsay and I aren't comfortable splitting our time between two factions, navigating a civil war. Let's get to the bottom of this and move on.”

Darcy folded her arms. “Good luck with that.”

“I don't think we need to dig too much,” I said. “It doesn't take a shrink to figure out that you two compete because you're so much alike. Fucked-up families, the only-child thing, feelings of abandonment—”

“That's pop psychology bullshit, and I
hate
it when you try to psychoanalyze me. Like it's all so easy. Like I'm as transparent as a Twinkie wrapper!” Darcy threw down her napkin and grabbed her adorable duck-shaped handbag from the table. “Forget about the psych major, Lindsay; you're wasting your time.”

Stung, I dug my fingers into the straw seat of my chair. Damn, I was only trying to help. I tried to recover and respond, but Darcy was already gone from the table, a graceful exit that attracted its share of attention, especially from the polo players, who were in the midst of good-byes. One of them cut off his conversation and made a beeline after Darcy, following her like a circus clown.

“Where's she going—the ladies' room?” Tara asked.

I bit my lip. “That looks like more than a potty break. I'd say she's outta here.”

“But
I
drove,” Tara said. “How's she getting home?”

The Salt Pond Inn was half a mile off the highway, at the end of a gravel road that wound through dunes. Not a lot of buses or cabs coming this way.

Elle tore off a piece of foccaccia. “Well, I'd say that went well. She went from hating me to hating all three of us.”

“You'd better go after her,” Tara said.

But I was already on my feet, weaving through tables, past the concerned waiter to the patio exit. The polo players stood in a half circle, saying last good-byes, but otherwise the parking lot was empty. I cut around a tall, squat Land Rover and scanned the road as it turned past a cluster of scrubby pines. There was Darcy, her heels wobbling over the gravel, her head level and shoulders back like a runway model.

It was going to be a long walk back to Southampton.

“Looks like your friend forgot her walking togs, eh?” said one of the polo players, a graying man with laughing eyes.

I nodded as he climbed into the Land Rover. Darcy would be fine. She'd find a ride. Probably from some billionaire who'd let her keep the car. It was just Darcy's karma to be rich and unhappy.

Everyone has a different cross to bear,
Ma always said. And Mary Grace McCorkle was usually on the nose about human nature.

I had been around Darcy long enough to have more than an inkling of the torment that tugged at her soul. Issues of abandonment.

Which was why I had expected Darcy to come around and forgive Elle. “Do you know her parents ditched her in Connecticut?” I had told Darcy a few days before the lunch. “It's not like she just got bored and hopped on the Concorde to New York. The DuBoises made her leave London because they just couldn't squeeze her into their lives anymore.”

Darcy had reacted with silence.

That was when I knew I'd hooked Darcy, caught her on a barb of compassion.

I knew that Darcy fought with her own demons on the issue of abandoment, always getting sucked in when her parents would appear to want time with her . . . a country club luncheon with her mother or a company Christmas party with her dad. Darcy complained about her parents and appeared to have dismissed any emotional connection with them, but I had seen her drop plans at a moment's notice to be with them. Only to realize later that her presence was all for show—the trophy daughter, the innocent, youthful beauty who would lend an air of “family” legitimacy. When we were little kids I had envied Darcy, watching longingly as her parents bought her anything she wanted: designer jeans and outrageously priced swimsuits, pagers and cell phones, expensive jewelry from the elegant shops on Main Street. But over the years, as Darcy bargained to spend nearly every night at my house because she couldn't stand the roaring quiet of her distant parents, I began to understand. Darcy's parents were long gone, and though they'd left the checkbook behind, it wasn't enough to keep a girl going. Darcy needed love, just like the rest of the human race.

The other day when I explained the crux of Elle's recent dilemma, that Elle had been sent back to the States because there wasn't room for Elle and her father's girlfriend in the London flat—or even, apparently, in the entire city of London, since the DuBoises could have rented a second flat—something clicked in Darcy. Her anger for Elle lost its edge, her complaints fading out like a movie soundtrack. And though Darcy had retorted with an obnoxious, “Why are you telling me this? You know I don't care,” I knew it was a big lie. I also knew when to press my point and when to shut up and let a message resonate.

Here in the sunlight, I felt the top of my head baking in the sun. Shielding my eyes, I watched as Darcy disappeared in a dip in the road.

Let her go . . . let her walk home.
Maybe it would teach her to appreciate her friends.

I turned to go back out to the patio, but my mother's voice niggled at my mind.

Goddamn that voice.

By the time I reached Darcy, her newly pedicured feet were gritty with sand. “You know,” I called, negotiating a pile of loose gravel, “I don't usually like to work out right before I eat.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my culotte shorts, a flattering, loose cut in navy with khaki leaves.

Darcy let out a snort, then turned back. “Why do you always have to be the fucking United Nations?”

“You guys always do that to me. What else can I do when I'm friends with China and the Soviet Union?” I took a breath and pulled the khaki linen blouse away from my waist. “Look at me. My hair is melting and my pits are soaked.”

Fists on her hips, Darcy cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, and you're one of the best goddamned sights I've ever seen.”

Her gush of sincerity took me by surprise. This was the girl who'd just told me to give up dreams of being a psych expert? “So . . . are you coming back? I'd hate to have to fall to my knees and beg. This gravel looks sharp.”

“Honestly? I don't know if I can forgive her. Or him. I don't know what to do.”

“Take it one step at a time,” I said. “Start by having lunch with her. Work your way up to going steady.”

There was a new edge to Darcy, the wariness of frightened prey ready to bolt.

“Hey, it's been a summer of mistakes, for all of us,” I added. “And you've been there, too. You know the power of forgiveness, Darce. Can't you try?”

“Okay, I'll do it.” She threw her hands up in surrender and started marching back toward the restaurant. “But only for you.”

I fell into step beside her, wanting to complain about the heat and the sandy road and the fact that I always had to play the mediator. But I sensed that it wouldn't take much to make Darcy flee again, so I gritted my teeth and plodded on.

By the time we returned to the table on the shady patio, Darcy had regained her old composure, cool as a summer breeze. She sat down beside Elle, propped her sequined purse on the table, and leaned into Elle's personal space. “I'll be civil. But you can't make me like you.”