“Do feminists mind gentlemen walking them home?” he teased.
“This feminist does not,” I said. “After all, who knows what dangers lie between here and the house next door?”
“Georgica Pond is typically a hotbed of gang activity,” Jeff said.
By the time we reached my back deck, the sounds of splashing, shrieking, and music had gotten a little softer, although it was still pretty noisy. Jeff asked me if he could see me again soon, and I said he could. Then he gave me a long, lingering kiss that left me tingling from head to toe. When he walked away, I wondered for a second if we could fall in love. Then, of course, I felt like a complete dork, because I’d only gotten my first kiss like an hour previously and I was already thinking of L-O-V-E. It must be because I was a little drunk. That vodka and ginger ale hadn’t exactly sobered me up.
I opened the sliding glass back door as quietly as I could, and crept up to my bedroom. I flopped down on the bed, still fully clothed, and stared up at the ceiling. It had been a weird but awesome night. I waggled my feet in the air and looked at my sandals. They were actually really pretty. So was my whole outfit. Maybe my mom wasn’t so stupid. Maybe East Hampton wasn’t so stupid. Maybe this summer wasn’t going to be as stupid as previous summers.
Then I noticed the ceiling was spinning gently, and I flopped my legs back down, dropping one foot to the floor for stability (another trick Skags taught me). I focused on my breath and soon drifted into a pleasant, boozy sleep. The last coherent thought I had was that I hoped my mom would make popovers and eggs again the next morning.
CHAPTER FIVE
My phone buzzed with an incoming text, and it sounded like a cluster of killer bees had descended on my room. When you’re hungover, everything is louder.
I groaned and rolled over, noticing that my sandals were still on. I kicked them off, and they thudded to the floor.
I groped for my phone, which rested atop a side table assembled from discarded wood that had been used on some dead rich person’s yacht. (In my mother’s house, every object has a fancy origin story.)
The text was from Delilah. It read, Sounds like SOMEBODY had a pretty sexy night! ;)
I blushed and texted back, Not SEXY. I don’t move that fast! 
She wrote, LOL. I’m soooooo glad you had fun! Next time don’t say no to tennis!
I wrote, I won’t. Promise!
The weirdness of girly-texting with Delilah Fairweather was actually less intense than I’d thought it would be. Could I be getting used to talking to her like a real friend? And if I were used to talking to her like a real friend, did that mean she was a real friend?
This summer was getting odder by the day. Since when did I happily and comfortably swill champagne with the sons and daughters of America’s finest families? I started to analyze the previous evening the way I always do the morning after a party, but I stopped after a few seconds. Maybe it was my hangover. Or maybe it was something else—a conviction that I was going to do things differently this summer. Maybe I didn’t need to overthink everything.
I checked the time on my phone: 12 p.m. I was really surprised my mother had let me sleep that long. Had some spirit of kindness possessed her? Or had she been so enormously pleased by my decision to go to the party that she’d decided to indulge my love of sleep?
It turned out to be the latter reason. When I shuffled off to the bathroom to take a shower, she ambushed me in the hallway, full of questions.
“Was it fun? Did you have a good time? You must’ve had a good time—you’re still in your party clothes! Whom did you meet? Any boys? What was the Jacinta girl like? Did Delilah go to the party?”
“I’ll tell you after I shower,” I said.
The hot water felt incredibly good on my skin, and I realized to my relief that I didn’t have a monster headache or stomachache—I was just tired and a bit out of it. Because I knew it would give my mother a little bit of a thrill (I couldn’t say why I cared to give her one, but I guess I was in the mood to be nice), I put on one of the new Marc Jacobs dresses she’d hung in my closet—a simple, sleeveless cream-colored cotton sundress with an A-line skirt. I checked myself out in the mirror, and I had to admit I looked good in it. I was starting to realize that my mother had smart instincts with clothes sometimes.
Downstairs on the back deck, my mother actually clapped a little when I came outside and sat down.
“Oh my God, Mom,” I said. “Seriously?”
“No cartoon T-shirts or ratty jeans!” she said. “You look fabulous. Now sit down and tell me everything.”
She’d laid out oatmeal in simple white bowls with small white containers of honey, brown sugar, chopped walnuts and almonds, and mixed fresh berries. This was accompanied by a mini-omelet. My mother loves making miniature versions of regular food. “We all know Americans need to eat less,” she said once on a very special Thanksgiving episode of her Food Network show. “And I’m delighted to be part of the solution.” She went on to teach everyone how to make mini–organic turkey meatloaf with wee servings of organic mashed potatoes and organic gravy. I doubt anyone obeyed her command to “eat less this Thanksgiving, for your waistline and your world,” but I can say with authority that at that Thanksgiving, she ate exactly one spoonful of mashed potatoes and a small arugula salad.
I attacked my omelet first, surprised by how much I was craving grease and protein. Of course, with my mother’s cooking, you got very little grease—the concept of fatty foods grossed her out—but the protein was there in abundance. After I inhaled the omelet, I set to work on the oatmeal, which was delicious. She’d flavored it with cinnamon and a touch of nutmeg, so it tasted like Christmas.
“So tell, tell,” Mom said, pouring me a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. “Who was there?”
I recounted as best I could the list of attendees. I hadn’t been able to identify too many people, but I told her about Ainsley Devereaux, the Fitzwilliams sisters, a few friends of Delilah I’d seen jumping naked into the pool (I didn’t tell her that part), the Stetler brothers, and Jeff Byron.
“Jeffrey Byron!” my mother exclaimed delightedly. “You know, his father has expressed interest in buying shares of Bake Like Anne Rye!, Inc. when we go public later this summer.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” I said, shoveling berries into my mouth. “His dad’s a music producer, right?”
“Darling, don’t speak while you’re chewing. And take your elbows off the table. Yes, Herman Byron owns Byron Records. I couldn’t tell you any of the names of his artists, but I know he’s very successful. He’s on the Vineyard for the summer.”
“With his new girlfriend. I know.”
My mother raised her eyebrow and looked at me inquisitively. “And how would you know that? It wasn’t in any of the papers.”
“Jeff told me.”
My mother’s eyes widened with sudden excitement. “Jeff told you! Oh, he must like you if he confided in you.” She withdrew a tube from her purse and delicately patted a bit of moisturizer with sunscreen on her face. My mother is obsessed with avoiding the ravages of time and sunshine.
“I don’t think it’s a secret in his world.”
“But you talked to him!”
“Sure. The other day when we came from Manhattan, and last night at the party. He’s nice. We. . .” I tried to stop myself from saying it, but part of me just really wanted to tell someone. “We rode the Ferris wheel.”