Great (Sara Benincasa) by Sara Benincasa

Author:Sara Benincasa
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

It’s weird how plans change.

Before I got to New York for the summer, I figured it’d be the usual routine each day—wake up when my mother yelled at me, eat some of her amazing food, dive into some books, break for lunch, hit the books again, and have dinner at home alone while she went out to some social function or another. Of course, there would inevitably be times when she’d drag me against my will to the Horticulture Society benefit or some boring polo event, and on certain days I’d actually feel like trekking to the beach for a bit, but generally my life in the Hamptons would follow a very familiar pattern.

Then Jacinta Trimalchio entered my life, and everything changed.

Because of what happened on the Ferris wheel at her party, I had a boyfriend for the first time in my life. We didn’t use that word or anything, but it’s basically what Jeff Byron instantly became to me.

We hung out all the time, watching movies—or pretending to, anyway—going to the beach, hiking, and trying the lobster rolls at every beach shack and fancy restaurant for miles around. Jeff said he wanted to learn how to cook, so I taught him how to make his favorite things: mac and cheese, pizza, spaghetti with meatballs, and even pad Thai. He took me waterskiing, which was mildly terrifying but also incredibly fun. We talked about politics and history and lay around listening to NPR podcasts, our fingers intertwined. Once my mother walked in on us quizzing each other on SAT words in the living room in the middle of the night.

“It’s two o’clock in the morning,” she said wearily. “As long as you’re awake, shouldn’t you be at a bonfire on the beach or—or something fun, dears?”

“This is pretty fun,” Jeff said.

“You two are perfect for each other,” Mom said, sighing. She turned around and went back to bed.

I liked almost everything about Jeff except for the fact that my mother approved so wholeheartedly.

During the hours when I wasn’t with Jeff, I was with Jacinta—and, usually, Delilah. They were always throwing little tea parties and slightly-more-adult-beverage parties over at Jacinta’s house in the afternoons. Ainsley Devereaux would come over and divide her time between kissing up to Jacinta and fawning over Delilah. The Fitzwilliams sisters would show up, and a pair of girl cousins whose family owned the New York Times, and other girls whose names I had trouble remembering. They seemed interchangeable to me—they all had horses, and long shiny hair, and bright white teeth, and plans to go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton or wherever their fathers and grandfathers had gone. A few of them carried that type of bag Jacinta had stockpiled upstairs—the Birkin, Delilah had called it.

Once we all sat on the deck drinking mojitos and trading sex stories. Obviously, I didn’t have much to contribute, even though I was gaining more experience with Jeff on that particular front. And Jacinta kept herself busy freshening everyone’s drinks, so she didn’t speak up much, either.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.