Hello, Sunshine

Was this a good moment to say, That’s debatable? “I think Sammy is fantastic,” I said. “So no argument from me.”

She looked at me with something I almost didn’t recognize coming from her. Gratitude.

“Well, her counselor, this woman who runs the camp, I should say, she doesn’t think so.”

“Kathleen?” I said.

She nodded. “Kathleen,” she said. “I mean, she thinks Sammy is great, but she is concerned . . .”

“About what?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know . . .”

I held my breath, not wanting to interrupt her, not wanting her to stop when she realized it was me she was confiding in.

“Kathleen thinks Sammy needs certain challenges in order to excel. To reach her potential. And I’ve heard that from her teachers, too, which is why I’m putting her at a private school next year in East Hampton.”

Private school. The good ones had fifty-thousand-dollar price tags out here. That’s why she sold the house.

“So what’s the problem?”

“She thinks the private school here isn’t the answer. She wants me to send Sammy to this gifted program in the fall. She never nominates anyone and she nominated Sammy, and she got in.”

“That’s great.”

“There’s nothing great about it. It’s in New York. I’ll never be able to make that work.”

There were apartments in New York. And there were jobs at other hotels. Didn’t she owe it to Sammy to get her the best education she could—to help her find a place where she would find friends?

But Rain wasn’t going to leave Montauk. And I wasn’t going to convince her that she should. It was a fight I’d had with her when I meant a lot more to her—and I’d lost it then.

“And Thomas is no help,” she said. “He’s so impressed by the program. Loves talking about how families move from California in order for their kids to go.”

“Sounds like he’s trying to be supportive.”

She turned toward me. “There is a way to be supportive. Quietly.”

I nodded, knowing that was the only tack I could take here. If she was mad at Thomas, whom she loved, she would be furious with me for saying a word.

“I just don’t need him telling me that he and I could make it work,” she said. “As though the issue is about the two of us. The issue is that we live here. Right here.”

She motioned around herself, as though that were the end of it. As though people didn’t move all the time. She didn’t want to hear it, though.

So I looked out at the shoreline, the water hitting the rocks, letting Rain have the last word.

Then I saw her. Meredith. I did a double take.

She walked along the water’s edge, one kid in her arms, two by her feet. She was wearing the black pants she never seemed to take off. And she was on the phone—with Ryan?—laughing loudly.

I tried to catch my breath. There was something about seeing her there. It brought it all back. Ryan and New York. The night of the party. That look—that horrible look she had given me—as she raced out the door.

The pie did a hurdle in my stomach.

I tried to ignore it. And to ignore what I was feeling. Something I hadn’t felt, at least in terms of her. Guilt. I felt awful about Danny. And I was sorry I ever touched Ryan. But looking at Meredith with her kids now—even as she rudely talked two decibels too loudly—I was overcome with guilt. It was all I could do not to walk over and apologize to her.

I threw up instead.

“Seriously?” Rain said, jumping back. “That is so gross!”