Double Eclipse by Melissa de la Cruz
“I . . . huh?”
“The other day? When you wandered into the Cheesemonger? I said I was thinking of asking Molly to work here for the summer, and you said that you wanted to do it?”
“Oh, right!” I’d totally forgotten about it, what with everything that had gone down in the past couple of days. The Gardiners getting kicked out of their house and Molly moving into it and Trent dumping me on the beach, and then just disappearing. Ingrid said something about “Europe,” as if that somehow narrowed it down. Trent went all the way to Europe to get away from me? So depressing.
“So I take it Molly turned you down?” I said now.
“Not exactly. She’s been too busy letting my son squire her all around the East End in a bright yellow Maserati.”
“Rocky has a Maserati?”
“I drive a 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser, Mardi. Do you think my son has a Maserati?”
I didn’t bother pointing out that he also owned five buildings in one of the most expensive square miles of real estate east of Rodeo Drive, and that the Land Cruiser, like the refurbished trailer house he lived in, was a total WASP affectation.
“You mean it’s Molly’s? But where would Molly . . . oh, of course. Janet.”
“Who’s Janet?”
“Steele? The tennis player. Our mother—never mind. Anyway, I’m sorry Molly’s kidnapped Rocky, but I’m not sure—”
“You have to help me out,” Sal cut me off. “I can’t keep running back and forth between the Inn and the sandwich shop. I’m losing business at both places. Freya’s ready to quit, and you know I can’t lose her—she’s the best bartender on the East Coast.”
“I’m only seventeen; I can’t help out in the bar.”
“The Cheesemonger, Mardi. I need you in the sandwich shop.”
“But I don’t know the menu or the merchandise or—”
“You knew about the Debbie Harry. Please, Mardi. I’m begging. I’m begging a kid to save my ass.”
An hour later, I was parking in front of the Cheesemonger, when Sal came out of the store in a filthy apron.
“No, no, no,” he said. “You can’t park right in front of the store. That’s for customers.”
“Seriously, Sal? I’m doing you a favor here.”
“And I’m paying you for it! Now move the car.”
I thought about remarking that my dad made in the high eight figures last year, plus he was, you know, a god. But all I did was pull the Ferrari around back, to the small municipal lot there.
“Okay, then,” Sal said as I walked in the back door. “So, it turns out that Billy and Bruce’s B&B, you know, the one next to the yacht club, has a standing order for a dozen sandwiches every day at eleven-thirty. Just get those ready, and they’ll send over their, um, houseboy to pick them up at eleven-fifteen. Then you should go ahead and get ready for the eleven-thirty train from the city. It usually lets off a hungry crowd. I’d just make another dozen assorted sandwiches—making sure you’ve got at least two veggie, two vegan, and two gluten-free. You know this crowd—they have more dietary restrictions than Catholics during Lent. That’ll pretty much wipe out your prepared stocks, so you should probably make some more prep for the afternoon crowd. We’ve got smoked salmon, cured trout, smoked and herbed turkey, Parma ham, Iberian ham, Smithfield ham, prosciutto, and all the various things that go into the dips and spreads and dressings in the walk-in. Marshall left really detailed instructions on how to make everything—the kid may have been a flake, but he was a wizard in the kitchen. Oh, and I haven’t had a chance to get the linen service back in here, so you’ll have to wear this for now.” And he pulled the stained apron off his sweaty body and draped it unceremoniously over my neck. “Your employee discount is fifty percent,” he added, “so feel free to chow down.”
And with that, he trotted toward the back door.
“Um, Sal?”
He turned back to me with an impatient look.
“I thought you said Rocky was going to be working here too.”
Sal looked at me as though I was speaking Norse.
“Rocky? I told you. He’s running around with your sister. They’re probably at the beach right now.”
And with that, he was gone.
“Holy crap,” I said out loud. “What just happened?”
17
SAIL AWAY SWEET SISTER
From the Diary of Molly Overbrook
So much happened over the course of the next two weeks that I almost forgot about the fact that I hadn’t spoken to Mardi once that whole time.
I suppose I could just as easily say that I didn’t speak to Dad, Ingrid, Freya, Matt, Jo, or even Henry, but let’s face it: as important as all those people were to me, none of them came close to Mardi. Not even Dad, who was still recovering.
Mardi was my twin. She was the most important person in my life. I’d never gone more than two days without seeing her. I’d never gone a single day without talking to her. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever gone six hours without talking to her. That’s how I knew this fight was serious, even if I didn’t know what it was about.
Because really, what had happened to get her so upset?
Mum had repeated some stuff about some old prophecy or something. If I had a dollar for every time someone in our family spouted off about how such-and-such had been foretold or so-and-so was the promised one . . . well, I’m already rich, but I’d be even richer.
Like most old religions, we had prophecies up the wazoo, and the vast majority of them were so vague that you never really knew if they’d actually come true, or if people were just making stuff up. And even if this was one of the real ones, well, what could we do about it? If the fates had decreed that we were supposed to be the end of the old gods, the old gods could hardly blame us, could they? And besides, like Mum said, who knew when it would all come to pass? It could be decades. Centuries. Millennia. Couldn’t we all just chill and have some fun till then?
• • •
Who knew, maybe Mardi was having the time of her life while she was apart from me—I have to say, those two weeks were some of the best of my life.
First of all, Mum was on TV every other day. And she was kicking some serious ass. She won her first three matches 6–0, which if you don’t know anything about tennis, that’s a total beatdown, and it’s pretty much unheard of for it to happen three times in a row. After the third match, Rocky said, “Damn. It’s like she’s got a magic racket or something.” I glanced at him sharply, but he didn’t notice. Of course I was wondering the same thing. I mean, she barely broke a sweat when she played—and it was almost ninety degrees on the court. She’d said she was human, and Ingrid and Freya and Dad had confirmed that, but they’d also hinted that it would have taken magic for her to get pregnant by Dad without his consent, or knowledge, for that matter. And if she could pull off something like that, why couldn’t she get a nice little hex on her racket, as Rocky had unwittingly suggested, or maybe just on her right arm. It was exactly the kind of thing the Council was likely to miss. They were much more concerned with events like elections or business ventures, or things that left people dead. Tennis was a little under the radar for them.
But then, Mum had been at it for a while now, at two different periods, and she certainly hadn’t played down her success, either on or off the court. And as the ex-girlfriend of Thor, she was likely to fall under more scrutiny than most people. No, the more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that she was using magic to win matches. My mother was simply a kick-ass tennis player.
And even better than watching her cruise toward the Wimbledon final was the way she ended each of her on-court interviews: “I just want to say hi to my daughter Molly, who’s watching back home in North Hampton. Mum loves you, and she’ll be home soon.”
And you know, that was great. Really great, except I felt a tiny pang that she didn’t mention M
ardi. So great that the first time she said it, I actually felt myself tearing up. I didn’t realize how much I had missed having a mother. But although the emotions she was bringing up were totally real, Mum was three thousand miles away, and she was still kind of unreal to me.
I mean, I was living in her house and I was driving her car, but I’d only met her once, spent maybe a grand total of four hours talking to her, and it was hard to think of her in the same way I thought of Dad. So mostly I was biding my time, waiting for her to come back to the East End, to figure out if she really was as awesome as she seemed.
But much closer at hand was Rocky. And, well, Rocky really was awesome. Like if you ever took one of those quizzes in Teen Vogue or Girls’ Life about the perfect boyfriend, Rocky seemed to have been created right from my answers. He was athletic but not a jock; he was smart but not a nerd; he liked R&B but not gangster rap; he was a great kisser but he didn’t pressure me to go too fast. In fact, when we were making out, he was usually the one to break things off first.
I also got the feeling he was always thinking about his mom. It had only been a few months since she’d died, after all. There were times when we’d be doing something—popping popcorn maybe (Rocky liked to make it the old-fashioned way, in a pot on the stove), or flipping past some dumb reality show on TV—and he’d fall silent with this faraway look on his face. I asked him about it a couple times, but he’d always give me this half-happy, half-sad smile and say, “It’s nothing.”
I hadn’t exactly earned the right to his heart’s secrets after only a few days of hanging out, and I wasn’t even sure I felt ready to carry them, let alone reciprocate them. I mean, it’s not like I was going to tell him I was a goddess anytime soon. But it was nice knowing the guy I was hanging out with had some depth to him. The abs didn’t hurt either.
And let’s not forget: we were both all alone. I mean, Rocky had Sal, and I had Mardi and Dad and Freya and Ingrid and Matt and the kids. But Rocky didn’t really know Sal, who was always busy with the North Inn and his other businesses, and I had done a great job of driving a wedge between me and the family by moving into Fair Haven. Not that it would have been hard to avoid them: Dad was laid up in bed, Ingrid had her job at the library as well as two kids to raise, and Mardi, well, Mardi seemed to just disappear, as did Trent for that matter.
I didn’t check up on them on social media, but even so, I assumed they hadn’t gone off somewhere together or I’d have heard—through Freya if no one else, since she was the one member of my family I still saw, usually in the evenings, after Rocky and I had spent the day watching Wimbledon or lazing on the beach or driving around the North Fork.
In fact, we ended up at the North Inn almost every night, since neither of us wanted to cook and the chef at Fair Haven didn’t know how to make anything less complicated than boeuf en daube, and the North Inn’s Kobe beef burger was pretty amazing, plus Freya would give us free drinks.
And on our thirteenth day together, she handed me a box of condoms.
“Freya!” I exclaimed, quickly hiding them in my purse. I glanced around to see if Rocky had noticed, but he was back at our table, staring at his phone. “What are you doing?”
“Better safe than sorry,” Freya said as she wiped down the bar. “I can smell the hormones on you two even through all the suntan lotion.”
“Nothing has happened! And even if something did, it’s not like I’d need these.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Freya said. “First rule of fooling around with mortals: don’t give them any reason to suspect that you’re different. And secondly, you should be prepared, even though you haven’t rounded third.”
I blushed. “What makes you think I’ve never gone to third before?”
“Seriously, Mooi? I’m the goddess of love, in case you’ve forgotten. I don’t miss details like that. If it makes you feel better, he’s a virgin too.”
“What? You can tell?”
“Goddess of love,” Freya said again. “It’s not just an honorary title, you know. Also?” Freya paused dramatically.
“Yes?” I prompted.
“He wants you to be his first.”
Over at his table, Rocky looked up with a start.
I put my head down on the bar, my heart pounding, while Freya cheerfully made drinks as if she hadn’t just blown my mind.
• • •
Like I said, this happened on our thirteenth night at the North Inn, which is to say, the night before the Wimbledon final. Although we’d watched the whole tournament at Sal’s house, we’d made plans to watch the final at Fair Haven in the home theater. I’d left a note with the cook to prepare a full English breakfast, even though I wasn’t quite sure what that was. I woke up to the fragrant smell of bacon and sausage filling the mansion, although when I went downstairs I was, as usual, unable to find any sign of the staff.
A banquet table had been set up in the screening room, laden with warming trays filled with enough food to provision an army. In addition to three different kinds of bacon (regular, Canadian, and maple-glazed) and four different kinds of sausages (bratwurst, chorizo, kielbasa, merguez), there were also scrambled eggs, baked beans, grilled mushrooms, an assortment of scones, enough toast to shingle a barn, and an unappealing black mess that was helpfully labeled “blood pudding,” which almost made me not want to eat anything else on the table.
Rocky showed up promptly at seven. I handed him a Bloody Mary, fully loaded with celery stalk, toothpicked olives, and lemon and lime wedges. He made space among all the garnishes for his mouth, took a sip, smiled, and took a longer sip.
“I’ve gotta say, this is the earliest I’ve ever showed up for a date in my life.”
“Date? Who said anything about a date? Anything before three is just an . . . assignation.”
“Hmmm,” Rocky said, pursing his lips. “Let me ponder that.” But instead of pondering, he leaned in and planted his pursed lips atop mine.
It was 7:05 before he stood up again. Goddesses have an unerring sense of time.
“Nope,” he said with a sly grin, “I’m pretty sure this is a date.”
“I, uh, I concur,” I said hoarsely, then, grabbing his hand, led him toward the screening room.
Rocky lagged behind me like a tourist seeing Venice or New York City for the first time, gawking at the vast rooms as we passed through.
“Wow,” he said. “I Google-mapped this place, so I knew it was fancy. But I never realized it was this, well, fancy. Except where’s all the furniture?”
“Mum took possession right before Wimbledon. I guess she hasn’t had time to decorate.”
“Wasn’t there furniture from her old house? This place is seriously empty.”
“Silly, Rocky. Rich people don’t sell one house when they buy another. They keep adding to their collection, like marbles or baseball cards.”
“Okay,” Rocky said dubiously. “I just hope you’re not sleeping on the floor or anything.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I teased, and though Rocky didn’t answer me, his silence spoke volumes. As did mine, for that matter: the sconces in the hallway, which were off, suddenly flashed on.
“Must be the old wiring,” I said before Rocky could ask.
We made it to the screening room without further incident. Once again, Rocky’s jaw hit the floor. The screening room at Fair Haven had been done in high Art Deco style, like the movie palaces of the thirties. The walls were covered in heavy red velvet accented with ornate gilded trim. The gilded coffered ceiling was hung with miniature chandeliers whose flickering bulbs imitated gaslight. The plush velvet chairs came in single and love seats, with individual recliners and burled walnut trays for your snacks.
“I don’t want to sound like a hick from the sticks, but—wow. I thought only rappers and movie stars had rooms like this. Actually, I never really thought they had them either.
”
“The truth is, any house or apartment over 10,000 square feet pretty much has to have one, even though the people who own the houses watch their reality shows and pay-per-view on flat-screen TVs just like everyone else. It’s a resale thing. You have to have a catering kitchen, and a screening room, and an elevator, even though these things only get used once or twice a year.”
Rocky looked at me like I’d just revealed that I could read Egyptian hieroglyphics.
“Sorry, Dad’s a Realtor. This stuff is dinner conversation at our house.”
Rocky laughed, and we made our way to the buffet.
“How is your dad?” Rocky said as he began heaping a plate with steaming meats and eggs. “You haven’t really mentioned him.” He tried to keep his tone light, but I could hear the effort in his voice, as if he didn’t want to upset me, or seem prying.
“Oh, he’s fine,” I said as I began filling my own plate. “On the mend? I mean, as far as I know.”
“You haven’t been to see him?” Rocky said, even though I’d spent every waking hour with him.
“Oh, look at the time!” I said, feeling guilty about not having gone to see Dad. “The prematch chat is just about to start.”
Rocky flashed me a look but didn’t probe. We took our plates to one of the love seats and sat down next to each other. I could tell he wanted to pry, but decided not to. Good. I picked up the iPad on the side table and turned on the home theater system. It had already been tuned to ESPN. They were talking about my mother and her chances.
“Does it make you nervous?” Rocky asked me. “Your mom being a sports star?”
“I guess?” I said casually. “I mean, it’s all so new to me. I’m used to not having a mother, you know? Like I almost forget that the woman they’re talking about is actually related to me.”
Rocky munched on a piece of bacon before answering. If it’s possible to imagine someone eating bacon sadly, that’s what Rocky was doing.
“I guess I don’t really see myself as ever getting used to not having a mother.”
“The other day? When you wandered into the Cheesemonger? I said I was thinking of asking Molly to work here for the summer, and you said that you wanted to do it?”
“Oh, right!” I’d totally forgotten about it, what with everything that had gone down in the past couple of days. The Gardiners getting kicked out of their house and Molly moving into it and Trent dumping me on the beach, and then just disappearing. Ingrid said something about “Europe,” as if that somehow narrowed it down. Trent went all the way to Europe to get away from me? So depressing.
“So I take it Molly turned you down?” I said now.
“Not exactly. She’s been too busy letting my son squire her all around the East End in a bright yellow Maserati.”
“Rocky has a Maserati?”
“I drive a 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser, Mardi. Do you think my son has a Maserati?”
I didn’t bother pointing out that he also owned five buildings in one of the most expensive square miles of real estate east of Rodeo Drive, and that the Land Cruiser, like the refurbished trailer house he lived in, was a total WASP affectation.
“You mean it’s Molly’s? But where would Molly . . . oh, of course. Janet.”
“Who’s Janet?”
“Steele? The tennis player. Our mother—never mind. Anyway, I’m sorry Molly’s kidnapped Rocky, but I’m not sure—”
“You have to help me out,” Sal cut me off. “I can’t keep running back and forth between the Inn and the sandwich shop. I’m losing business at both places. Freya’s ready to quit, and you know I can’t lose her—she’s the best bartender on the East Coast.”
“I’m only seventeen; I can’t help out in the bar.”
“The Cheesemonger, Mardi. I need you in the sandwich shop.”
“But I don’t know the menu or the merchandise or—”
“You knew about the Debbie Harry. Please, Mardi. I’m begging. I’m begging a kid to save my ass.”
An hour later, I was parking in front of the Cheesemonger, when Sal came out of the store in a filthy apron.
“No, no, no,” he said. “You can’t park right in front of the store. That’s for customers.”
“Seriously, Sal? I’m doing you a favor here.”
“And I’m paying you for it! Now move the car.”
I thought about remarking that my dad made in the high eight figures last year, plus he was, you know, a god. But all I did was pull the Ferrari around back, to the small municipal lot there.
“Okay, then,” Sal said as I walked in the back door. “So, it turns out that Billy and Bruce’s B&B, you know, the one next to the yacht club, has a standing order for a dozen sandwiches every day at eleven-thirty. Just get those ready, and they’ll send over their, um, houseboy to pick them up at eleven-fifteen. Then you should go ahead and get ready for the eleven-thirty train from the city. It usually lets off a hungry crowd. I’d just make another dozen assorted sandwiches—making sure you’ve got at least two veggie, two vegan, and two gluten-free. You know this crowd—they have more dietary restrictions than Catholics during Lent. That’ll pretty much wipe out your prepared stocks, so you should probably make some more prep for the afternoon crowd. We’ve got smoked salmon, cured trout, smoked and herbed turkey, Parma ham, Iberian ham, Smithfield ham, prosciutto, and all the various things that go into the dips and spreads and dressings in the walk-in. Marshall left really detailed instructions on how to make everything—the kid may have been a flake, but he was a wizard in the kitchen. Oh, and I haven’t had a chance to get the linen service back in here, so you’ll have to wear this for now.” And he pulled the stained apron off his sweaty body and draped it unceremoniously over my neck. “Your employee discount is fifty percent,” he added, “so feel free to chow down.”
And with that, he trotted toward the back door.
“Um, Sal?”
He turned back to me with an impatient look.
“I thought you said Rocky was going to be working here too.”
Sal looked at me as though I was speaking Norse.
“Rocky? I told you. He’s running around with your sister. They’re probably at the beach right now.”
And with that, he was gone.
“Holy crap,” I said out loud. “What just happened?”
17
SAIL AWAY SWEET SISTER
From the Diary of Molly Overbrook
So much happened over the course of the next two weeks that I almost forgot about the fact that I hadn’t spoken to Mardi once that whole time.
I suppose I could just as easily say that I didn’t speak to Dad, Ingrid, Freya, Matt, Jo, or even Henry, but let’s face it: as important as all those people were to me, none of them came close to Mardi. Not even Dad, who was still recovering.
Mardi was my twin. She was the most important person in my life. I’d never gone more than two days without seeing her. I’d never gone a single day without talking to her. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever gone six hours without talking to her. That’s how I knew this fight was serious, even if I didn’t know what it was about.
Because really, what had happened to get her so upset?
Mum had repeated some stuff about some old prophecy or something. If I had a dollar for every time someone in our family spouted off about how such-and-such had been foretold or so-and-so was the promised one . . . well, I’m already rich, but I’d be even richer.
Like most old religions, we had prophecies up the wazoo, and the vast majority of them were so vague that you never really knew if they’d actually come true, or if people were just making stuff up. And even if this was one of the real ones, well, what could we do about it? If the fates had decreed that we were supposed to be the end of the old gods, the old gods could hardly blame us, could they? And besides, like Mum said, who knew when it would all come to pass? It could be decades. Centuries. Millennia. Couldn’t we all just chill and have some fun till then?
• • •
Who knew, maybe Mardi was having the time of her life while she was apart from me—I have to say, those two weeks were some of the best of my life.
First of all, Mum was on TV every other day. And she was kicking some serious ass. She won her first three matches 6–0, which if you don’t know anything about tennis, that’s a total beatdown, and it’s pretty much unheard of for it to happen three times in a row. After the third match, Rocky said, “Damn. It’s like she’s got a magic racket or something.” I glanced at him sharply, but he didn’t notice. Of course I was wondering the same thing. I mean, she barely broke a sweat when she played—and it was almost ninety degrees on the court. She’d said she was human, and Ingrid and Freya and Dad had confirmed that, but they’d also hinted that it would have taken magic for her to get pregnant by Dad without his consent, or knowledge, for that matter. And if she could pull off something like that, why couldn’t she get a nice little hex on her racket, as Rocky had unwittingly suggested, or maybe just on her right arm. It was exactly the kind of thing the Council was likely to miss. They were much more concerned with events like elections or business ventures, or things that left people dead. Tennis was a little under the radar for them.
But then, Mum had been at it for a while now, at two different periods, and she certainly hadn’t played down her success, either on or off the court. And as the ex-girlfriend of Thor, she was likely to fall under more scrutiny than most people. No, the more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that she was using magic to win matches. My mother was simply a kick-ass tennis player.
And even better than watching her cruise toward the Wimbledon final was the way she ended each of her on-court interviews: “I just want to say hi to my daughter Molly, who’s watching back home in North Hampton. Mum loves you, and she’ll be home soon.”
And you know, that was great. Really great, except I felt a tiny pang that she didn’t mention M
I mean, I was living in her house and I was driving her car, but I’d only met her once, spent maybe a grand total of four hours talking to her, and it was hard to think of her in the same way I thought of Dad. So mostly I was biding my time, waiting for her to come back to the East End, to figure out if she really was as awesome as she seemed.
But much closer at hand was Rocky. And, well, Rocky really was awesome. Like if you ever took one of those quizzes in Teen Vogue or Girls’ Life about the perfect boyfriend, Rocky seemed to have been created right from my answers. He was athletic but not a jock; he was smart but not a nerd; he liked R&B but not gangster rap; he was a great kisser but he didn’t pressure me to go too fast. In fact, when we were making out, he was usually the one to break things off first.
I also got the feeling he was always thinking about his mom. It had only been a few months since she’d died, after all. There were times when we’d be doing something—popping popcorn maybe (Rocky liked to make it the old-fashioned way, in a pot on the stove), or flipping past some dumb reality show on TV—and he’d fall silent with this faraway look on his face. I asked him about it a couple times, but he’d always give me this half-happy, half-sad smile and say, “It’s nothing.”
I hadn’t exactly earned the right to his heart’s secrets after only a few days of hanging out, and I wasn’t even sure I felt ready to carry them, let alone reciprocate them. I mean, it’s not like I was going to tell him I was a goddess anytime soon. But it was nice knowing the guy I was hanging out with had some depth to him. The abs didn’t hurt either.
And let’s not forget: we were both all alone. I mean, Rocky had Sal, and I had Mardi and Dad and Freya and Ingrid and Matt and the kids. But Rocky didn’t really know Sal, who was always busy with the North Inn and his other businesses, and I had done a great job of driving a wedge between me and the family by moving into Fair Haven. Not that it would have been hard to avoid them: Dad was laid up in bed, Ingrid had her job at the library as well as two kids to raise, and Mardi, well, Mardi seemed to just disappear, as did Trent for that matter.
I didn’t check up on them on social media, but even so, I assumed they hadn’t gone off somewhere together or I’d have heard—through Freya if no one else, since she was the one member of my family I still saw, usually in the evenings, after Rocky and I had spent the day watching Wimbledon or lazing on the beach or driving around the North Fork.
In fact, we ended up at the North Inn almost every night, since neither of us wanted to cook and the chef at Fair Haven didn’t know how to make anything less complicated than boeuf en daube, and the North Inn’s Kobe beef burger was pretty amazing, plus Freya would give us free drinks.
And on our thirteenth day together, she handed me a box of condoms.
“Freya!” I exclaimed, quickly hiding them in my purse. I glanced around to see if Rocky had noticed, but he was back at our table, staring at his phone. “What are you doing?”
“Better safe than sorry,” Freya said as she wiped down the bar. “I can smell the hormones on you two even through all the suntan lotion.”
“Nothing has happened! And even if something did, it’s not like I’d need these.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Freya said. “First rule of fooling around with mortals: don’t give them any reason to suspect that you’re different. And secondly, you should be prepared, even though you haven’t rounded third.”
I blushed. “What makes you think I’ve never gone to third before?”
“Seriously, Mooi? I’m the goddess of love, in case you’ve forgotten. I don’t miss details like that. If it makes you feel better, he’s a virgin too.”
“What? You can tell?”
“Goddess of love,” Freya said again. “It’s not just an honorary title, you know. Also?” Freya paused dramatically.
“Yes?” I prompted.
“He wants you to be his first.”
Over at his table, Rocky looked up with a start.
I put my head down on the bar, my heart pounding, while Freya cheerfully made drinks as if she hadn’t just blown my mind.
• • •
Like I said, this happened on our thirteenth night at the North Inn, which is to say, the night before the Wimbledon final. Although we’d watched the whole tournament at Sal’s house, we’d made plans to watch the final at Fair Haven in the home theater. I’d left a note with the cook to prepare a full English breakfast, even though I wasn’t quite sure what that was. I woke up to the fragrant smell of bacon and sausage filling the mansion, although when I went downstairs I was, as usual, unable to find any sign of the staff.
A banquet table had been set up in the screening room, laden with warming trays filled with enough food to provision an army. In addition to three different kinds of bacon (regular, Canadian, and maple-glazed) and four different kinds of sausages (bratwurst, chorizo, kielbasa, merguez), there were also scrambled eggs, baked beans, grilled mushrooms, an assortment of scones, enough toast to shingle a barn, and an unappealing black mess that was helpfully labeled “blood pudding,” which almost made me not want to eat anything else on the table.
Rocky showed up promptly at seven. I handed him a Bloody Mary, fully loaded with celery stalk, toothpicked olives, and lemon and lime wedges. He made space among all the garnishes for his mouth, took a sip, smiled, and took a longer sip.
“I’ve gotta say, this is the earliest I’ve ever showed up for a date in my life.”
“Date? Who said anything about a date? Anything before three is just an . . . assignation.”
“Hmmm,” Rocky said, pursing his lips. “Let me ponder that.” But instead of pondering, he leaned in and planted his pursed lips atop mine.
It was 7:05 before he stood up again. Goddesses have an unerring sense of time.
“Nope,” he said with a sly grin, “I’m pretty sure this is a date.”
“I, uh, I concur,” I said hoarsely, then, grabbing his hand, led him toward the screening room.
Rocky lagged behind me like a tourist seeing Venice or New York City for the first time, gawking at the vast rooms as we passed through.
“Wow,” he said. “I Google-mapped this place, so I knew it was fancy. But I never realized it was this, well, fancy. Except where’s all the furniture?”
“Mum took possession right before Wimbledon. I guess she hasn’t had time to decorate.”
“Wasn’t there furniture from her old house? This place is seriously empty.”
“Silly, Rocky. Rich people don’t sell one house when they buy another. They keep adding to their collection, like marbles or baseball cards.”
“Okay,” Rocky said dubiously. “I just hope you’re not sleeping on the floor or anything.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I teased, and though Rocky didn’t answer me, his silence spoke volumes. As did mine, for that matter: the sconces in the hallway, which were off, suddenly flashed on.
“Must be the old wiring,” I said before Rocky could ask.
We made it to the screening room without further incident. Once again, Rocky’s jaw hit the floor. The screening room at Fair Haven had been done in high Art Deco style, like the movie palaces of the thirties. The walls were covered in heavy red velvet accented with ornate gilded trim. The gilded coffered ceiling was hung with miniature chandeliers whose flickering bulbs imitated gaslight. The plush velvet chairs came in single and love seats, with individual recliners and burled walnut trays for your snacks.
“I don’t want to sound like a hick from the sticks, but—wow. I thought only rappers and movie stars had rooms like this. Actually, I never really thought they had them either.
“The truth is, any house or apartment over 10,000 square feet pretty much has to have one, even though the people who own the houses watch their reality shows and pay-per-view on flat-screen TVs just like everyone else. It’s a resale thing. You have to have a catering kitchen, and a screening room, and an elevator, even though these things only get used once or twice a year.”
Rocky looked at me like I’d just revealed that I could read Egyptian hieroglyphics.
“Sorry, Dad’s a Realtor. This stuff is dinner conversation at our house.”
Rocky laughed, and we made our way to the buffet.
“How is your dad?” Rocky said as he began heaping a plate with steaming meats and eggs. “You haven’t really mentioned him.” He tried to keep his tone light, but I could hear the effort in his voice, as if he didn’t want to upset me, or seem prying.
“Oh, he’s fine,” I said as I began filling my own plate. “On the mend? I mean, as far as I know.”
“You haven’t been to see him?” Rocky said, even though I’d spent every waking hour with him.
“Oh, look at the time!” I said, feeling guilty about not having gone to see Dad. “The prematch chat is just about to start.”
Rocky flashed me a look but didn’t probe. We took our plates to one of the love seats and sat down next to each other. I could tell he wanted to pry, but decided not to. Good. I picked up the iPad on the side table and turned on the home theater system. It had already been tuned to ESPN. They were talking about my mother and her chances.
“Does it make you nervous?” Rocky asked me. “Your mom being a sports star?”
“I guess?” I said casually. “I mean, it’s all so new to me. I’m used to not having a mother, you know? Like I almost forget that the woman they’re talking about is actually related to me.”
Rocky munched on a piece of bacon before answering. If it’s possible to imagine someone eating bacon sadly, that’s what Rocky was doing.
“I guess I don’t really see myself as ever getting used to not having a mother.”