Page 22 of Summer After Summer

“You know what a snob William is. You should’ve heard the way he was talking about Fred’s aunt and uncle when they moved here.”

Ashley flips over. In her cat’s eye sunglasses and lipstick and itty-bitty bikini, she really does look like that movie poster of Lolita. “Didn’t your mom come from nothing?”

“Yes, but he doesn’t apply the same rules to himself, and her family came over on the Mayflower, so that makes up for everything.”

“Oh God, I forgot about that.”

“How could you? He only brings it up all the time.”

“Well, just tell him Fred came over on the Fortune. That ought to shut him up.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the ship after the Mayflower. I think it landed in Cape Cod. And he’s from Boston, right? It’s perfect.”

“I shouldn’t have to lie about him.”

“You’re right, but since when did logic apply to parents?”

“Ha! I just hope I don’t regret it.”

“Regret kissing a hot guy on a beach on your birthday? You need to chillax.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good. Now tell me everything.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

June 2023

I don’t end up going to the garden party, but it’s not because I chicken out.

Instead, Sophie provides the perfect excuse when she shows up at the house shortly after Aunt Tracy and I finish cleaning my mother’s things out of her bedroom.

I’ve always thought of Sophie as the biological link between Charlotte and me. She’s between us in height, weight, hair, and eye color, with dark blond hair and green eyes, and a frame that will never get as thin as she wants despite perpetual dieting. Now, at thirty-three, she’s the one who looks the most like our mother, despite my momentary transformation earlier when I put on her dress.

“What’s all this?” she says when she comes into the house as I’m muscling the last of the garbage bags of my mother’s things down the stairs.

“Mom’s stuff.”

“Oh, I wanted some of that.”

I feel a beat of resentment. “You could’ve helped sort it.”

“You didn’t tell me you were doing it.” Sophie starts to untie the top of one of the bags, her salon-perfect hair falling in a wave that blocks her face from view. She’s wearing golf-length linen shorts and a tennis club sweater tied over her shoulders.

She’s right, I didn’t. “Charlotte told me you weren’t helping. ‘Too sad,’ apparently.”

Sophie looks up at me. Her eyes are tired, and her cheeks are hollowed out in a way I associate with one of her fad diets. “I never said that.”

“I should’ve asked.”

“It is sad, though.”

“I know.”

“And with the kids … you know how it is.”

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