“Oh no,” I whisper.
I push out of my seat, rush to the pool house, and swing open the doors. A crowd of gawkers cranes their necks away from a big-screen TV to see what’s transpiring across the open room. A couple is arguing near the kitchenette area. Half of that couple is my cousin.
“Just leave me alone!” Evie’s shouting across a granite kitchen counter littered with plastic party cups and half-eaten plates of catered food. Tear tracks stain her cheeks. She’s not crying now, but she has been recently. Now she’s just angry.
And the object of her anger is a very tall, very muscular guy with cropped blond hair and intense eyes. His crimson Harvard Crew T-shirt stretches over shoulders broad enough to hold up the world. “You’re the one who showed up at my cousin’s house after breaking up with me,” he shouts back, aggressively pointing at her over the counter. “You’re sending me a lot of mixed signals, Evie.”
Jesus. This is Adrian Summers?
“Here’s a signal for you,” she says, holding up her middle finger. “Leave me alone.”
As she stomps around the counter, he drunkenly calls to her, “So typical. You Saint-Martins are a three-ring circus, you know that? Diedre’s the world’s greatest hypocrite. Your mom’s a sociopath. You’re an emotional seesaw. And now Wild Winona, the Whore of Babylon, is back in town, along with her little mistake, the amateur photographer.”
I make a noise, and his attention slides from Evie to me.
“There she is. And who doesn’t love a good amateur, am I right? Word on the street is that all your best pics are behind a paid subscription wall online. Twenty bucks and you get access to all your nudes.”
“What?” I say, but it comes out as a whisper.
“Isn’t that how your mom met your famous photographer dad, posing in the buff for him? Like mother, like daughter, huh?” Adrian whips out his phone. “We were just enjoying one tonight, weren’t we boys? Where was that? Oh, here we go.”
He turns his phone around to show me the screen. It’s a nude, all right. One I’ve seen before by accident, when I was younger. It’s my mother, photographed by my father when she was nineteen. It’s in black and white, and the top of her head is cropped off, so it’s hard to identify that it’s her. In fact, it would be easy to mistake the girl in the picture for me.
Except that I know for a fact it’s not. But that doesn’t matter to anyone here.
Adrian puckers his lips and makes a kissy face at me.
Dark laughter swirls around the pool house.
An earthquake starts in my belly and spreads up into my chest. I feel sick. Humiliated. And completely unable to do a damn thing about it. So I just stand there, staring at a naked picture of my mother. Hating her a little for ruining my life once again. Hating all of these people for objectifying her. Wanting to rip the phone away from Adrian and beat his smug face with it.
Adrian just clicks off the screen, turns away from me, and finishes his grand speech to Evie, saying, “Your family’s cursed, all right. You’re all a blight on Beauty!”
“And you’re an asshole,” a smoky voice says over my shoulder.
I glance behind me to see Lucky glaring at Adrian.
“Stay out of this, grease monkey,” Adrian says. “This is above your pay grade.”
One of Adrian’s friends pulls on his shoulder. “Come on, man. You’re wasted. You’ll regret this tomorrow.”
Adrian shoves his buddy away. “The only thing I regret is coming back home this summer. I should have stayed in Cambridge. All of you are losers. All of you!” And with that, he stumbles around the counter and out the door, heading toward the lights and music of the pool outside, where the main party is oblivious to what’s happened in here.
Evie pushes through the crowd and grabs my arm. “I’m so sorry,” she says near my ear. “Are you okay?”
No. I’m not. How did Adrian, some rich fool I’ve never even met, get a nude photograph of my mom? And how did he know about my Photo Funder subscription service and get the two things mixed up together? That’s a complete and utter lie. I’ve never taken a nude selfie in my life. I don’t even take clothed selfies. It’s rare that I even take photos of people at all.
I suddenly remember Big Dave at school, asking about private photo sessions … blowing me a kiss in the hallway like Adrian just did. Now I realize that’s truly what people think I do. Not just the dimwits in my school like Big Dave, but the Goldens. I wonder how far this photo has spread. Does everyone in town believe they’ve seen me in the buff?
I don’t know whether I want to punch something or cry.
“I’m fine,” I tell Evie, even though I’m not. “Are you?”
“Just typical drama.” She glances around at everyone staring at us and calls out to the pool house: “Nothing to see here. That photo is a fake. Adrian’s just drunk and spouting off because his feelings are hurt. What else is new? Enjoy your evening, folks.”
Um, this is not typical for me, thankyouverymuch. I want to ask her more. I want to tell her that I’m ready to leave and get away from these people. She can tell me everything on the walk home and, and—
“I’m so sorry I dragged you into this shit. Don’t listen to what he said or worry about the photo.”
“Evie,” I whisper. “You know that wasn’t me, right?”
“Hush. I know. I’m going to see if I can find out where he got it.” She looks toward her friends who are saying something to her. “Can you hang on for a while? It’s just, I need to … I’ll be right back, I promise.”
Before I can protest, she’s striding away, being comforted by Vanessa from Barcelona.
And now I’m alone. Stunned. Confused. Enduring stares and whispers.
And very angry.
I see Lucky though the crowd, but I can’t handle him right now. I can’t handle any of this. I’m completely overwhelmed, and I can’t “hang on.” I just need to get out of here. Away from all of it. I could call Mom to come pick me up, but honestly, she’s the last person I want to see right now. So I don’t call her. I just stride out of the pool house, around the pool, and across the perfectly manicured lawn, listening to the sounds of the party fade as I trudge around a curving gravel driveway filled with parked cars. In a few minutes, I’m out of the gate and walking down the dark sidewalk into town.
It’s not midnight yet, and Beauty prides itself on being safe, so I’m not all that worried about walking home alone—it’s not far. Still, I try to stay aware and stick to the gas streetlamps, following the main road through the historic district.
Adrian Summers. Who the hell does he think he is? God only knows who heard him say all that stuff tonight and saw that photo. Probably a bunch of sons and daughters of other rich families around town … people who will gossip about this tomorrow over brunch at the Lighthouse Café and cocktails at the Yacht Club. I suppose this means I can now look forward to customers coming into the shop and snickering behind the bookshelves.
The more I think about it, the madder I get. The madder I get, the faster I walk. Moonlight shines on Georgian-style roofs as I stride down the block, past a marble statue of one of the town elders—probably someone who drowned the so-called witch buried in our graveyard. Every white fence is perfectly painted. Every shop window gleams. But when I turn the corner and head toward the grassy quad in our historic town common, I slow my pace in front of a multistory brick building.