The Sunset Sisters: An utterly gripping and emotional page-turner (The Sisterhood Series) Page 16

  “According to Ben it was, and I quote, ‘super awesome’. And he’s one tough customer.” He gives me an easy smile. “Do you babysit a lot?”

  I shake my head. “I do spend an awful lot of time in my head. Daydreaming.” I wonder what Craig would think if he knew about my fairy tales. “It’s a little silly, I know.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re a storyteller.” A pause. “Like your grandmother.”

  Storyteller. The word lingers in my mouth like hard candy. A positive spin on my escapist tendencies. Decidedly better than airhead or daydreamer. Which is what I’ve been called all my life. By Sophie, by Patrick. My second-grade teacher’s name for me was Space Cadet—though I got called a lot worse by my classmates. I don’t like to think about it. It’s been years, but the trauma is still fresh on my mind.

  If I close my eyes, I can hear the snickers, the whispers. The rumors about my mom replicating like cancerous cells through the school’s corridors. It went beyond the fact that my mom was someone’s secret mistress (their words). Sophie was made out to be all sorts of things. A dominatrix. An ex-porn star. A former French prostitute who had moved to America to service an exclusive clientele. It’s a particularly cruel form of bullying, to have classmates speculate—and pass judgment—on your mother’s sexuality. It made socializing difficult for me—I scuttled to the library at lunchtime to avoid sitting by myself and engaged in zero extracurricular activities. I also made it a point to wear dark, bland colors. My favorite outfits—the ones Nana bought for me: colorful, unique, flowy—were buried inside my closet until the following summer. I tried my best not to stand out in any way.

  I used to fantasize about a fresh start. About moving in with Nana, enrolling in a local Montauk school. Sometimes, I’d tell Cassie about these dreams, which made them even more real. As young girls, we’d corresponded through letters even though we only lived a few hours away. We’d talk on the phone, too—but only when it was safe because we never knew who could be listening in. But by the time we were teenagers, we each had our own private email account. We wrote each other every day. A journal of sorts. I remember one thread that must’ve lasted months, maybe even a year, where we wrote up an alternative life for the two of us. A life where we could be together every single day. In Montauk. With Nana. In our imaginations, it was summer all year round.

  There is so much about Cassie that I miss, but this is what I miss most of all: we used to tell each other everything. Nothing was taboo between us. Nothing was kept a secret. This was particularly relieving for me since I’d been weighed down by secrecy since I could remember. But with Cassie there was none of that. She was always there for me. She made me a priority in her life. There was even the time when she did the unthinkable: came to my home, Sophie’s home. Forbidden territory.

  We were sixteen and I was heartbroken. Aaron, my crush at the time, had invited me to a dance. My first dance! I was over the moon, thrilled. But my happiness was short-lived. As soon as the evening began, Aaron revealed the reason why he’d invited me: it was because he thought I would, in his words, put out. All because of the rumors about my mom. When I rebuffed his advances (aggressive advances, I should add), he spat on my face. This is not an expression: the douchebag forcibly ejected saliva from this throat and launched it on my mouth. I was horrified. If he wanted to make me feel like trash (he probably did), he’d succeeded. I called Cassie in tears. She took a cab all the way from her home across the city. It was her first time in my apartment. Her only time. I cried on her shoulder for hours. I asked her to spend the weekend with me. Miraculously, she said yes.

  “Do you have to get that?” Craig’s voice brings me back to the present.

  For a moment, I think he’s talking to someone else. I look behind me—maybe Kiki had a bad dream and came down to find her dad. But then I notice him glancing at my phone. Sophie’s name is blinking on the screen. Leave it to my mother to interrupt such a peaceful evening.

  I ignore her call. From the corner of my eye, I can see Craig raise an eyebrow.

  I wonder if he knows who Sophie is. Probably not. What I said to Cassie before had been true: Nana liked to pretend that Sophie didn’t exist. I don’t think she ever knew how much that hurt me.

  “Another one?”

  I look at the green bottle, surprised to see it empty. “Why not?” A smile. It’s liberating to be able to drink as many beers as I want.

  Once he’s inside, I make the mistake of checking my phone. One missed call and two texts from Sophie.

  Please don’t tell me you’re ignoring your own mother.

  And:

  I don’t understand why this is a problem. You don’t owe her anything.

  I press my lips together, swallowing the absurdity of her claim. Coming from Sophie, it’s particularly egregious. I owe Cassie everything. Sophie knows this—she knows the full story, knows what I did.

  She knows I killed Katherine.

  Twenty-Five

  Cassie

  Friday, July 6th

  The room at the Surfside Inn is pretty, in a storybook sort of way: pale yellow walls, white wicker chair with a baby blue cushion, floral bedspread. The view is spectacular—the Atlantic Ocean in all of its unobstructed glory. But it’s all lost on me. Daniel and I have spent an hour under the sheets making love. I’m not with him because of the sex. I know this because I fell in love with him before we even kissed. But it is amazing, the way our bodies react to one another; a skin-on-skin reaction that is intense, animalistic.

  We order room service: lobsters, fresh shrimp, corn on the cob. We tell ourselves that it’s because we don’t want to get out of bed, but really, it’s because we can’t risk being seen. Even in disguise—big hair, sunglasses, oversized hat—I could still be recognized. My paranoia has spiked since learning that Julie knows about us.

  I wait until we’re done eating to tell him about seeing my father.

  “Do you think he knows, too?” he asks.

  I nod, feeling the tears pool in my eyes. My relationship with Daniel is nothing like the one my father had with Sophie. Daniel’s marriage has been over for a very long time. Tatiana knows about me. She doesn’t care about Daniel—she didn’t bother showing up at the hospital after he thought he had a heart attack. But my father won’t see it that way. He’ll see me as a hypocrite.

  “I’ve been worried about, I don’t know, karma,” I say.

  Daniel lifts his eyebrows. “My skeptical girlfriend believing in karma?”

  “It’s this stupid, wonderful place,” I say. “Nana used to believe in that sort of thing.”

  It was such a big part of her life, too. Nana used to say that everything happened for a reason. She was never religious, but she was spiritual. She thought life was governed by forces beyond our control. By the poetry and rhythm of the unseen. She claimed she could sense people’s energies, see their auras. Julie was blue. I was purple.

  Purple is close to black. That’s always concerned me.

  “I asked you to leave her,” I say. “And now all these bad things are happening.”

  “You’re not hurting her,” he says. “She doesn’t love me.”

  “I don’t disagree, but…if she doesn’t love you, why does she hold on to you?”

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  I know a lot about Daniel’s marriage to Tatiana—more than I’d like to. Which is why not understanding her motivations is so strange to me. I know women who stay in loveless marriages for all sorts of reasons. A lack of financial independence. Deep-seated insecurities brought on by a society that equates marriage with accomplishment. Concern for their kids. But with Tatiana, something has always felt off. Like a piece of the puzzle is missing.

  “I do think it was karma that brought us together,” Daniel says. “Good karma. We’ve both been through our fair share of heartbreak. We deserve this.”

  Deserve. It’s such a narcissistic concept. The idea that individuals—specks of dust in an infinite universe—are imp
ortant enough to be rewarded or punished based on our actions. Life is chaos, and yet we want to believe that it also has meaning, balance. Even without a shred of scientific evidence to support that notion. I’m no exception. I claim to be rational, evidence-based. And yet, here I am, indulging in thoughts about whether all that’s happening to me—seeing my father, learning that Julie knows my secret, losing my grandmother—is karmic retribution for falling in love with a married man.

  “I love you.” Daniel gives me a peck on the lips. He tastes like lemon butter.

  I look out the panoramic windows. The sky is lit by the soft glow of twilight.

  “Will you come to Nana’s with me?” I say. If my father is there, then I want Daniel by my side. Even if he does know about our affair. Everything is better with Daniel.

  “I’ll go anywhere with you.”

  When we arrive, the house is empty. I walk over to the refrigerator, expecting to find a note from Julie. It’s where Nana left us messages as children. But I don’t see one.

  “It’s still early,” Daniel says to me.

  “It’s nine-thirty.” A pause. “What if something’s happened to her?”

  He suppresses a smile.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I say. “I’m not worried about her.” I’m really not.

  “You said she was at the neighbor’s?”

  “Allegedly.” It could all be a cover story to secretly meet with our father.

  “We could stop by to check on her.”

  It’s not a bad idea, except I don’t want Julie to know I’m at all concerned about her whereabouts. Maybe we could walk by Craig’s house, as though we’re taking a late-night stroll on the beach. I’m about to suggest this when I hear a sound coming from the porch.

  Julie is standing in the doorway, looking like something out of a luxurious summer catalog: ruffled white dress on olive skin, cascading hair, barefoot, not a bead of sweat on her forehead despite the heat.

  “Oh,” she says, surprised to see us. Her eyes dart from Daniel to me.

  My eyes fly to her hands. No sunflowers.

  “I didn’t know you had company,” she says to me. There’s a hint of a smile on her lips. Not a trace of the anger she’d shown hours before. Just the opposite—she’s glowing.

  “We were wondering where you were,” Daniel says.

  I resist the urge to kick him.

  “I’m Julie.” I watch her saunter over, extend her hand, and tilt her face in that annoying way she does when she’s introducing herself to a man. Helen of Troy could learn a thing or two from Julie.

  “Daniel.” He shakes her hand. Mercifully, he doesn’t look the least bit intoxicated by my siren of a sister. He moves closer to me and wraps his arm around my waist. “Cassie’s boyfriend.”

  Her eyes flick to his left hand. A relief: Daniel doesn’t wear a wedding ring.

  “It’s nice to meet you.” A beat. “Well, I’m exhausted.” She throws her hands up in the air, wiping her brow theatrically. “Big day. Craig’s kids are wonderful, but they’re a handful.”

  “Were you at his place this whole time?” I narrow my eyes at her. I remember Craig saying he’d be home for dinner. And she doesn’t look exhausted. She looks happy and carefree.

  She nods, smiling. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

  I watch her as she sashays to the staircase, humming up the steps. The humming grows into a whistle. She even sings a little. When she’s out of sight, I hold a finger to my lips. I wait until I hear the familiar click of the door closing upstairs. As little girls, Julie and I would listen in when Nana was on the phone with our father. Sound carries in this house.

  “She seems nice,” Daniel says quietly.

  Normally this kind of remark would be vexing. Of course she seems nice. Beautiful people-pleasers always do. But I can’t focus on that, not now.

  Now, I’m thinking of the tune she was whistling as she went up the stairs. Cat Steven’s ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’.

  Our father’s favorite song.

  Twenty-Six

  Julie

  Tuesday, July 17th

  Rainy days are when I miss Nana the most. She used to say it symbolized renewal, rebirth. It was also when she’d bring out the Ouija board.

  “It sounds crazy, but that thing moved,” I say, staring at the cloudy expanse. “That house was a magnet for spirits.”

  “Maybe it still is,” Craig says.

  “With Nana gone? I doubt it.”

  He and I are on his porch—our twelfth evening together, not counting the barbeque that we went to in honor of the Fourth. Once Kiki and Ben are sound asleep, we sneak outside to partake in beers and conversation. Craig doesn’t even invite me to stay anymore. It’s understood that I will. It feels familiar now, a ritual.

  I know how dangerous this is. Nothing has happened: Craig has been a perfect gentleman, but the current that runs between us is strong, enough that I feel like I might spontaneously combust. In my mind, I’ve been unfaithful. I fantasize about running my hand through his hair, biting his lower lip, feeling his breath on my neck.

  Neither of us have brought up Patrick—and I know Craig knows about him. Nana has filled him in on every detail of my life. Nana couldn’t stand Patrick. She is probably looking down on me now, unsurprised to see him refusing to answer my calls. About a week ago, after I called him four times in a row, he sent me a two-line message: Don’t bother calling me unless it’s to say you’re coming back home. You need to understand that actions have consequences. It hadn’t hurt me as much as I expected it to. Being here has fortified me. It’s reminded me that there’s more to me than my marriage, that my life isn’t an empty shell—or, at least, that it doesn’t have to be. Maybe I don’t have to be married. Maybe I don’t have to live by Patrick’s suffocating rules. Maybe I can have a baby on my own.

  Because that’s another thing that’s been fortified: my resolve to have a child.

  Being around Kiki and Ben has further confirmed that there is nothing I want more in this world than to hold my own little one in my arms, to watch her grow and play and learn. I want it all, not just the good. I want sleepless nights and picky eating and mysteriously sticky hands. I want to read the same story on a loop. I want to answer questions for which answers are either impossible or inappropriate. I want to deal with tantrums: both of the toddler and of the teenage varieties. I want to be the mother I never had. And if I stay with Patrick, that will never happen.

  Lately, I’ve been thinking of staying in Montauk. I could get pregnant on my own, raise a baby in Nana’s house. A ludicrous thought—how would I support myself?—but one I entertain, nonetheless.

  I’m happier here. I’ve always been happier here.

  And not just because I can eat junk food and drink beer and whistle.

  “You remind me of her,” Craig says.

  “It’s the eyes.”

  “No, it’s more than that. It’s not something physical. It’s how you see the world.”

  “You’ve noticed this after less than two weeks?” I feel tears welling up.

  “She’d say it, too. How alike you two were.” He glances over at me. “Sorry, should I not talk about her?”

  “Please do,” I say, my voice soft. “I like it. I miss her.”

  I don’t add that my tears aren’t just because I miss Nana. It’s been difficult, my time at the house. Patrick has frozen me out. Cassie has perfected the art of ignoring me. Dad won’t return my calls. If it weren’t for Craig—and Kiki and Ben—I’d be miserable.

  “I like to think she’s looking down on us,” I say.

  “If she is, she’s really happy you’re here.” A pause. “You and Cassie.”

  I pull up my feet and hug my legs. “Even though her plan isn’t working?”

  “It’ll get better.”

  “I don’t know about that.” In eleven days, we’ll both be free to leave the island. I should probably come to terms with the fact that we aren’t go
ing to find our way back to each other. It’s become clear to me that Nana has underestimated Cassie’s stubbornness. She should’ve made us stay here for at least two months.

  “Trust me. Bertie’s plan is going to work.” There’s a confident edge to his voice.

  “Do you know something I don’t?” I turn my body to face his. He’s only a few inches away from me, on his own chair. But I wish he were closer. I wish his arms were around me.

  He shrugs. His non-answer should annoy me, but it doesn’t. He’s so handsome. So kind.

  “Did you find it strange that she didn’t want a funeral?” he asks.

  “I thought it was strange she didn’t want a wake. Or a drum circle. She used to say she wanted people to come together to celebrate her death.”

  “Sounds like Bertie.” He chuckles softly.

  “Maybe we should do that. Invite her friends and have a ceremony at the beach. Right here.” I picture gathering her friends together at night surrounded by tiki torches and flute music. Kiki and Ben could read something. Nana would like that. Then, a thought occurs to me. One I’ve been curious about for a while now. “Can I ask how you bought this house?”

  “It belonged to Ann’s parents,” he says. “We moved after they passed. I’d just lost my job at the time and it felt right. We both wanted a simpler life. But then she got sick…”

  I want to ask more—what did he do before? How could they afford the property taxes? Does he miss his wife?—but don’t. Craig is a private person. Our time together has taught me that. One question at a time.

  “Are you happy you did?” I ask.

  “Absolutely,” Craig says. “Poughkeepsie was fine. That’s where we lived before. It’s where I’m from. But this is my home.”

  “Nana said you fit right in.”

  He gives me a winning smile. “Do you have plans for tomorrow?”