Surfside Sisters by Nancy Thayer

Author:Nancy Thayer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

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When Juan had texted Keely about the party, he’d added: I’m not merely inviting you. I’m ordering you. You will meet everyone there. So go out and buy something fabulous.

At nine o’clock on New Year’s Eve, Keely met Juan at the foyer of a penthouse on Park Avenue. She wore an expensive white T-shirt hanging almost to the hem of her ripped gold sequined short shorts, topped with a gauzy orange cardigan. And five-inch Manolo Blahnik stilettos that killed her feet. At Juan’s insistence, Keely’s glossy brown hair had been professionally piled high on her head with strands painstakingly teased to hang carelessly down. Her nails and lipstick were a deep burgundy and the eye shadow over her topaz eyes was noir. Her only jewelry was a heavy necklace of geometric metal links. Juan assured she looked rad, but secretly, Keely thought she looked like a bit of an idiot.

“Darling,” Juan exclaimed. “Such a party!” Taking her arm, he escorted her up the elevator and into the room, already a crush of people and laughter.

“You must meet Keely Green,” Juan said to a Botoxed woman weighted down with jewels. “She’s a rising star in the bright young writers’ scene. I’m sure you read Rich Girl. Poor Girl will be out this summer.”

The other woman nodded to Keely, looking overwhelmed by Juan’s rush of information.

Keely said, “Hello.”

Juan said, “I’m off to get us champagne.”

Keely knew by now that Juan was off to get himself a glass of champagne and then to find his friends. She made polite talk with the other woman, then excused herself and slid away through the crowd to the bar.

She wandered aimlessly here and there, holding her glass of Dom Perignon so it wouldn’t spill, feeling desperately lonely. She talked with—yelled at—the few people she knew: another writer, a minor TV personality who had interviewed her, a reviewer for a popular blog.

Right now on Nantucket, there were parties and dances and dinners with friends, but at any moment of the evening, you could drive out to one of the beaches where the sea shushed and seethed into the sand and it seemed as if you were at the secret heart of the universe.

Here in this room, the laughter and chatter was getting to her. It was so loud it came at her like a solid thing, buffeting her and making hearing impossible. For sanity’s sake, she gave herself a break from networking and wandered into another, quieter room. It was obviously a library, with walls of books on shelves and more books towering from coffee tables.

The silence was a relief. It would be nice if she were with a man right now, because it was twenty minutes until the stroke of midnight, and she had no one to kiss. She told herself that really, that was fine. She was a big girl now. She knew how to be alone. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t happy at a fabulous party and she wasn’t happy alone.

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