Chapter 1
At first, there was no sign of the red tide, except for a tightness in their throats as they picked their way through dune grass that bristled against their legs. Three shades of brown, three sets of stalks, wild as the vegetation prowling along the coast. Ann, seven years old and dying to run down to the surf, reached down to scratch her ankle, but her mother, Hương breathed deeply, but the red tide got into her lungs, and she choked, pulling Ann’s reproachful attention to her. She started toward her daughter, but when she saw Ann flinch, her hand dropped. She felt like crying, too.
“Let’s go home,” she said instead, turning away from them so they couldn’t see her biting her own hand, trying not to weep in front of them. Motherhood was so lonely sometimes.
In Minh’s Oldsmobile, Hương got in the back seat next to her daughter. Maybe she thought their proximity could ease the tension between them. She started to open her mouth to say that she was sorry, that her barbed words only emerged from worry, that she loved Ann more than anything, couldn’t she see it?
But Ann moved far away from her, to the opposite side of the car. She pressed her face to the car window. And so Hương turned away, too, sighing into the silence. They stayed that way until the car rumbled up the drive toward the Banyan House, which would once again keep them all safely caged.
Dusk has always been my favorite time of day. That in-between space where the warmth of the sun begins to give way to the squeeze of night. Stars scatter on a purple sky, reminding me of spilt sugar on a Formica counter. I think if I can fly to them, swipe one with my fingertip, it would taste cold and sweet on my tongue.
But then Noah says, with the tiniest hint of impatience in his voice, “Coming, Ann?” and I turn from the stars.
Two men in black tuxes open the double doors to the two-story B and B in the woods, with its wraparound porch and white Adirondacks out front. Before I step inside the too-warm ballroom to meet the opulence and expectations of Noah’s world, I peer up at the glow of lights through the curtained windows, behind which I can see shapely shadows clad in undeniable luxury. A light breeze wafts past my legs, skin goose-pimpled underneath thin stockings that offer hardly any shelter against the late-winter weather.
“Will they be announcing us?” I whisper to Noah.
“Mr. and Mrs. Fabulous,” he quips.
His arm is draped around my waist, but he’s not looking down at me. Instead, I see his eyes run over the room, snagging on all the details that are slightly awry—the less-than-resplendent flower arrangements (baby’s breath, by God!); the cake we had to substitute at the last minute because the genius baker Alice favored had gone on a breakup-induced bender; a server hurriedly scrubbing cocktail sauce from her starched shirt. Noah frowns.
“Do you think it looks okay?” he asks.
“It’s perfect.”
“The flowers are kind of droopy, aren’t they? I’m pretty sure I said no carnations.”
“What’s a word that’s better than ‘perfect’? Your parents will be delighted.”
Noah is the youngest of the Winthorpe clan, and he’s been tasked with throwing his parents’ thirtieth anniversary party. It was supposed to be a surprise, but someone—probably his brother, Mitchell—blabbed the secret at one of their Sunday brunches, so now the expectations are higher than ever. No doubt Alice wishes she had been planning the whole thing all along.
“You are better than perfect,” he says to me, glancing down at last.
“Thanks. But I feel . . . off,” I admit. I did not want to come tonight, that much is clear to us both, but it would have offended Noah’s parents for me to beg off at such a late hour.
“That headache again?”
I nod, though it’s not just the headache. Over the past few days, there’s been a new alienation of my body, a sense of clumsiness, nausea. I think it’s because I’ve been working too hard, leaning over my sketches deep into the night to meet all the many deadlines that wedge into the tiny boxes of my calendar, like rainbow Lincoln Logs, carefully color coded to announce urgency.
Or perhaps it’s this very party, the stress of which has infiltrated our normally calm household. I think about how once, when I was young, another kid had spun me around the merry-go-round so hard and viciously that when I got off, I felt my brain would never settle back into my skull the same way.
Noah asks, “Can you make it for just a little bit? Then I’ll call you a cab?”
As I look at his concerned face, with its even planes, sand-colored hair, and deep blue eyes, I try not to be offended that he doesn’t offer to go with me. After all, it’s his night.
He kisses me, lightly. “You don’t look ill, though.”
“I’m wearing your favorite dress.”
He runs his hand over my hip, across the ocean-blue silk of my one-shouldered gown, modest yet bold. My hair is twisted into a complicated hairdo I saw online, and it doesn’t suit me at all. But Noah tells me it’s elegant. Usually, my hair drapes to my waist, swishing a trail in our house.
Tonight, I’m feeling detached from myself. There is a low, pressing discomfort in my stomach I can’t shake, even with the antacid I popped on the way here. Nerves. Just before I left, I had retched in our toilet, but my stomach is empty. My appetite has fled.
I can’t help feeling that there’s something a little dreamlike about this night. But it’s the kind of dream that feels just left of normal, the sort that discombobulates more than a nightmare.
Stop it, I think. This is perfect. Noah is perfect.
Inside, we run into Mitchell first, who gives me an assessing look, measuring me as always against his wife, Tina, who is tall and lovely and dull. She’s adjusting the straps of her fire-engine-red gown. It lines up beautifully on her, but she seems uncomfortable in it. The candlelight on the tables around us sparkles, reflecting all the jewels and gold in the room.Someone in the distance laughs, a tinkling Champagne laugh that pulls everyone’s eyes to her. It’s such a wildly fabulous bunch of people.
“You’re gorgeous, honey,” Tina says, wrapping her arm around my waist.
“You too,” I tell her, feeling my body instinctively draw away from hers.
“How’s the drawing going?” Mitchell asks me.
He’s fascinated by my illustrating career, having always wanted to be an artist himself, though I often get the impression he’s laughing at me for having done something adults are categorically not supposed to do. I haven’t a clue what he does for a living.
He continues, “Is it casseroles with faces this time? Dogs wearing snowsuits?”
Editorial assignments aren’t always groundbreaking, but they pay well. Currently, I’m working on a spread about a French fragrance house run by a woman in her seventies. It’s a late-in-life career pivot for her. I’m supposed to convey dignity and glamour.
At Mitchell’s words, there’s something stuck between my chest and my throat. A tiny ball of anger.
“I’m considering a new illustration. Maybe a party full of people who are too self-satisfied to relate to anyone outside of their silver-spoon circle?” I answer sweetly, causing Noah to raise his eyebrows in alarm.
“How about that,” Mitchell says, his eyes glazed.
“And the girls?” I ask, chastened by his unwillingness to engage. I know it’s low of me to trade barbs with him.
Mitchell pulls out his cell phone to show me a video of twins Shiloh and MacKenzie at their last recital, in sequined purple gowns with outrageously big hair bows that peek out from behind their buns like cat ears. They’re on a big, spotlighted stage with a dozen other
girls, sashaying to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” At the end of the routine, they jut their hips out, such an adult gesture for such tiny bodies. I don’t have to pretend to be delighted. Children are not abundant in my life, but I’ve always liked the thought of them—anthropologically, as a species with its own customs and rituals. Nothing more ritualistic than six-year-olds cartwheeling across a stage in smudge-proof makeup while their parents wring their hands nervously, calculating all the steps toward international stardom.
I hold the phone to Noah so he can see, but his eyes are elsewhere, scanning the servers to make sure their bow ties are just the right shade of blue, looking to confirm there is no cilantro on the canapés, because Brandon absolutely hates cilantro.
“Sweet kids,” Noah says absently.
Mitchell grins. “Always too busy, our man Noah. It’s okay. You’re excused from perfunctory gushing. Just wait until you have your own—you’ll be as boring as the rest of us.”
Noah’s face freezes into a grin. He reaches for a glass of Champagne. I feel something brushing against my mind at Mitchell’s words, like a hot breath, and it’s so close I can almost grasp it, but then Noah sweeps me away and I forget again.
We waft through the party, Noah accepting congratulations on his parents’ behalf and sycophantic praise from people he grew up with. They are always so impressed by him, so excited to hear about the tenure process. Noah’s publishing his first book, one that is already touted as the next exciting thing in the classics, if there is such a thing. I once peeked at the
manuscript and couldn’t quite understand the revelations that make Noah’s breath hitch, his voice rising to match his excitement. These days, he thinks only of Spartan mating customs. I live in fear of him suggesting some kind of Peloponnesian War role-play in bed. But I trust in his greatness. It is one of the truths of our lives, the foundation of a future I can almost taste.
“Dr. Winthorpe,” his family friends say, shaking their heads, so pleased. Once in a while, they turn to me, forgetful smiles plastered across their faces.
“Tran, is it?” one woman asks. I’ve met her half a dozen times.
“Ann,” I say. My dress feels tight and I take a sip of my soda water. The bubbles break onto the underside of my nose. “Tran is my last name.”
“Of course, dear. I’m getting old.”
Alice and Brandon, Noah’s parents, soon descend on us like lightning bugs, billion-watt smiles stretched across their faces. Brandon is remarkably good-looking for his age, his face frozen by affluence, timeless in a way that always appears cruel to me for its very unnaturalness. He leans over me, an imitation of a hug, and reaches to muss Noah’s hair with the enthusiasm of a man greeting his best hound. He spills just a bit of whiskey on his son.
Brandon says, “All hail the professor. My youngest, and my brainiest—no offense to old Mitch. Noah gets his smarts from his mother. Fortunately for us all.”
The room chuckles at him appreciatively, though he’s said nothing funny. Noah is trying to hide how pleased his father’s words make him. Brandon has always taken pride in his possessions. Once, he took me to his library to show me a mounted rhino head, a souvenir from a trip to Africa for big-game hunting. They’d spent thousands of dollars to have it shipped back in a wooden crate. The rhino was cast in bronze, its eyes black pinpricks in its skull, horn polished and formidable. Standing beneath it, Brandon looked like a conqueror, though I’m almost sure he didn’t even do the shooting himself, just pointed out the rhino to a khaki-clad guide who willingly cocked his rifle.
“Dad, come on.”
Noah disentangles himself from his father. Alice reaches over to wipe the whiskey off Noah’s jacket with a cocktail napkin. For all their lives, she’s been their family’s center, their glowing little sun. Alice and her men. She has that cherished look about her. Tonight, she’s wearing an unusual dress for her: pink chiffon in a swingy pattern, the color of a shell’s pearlescent interior, a direct affront to the white-and-blue theme. Of course, her pale, shoulder-length blond hair is perfectly blown out. She wears youth like an accessory, something purchased with good WASP money. Her kiss on my cheek feels light, the quick flutter of a moth’s wing.
“Look at them, acting like a bunch of boys,” she whispers, threading her arm through mine.
She pulls me closer to the window, where the chill brushes against my bare back. In this position, Noah and his father look like a well-heeled theater troupe, performing gaiety for an open audience. I feel separate from him, and I don’t like it.
But seeing that Alice expects me to reply, I say, in a poor imitation of her weary affection,
“Noah does love the attention.”
She doesn’t like that. A small frown mars her face.
“Of course, it is a very exciting time for him.”
“And for you,” I say, trying to smile. “Congratulations on your anniversary, Alice.”
“It’s hard to believe. Thirty years. Just the other day, he was picking me up for our first date,” she says girlishly. Charmingly. There is no shortage of charm in this family.
“To many more years to come,” I say, raising my glass.
Her perfume is heavy with English rose (what makes it English versus anything else?), and something underneath, like acetone. Alice always insists on standing too close, using her physicality, limited as it is, as a form of control. I would rather not be touched, especially in such a crush of people, and especially not right now. But she presses her fingers into my arm, their little ridges indenting my skin.
“What a pretty dress, dear,” she says. “Young people should wear pastels, or bold, flashy colors. In my day, we just screamed color; couldn’t get enough. You’re in the flower of your youth.”
“My grandma calls me an old soul.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, I suppose it’s being an only child. They say we tend to observe more.”
“Ah yes. Well, perhaps that’s better. Women just mature so much faster, you know. Noah is still a boy. He needs someone wiser.”
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