“That’s exactly what I think. She reads too much, just like Jane.”

“Reading’s not a bad thing,” Guy said.

“Of course not, per se, but really there is so much to do in the world.” She sat up and lifted her chin. “Of course, I like to keep up with politics and the like.”

“I should loan you my new Foreign Affairs,” Guy said. “There’s a good article in it about Rwanda, ten years later.”

“Ten years later than what?” Miranda asked.

Guy poked at the inside of his cheek with his tongue and I poured him another cup of coffee.

“Cream?” I asked.

“Black,” he said.

We had magazines fanned out on the coffee table, and I wished, for a moment, that I had scooped them up and put them away. Town & Country. Martha Stewart Living. People. Vanity Fair. But the worst one was the National Enquirer, Miranda’s guilty secret, but it must not have been too secret, nor must she have felt too guilty, because there it was, sitting right on top of the pile.

Those were the magazines. This was my family. We were who we were. If Guy didn’t like it, he could leave. In his Brooks Brothers sweater with his three-hundred-dollar sunglasses hanging around his neck, he didn’t look like he spent too much time worried about Rwanda either.

“Jane’s not coming to the party tonight,” Miranda said.

“Really, why not?”

“Previous engagement,” I said.

“Is it a man?” Guy teased. He looked at me and his smile was mischievous.

“Are you kidding,” Miranda said. “I can’t think of the last time Jane had a date. She’s having dinner with the baker.”

Guy held his coffee with both hands and took a sip. He stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles. Though the rest of him was still, his feet moved in small circles. Priscilla had once told me that moving your feet like that was just like wringing your hands. It had been a habit of mine, but I’d broken it.

Dolores came in. She had been to the hairdresser and her hair was back to its unnatural blond. She had bought, as I’d predicted, just the right sundresses and cover-ups to camouflage her thickening thighs.

“Hello, dear,” Teddy said. Guy looked at him. He was obviously trying to gauge where Dolores fit into this picture.

“So this must be Winnie,” Guy said. He knew this wasn’t Winnie. He’d met Winnie, however briefly, on the mountain.

“No, no. This is our friend Dolores Mudd,” Teddy said.

I noticed that he hadn’t called her Miranda’s friend.

Dolores held out her hand in a limp way, as if waiting to have it kissed.

Miranda introduced Guy. I was waiting for Dolores to pull out something as antiquated as “charmed,” and I’m sure she would have if she thought she could have gotten away with it, but Guy exuded an intelligence that didn’t sanction Dolores’s synthetic charm.

“Nice to meet you, Guy,” she said. She looked at the coffee tray. “Should I make fresh coffee?”

“Dolores, you are so thoughtful. What would we do without you?” Teddy said.

“I just made it,” I said.

Teddy leaned over and poured coffee for Dolores. He poured the milk in, then handed it to her.

“Thank you, Teddy,” Dolores said. She sat in the chair closest to his. She was careful to pull the short sarong she was wearing as a skirt into a flattering position.

“So are you all going to the beach today?” Guy asked. “My suit is in the car.”

“Jane never comes with us,” Miranda said.

Guy turned so his knees were facing me.

“Won’t you come today?” he asked.

I didn’t like going to the beach with a crowd. I had a quiet, hidden place where I went alone with my books, my journal, and a thermos of iced tea.

“She’s such a spoilsport,” Miranda said.

“I’m not as bad as all that,” I said.

“So you’ll come?” Guy asked.


Bethany packed a picnic, and I joined the family, the chairs, the coolers, the beach umbrellas, the towels, and the multiple tubes of sunscreen.

As we walked down the beach to find a spot, Miranda and Teddy waved to people, pausing here and there to chat. Miranda stopped to talk to a stocky man in a Speedo. It’s debatable whether American men should ever be allowed to wear Speedos in public, but I don’t think there’s any debate as to whether fat men should wear them, and this was a fat man.

“That’s Joe Tonic. He has a Learjet,” Miranda said when she rejoined us. My father and Guy looked over at Joe Tonic. That explained a lot. A jet could make up for any number of unsightly bulges.

When we were finally settled on the beach, we took up considerable space. Between us, we had four blankets, three beach umbrellas, five chairs, and two coolers.

I settled in a low chair on the edge of our encampment. I was wearing a new bathing suit, a blue one-piece, and since I didn’t often wear a bathing suit in public, I kept my T-shirt on over it. I pulled a book from my bag and propped it on my knees. Guy sat down beside me. He wasn’t wearing a Speedo, though he might easily have gotten away with one. The sun beat down hard and the morning breeze disappeared with the afternoon.

“I’m going to fry,” Miranda said. She slathered herself with sunscreen, then took an enormous black hat from her bag. The hat shaded her diamond necklace, but her tennis bracelets sparkled in the sun.

Dolores took a thermos from the picnic basket.

“Lemonade, anyone?”

“Dolores is so thoughtful,” Teddy said. “Don’t you think she’s thoughtful, Guy?”

“Very,” Guy said.

Miranda reached out a languid hand and Dolores deposited a plastic cup into it. Miranda took a sip, then spit it into the sand.

“This is nonalcoholic,” she complained.

Dolores looked at my father and he nodded.

“We have some vodka,” Dolores said. She took out a plastic bottle.

“Well, give it here. What are you waiting for?”

“Lemonade, Jane?” Dolores was playing the lady of the house. Guy looked at her. He reached over, took a cup, and handed it to me. When his hand touched mine, his fingers lingered. I hadn’t received this kind of attention in some time and couldn’t help but find it titillating.

“What are you reading?” Guy asked.

I wasn’t reading anything because, though that had been my intention, Guy was sitting too close and talking too much.

“Jane is antisocial,” Miranda said before I had a chance to respond.

“Are you, Jane?” Guy asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“So what are you reading?” His two-toned eyes hooked mine and for a minute I forgot what I was reading.

“Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen. Every summer, the same damned thing,” Miranda said.

“She’s right,” I said. “Every summer I read a book by Jane Austen.”

“Even if she’s read it before. Can you imagine,” Miranda said. “You could use a little variety, Jane.”

“I don’t want variety,” I said.

“That’s news,” Miranda said.

“What do you want, Jane?” Guy asked.

I paused. I didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“Constancy,” I said.

Miranda let out a long groan. “Could you be any more boring?” She pulled the brim of her hat farther down. Dolores offered up a plate of cookies from Isabelle’s. “Not me,” Miranda said. “I’m off sugar this week.”

I took a cookie. Guy retrieved a copy of Newsweek from his backpack. He began to read, but not before asking me to “do” his back with sunscreen.

As I massaged his smooth and muscled back, I waited to feel something. I had done this for Max years ago on Nantasket Beach. Then it had made me feel possessive and feminine. I had none of those feelings now and I couldn’t understand it. There was nothing visibly wrong with Guy. I had been alone for a long time. He seemed to like me. Wasn’t it only natural that I should like him back? What if I had truly gone past the point of no return when it came to love and sex? Maybe I’d lost whatever chance I had at love and my spinsterhood was permanent.

Since this idea horrified me, I layered the sunscreen onto Guy’s back with more enthusiasm. He turned his head toward me and smiled. He had good teeth, so straight and white they didn’t look real.

I finished his back and opened my book. I couldn’t concentrate, not because I was aroused by the nearness of Guy, but because I wasn’t and I was sure I should be. But with all of his overt appeal, he didn’t move me.

There was something about this man that I didn’t trust. How could the same man who wanted Miranda ever want me? No one could change that much.


That night Isabelle and I sat on two Adirondack chairs out on her porch. The island restaurants were getting crowded, so we preferred to sit on her deck and eat homemade spaghetti out of soup bowls.

“I can’t believe you came here instead of to the Buffingtons’. You could come here any time,” Isabelle said.

“It’s our ritual,” I said. “And I’m not missing anything. There’s never been a party I couldn’t live without.”

“What about Guy Callow?” Isabelle asked.

“What about him? Do you know him?”

“A little. I heard you were out with him today,” she said.

“You heard wrong. He came to the beach with us. With the whole family. He just showed up on our doorstep this morning. Do you have spies all over the island?”

“Of course,” she said.

“How well do you know Guy?” I asked.

“I knew him when we were at Wellesley.”

“What was he like?”

“Charming.”

“He’s still charming,” I said. Isabelle slurped her spaghetti, then took a sip of her gin and tonic. The lime floated around the edges. She looked up. “What? Do you know something about Guy?”