My mother let out a little squeal and clapped her hands again. I turned red and felt a flush of anger.
“Oh, I can’t believe it! You chose the perfect summer to start acting like a real girl,” she sighed happily. “Anne Rye’s daughter and Herman Byron’s son. Thank you, darling. This is going to be so good for me.”
“It has exactly nothing to do with you, Mom,” I snapped. “Would you just let me have something of my own for once? And there isn’t even a something to talk about. We rode the Ferris wheel. That’s it.” I immediately regretted putting on her stupid dress.
“Don’t get an attitude with me, Naomi,” she snapped back. “You may not care about your social life or your future—or mine—but I do. I’ve spent your whole life caring enough for the both of us, and now it’s starting to pay off.”
“Are you seriously taking credit for this? God, you’re a narcissist.”
“And you’re a brat.” We glared at each other. Just then, a smiling face appeared at the side of the deck. Jacinta’s white-blond bob and enormous Fendi sunglasses were a welcome distraction from my annoying mother.
“Hello!” Jacinta said. “I hope I’m not interrupting your brunch. I just wanted to pop over and introduce myself.” She smiled winningly at my mother, who immediately shifted into her public mode, all perfect posture and poise.
“Come on up,” I said. “Your timing is perfect.” My mother shot me a side glare as Jacinta walked up the steps and popped her sunglasses up on her head.
“I’m Jacinta Trimalchio, the girl next door,” she told my mother, shaking her hand. My mother beamed.
“Oh, Jacinta,” she said. “It is so wonderful to finally meet you! I was just looking at your world wide website yesterday and marveling at how lovely it is. Naomi is a huge fan.”
“Well, I’m a huge fan of Naomi’s,” Jacinta said. “She’s featured on the site today, in her Marc Jacobs dress from the party.”
My mother smiled at me triumphantly. “I picked that out, you know,” she said proudly.
“How wonderful,” Jacinta said. “You have exquisite taste. In fact, you inspired me! This is Marc Jacobs as well. A bit less subtle, but I do enjoy it.” She was wearing a long, silky red sleeveless dress splashed with colorful flowers.
“Darling, sit down.” My mother patted the chair beside her. “Shall I fix you an omelet or some oatmeal, dear?”
“Oh, thank you, Ms. Rye. I don’t want to pass up on a chance to try your cooking in person, but I’ve already eaten breakfast.” Jacinta settled her long, impossibly thin frame into a chair. “But I would love a glass of orange juice.”
“Call me Anne. And you are tasting my cooking, because I squeezed it myself not twenty minutes ago.” Mom giggled as if it were the funniest thing in the world. Jacinta took a big sip.
“Perfection,” she said, and my mother shot me a satisfied smile, as if she’d won whatever secret competition she thought we were in.
“I hope the noise last night wasn’t too awful, Anne,” Jacinta said apologetically.
“Not at all,” Mom said. “I barely heard you. But then, I’m a heavy sleeper.” I wanted to add that her over-fondness for Ambien might have something to do with it, but I kept my mouth shut.
“The police did pay us a visit right after you left, Naomi,” Jacinta said. “It was the fireworks. They were nice, though, and didn’t give me a citation for that or the underage—um, or anything else.”
“Personally, I think liquor laws in this country are an atrocity,” my mother sniffed. “In France, where I trained, children are educated about wine drinking as an art form.” I tried not to roll my eyes.
“I came over to steal Naomi away for lunch, but I see you’re brunching,” Jacinta said.
“Oh, Naomi can go,” my mother said. “She only had her little omelet and half her oatmeal. I’m sure she’s got room for more, don’t you, Naomi? You always did have a big appetite.”
“Yeah, you know what?” I said. “I’d really like to eat something different. Let’s get out of here.” I stood up quickly, nearly knocking over my glass of orange juice.
“We’ll take my car,” Jacinta said.
“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t have one, so otherwise we’re walking.”
Jacinta’s car turned out to be a spotless, shiny little white Mercedes-Benz convertible she’d leased for the summer. The car would’ve immediately caused a stir on my block in Chicago, but here in East Hampton it was just one of the many luxury vehicles lining the town’s streets. We drove into the Village of East Hampton and parked near BookHampton. Jacinta told me she wanted to take me to “the most divine new restaurant, love. It’s called Crave.”
It wasn’t exactly divine, but it sure was out of this world—out of the world of East Hampton, anyway. It felt more like a hip spot in Soho or Tribeca, with its sleek interior, exposed pipes, minimalist modern furniture, and thumping music. Even the model-gorgeous waiters and waitresses seemed to have been imported from an episode of Sex and the City. It was the kind of fancy place where the waitress looks bored by your very presence and where the daily specials include things like gently tormented Brussels sprouts and severely slapped salmon with a blackberry attitude reduction. It was too trendy for my mother, but she would’ve approved of the tiny portions.
Jacinta seemed eager to tell me her life story. I still couldn’t figure out why she singled me out, but I didn’t want to question it. “I’m a year older than you—I’m eighteen. I just graduated from a teensy little boarding school in Switzerland, nothing anyone here has ever heard of. It’s really itty-bitty, barely forty students. But I was only there for my senior year, because before then I was traveling all over the world, popping in and out of schools for a semester here and there, but mostly being privately tutored.”
“Homeschooled?” I asked.
“No, tutors. My mother and father are diplomats, and they’re too busy to spend time teaching me calculus and French. My father is from an old Spanish family—they’re aristocrats—and my mother is from a family of Montana ranchers. The wealthiest cowboys in the Wild West, she used to say.” Jacinta laughed and took a sip of her passion fruit–watermelon iced tea.
“So where did you grow up?”
“Oh, everywhere. All over. Too many places to name,” she replied, and I immediately felt the ember of suspicion in my mind. Given my question, most people would proudly rattle off a list of cities to prove how well traveled they were. Either Jacinta was just humble or she was lying.
“So can you speak Span—” I hadn’t even gotten the question out before Jacinta swiftly answered, “No, my father never taught me.”
“Oh.”
“Just English, and French, from school.”
“Ah,” I said.
“I grew up in so many places that I never had the chance to really put down roots or make friends,” Jacinta continued in what sounded a little like a rehearsed speech. “That’s why I’m so glad to meet you, Naomi. It’ll be so fun to have a real friend this summer.”
“Where are your parents, anyway?”
“Oh, they’re on assignment, love. In Europe,” Jacinta said. It all sounded very exotic to me.
“I decided I wanted to have some fun on my own this summer,” she said. “You know, without Mother and Father.”
I was about to ask another question, when a pretty thirty-something woman with long brown hair and expensive-looking highlights approached our table. She wore those oversize late ’80s–early ’90s glasses that always look so ridiculous in movies from that time period (and in real life, if you ask me, but I’m not exactly up on trends).
“Excuse me. You’re Jacinta Trimalchio, aren’t you?”