Inside, I place my sketchbook on the small table by the window and wonder if I should have taken a room in the main house instead. The cottage is as big as the apartment I share with my mom in Bay Ridge, and the privacy is nice, but it’s almost too quiet out here. I slip out of respectable sundress number three and back into my cutoffs and tank top and consider heading inside to see if Emilia wants some company. But that would be weird, right? It’s probably close to Paisley’s bedtime. I’d be interrupting.
I dig out my phone and spend some time on ModCloth searching for dresses with pockets, then scroll through Instagram, catching up on the south Brooklyn summer, the parties I’m missing, the rowdier beach with its diverse medley of sunbathers, so different from the mostly white, all-moneyed crowd at the main beach in Herron Mills. In one photo, Mike tackles Kaylee and her hair flashes like strands of spun gold across the brassy brown of his arms. In another, Kaylee’s posed on her stoop with our friend Vic from school and Wanda, another girl we go out with sometimes.
I click over to Starr’s account to see if she’s posted anything new, but there’s nothing, not that she ever posted much from Brooklyn either. We used to talk on Messenger, so I open the app, send her a quick note, something I haven’t done since the spring. It stung when she skipped town without saying goodbye. She’d told Kaylee her plans, and Mike, but I guess I didn’t rank. Now she’s not responding to my messages either. I tell myself it’s not personal, that she got the fresh start I’m looking for now. We had fun, but I know her life in Brooklyn wasn’t great. Twenty-two, no college, shitty job waiting tables at an all-night diner in Brighton Beach. Estranged from her ultraconservative family in Arizona, a string of boyfriends who didn’t stick around long. She always loved Disney. I tell myself it’s not about me.
By nine, cabin fever has officially set in. My fingers dance across the screen, itching to open my messages, text Kaylee. My phone has been trenchantly quiet all day. Either Kaylee has given up on me or she’s serving up a bitter taste of my own medicine. Knowing my best friend, it’s surely the latter.
I press my phone facedown into my comforter and shrug on a hoodie. Then I spritz some bug spray on my legs, grab one of the several mini-flashlights from the glass bowl on the kitchen counter, and head out into the night.
* * *
My star-lit tour of the Clovelly Cottage grounds is surprisingly brief. Maybe Tom was right, two point two acres isn’t quite as massive as it initially seemed. I hug the tree line, crossing behind the pool, then pass the detached garage and gurgling fountain on my way toward the tennis court. But when I’m there, I can’t figure out how to turn on the lights, and the rackets appear to be locked in the storage shed anyway.
I abandon my plan of privately smacking balls in the general direction of the net and trudge down the pebbled drive toward the road instead. The LED beam casts a thin white veil over the bushes as I pass—azaleas, according to Emilia—their pink flowers fluttering in the breeze with a ghostly glimmer that makes me shiver, despite the still-warm air. I zip my hoodie all the way to my throat.
Out on Linden Lane, I think about turning right, stealing a glimpse of the houses on the longer stretch of street Tom and I didn’t cover on our way in. But my feet are drawn instead toward Windermere, sneakers pulling me next door, toward its neglected grounds. When I get to the wrought iron entrance gate, all vine-covered rails and scrolls and flourishes, the first thing I notice is how much closer the house is to the road than Clovelly Cottage or the other, newer houses in Herron Mills. Here, standing in the slice of driveway that isn’t entirely obscured by the unfettered growth of the privacy hedge, I have a clear view of Windermere through the gaps in the gate.
The porch light is on, bathing the unused swing and blue-painted rocking chairs in soft, pale light. I switch my flashlight off and tuck it in my pocket, lean into the shadows surrounding the pillar on which the gate hinges. Tom said that Windermere was built in 1894, which must make it one of the older original homes in the area. I try to imagine this swath of the Hamptons before Seacrest or Magnolia House or Clovelly Cottage. The landscape must have seemed unlimited, nothing but farmland and sky. There would have been no need for hedges or tall banks of trees to keep the estate’s secrets veiled from nosey neighbors. And Linden Lane was probably barely traveled, the silence even deeper than it is tonight.
“Hello?”
I rocket back from the pillar, skin buzzing with something that feels like electricity or fear. “Hello?” The word passes through my lips, more demand than question, as if I’m not the one skulking in shadow, gawking at someone else’s house after dark.
On the other side of the gate, a figure steps into the driveway from somewhere on the front lawn, a part of the property blocked from my view. He’s slim and not too tall, maybe five feet ten. His hands are shoved in jeans pockets, and a silver watchband glints on one wrist.
“Are you lost?” he asks. I squint into the glow of the porch light, trying to get a good look at his face, but I can see only that his skin is a soft shade of brown, and he’s my age, maybe a bit older. My heartbeat slows to a slightly elevated thud. This must be Caden Talbot, the Yalie.
“I’m Anna,” I say. “The nanny at Clovelly Cottage?”
“Oh right.” He leans leisurely against the pillar, his body pressed against the stone in a mirror image of my stance a moment ago. “Emilia mentioned she’d hired someone new.”
“I’m sorry I was staring.” My words slip out on a hot rush of breath. “I’m not a creeper. Well, not usually.”
As my eyes strain to compose something photo-realistic from his backlit silhouette, an itchy sensation crawls down my spine. This boy is a stranger, but for a slippery moment I can see our lives intertwining, our darkest secrets and deepest fears laid bare in the still night air.
He grins, and just as suddenly, the itchy feeling is gone, and along with it my pseudo-psychic inklings. I’m clearly lonely, and maybe a little bored.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Windermere is something to behold. I’m Caden, by the way.” He sticks his hand through a scroll in the gate, and I take it in mine, forcing myself to behave like the friendly stranger I am. It’s warm and smooth, and he smells just slightly of sage and vanilla. Everything about him seems well cared for, in sharp contrast to the house in the background.
“I just got in on Monday,” I tell him. “I’m still getting to know the area.”
“After dark?”
I shrug. I can feel the darkness wrapped around my skin like a cloak. “There’s not a lot to do at night. I was restless.”
“Yeah, me too.” He gestures toward the lawn to my left, beyond my line of sight. “We used to have a koi pond. Now it’s mostly frogs and weeds. I was thinking about how I might clean it up.”
“After dark?” I throw the question back at him.
He laughs, a warm, easy sound that makes my skin flush beneath my hoodie. “I do my best thinking at night. Besides, I’m stuck here right now.”
“At home?”
“Yeah. My mom gets kind of freaked out when I leave Windermere at night.”
I can feel my eyebrows arch up my forehead, but Caden must not be able to see the face I’m making in the dark. A college boy with a curfew? I’ve been basically leashless in the city for as long as I can remember. I can’t fathom staying home at night to please my mother, even if home was on multiple acres.