Page 95 of These Summer Storms

Her friend nodded. “Checks out.”

Alice pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, so she could look into her friend’s eyes and tell the truth. “I’m better now.”

“Good.” Gabi leaned in and joked, “Jesus, Alice, I knew you were rich-rich, but this is alot.”

Alice gave a little laugh-sob. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Us, too.”

“We saw three separate helicopters arrive and leave while we were sailing over,” her friend added. “Fancy.”

“Twenty minutes straight shot to the Hamptons,” Alice explained.

“Kind of you to make it so convenient,” Roxanne said. “Are the Gatsbys here?”

“No,” Alice said, lowering her voice to a gossipy whisper. “Didn’t you hear? He died, too.”

Gabi and Roxanne choked back laughs; Emily snickered. Greta looked horrified.

“Oh, please. Dad would have loved that joke,” Alice said.

“So, aside from the tight ten minutes Alice is workshopping…” Gabi looked to the other Storms. “How’s it going?”

Everyone hesitated, searching for an answer. Emily found it. “I don’t know, I thought it would be more…exciting?”

Roxanne nodded. “Like the movies? Uncle Carl gets drunk, knocks over an ice sculpture?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“Do you have an Uncle Carl?” Gabi asked.

“No, but”—Alice waved toward an elderly woman with a collection of dachshunds—“that lady has dogs.”

Roxanne followed the direction of her gaze as though it were very normal. “Oh, that’s Bitty Foster. She doesn’t go anywhere without those dogs.” They all watched as a silver fox attempted to extricate himself from a web of leash.

“It’s amazing what you know,” Gabi said to her wife before tossing Alice an amused look. “Maybe that’s her way of catching men.”

“Mmm,” Alice said. “She’s obviously too clever to knock over an ice sculpture.”

Another group laugh, and Alice looked back to the crowd. Jack had moved from where he’d been earlier. He had a drink in hand now. Something clear and cold in a highball glass as Justin Mill—the young billionaire recently named the richest man in the world—bent his ear while a dozen others pretended not to notice.

Alice didn’t have to pretend. As a host of the afternoon, it was expected that she keep an eye on the proceedings.

Her mother, for example, had reappeared on the great lawn, and was receiving the condolences of the first gentleman (so sorry for your loss). Sila and Sam were on the far side of the lawn, having some kind of argument that Alice hoped they sorted out before Elisabeth noticed and sent them both to time-out for causing a scene. Claudia was with a circle of women in flowing linen—obviously friends of Emily’s from the crystal/aura alignment/meditation world.

See? Alice was just paying attention. Like any good hostess.

“Did you guys have a good trip?”

Gabi knew the Storm personalities well enough to address Greta directly. “It was all so easy. The train to a car to the docks.”

“You know you’re welcome to stay here for the night.”

“Oh, that’s really kind,” Gabi rushed to say, “but we have to get back—”

“Gabi has work tomorrow. Roxanne, too,” Alice said, lowering her voice to a stage whisper. “By the way, if my mother questions whetheror not I spilled all the family secrets to you, please tell her I absolutely did, and started with hers.”

Roxanne burst out laughing. “I do not need Elisabeth Storm as an enemy, Alice. You fight your own battles. Though I am interested in what happens when you all cause trouble?”