“Hoop’s an idiot,” I say. Nic’s best friend and partner for the summer in the house-painting business, Nat Hooper, can make a disaster of anything, and Nic is far too good-natured to stop him.
I hear the zzzzzzz of the mower starting up again. It takes all my concentration not to look back over my shoulder. Did Vivien see Cass? She must’ve.
“Hey, want to work a clambake with me Friday night?” Vivie asks. “Mom and Al are catering a rehearsal dinner. Ver-ry fahn-cy. It’s on the Hill – okay with that?”
“Absolutely. Nic up for it too?”
“Oh, for sure. We’ve got the bar covered, but low on waiters and servers. Hoop’s not sure he can make it – might have ‘a hot date with a special lady.’ Although I’m thinking the special lady is digitized. D’you know any other guy who’d be willing?”
I can’t help shifting my eyes down the road. Vivien trails my gaze, and then stares back at me with a little crinkle between her eyebrows.
“Have you seen this year’s yard boy?” I ask, wary.
“Yup.” She watches my face. “I gave him the gate code when he drove in to report for duty this morning.”
“You didn’t think to mention it to me? No warning text? Nothing?”
“Oh shit, sorry.” Viv lowers her heels to regain bike balance. “I tried once, but you know how cell reception sucks here.” She sneaks another look over her shoulder. “I should have kept trying.”
I follow her eyes back to the Partridge house, where Cass has dutifully returned to mowing the lawn. Horizontally. Shirt off again, hair gleaming in the sun.
My God.
“What, Gwenners? Thinking of asking Cassidy to be a spare set of hands?” She tips her head at me, eyes twinkling.
“No! What? No! You know my policy. Hands off. Avoid at all cost.”
Vivien snorts. “You sure? Because you’re getting that glazed look that leads to bad judgment, impulsive decision-making, and a walk of shame.”
Even though it’s Vivie, no real criticism there, I can feel my face go red. I look down at the ground, kick aside a pebble. “There were only two actual walks of shame.”
Vivien’s face sobers. She flings her leg over the bike and knocks back the kickstand, moves closer. “Cassidy Somers . . . right here on the island. Just . . . watch your step, Gwenners. Be careful with yourself.” Her fierce expression is so at odds with her sweet face and my childhood nickname that I want to laugh, but there’s a little twist in my stomach too.
We all can’t be Vivie and Nic.
My cousin and my best friend have been an item since we were all five, when I ceremonially performed their wedding service on Sandy Claw Beach. Since we were more familiar with boat launchings than weddings, I bashed them both on the knees with a bottle of apple juice.
How many people, honestly, get the guy they’ve loved all their lives treating them like they’re rare and precious and deserving of adoration? Hardly anyone, right?
Still, there’s a big gap between that and some unseemly scuffling in the sand.
Or a bunk bed.
Or a Bronco.
“Gwen!” Vivie snaps her fingers. “Stay with me, here. Remember your promise. Want your dad to catch you rolling around on the beach again, like with” – she hesitates, lowers her voice – “Alex?”
I cringe, turn my back on the Partridges’ lawn. Then I hold up one hand, resting the other on an imaginary Bible. “I remember. From now on, I will not, no matter how tempted, get even close to a compromising position with someone unless I love them and they love me.”
“And?”
“And unless we’ve passed a lie detector test to prove this,” I finish obediently. “But I have to say, that’s going to be awkward. Carrying around all the equipment, setting it up . . .”
“Just stay out of the sand dunes. And far away from those parties on the Hill,” Vivien says. “When it’s real love, no equipment necessary. You just look in their eyes and it’s all there.”
“Go apply for that job at Hallmark right this instant !” I swat her on the shoulder. She ducks away, kicking the bike back into gear, laughing.
I wouldn’t pass the lie detector test myself if I didn’t say that, oh, I want what Vivien and Nic found without even having to search. I give one last look over my shoulder at the back of Cass’ uptilted head, as Mrs. Partridge once again bellows at him from the porch.
The Ellington house is the last one on the beach – big, turn-of-the-last-century, graceful, stretching along the shore like a contented cat in the sun. It’s got weathered dove-gray shingles and gray-green trim, two turrets, and a porch that sweeps three-quarters around, like the tail of a cat cozying close.
Taken with all that, the carport where Mrs. E.’s Cadillac is parked looks so . . . wrong. There should be a carriage house there, an eager groom in livery waiting to take the reins of your horse.
I walk up the side path to the kitchen door, wondering if this is the correct thing to do. You never know on the island. Half the houses Mom cleans welcome her in the front and offer her a drink, the other half insist she go around back and take off her shoes.
Toeing off my flip-flops, I look down at my feet, wishing for a second I had dainty ones like Viv, or that my nails were decorated with polish and not a Band-Aid from stubbing my toe on the seawall.
Mrs. Ellington’s glossy oak side door is propped open by a worn brick, but the screen door is closed. “Hi . . . ?” I call down the shady hallway. “Um, hello? . . . Mrs. Ellington?”
A television murmurs in the distance. A porcelain clock shaped like a starfish ticks loudly. From where I am I can see the gleam of a silver pitcher on the kitchen table, a tumble of zinnias glowing in it. I put my hand on the screen door, poised to push it open, then hesitate and call out again.
This time, the TV is immediately silenced. Then I hear click/thump, click/thump coming down the hardwood floor of the hallway, and there’s Mrs. Ellington. Her hair’s whiter and she’s holding a cane, one ankle tightly wrapped in an Ace bandage, but she’s still beautifully dressed, pearls on, smile broad.
“Gwen! Your mother says you are Gwen now, not Gwennie. I’m delighted to see you.” Propping her cane against the wall, she pulls open the screen door, then holds out both hands.
I slide my bag o’ lobsters down behind my back and take her hands, her skin loose and fragile as worn silk.
“So you’re to be my babysitter this summer! How it does come round,” Mrs. Ellington continues. “When you were tiny, I used to hold you in my lap on the porch while your mother cleaned. You were a dear little thing . . . those big brown eyes, that cloud of curls.”
There’s a note of melancholy in her voice when she uses the word babysitter that makes me say, “I’m just here to be— ”A friend? A companion? A watchdog? “I’m just here to keep you company.”
Mrs. Ellington squeezes my hands, lets them go. “That’s lovely. I was just getting ready to enjoy a nice cool drink on the porch. How do you like your iced tea?”
I don’t drink tea, so I draw a blank. Luckily Mrs. Ellington steams ahead. “It was quite warm this morning, so I made a big batch of wild cranberry, which should be perfect now. Personally, I adore it cold and very sweet with lemon.”
“That sounds