Kelsi pushed her way off the subway train, and let the crowd carry her along, up the stairs and out into the sweaty, humid June evening.
Once free of the foot traffic, she backed up to the nearest building, looked all around her, and let the thrill of it all snake through her: She was in New York City!
The plan had been for Bennett to drive up and spend the last two weekends in Pebble Beach. The first weekend he’d cancelled, because his new job at the gallery involved a ton of overtime hours, which he hadn’t expected. Then this weekend he’d been supposed to come up again, and when he’d called late last night, Kelsi had steeled herself for yet another cancellation.
“I have to cover all these galleries for Carlos,” Bennett had told her. “So I can’t come up this weekend.”
“It’s okay.” Kelsi had tried to sound supportive, even though she was crushed. She didn’t even know what “covering galleries” meant, or why it was so much more important than his coming up to see her, but she didn’t think she should ask that question. She suspected it would sound needy, and she really wanted to sound completely behind him—one hundred percent.
“It’s not okay,” Bennett replied immediately. “But you should come down. There’s no reason why you can’t come with me while I do the coverage and, anyway—I want to see you.”
And so here she was.
Here
being the actual island of Manhattan, which Kelsi could hardly believe she was standing on. She’d been to New York before on various field trips to the Metropolitan Museum or a Broadway show—and even once on an ill-advised night out with Ella—but it had never been like this. She’d never been completely on her own, planning to stay in her boyfriend’s
apartment
and cover
art galleries.
Bennett was living in such an amazing world this summer, and now she got to be a part of it, too.
Kelsi pushed away from the wall and started down the street, admiring the sweep of skyscrapers above, and the
jam-packed streets spread out in front of her as she headed south. New York was so dramatic, from the eclectic citizens who marched with such purpose, to the bright yellow cabs that zoomed toward certain disaster at top speed only to stop
just
in the nick of time. The sour summer perfume of garbage and hot asphalt rose up from the pavement beneath Kelsi’s feet.
Truth be told, Kelsi wasn’t sure why anyone would
want
to spend the summer in a place as relentlessly hot and gritty as New York City. She’d foolishly worn flip-flops tonight and could practically feel her feet collecting all the grime and dirt from the hot street. But maybe that was the price for all the restless, exciting energy of the place.
In Maine, the sunset brought lower temperatures. The nights were cool, even cold, and the air was clear. If there
were
stars up above Manhattan, Kelsi couldn’t see them past all the bright lights. It was as if Manhattan made its own light, and didn’t even need stars. Kelsi laughed a little and turned down the side street that led to Carlos Delgado’s gallery.
And Bennett.
At the thought of her boyfriend, Kelsi felt the usual excitement and delight roll through her body. It competed with the clatter and rumble of the city around her, and won, until she was smiling ear to ear.
She didn’t really mind that Bennett’s job had turned out
to be so much more demanding than he’d anticipated, Kelsi told herself, because he was gaining so much experience and it was going to be such a great thing for his future.
Kelsi realized she could miss Bennett and wish she saw more of him even while totally supporting him. Or, anyway, she felt like she could.
When Kelsi finally reached the gallery, she paused for a moment outside and tried to collect herself. The last time she’d come down, she’d been so excited to see Bennett that she’d burst into the gallery, all sweaty-faced and out of breath. And while no one had made fun of her or anything—at least not to her face—she’d gotten the distinct impression that it
wasn’t how they did things in Chelsea.
Bennett liked to joke that all that artistic flair meant a humor deficit.
Kelsi pushed through the big glass doors, careful not to leave any fingerprints because that also
wasn’t how they did things
, and wandered into the vast, open space. The gallery spread out in front of her like a labyrinth: white brick walls snaked this way and that, and up above was the balcony where the offices sat.
Bennett had told Kelsi that Carlos was currently showing art and installations related to his concept of summer. That sounded so simple, and yet the art in front of Kelsi was arresting and bold. The canvas nearest her, all cream lines and splashes of blue, made Kelsi gasp a little bit. It was like a
perfect depiction of how Kelsi thought a summer afternoon should feel. It was beautiful.
Carlos was amazing. Kelsi knew that. She knew that the art magazines hailed him as the most exciting modern artist of his day. But in that moment, nothing was more exciting to Kelsi than the sound of a voice she knew so well. She wandered past one of the larger installations and watched as Bennett led customers through the labyrinth.
Her heart still somersaulted when she saw him, and she could feel the goofy smile transform her face. It was fun to watch him when he didn’t know she was there yet. She could congratulate herself on having such a fine-looking boyfriend, who was dressed all in black today—a tight T-shirt and what looked like new, probably expensive jeans. Even his auburn hair looked different, less emo and more slick. Kelsi remembered Bennett telling her that Carlos had insisted on what he called a “visible upgrade” for his intern. Kelsi couldn’t deny that the changes suited Bennett. If it weren’t for his trademark hipster glasses, she might have mistaken him for a hot New Yorker.
Until he saw her, that is, and his dark eyes blazed with joy.
Kelsi smiled back, and the nervous tension within her eased. She hadn’t even known it was there until she felt it dissolve.
Things were different than she’d expected them to be
this summer, but who cared? The important thing was the look in Bennett’s eyes as he walked toward her.
As long as she had that, nothing else mattered.
Bennett’s new world was glitzy and wild, and Kelsi loved every moment of it. They’d left Carlos’s gallery by taxi, and Bennett informed her that he’d be taking her on an art tour of New York.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Kelsi confessed.
“No one knows what that means,” Bennett replied, holding her close in the backseat of the cab. “But it sounds good, right? You’re excited without even knowing why, aren’t you?”
“I’m excited.” Kelsi nestled close and gave him a long, sweet kiss. “But I know exactly why.”
Bennett kissed her back, deeply, and Kelsi had almost forgotten how the sweet pressure of his lips and the familiar touch of his tongue could make her feel. Their arms went around each other, and Kelsi fell back against the cracked vinyl as Bennett trailed kisses down her neck to her collarbone. She let out a sigh of pleasure, burying her fingers in his hair. She’d never made out in a cab before, and there was something naughty about that thrill, about feeling Bennett’s fingers tiptoe up her thigh as the bright lights of New York City flashed by them in a blur.
She and Bennett got so carried away that Kelsi was out of breath and barely noticed that the cab had stopped.
“Crap,” Bennett muttered. He handed the driver some bills through the plastic window separating the seats, and then pulled Kelsi out after him.
They were standing in SoHo. Trendy girls in pencil heels wove past them. The front door to a warehouse-like building was thrown open and flashily dressed people milled around within.
“Are you ready?” Bennett asked, looking down at Kelsi with mischief in his dark eyes.
“Of course,” she said, fixing her twisted hair.
“Because you’re about to see something kind of scary. I call it, the Art Snob.” He grinned. “A breed not specific to Manhattan, though this is a major breeding ground. And the one you’re about to meet is
particularly
egregious.”
Kelsi peered around Bennett, trying to look inside the building.
“Which one?” she asked.
“Me, silly,” Bennett chided her. Then he flipped open his cell phone. “This is the most important part of my job. And the most ridiculous.”
He pressed a speed-dial button to get Carlos on the line, and led Kelsi into the gallery at the same time.
“It’s me,” he said into his phone, in a blasé voice Kelsi had never heard before. Then he winked at Kelsi. “No, there’s not much of a turnout. Adequate at best.”
Kelsi looked around at the crowded space. People were
literally cheek-by-jowl at the bar. Then she looked back at Bennett. Obviously he was speaking in code.
“I mean, sure, there are some people here,” Bennett continued. “But we get more foot traffic on a Monday morning at the gallery.”
Bennett marched his way through the show, his cell phone planted on his ear, giving Carlos a play-by-play of each piece of art. Kelsi trailed behind, listening.
A beautiful still life?
“Pedestrian,” Bennett said into the phone. When Kelsi gaped at him, he pointed at the phone and mouthed,
I love it!
A painting of a church, with what Kelsi thought was glorious use of light and shadow?
“First-year M.F.A.,” Bennett pronounced, while shaking his head at Kelsi, and pointing right at the very shadows that Kelsi had felt drawn to.
And so on, throughout the show.
“Basically, this show is an insult to the rest of the art students,” Bennett told his boss as they completed their circuit, despite the fact Kelsi had read in the literature that the artist was self-taught, not an art student at all. “It’s everything you complain about,” he added. He listened for a few moments and then hung up.
“Wow,” Kelsi said, looking at him. “That was quite a performance.”
Bennett rolled his eyes. “Did you like it? I hope so,
because we have two other shows to hit tonight, and they’ll be exactly the same.”
“I loved that church!” Kelsi protested.
“So did I,” Bennett said with a shrug. “But it’s not about what
we
like. It’s about what Carlos would like, and he definitely would
not
like that painting. I have to be his eyes at these shows, not mine. This is what he’s paying me for.” His eyes twinkled. “Glamorous, huh?”
“That’s one word for it,” Kelsi replied thoughtfully. “Another one is
weird
.”
“Reporting to Carlos is the annoying part,” Bennett confided, taking her hand and kissing it quickly, then tugging her along with him to the bar. “But there are compensations.”
“Like what?” Kelsi asked.
“Free wine and appetizers, for one,” Bennett said, snagging two spring rolls from a passing waiter and offering one to her with flourish. “Or as it’s known around here, Friday night dinner.”
By the time they finished the report from the third show of the evening, Kelsi was feeling a little bit tipsy from all the free wine—or maybe it was just being with Bennett again. Or being in New York. Whatever it was, when they made their way out of the final gallery onto the busy sidewalk, Kelsi felt a giddy rush all through her body.
“I love you,” she told Bennett—and half of Manhattan—grabbing his face between her hands to kiss him.
Kelsi felt as if the kiss could go on forever. Bennett slipped his hands around her waist and lifted her closer to his mouth. They practically breathed each other in.
“I have an amazing idea for our first night in New York,” Bennett said, resting his forehead against Kelsi’s when they finally pulled apart.
“I think this is an amazing idea already,” Kelsi said, kissing him again.
“Trust me,” Bennett said softly.
And that was how Kelsi found herself—after a hazardous cab ride through Manhattan that gave her a new appreciation for what a pinball must feel like—in a horse-drawn carriage, being pulled through Central Park at night.
Above, the city lights gleamed like the stars did in Maine, and Kelsi snuggled next to Bennett as the horse clip-clopped through the dark paths of one of the world’s most famous parks.
“This is the most beautiful thing in the world,” she told him, feeling like she couldn’t get close enough.
“No,” he said, running his fingers along her face, “you are.”
They kissed again and again. Kelsi felt her heart swell, and her skin tingle like she might die if Bennett stopped kissing her. She felt like a goddess. She wanted to collapse into him and never get up again.
Once again, they lost track of where they were and what
they were doing, and only came back to reality when the carriage driver cleared his throat.
From the look on his face as he turned his head, it was not for the first time.
Kelsi giggled, embarrassed, but also secretly excited that she and Bennett could get so involved with each other that even New York City faded away. Bennett had to set his glasses straight on his face, and pretend to be solemn while he paid the driver. They both laughed as they walked away.
Bennett stopped walking, and pulled Kelsi in to kiss her.
“God,” he said, “this is crazy. I have to get you home. Like,
now
.”
It felt good to be wanted so much, and to want him in the same way. Kelsi moved closer and kissed her way down his neck.
“I’m ready whenever you are,” she murmured into his skin.
“That would be immediately,” Bennett said, his voice a little bit strained. He stepped into the street and hailed a cab, never looking away from Kelsi or letting go of her hand.
“I’m so glad I’m here.” Kelsi looked at him, and the city all around them. “This is all so wonderful.”
A cab careened to a screeching halt beside them, and Bennett pulled her close to kiss her one more time.
“It is now,” he whispered.
Ella adjusted the top of her black bikini and arranged herself across her towel, making sure her legs appeared to their best advantage. Jeremy was high up in his lifeguard chair, and she knew he’d be watching.
Jeremy had mentioned that he enjoyed glancing down from his ocean-scanning duties to see her there, looking hot. Who was Ella to deny her boyfriend something that required so little effort on her part?
And if the cute-boy parade along the water’s edge also happened to notice her as she lounged? Well, that was life. She’d just have to suffer through it.
A wide-shouldered hottie wandered up just then, all square-jawed and curly-haired, and Ella smiled at him, but then saw that his attention was focused on Jamie, who was
sitting beside her. As she was very much taken, Ella decided she didn’t feel slighted. Jamie had broken up with Dex from her private school way back in, like, February, if Ella remembered right—and she always remembered boys right. Ella had high hopes for Jamie and Mr. Broad Shoulders.
“Hi,” he said to Jamie, with a sparkling smile. Ella liked the look of it. “You kind of remind me of Enid from
Ghost World
, which is, like, my favorite movie of all time.”
“Hi,” was Jamie’s response, and she didn’t really smile. Ella couldn’t believe this was her own flesh and blood, dropping the ball like that. Had she taught Jamie
nothing
?
“I just wanted to tell you that if you feel like playing volleyball, my friends and I are starting a game,” the guy continued, still working overtime on the smile. “I mean, volleyball on the beach is definitely more
Baywatch
than
Ghost World
, but I hope you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt.”
He was adorable. Ella was tempted to go play a little volleyball herself, and she only knew what
Ghost World
was because Jamie had once been obsessed with the movie herself.
Jamie, on the other hand, who had just been told she looked like Thora Birch by a delectable guy, was having none of it.
“Thanks. That’s really nice of you,” was what Jamie said. She smiled then, but not in any kind of come-hither way. Ella was appalled. “But I’m not really into volleyball. Sorry.”
“Um,
hello
!” Ella hissed when the poor guy had taken his glorious shoulders out of earshot. “What just happened?”
“Eh.” Jamie shrugged, and dug into her big straw bag for a thick paperback.
Atlas Shrugged
, the cover read. Ella was bored by the very sight of it.
“Not my type,” Jamie explained.
“Since when has hot and smart not been your type?” Ella demanded. “Have you gone blind?”
“I don’t know, he seemed so
jocky
.” Jamie made a face.
“I don’t think he was born with that body. He’s like Toby Maguire in
Spider-Man
,” Ella pointed out. “He may have worked on it a little bit. But then, neither one of us woke up this morning with this hair, did we?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie murmured.
“Here’s what
I
know,” Ella said. “The only reason I ever even saw that
Ghost World
movie is because you thought you looked like Enid yourself. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that!”
“Let’s just enjoy the beach, okay?” Jamie asked, reaching up to touch her artfully arranged curls as they exploded from her bun. She wrinkled her nose at Ella. “I just kind of want to sit and read my book.”
Not an urge Ella shared, but then, she wouldn’t have worn the 1950s-looking bathing-suit thing Jamie was wearing, either. It had a
skirt. Different strokes
, she thought.
She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the feel of the Maine sun. It caressed her face and body, and the slight
breeze ruffled the hair she’d twisted up in a sleek ponytail. It was a perfect morning, and Ella had the intention of wasting every single moment of it.
“Hello, ladies!” singsonged a familiar voice.
Even before she opened her eyes, Ella knew it was Taryn.
Taryn, sashaying her way through the colorful spread of beach towels, swinging her hips in hope that every single guy in a five-mile radius would sit up and take notice.
Which they all did, because Taryn was sporting a tiny black bikini and nothing else.
The same black bikini that Ella herself was wearing, in fact.
At first Ella thought maybe the bikinis were just similar—after all, a lot of them looked the same. But no. She could see the logo on the hip as Taryn swayed closer, and there was no mistaking it.
It was the exact same bikini.
Ella narrowed her eyes and said nothing as Jamie cheerily welcomed this Single White Interloper into Ella’s no-longer-quite-so-perfect morning.
Ella had felt pretty neutral about Taryn’s presence up until this moment. Sure, she would have preferred to be sleeping in her traditional place in the bedroom she usually shared with her sister. And yes, it was the teensiest bit annoying that Kelsi always made plans with Taryn and invited Ella only as an afterthought.
But Ella had been handling all that. What she found she was less inclined to handle was someone rolling up in
her
bikini.
Taryn had been lounging around soaking up Ella’s dad’s attention at breakfast when Ella had announced her plans for the day, and so the other girl had clearly seen what Ella was wearing. Why would she go out of her way to wear the same thing? Ella knew for a fact that Taryn had brought about
seven
other swimsuit combinations to the cottage.
It was outrageous, and, possibly, a deliberate challenge. Ella already had to share her sister’s time with this girl. Now she had to share her fashion choices?
The truth was that Ella had never had this issue in Pebble Beach before. Back at school, sure, she and her friend Marilee had been known to tussle a time or two over certain shades of Chanel Glossimer and the odd H&M halter top, but this was Maine. The only other hot girls around, in Ella’s opinion, were her family members, and none of them would ever appear in Ella’s exact outfits, because they all had such different styles.
Not Taryn,
Ella thought then. She took a moment to size the older girl up. She’d kind of avoided doing so previously, in the hopes she could just ignore Taryn’s presence in her world. Well, no more.
Taryn was little, like Ella. She didn’t have Ella’s curves—or her Prada sunglasses, thank you—but she did
have the sort of body that called to mind Keira Knightley, the bitch. In fact, she was sort of Keira-d out—from short dark hair to small, cute feet, now that Ella thought of it. Ella, on the other hand, was far more Jessica Simpson.
Taryn plopped herself into the hot sand, and smiled broadly. Jamie smiled back.
“Where’s Beth?” Taryn asked.
“She said she wanted to run ten miles today,” Jamie replied.
Taryn shuddered. “That sounds incredibly unappealing to me,” she said.
Ella could relate, but she hated thinking she had a single thing in common with Taryn.
“That’s our Beth,” Jamie said with a laugh. “The more exhausting and physical something is, the more she wants to be a pro at it.”
“She’s the only one in the family who runs,” Ella chimed in, clearing her throat. “She has mutant genes, obviously.”
“Kelsi runs sometimes,” Taryn said. “Never ten miles, though. Kelsi says a couple of miles here and there are good enough.”
Ella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. As far as she knew, her sister didn’t own any shoes that didn’t run the risk of being stolen by hippies in a VW van headed for Burning Man. There were no running shoes in Kelsi’s closet.
“What are you talking about?” she asked Taryn,
laughing. “The only way Kelsi Tuttle would run anywhere was if someone chased her. With meat, or something. Her vegetarian principles would force her to flee.”
Taryn’s eyebrows rose over her designer knockoff sunglasses.
“I don’t know what her vegetarian principles have to do with anything,” she said. “But I do know that Kelsi runs a couple of times a week, usually.”
Ella gritted her teeth. It was one thing if Kelsi wanted to take her college roommate everywhere with her like a tote bag. But Kelsi was currently driving back up to Maine from another New York City trip, and Ella didn’t see why
she
had to hang out with Taryn in the meantime.
She
didn’t need a tote bag.
“So Kelsi should be back soon,” Ella said, as if Taryn had asked. But mostly to point out that soon they could get to the bottom of her running habits—assuming she really had any.
“Around three or four this afternoon,” Taryn said. Because she knew everything, apparently. “I just got off the phone with her.”
“How was her trip?” Jamie asked immediately.
Taryn began to tell Jamie all about Kelsi, because she was clearly an expert on that subject after knowing her for—what? Ten months? Ella had known Kelsi her entire seventeen years. But whatever, that didn’t seem to matter
much anymore, since Kelsi was now
a runner like Beth
, and who knew what else?
Ella didn’t have to check her messages to know perfectly well that Kelsi hadn’t called
her only sister
, because Ella’s cell phone was located six centimeters from her elbow and it hadn’t so much as beeped in the past hour.
It took all the strength in her body not to look at the phone, anyway, of course, and then about twice that strength to keep from biting Taryn’s head off. She knew it would only make her look like a gigantic baby.
It was good that Kelsi had a close friend, Ella told herself sternly, even if that friend was a slinky little know-it-all like this Taryn. No, really, Ella knew it was good, and that Kelsi was happier than she’d ever been before.
Ella remembered all the other summers when Kelsi just sort of wafted around in Indian-print batik shirts and claimed to be really interested in the undergrowth out in the forest or butterflies or something, when anyone could see she was actually just sort of lonely. It was
terrific
that she’d found this fun new girl to confide in, and this fun new girl’s sort of nerdy brother, for whom Kelsi had unaccountably dumped that hottie Tim, and Ella felt so freaking supportive she practically threw up from it.
“Are you okay, El?” Jamie asked, frowning, and Ella guessed that her “supportive” face needed some work.
“I think Jeremy’s shift in the chair is almost up,” she said
instead of answering. She had to escape. “I’m going to go over there for a while.”
“We’ll have to hang later, okay?” Taryn said, as if news of Ella’s departure distressed her, which Ella very much doubted.
“Absolutely,” Ella agreed in the same tone, while getting to her feet.
“Do you mind if I use your towel?” Taryn asked, moving over even as she asked. “I think I forgot mine.”
How someone set off for the beach clad in
somebody else’s
black bikini, yet somehow neglected to bring anything else along with them, was a mystery to Ella.
“Of course,” she said icily, waving at the towel Taryn had already completely taken over. “Be my guest.”
“You’re a sweetheart,” Taryn said in such a way that Ella knew she’d been dismissed.
The
nerve
!
Was this what Kelsi had meant when she’d told Ella that
Taryn and you are so much alike, it’s crazy
? Did Kelsi think Ella was a rude bi-atch? That was impossible, of course, since Kelsi obviously didn’t think
Taryn
was anything of the sort.
What could Kelsi possibly see in this girl? And what made her think this girl was like Ella? Or—and Ella didn’t like this thought at all—did Kelsi prefer Taryn to her own sister? Because Kelsi sure spent a whole lot more time with this person she claimed reminded her so much of her sister
than she did with her
actual
sister. Ella’s stomach hurt just thinking about it.
But there also wasn’t any room left on her towel, so she had no choice but to suck it up and go complain to her boyfriend about Taryn, the Interloping Tote Bag.