As a child, Jenny had been sad not to have a father. She hadn’t been embarrassed, because several other kids at school didn’t have fathers, or had fathers who lived far away and never visited. But she minded not having even a photograph of her father. Her mother would say only that she didn’t know who Jenny’s father was, and that was that. For years as a little girl, Jenny daydreamed about meeting her father someday. Her mother had such glossy black hair, and Jenny’s was dramatically black, too. She wondered if her father’s hair was also black, like a pirate’s or a Gypsy’s.
When she was ten, her mother married Rory Randall. He legally adopted Jenny, and he loved her as much, he promised, as he loved his biological daughters, Meg and Arden. He made her mother happy at last, which relieved and thrilled Jenny, and as the years went by, she didn’t wonder about her “real” father so much. For long stretches of time, she never thought about him at all.
She did mind that Rory Randall had red hair and so did his
first two daughters, while Jenny’s was black. So when the three were together with their father, everyone assumed that Arden and Meg were Rory’s daughters, which, of course, they were. Jenny was his daughter, too, his
chosen
daughter. If she could have worn a sign on her chest stating that she was Rory Randall’s daughter, she would have. It was wonderful to have a father.
Having sisters had been wonderful, too—for a while. Jenny was exactly Meg’s age, three years younger than Arden. The first year of their life together was chaotic, with Arden and Meg living mostly at their mothers’ but staying at the Nantucket house for the summer.
The second year had been the year of The Exile, and since then, although they saw one another, Arden and Meg had not accepted Jenny as a real sister.
Well, they would have to now.
They had to live with her for three entire months in the same house. As if they were family.
Jenny had seen Arden’s and Meg’s faces when the lawyer read their father’s letter. Meg had gone white. Arden’s lips had thinned in anger. Then Arden and Meg looked at each other and something passed between the two of them, an unspoken message they did not even think to share with Jenny.
It was partly her mother’s fault, Jenny knew. She could understand why Justine told Rory the other two girls were not allowed to come to the summer house anymore, and back then, when she was eleven years old, she’d been smugly, foolishly glad. That made Rory all hers. He had chosen her, he had adopted her, and then, as if in a fairy tale, the stepsisters had been whisked out of sight, out of mind. She hadn’t cared about Meg and Arden’s feelings.
Well, Jenny had paid for her mother’s decision and for her own childish sense of triumph. Twenty years had passed, and she’d been raised as an only child. During those years, their father
did “get his girls all together” from time to time in Boston, taking the three of them out to lavish meals in la-di-da restaurants or treating them to
The Nutcracker
ballet at Christmas. But even though, in front of their father or any of their mothers, the three behaved politely, Jenny had no doubt Arden and Meg hated her.
Jenny was hoping they’d do better this summer. Since their father’s letter had decreed they spend three months together, it wasn’t unreasonable for her to expect that slowly, gradually, Arden and Meg would get used to Jenny’s presence, and start to like her just a little, and then accept her a little more, and then, eventually, welcome her into their sisterhood, for they were all, one way or another, daughters of Rory Randall.
Jenny had e-mailed the other two to inform them she had a Jeep Cherokee, so they wouldn’t need to bring a car to the island. The house was in town, an easy walk to the post office, library, even to Grand Union. They could share the Jeep. But Meg had insisted on bringing her Volvo over because she had so many boxes of books. Arden had, through e-mail, sided with Meg, stating that having two vehicles at their disposal would prevent any awkwardness if more than one person absolutely needed a car at the same time. So fine. The short drive next to the house had just enough room for two cars.
As for bedrooms, Jenny had already staked her claim. One of the two spacious front bedrooms had been
her
bedroom for more than twenty years. After college, when she first had started up her computer business on the island, Rory and Justine still came down from Boston for summers and holidays. Jenny had installed her bank of computers, printers, and monitors at one end of her bedroom in order not to invade her parents’ space.
Jenny had informed Meg and Arden of her possession of the front bedroom in her last e-mail. In a moment of guilty private
gloating, she’d Express Mailed them newly copied keys in case she wasn’t there when they arrived.
Because she had keys to the house and they didn’t.
It was like being schizophrenic! Half the time Jenny longed for her sisters’ affection; the other half of the time she battled to one-up them. And she was thirty-one years old. When did a person ever outgrow childish behavior?
Today she’d certainly stormed the citadel of selflessness. She’d gone to all the markets and stocked up on baskets of fresh vegetables, bags of staples, and wine. By the time she’d finished the shopping, it was past noon, and she arrived back at the house to discover a Volvo in the drive.
Her heart thumped. Meg was here.
“Hello!” Jenny called as she elbowed the back door open and humped the bags of groceries through the mudroom and into the kitchen.
Footsteps clattered down the back stairs. Meg appeared. She looked younger than she had at the funeral—well, of course she would, they all would, they had all been so formal and somber at the funeral and the reading of the will.
Meg had her amazing golden-red hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail. She wore a pale lime sundress that set off her blue-green eyes. Her skin held the pallor of an academic who never did sports, or in Meg’s parlance, the radiance of a virtuous maiden. Whatever, she was dazzling.
Jenny wore jeans and a white cotton shirt. She thought she looked practical, capable, independent, adult, all that.
Meg skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh. Jenny. Hi.” Her smile was anxious.
Jenny had warned herself it would be this way; it would be weird if their first interactions weren’t lukewarm at best. She was certain Meg was hoping it was Arden she’d see first, that Arden would be here so the two of them could gang up on Jenny just like always. Jenny had steeled her heart.
No chance of any sort of sisterly hug. With considerable effort, Jenny tried for a light, friendly tone. “Meg. You’re here! Hi! Come in. Well, of course you can come in whenever you want to, I mean, because …” She was already tongue-tied. “I bought groceries. Stuff for breakfast and bread. Sandwich and salad makings. Some wine. To get us started.”
“What a good idea.” Meg hesitated. “Um, any more in the car that I could bring in?”
“Yeah, that would be great.”
The screen door banged as Meg slipped outside, and banged again as she returned, arms loaded. “You got a lot of food,” Meg said, setting the groceries on the counter. “I’ll have to reimburse you for my share.”
“Yeah, let’s wait till Arden’s here and we can sit down and draw up a weekly meal menu and shopping list.”
Again, a pause. “Oh, okay. Although I plan to take care of my own meals. I need to watch my weight. I intend to get in shape.”
Progress
, Jenny thought. Meg was sharing something personal. Turning around, she said, “Please. You already have a shape like Marilyn Monroe’s.”
Meg snorted. “I wish. No, I need to lose weight. But mostly I’ll focus on my work.”
“Don’t you teach at a college?”
“I do, but I’ve got the summer off. I’m going to write a book about May Alcott.”
“Oh, Louisa May Alcott. I read her—”
“No,
May
Alcott. Her younger sister. She was a brilliant artist
and no one knows about her.” Meg came alive as she spoke, her cheeks pinking, her eyes sparkling. “She was so talented, her work was chosen over Mary Cassatt’s to be exhibited in the 1877 Paris Salon.”
Jenny arched her eyebrows, trying to express her interest in this, although really she had no idea what Meg was going on about. Realizing that Meg wanted some kind of response, she racked her brain. “Um, isn’t there a Meg in
Little Women
?”
“Yes, there is, Jenny. But I’m not at all like Meg. And Louisa May Alcott’s real sister, May Alcott, the youngest sister, had an
amazing
life!”
Jenny bristled. “My life isn’t so very
un
amazing.”
“W-what?” Meg sputtered. “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that …” She frowned. “I’d better get these groceries put away.”
“Right,” Jenny agreed. “It’s not really hot yet, but I did buy some ice cream and some yogurt. I don’t know which bag it’s in. Also some fruit, watermelon and grapes that need to be cold.” She was babbling now, kicking herself for reacting so defensively to Meg’s remarks instead of just keeping her mouth shut and listening.
For a few minutes they worked side by side in something like companionship, wordlessly dividing the task so that Meg put away refrigerated items and Jenny put away everything else because, understandably, Jenny knew what each cupboard held and Meg didn’t.
“Now!” Jenny set her hands on her hips and looked around the room. “I think we should make some iced tea and enjoy a nice cool glass in the backyard.”
“Oh.” Pause. Meg looked at her watch. “Okay.”
Jenny set about putting the kettle on to boil and filling the old brown teapot with Lipton bags. “Have you unpacked?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I have. I took the back bedroom.”
Jenny paused. “The back bedroom? For heaven’s sake, why? It’s the smallest room and the furniture is so shabby.”
“I think it’s adorable. I want to sit at the desk by the window and work on my book.”
“The desk is awfully rickety. I’m not even sure the air-conditioning reaches back that far.…” Jenny poured the boiling water into the pot to steep the tea.
Meg got out the ice tray and two glasses. “I won’t mind the heat. I prefer that little room.”
“I think you should take the other front bedroom,” Jenny told her. “It’s much bigger and brighter. Or take the mermaid room. It’s so cheerful. That back bedroom’s like a nun’s cell. Do you want sugar or artificial sweetener? I put Sweet’n Low in this little china bowl. Spoons are in this drawer.”
“I’ve already unpacked,” Meg said firmly. She watched Jenny lift the hot teapot. “If you put a knife in the glass, the glass won’t break when you pour the hot tea over the ice. It’s a trick I learned—”
“These glasses won’t break. They’ve lasted forever.”
“Really.” Meg’s voice was cool. “I’ve never seen them before. You must have got them after I was banned from the island.” She went out the screen door, letting it slam behind her.
Arden took a taxi from the airport to the house. She’d considered calling to ask for a ride, but neither Meg nor Jenny had bothered to let her know their plans, so Arden thought
Fine
, she’d keep her information private, too.
Two cars were parked in the driveway. Hefting her purse, duffel, and computer over one shoulder, Arden pulled her rolling suitcase up the walk to the front door. It was unlocked. She let herself in.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Dumping her luggage by the stairs, she went through the house to the kitchen at the back. The window over the sink neatly framed the backyard, where Meg and Jenny sat sipping iced tea and talking.
How cozy.
Be nice
, Arden told herself.
You need this gig
.
First of all, she couldn’t return to her Boston apartment because, with her mother’s help, she’d rented it for the summer to a French couple, and the money was superlative.
Second and much more important, she’d come up with a strategy for juicing up her part of
Simplify This
. She’d do second-home segments, starting with Nantucket! She’d spend the summer making contacts and scouting out sexy locations, fab old mansions that needed face-lifts, family summer homes bought by corporate entrepreneurs and techy trailblazers. Perhaps by August she could start shooting, get some of the cameramen down here.…
First things first. Arden scanned the kitchen, found the necessities, made herself a glass of iced tea, and carried it outside.
“Hello, ladies.” She sauntered toward them in the yellow linen Fiandaca suit that she could never have afforded. Designers often gave her clothes to wear on the show. She chose this for her first appearance with the sisters. She was the oldest, the most successful, the most polished.
“Good, Arden, you’re here!” Trust Meg to act as if this summer were some kind of sorority camp. Meg jumped up and lightly kissed Arden’s cheek.
“Hi, Arden.” Jenny greeted her cheerfully enough but ruined it by adding, “Would you mind removing your shoes? The heels are digging divots in the lawn.”
Arden bit back a sarcastic response. “Sure.” She took a wicker chair, sipped her tea, sighed, and looked around the yard. Only after a few moments did she remove her heels. She had to admit it felt good to take them off.
“I didn’t hear you arrive,” Meg said.
“I came in a taxi just now. Dropped my luggage in the front hall.”
“I saved the front bedroom for you,” Meg announced.
“Oh, I don’t want the front bedroom. I want the little bedroom at the back, the one I always had.”
“Well, actually,” Meg said, “I had it, too. I had it first. Then you wanted it.…”
Arden waved a careless hand dismissively. “That was years ago. Who can remember? Anyway, I’ll take the back bedroom.”
“I’ve already unpacked.” Meg looked just slightly pleased with herself.
“The front bedroom is the master bedroom!” Jenny cut in, obviously trying to make peace.
“Meg.” Arden leaned forward. “I really want the back bedroom.”
Once upon a time, long ago, Meg had been in awe of Arden, who was three whole years older and sassed her mother and knew how to wear nail polish and needed a bra long before Meg did. In the earliest years, Meg’s mother still felt guilty for stealing Rory away from Nora, leaving three-year-old Arden without a daddy in the house, so she worked hard to encourage Meg to be kind to Arden. To let Arden have what she wanted.