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sunburn and hormonal adolescent boys. Saving myself for greater things, or so I told myself, because that’s what Mums wanted for me. Greater things than untried pimply scions.
    A cigarette trails from my fingers—another reason for opening the window—and I inhale quickly, in case anyone happens to be looking up.
    Of the seven living Hardcastle children, six are here today with their spouses, and fully thirteen of Frank’s cousins have joined them in the pretty shingle and clapboard houses that make up the property. A compound, the magazines like to call it, as if it’s an armed camp, and the Hardcastles a diplomatic entity of their own. I know all their names. It’s part of my job.
You’re the lady of the house now,
Granny Hardcastle said, when we joined them on the Cape for the first time as a married couple. It was August, a week after we’d returned from our honeymoon, and boiling hot. Granny had moved out of the master suite while we were gone.
You’re the lady of the house now,
she told me, over drinks upon our arrival, and I thought I detected a note of triumph in her voice.
    At the time, I’d also thought I must be mistaken.
    You’re in charge,
she went on.
Do things exactly as you like. I won’t stick my nose in, I promise, unless you need a little help from time to time.
    I spot Frank, tucking up the boat in the shelter of the breakwater, a couple of hundred yards down the shore. At least I assume it’s Frank; the boat is certainly his, the biggest one, the tallest mast. At one point he meant to train seriously for the America’s Cup. I don’t know what became of that one. Too much career in the way, I suppose, too much serious business to get on with. There are two of them, Frank and someone else, tying the
Sweet Christina
up to her buoy. No use calling for him, at this distance.
    I draw in a last smoke, crush out the cigarette on the windowsill, and check my watch. Five thirty-five, and no one’s getting ready for drinks. Everyone’s out enjoying the beach, the sun, the sand. Below me, Pepper reclines on a beach chair, bikini glowing, head scarf fluttering, every inch of her slathered in oil. Pepper has olive skin, so she can do things like that; she can bare her shapely coconut-oiled limbs to the sun and come out golden. She’s not hiding her cigarette, either: it’s out there in plain sight of men, women, and children. Along with a thermos of whatever.
    Everybody’s having a sun-swept good time.
    Well, good for them. That’s what the Cape is for, isn’t it? That’s why the Hardcastles bought this place, back in the early twenties, when beach houses were becoming all the rage. Why they keep it. Why they gather together here, year after year, eating the same lobster rolls and baking under the same sweaty sun.
    Just before I duck back into the bedroom, a primal human instinct turns my head to the left, and I catch sight of a face staring up from the sand.
    For an instant, my heart crashes. Giddy. Terrified.
Caught.
    But it’s only Tom. Constance’s husband, Tom, a doctoral student in folk studies—whatever that was—at Tufts and now at leisure for the whole lazy length of the summer, with nothing to do but collect his trust fund check, tweak his thesis, and get Constance pregnant again. He sits in the dunes near the house, smoking and disgruntled, and that disgruntled face just so happens to be observing me as if I’m the very folk whereof he studies. He’s probably seen my unfastened dress. He’s probably seen the cigarette. He’ll probably tattle on me to Constance.
    Little weasel.
    I smile and wave. He salutes me with his cigarette.
    I withdraw and pretzel myself before the mirror to wiggle up the zipper on my own. (A snug bodice, miniature sleeves just off the shoulder: really, where was a husband when you needed him? Oh, of course: tying up his yacht.) I swipe on my lipstick, blot, and swipe again. My hair isn’t quite right; I suppose I need a cut. So hard to remember these