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her curiously, as if a closer look at her hands or hair or feet would reveal the key to Tara Washington’s ethnic identity. It made Tara want to turn inward, to remind everyone that race was just one part of a person’s identity. As a teenager she’d felt freakish, until she glommed onto individuals who’d struggled to make their own way, their own identities. Princess Di, and Stephanie and Caroline of Monaco. Gypsy Rose Lee. Ellen DeGeneres. Elton John. Halle Berry. Sometimes she studied their bios, wishing for clues, searching for the key, the way to make it work.
    Here in the Hamptons, Tara wondered if the fact that she hung out with white girls confused people all the more. But could she help it if her two best friends at the beach were Irish-Catholic and WASP wannabe?
    Every year, as summer shimmered over the city, Tara wondered if this would be the last year she’d leave Park Slope to hook up with her Hamptons peeps. She had gone through a lot with Darcy and Lindsay, but sometimes, as she packed up for the summer, she felt like these girls were way too much work and fantasized about spending a quiet summer in the half-empty city, wandering in the coolness of museums and taking in matinees in dark cinemas.
    Coney’s was hopping with patrons when Tara arrived, but it wasn’t hard to find Darcy. Like the sun, she was the center of the bar, half the guys in the room caught in her gravitational pull. From head to toe, Darcy was model sleek—gold on blond highlights in waist-length hair, periwinkle blue eyes that sparkled with confidence, sheer white blouse that revealed the electric blue camisole underneath. Looking down at her own black tank and jean skirt, Tara felt like she was slumming.
    Darcy greeted her with a lift of the chin. “Tara! Thank God.” She gave her a bony shoulder hug. “I was worried that you’d porked out, too.”
    â€œExcuse me?” Tara squinted.
    â€œHaven’t you seen Lindsay?” Darcy’s eyes closed to slivers. “I guess not. She’s enormous. She’d make Carnie Wilson look svelte.”
    â€œI haven’t seen her,” she said haltingly, thinking that Darcy looked unattractive when she was being catty. “But I’m sorry to hear that.” Poor Lindsay. “So why isn’t she here?”
    â€œAre you kidding me?” Darcy shot a glance over her shoulder at two guys who seemed to be waiting for an audience. “She wasn’t invited. I’m not going to be seen with a girlfriend like that. I mean, what’ll people think?”
    â€œThey’ll think you’re her friend,” Tara said pointedly. “Which I thought you were. What’s going on with you, Darcy?”
    â€œListen to me,” Darcy said, stepping up beside Tara so she didn’t have to shout over the music. “I’m just not comfortable hanging out with someone like that. It’s gross, okay?”
    â€œShe’s your friend!” Tara shot back. “Our friend, since we were little kids.”
    â€œWell, those days are gone,” Darcy said, raking back a strand of blond hair with crimson nails. “So why don’t you move on, honey? Kevin is going to be here any minute, and if you mellow out and have a drink, we can have a few laughs, okay?”
    But Tara was shaking her head fiercely. “I don’t think so. Right now, I’m not liking you so much, honey .”
    Darcy cocked her head to the side, a strand of hair falling seductively over one eye. “Oh, don’t be that way. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink. Want a margarita? A cosmo?”
    But Tara backed away, shaking her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.” And with rage thrumming in her head, Tara pushed past Darcy, leaving the bar.
    What an incredible bitch, Tara thought as she closed the door of her mother’s Mercedes and gripped the steering wheel. She still