Page 2 of Seven Summer Weekends

Six days, a zillion missed calls, a dozen grilled cheese sandwiches cut on the diagonal, and seventy-three episodes ofThe Nannylater, Addison Irwin pulled her fired ass off her sofa and answered the insistent buzz of her apartment intercom.

“I didn’t order anything, Anthony,” she answered impatiently.

“Your friends are here to see you, Miss Irwin.”

“Ugh. Tell them I’m not home.”

“We can hear you,” her three besties shouted back in unison.

“Go away,” she barked in return.

Within seconds, they were banging on her door. It was clearly an intervention of sorts as the three women bounded in like the Catastrophe Avengers, armed with groceries and flowers and self-help books titledBetter Days AheadandNow What?

That last one really got to her. “Now what?” was not a question Addison had ever contemplated before.

Addison was a planner, and once she set goals in her head, she had tunnel vision until they were achieved. Nothing and no one would get in her way. Losing her promotion and then her jobin such a public manner was not something Addison had ever envisioned. She did not know if and when her career, and her self-esteem, would rebound.

It certainly was a cautionary tale, and as such Addison was sure it had already been repeated up and down Madison Avenue and beyond. And if, by chance, someone in the ad world didn’t catch the story of her career-ending faux pas, it landed on Page Six of theNew York Post. With her photograph. A stellar career snuffed out by one dumb joke.

Lisa Banks, the first to enter, pulled Addison into a strong embrace.

Addison had met Lisa, a single, straight-haired, straitlaced psychologist and fellow Chicago native, while bonding over their accents years earlier at a Midtown bar. She was the blonde of the group and the most affectionate of her friends, as evidenced by the one-sided hug she currently had Addison enveloped in. When Lisa finally released her, she preached, “The universe is telling you what I’ve been saying for years!”

Lisa often lectured Addison about her all-consuming work ethic—warning her of the dangers of putting work first and life second. Addison was in no mood forI told you sos—though she gave her a knowing nod.

“Save the shrinking for another time,” Kizzy Weinstein piped in, while habitually twirling her index finger through one of her deep-brown curls. Kizzy was a headhunter, married to her Manhattan prep school sweetheart. She added, “I know all the candidates for your replacement—they don’t touch you.”

“My team feels awful—especially Emma. They call every day.”

“With questions, no doubt. You ran that place, let’s see how long they last without you,” added Prudence Parker, a redheadedattorney originally from Georgia, married to another easily sunburnt ginger, with whom she had one adorable red-haired baby boy. You could practically see the gears in her head quietly turning, in search of a litigious angle. Addison sighed. She had to admit that it was nice of her friends to come. It felt good to be cared for. She may have put her job above her love life over the years, but at least she had nurtured her friendships. She thought of her last breakup. The guy had claimed he came in fifth place after her job and three besties. He was right.

Her phone rang. It was a number from an unknown law firm that she had been ignoring all week. “Who’s that?” Prudence asked, while glancing at Addison’s mobile.

“Nelson, Nelson, and Leave Me the Hell Alone. They’ve called me at least six times this week—they’re probably ambulance chasers for wrongful termination suits or whatnot.”

“It would thrill me to get them off your back.” Prudence held up the phone and stepped into lawyer mode. She never met a debate she didn’t win.

“Knock yourself out,” Addison encouraged.

Pru walked away with Addison’s phone and returned ten minutes later, carrying the last remaining contents of Addison’s fridge: a bottle of Bottega prosecco she’d been saving for her promotion and four glasses.

“Addison. Do you have an aunt Gloria?”

“Um, yes, my father’s estranged sister, Aunt Gicky. We were never close.”

“Well, we are meeting with her lawyers tomorrow morning at nine. Apparently, you were close enough for her to leave you her house on Fire Island!”

WeekOne

Chapter Three

Addison arrived at the Fire Island ferry terminal wearing a sundress, chunky heels, and a lost expression. The entire scene was unfamiliar to her. For starters, she was dressed for a summer soiree while everyone else looked like they were going to a clambake. She quickly realized that most of the contents of her four pieces of luggage, aside from bathing suits, tanks, and cutoffs, would remain unworn. She studied the crowd: families pushing strollers and carts overflowing with beach toys and baby gear; rowdy twentysomethings with cases of PBR and White Claw, and the obvious homeowners—holding little more than a paperback, a cup of clam chowder, and their dog’s leash. There were a lot of dogs.

It was only the second week in July, but from the look of the homeowners—tanned, toned, and tranquil—you’d think it was already mid-August. As Addison surveyed the crowd, she flashed back to the lunchroom in middle school, at a loss as to where she would fit in. She chewed on the side of her thumbnail, a habit shehad only recently taken up, wondered if the inner spark she had carried around since birth would ever return, and began chewing on the other thumb. So much of who she’d been as an adult had been tied to her job, and now, without it, she felt at sea.

As blissed out as those sun-kissed locals looked, becoming one was not currently a part of Addison’s plan. She was excited to meet the real estate agent on the other side of the Great South Bay and ask her what she could get for her aunt’s house. A quick Google search revealed that it was quite a lot.

While most millennial procrastinators entertain themselves by scrolling through memes of baby hippos and of raccoons stealing tacos, their New York City counterparts spend a lot of time scrolling through apartment listings way above their means. It was Addison’s favorite form of distraction, and getting this inheritance of the Fire Island house would up her purchasing power significantly. Fulfilling her dream of buying an apartment could keep the dreaded “What next?” question at bay for at least a month or three. Though it may be difficult to pass a co-op board as an unemployed, uncoupled, sparkless woman. Maybe by the time she found a place, the scandal would blow over and someone in the advertising world would take a chance on her again, reigniting the low-burning flame in her belly. Kizzy was already headhunting for her, though she had warned Addison that there wasn’t much action in the current job market—not much happened over the summer.

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