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switched-at-birth babies, and vindictive lovers of the daytime soaps.
    Watching as two lovers shared a kiss on a moonlit balcony, Darcy glimpsed her own future, and it was good. No more putting up a happy front and knocking around in empty houses. No more being alone. No more Darcy . . . just Darcy and Kevin. The McGowans. Mrs. Kevin McGowan . . . God, that sounded good. Together, Darcy and Kevin were going to make a life right here on America’s Riviera, where Kevin’s father already owned Coney’s on the Beach, a buzzing hotspot, a small gold mine. She and Kevin would have money, lux houses and sleek cars, great bodies, and lots of good sex.
    Really, when you got down to it, what more could a person want?

4
    Tara
    I f Tara had to hear one more word of debate from her mother regarding the merits of microblinds versus sheers she was going to rip the window dressing aside and jump out onto the sand.
    â€œI don’t know . . .” Serena Washington stepped back from the window and lowered her reading glasses. The cat’s-eye rhinestone glasses fell to her chest, dangling on their chain as she reassessed the design crisis. “The microblinds are better for privacy, but then the sage drapes go so well with this armoire. Very seventeenth-century French provincial.”
    But we’re in a twenty-first-century Southampton beach house, Tara wanted to tell her mother . The era of microwaves and VCRs. “Whatever you think,” she said dutifully.
    â€œThough I worry that this armoire might be too big for this room.” Tara’s mother paced around the bed in Wayne’s room, her Dolce and Gabanna sandals leaving footprints in the deep carpeting. “I wouldn’t mind getting rid of the armoire altogether, but your brother is so attached to those video games and he’d pitch a fit if I got rid of them.”
    Tara just nodded and stared down at the carpet, thinking how the family had always catered to Wayne while Tara and her older sister, Denise, were the ones moving the armoires and cleaning the blinds and vacuuming footprints of designer shoes out of the carpeting. In some ways she envied Denise, having a life in Baltimore, a house of her own where she could fill each room with five armoires and not worry. Denise had hit the jackpot, landing on freedom and a guy her parents approved of, an African American architect with a steady business and a rambling, warm, loving family in Baltimore.
    Serena Washington had moved from the furnishings to the wall treatments when the phone rang.
    â€œI’ll get it,” Tara answered, running for her life down the stairs of the starkly geometric beach home.
    â€œYou have got to meet me tonight,” Darcy ordered, bossy as ever. “I’ll be at Coney’s.”
    â€œSomehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Tara said, familiar with Darcy’s quest for Kevin McGowan. “But I’m incarcerated in spring-cleaning boot camp,” Tara said under her breath.
    â€œHire a maid service,” Darcy said.
    â€œHave you learned nothing about my mother over all these summers?” Tara said. “Serena Washington has two maids, Tara and Denise, only Denise wised up and got the hell out of here.”
    Darcy laughed. “You’re so funny. Meet me in half an hour.”
    â€œWhat about Lindsay?” Tara asked. “Is she coming?”
    â€œBig groan. I’ll explain when I see you,” Darcy said, then clicked off.
    Promising to return the sage curtains to the store in Riverhead tomorrow, Tara managed to escape Design 101. Soon she was cruising down Southampton’s Main Street, a charming stretch strung with tiny white lights—small cafés, upscale boutiques, galleries, bed and breakfast inns, and outdoor markets that had a New England feel.
    Waiting at a red light as a flock of pedestrians—all white—passed in their summer whites, Tara got to wondering why her parents, two educated,