Guests started to appear on the patio. The women wore sleeveless dresses and shawls that cradled their bare shoulders. The men wore striped button-downs tucked into stone-colored slacks. Rory sent the last candle floating across the surface of the pool and saw Mrs. Rule emerge from the house in a shimmery, beaded off-white dress. She looked like she wanted every pair of eyes on her, so Rory turned away toward the water. The ocean looked as bright and silvery as that night two weeks ago. Any moment he would be here. And if she was going to do this right, she would need to have Isabel’s permission. It was time to tell her.
Isabel ambled back over to her from the bar, sipping a glass of what looked like ice water. Or at least Rory hoped it was.
“One of those bartenders is supercute,” Isabel said. “Though he might be a little old for you.”
“So there’s something that I really need to tell you,” Rory said. “Something that’s been sort of on my mind.”
From behind her, Rory could hear the noise of the party suddenly soar upward and get louder.
Isabel turned around. “Oh, look. My dad’s here.”
Rory looked over and saw the lean, tall figure of Mr. Rule standing outside the sliding glass doors, his arms raised in a gesture of surprise and defeat.
“At least he doesn’t look too pissed off,” Isabel said.
Rory watched Mr. Rule greet his guests with hugs and handshakes, and waited for Connor to walk out behind him. And then someone who matched his tall, slim build walked out of the sliding glass doors and down the steps. Connor looked incredibly handsome in a dark sports jacket and blue button-down. She started to walk toward him, drawn toward him like a magnet, and then saw someone tagging along behind him. Someone also tall and slim, but with long, dark hair. Someone who was wearing a dress.
“Ugh, Julia,” Isabel groaned, as if Rory knew exactly who this was. “Unbelievable. I guess they got back together.”
“Back together?” Rory asked.
Rory watched Connor turn around and extend a hand to the girl behind him, and she accepted it gracefully, as if they’d been together a lifetime.
“Yeah, that’s his ex-girlfriend,” said Isabel. “He dumped her last year. She was so not good to him. I can’t believe he got back together with her. What’s he thinking?”
Rory watched them walking hand in hand right toward them. So he was trying to make her jealous. It was working. “I guess we should say hi,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess,” Isabel said, sounding extremely annoyed. “She’s kind of insufferable. Just warning you.”
Rory let Isabel take the lead as they approached. She kept her eyes on Julia, not just because she was excruciatingly pretty, with doll-like dark eyes, poker-straight brown hair, and the longest neck she’d ever seen, but because she couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Connor. Why are you even surprised? she thought. Did you think that he was going to wait around for you to make up your mind?
“Hey!” Isabel said as she kissed Julia on the cheek. “Long time no see. I didn’t know you’d be coming to this.”
“Neither did I,” Julia cried, overjoyed. “It just sort of happened!”
“Awesome,” Isabel murmured.
Julia looked up at Connor adoringly. “We ran into each other a few days ago at this party, and I told him how much I missed him, and then he said how much he missed me”—Rory watched her nuzzle her cheek against his arm—“and then we went to see the Gotye show, and now we’re back together. And he doesn’t even like Gotye. I mean, isn’t that cute?”
“Yeah, it’s adorable,” Isabel said.
Connor glanced at Rory. He appeared to have lost the ability to talk.
“Well, that’s great,” Isabel said, resisting a smirk. “This is Rory, by the way.”
“Hi!” Julia chirped, taking Rory’s hand. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” Rory said.
“Rory is staying with us for the summer,” Connor finally said.
“Oh, really? Are you guys friends?” Julia asked, looking at her and Isabel.
“No, I’m the housekeeper’s niece,” Rory said.
“Oh!” Julia chirped again, a little too loudly. “That’s great!”
“Yeah, it’s… great.” With a look at Connor that she hoped was equal parts reproachful and shaming, she said, “I’m going to get a soda. Excuse me.”
On her way to the bar, she reminded herself to calm down. Connor hadn’t done anything wrong. She was the one who had pushed him away and pretended to be cool. She almost deserved this in a way. But to get back together with an ex-girlfriend and then bring her to the house for a family party seemed a wee bit vindictive.
At the bar, she ordered a ginger ale and tried to think of somewhere to hide.
The bartender handed her the fizzing glass. “Here you go,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. She stayed with her back to the party, unable to turn around, until she sensed a familiar presence standing next to her.
“Hey,” he said.
She turned to see Connor beside her, pretending to watch the crowd.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“I’m fine.” She looked up at Connor as she sipped her drink. “How was New York?”
“Good,” he said. “You know. It was New York.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“How were things here? Did I miss anything?”
“Nope, not really.” She took another sip. She really wanted him to go away.
“So the deal with Julia is that we went out for almost a year, and we sort of ran into each other—”
“I already heard the story,” she said, stepping away from him. “And you don’t owe me an explanation.”
At last he looked her in the eye. “Rory. Can we just talk about this?”
“What’s there to talk about? We’re not together. You can be with whomever you want.”
Just then she felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and when she saw that it was Bianca, she was actually relieved.
“We need you to move the presents people have brought into the laundry room,” Bianca ordered. “Mrs. Rule doesn’t like how messy they look in the foyer.”
“Fine.”
“Now,” Bianca stressed before moving away into the party.
Rory watched her go, wondering if she should just follow her and end this painfully awkward conversation with him once and for all.
“Rory, you were the one who said you just wanted to be friends—”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “Have a good time.”
He looked wounded, but she didn’t let that stop her from walking away from him. At least she still had her pride. Isabel would have been proud of her.
“So anyway, that’s pretty much why I’m going to pledge Delta Delta Delta,” Julia said, wrapping up her ten-minute monologue on the intricacies of rushing at Duke. “I think it’s probably the best fit.”
Isabel kept her eyes on the living room sliding door. It was nine o’clock. Mike still wasn’t here.
“Do you think you’re gonna rush when you go to college?” Julia asked.
Isabel still kept her eyes on the door, lost in thought.
“Isabel? Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, finally hearing Julia’s question. “Um, would you excuse me?”
Isabel stepped past her, slipping through the crowd on the patio with a minimum of waves and hellos. Inside the house, she went to the front stairs, in case Mike might be in the foyer, but the only people she saw were Mr. and Mrs. Kendall, ambling around and muttering something gossipy about the Rules’ decorating taste.
She took the stairs two at a time, gripping the banister, dread starting to build in her gut. She ran down the hall. When she walked into her room, her phone was right where she’d left it, faceup on her bed. And a text was on the screen.
Hey Beautiful. Can’t make it tonight but let’s def hang this week.
She read it over. And over. Of course,
it could have meant any number of things—he’d gotten sick, there was a family emergency, he’d had a fight with one of his roommates. But deep inside, she knew that none of these were probably true. He was blowing her off.
She put down the phone. It was just a dumb party, she told herself. It really didn’t matter whether he was here. And maybe it was just as well that she didn’t bring him into the arena of crazy that was her family.
But just a few hours ago he’d said that he loved her. And if you loved someone, then you did things for that person if you knew they were important. Didn’t you?
She closed the bedroom door and lay down on her bed. She tried to tell herself that everything was still okay, that this didn’t signal anything. But there was that feeling once again, of something missing. And maybe something had been, from the very beginning.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Okay, the first thing to know is that you always get on a horse from the left,” Isabel said, leading the majestic white mare out of the stable. “Then you just put your boot in the left stirrup, grab the saddle, and pull yourself up. It’s pretty easy. Like this.”
Rory watched Isabel demonstrate by placing her toe in the stirrup and stepping up gracefully right into the saddle. Mascara, the horse, didn’t blink.
“See?” Isabel said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
Rory sighed. She couldn’t believe she’d let Isabel talk her into a semiprivate riding lesson at Two Trees, but after four days of watching Connor and Julia hanging out at home in cuddly bliss, she’d decided she needed to escape. Everywhere she went, it seemed, there was Julia: sunning herself on the patio, watching TV in the library, playing tennis with Steve on the court. She’d made herself instantly at home overnight, and Mrs. Rule appeared to be thrilled. Just that morning at the breakfast table, while Rory delivered the mail, she’d overheard Mrs. Rule ask Julia if she wanted to go with the family to Nick and Toni’s the following night.
“Of course!” Julia said in her Chipmunks-on-helium voice. “I love it there!”
Connor still hadn’t been able to look Rory in the eye since the party. The few times she’d seen him in the kitchen, he’d given her a brief hello and nothing more. He spent most of the day teaching at the yacht club, coming home only for dinner. At least he and Julia weren’t sharing a room. That would have been the final straw.
“See how easy that is?” Isabel asked, snapping on her chin strap under her helmet.
“No,” Rory said.
“Come on. Don’t be scared. Flame is really sweet.”
They watched as a petite, freckled woman named Felicia led a chestnut-colored horse out into the ring. At the sight of Rory, he flared his nostrils and whinnied. “I think he knows I can’t do this,” she said.
“You’ll be fine,” Isabel said. “Just get on. From the left.”
The instructor held out the stirrup, and Rory placed her toe on the metal.
“Great. Now just swing your right leg over.”
Rory grabbed the saddle to pull herself up and sank right back to the ground.
“Felicia, can you give her a boost?” Isabel asked.
Felicia walked around behind Rory and put her hands on her waist.
“Okay, on the count of three,” Felicia said. “One, two, three…”
Rory grabbed the front of the saddle, stepped up, and with a huge push from Felicia got her other leg up and over. Flame whinnied in protest.
“Great,” Isabel said. “How does it feel?”
“Wonderful,” Rory muttered as Flame began to pace in circles. “Hey. Chill out,” she told him. Flame picked up speed. “Isabel, uh, where is he going?”
“Just yank on the reins and make him stop,” Isabel said.
“Stop!” Rory said, pulling the reins as hard as she could.
Flame ignored her and began to walk straight back to the stable, as if he knew that this was all a waste of time.
“You know, this might not be such a great idea,” Rory said over her shoulder.
“If you can teach me how to drive a car, I can teach you how to ride a horse,” Isabel replied, holding her reins like a pro.
“A car can’t throw you to the ground,” Rory said, watching Flame busy himself with eating some grass by the fence. “Or ignore you.”
“It’s just a beginner lesson. And I wish we could get started. What’s keeping her?”
“Sorry, I’m coming,” a tinkly voice said.
Julia emerged from the stable atop a sleek black horse, wearing an outfit of gloves, jodhpurs, and riding jacket that would have put the US Olympic equestrian team to shame.
“Oh, it feels so good to be doing this again,” Julia cooed, patting her horse’s shiny neck. “Hey, Rory. Looking good so far.”
“Thanks,” she said. Naturally Julia had decided to come with them, as soon as she found out where they were going. Not even Isabel could come up with a way to tell her not to come. On the way here Julia had talked nonstop about all the trophies she’d won for her riding skills up in Westchester. Rory wasn’t sure, but she could sense Isabel getting annoyed with her, too.
“So, since Rory’s never done this before, why don’t we start with some basic walking and then move into posting?” Isabel offered. “That cool?”
“Sounds great to me,” Julia said.
Felicia clapped her hands and stalked into the center of the ring. “Okay, girls, let’s start walking.”
Isabel and Julia expertly steered their horses into the ring. Rory pulled on the reins, hoping that Flame might lose interest in the grass, but he didn’t budge.
“Rory!” the instructor called. “Just press into his sides with your heels a little. That’ll get him moving.”
She pressed into Flame’s sides, and he jerked his head up.
“Now click your tongue a little,” she said.
Rory clicked her tongue. Like a shot, Flame trotted straight into the ring and right up behind Isabel’s horse. “Ow, ow, ow,” Rory said as she bounced in the saddle.
Behind her, she heard Julia’s saccharine laugh. “Ooh, that looks painful,” she joked.
Rory quietly seethed.
“All right, let’s try the post trot!” yelled the instructor. “You want to start with your butt slightly raised out of the saddle, with your hands and ankles down.”
Isabel raised herself out of the saddle. Rory did her best to mimic her.
“Rory, not so high with the butt!” the instructor yelled.
Behind her, she could hear Julia’s laugh once more.
“Okay, now you’re going to rise up when the horse takes a step with his front right leg,” Felicia yelled. “You ready? Press your heels in to get him to trot.”
In front of Rory, Isabel’s horse began to trot, and Isabel rose up and down in the saddle with perfect timing and grace.
Rory tried to follow along but rose up on the wrong leg. “Ow, ow, ow,” she muttered again.
“It’s up on the right leg,” Julia said behind her. “Like this.” Rory saw Julia come up on her left, passing her in the ring. “See?” she said. “Like this.”
Rory watched Julia sail in front of her, her perfect butt rising up and down.
“Okay, Rory, let’s bring Flame back to a walk,” said Felicia. “Pull back on the reins.”
She tugged on the reins and Flame came to an abrupt halt, almost sending her into his mane.
“This is a little tricky,” Felicia said, trudging over across the dirt. “But I’m sure you can get the hang of it. You want to rise up on the front right leg and sit down with the front left leg. Do you get it?”
“I think so,” Rory said.
“Okay, let’s try it again. Get in position. Like you’re about to ski down a mountain.”
Rory tried to mimic that pose, even though she had no idea how to ski down a mountain, either.
“Now, press your heels in,” Felicia ordered.
Rory pressed in her heels and clicked her tongue. Nothing happened. Then
Julia put her fingers to her mouth and let out a high-pitched whistle.
That was all Flame needed to hear. He burst forward into a gallop that sent Rory out of her seat and clinging to his mane as he rounded the curve of the ring, past Felicia, past Isabel, and past Julia, who watched her pass with their mouths agape, looking frightened and also in awe.
“Pull back on the reins!” the instructor yelled. “Pull back!”
Rory tried to pull, but Flame was going too fast. All she could hear was the pounding of his hoofs on the dirt. Just hold on, she thought, staring at the peeling white rail and grabbing on to Flame’s mane. You cannot fall in front of this girl.
“Stop!” Felicia ran in front of them, waving her arms like she was on fire. Flame stopped, just a few feet from Felicia’s arms. Rory slid back into the saddle. Her hands still gripped the mane.
“You okay?” Felicia said, coming over and taking the reins.
“I think I’m done,” Rory said, carefully lowering herself to the ground.
Isabel jumped off her horse and ran over to her. “You okay?”
“I think so.”
Julia ambled over on her horse. “Good job, Rory,” she said. “You did just the right thing. You held on, and you didn’t panic.”
“She wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t whistled like that,” Isabel snapped. “What were you thinking?”
“I was just trying to help,” Julia said defensively. “Her horse wasn’t moving.”
Rory reached the ground and swore to herself that she would never leave it for a saddle again.
“You whistled,” Isabel said. “It got spooked.”
“That had nothing to do with me,” Julia argued.
“It’s really okay,” Rory said, taking her first awkward steps. Her legs felt bowed out, like Popeye’s.