Page 35 of High Season

TWENTY-FIVE

ONE WEEK BEFORE THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Tamara met Josie Jackson when she was twelve.

It was the second summer that Josie had lived on the C?te d’Azur, and the first summer that Tamara had been without Blake.

He had gone to the Amalfi Coast to stay with their dad, a trip that Tamara had been uninvited from after fighting viciously with her stepmother during their obligatory Christmas visit to Italy.

With Blake gone, Tamara found that all the clichés about twins were true. She felt like half a person. Like her left arm or right leg was missing. That her thoughts went unfinished, trailing off where her brother was supposed to pick them up.

Tamara spent that summer at the pink house, roaming its vast rooms, sitting alone on the edge of the pool, wishing that she had controlled herself around Flora. That she had been better, somehow; more like Blake. Instead, she had been the bad twin again.

She started to sneak out. Late at night at first and then earlier and earlier in the day.

She was surprised to find that Evelyn didn’t seem to notice—or perhaps simply didn’t care.

Tamara would go down to the beach alone, or to one of the cafés that sold fresh fruit juice and ice cream.

She watched the local children playing in the sea, unafraid of the waves and the tides.

Tamara never went into the sea herself. She had always been a little bit afraid of water, the legacy of a mother who was baffled by the idea of ferrying her children to swimming classes or spending afternoons supervising them at the pool.

Despite spending every summer of her life at the pink house, Tamara was not a strong swimmer.

That was how she first met Josie Jackson.

Tamara was sitting alone on the beach, her legs drawn up to her chest, watching the other kids play in the sea.

Watching one girl in particular: sinewy and small, her dark hair bunched back into a ponytail, her swimming costume slightly too large for her.

There was a small floating platform, and Tamara watched as the girl clambered onto it before diving into the water over and over again, her body a tight, soaring arc before it disappeared beneath the waves.

After a while, the girl seemed to notice Tamara watching. Her dives became higher, more performative. Tuck jumps and twists. Tamara looked away, embarrassed that she’d been caught staring. She pretended to be watching a swarm of surfers disappointed by the flatness of the waves instead.

“Aren’t you going in the water?”

The girl had crept up without Tamara spotting her, her voice making Tamara jump. She dropped down onto the sand, hair still dripping wet. Tamara’s arms tightened around her knees.

“I…” She hesitated. “No. I don’t really like going in the sea.”

“You must be a tourist.”

The girl said the word with a kind of smugness. A sense of belonging here, even though Tamara would later learn that she’d only been living in France for a little over a year.

“No, actually.” Tamara felt her chin stick up at this. “We own the pink house? Up on the hill?”

There was an authority to it.

“I’m Tamara Drayton.”

She was used to people recognizing the name. She was already accustomed to the raise of eyebrows, the impressed way they would say, “Not one of the Draytons?”

“Oh yeah,” the girl had said, as if it was nothing. “My mum just interviewed for a job there. I’m Josie, by the way.”

She reached her hand down, idly tracing shapes in the sand.

“So how come you don’t like the sea?” she said.

Tamara swallowed. There was something about this girl. An ease. An openness that seemed to spool out and wind its way into Tamara.

“I’m not the best swimmer,” she said.

Josie’s hand slowed in the sand.

“Serious?” she said. “I thought the pink house had a swimming pool.”

“Yeah, well.” Tamara shrugged, helplessly. “I don’t mind the pool so much. But the sea…”

She stretched out one hand toward it, as if by explanation. The vastness. The emptiness.

“Well.” Josie sat up straighter, propping herself up on one arm. “Do you want me to help you?”

“Help me?”

“Yeah. It’s easy, once you get used to it.”

In spite of herself, Tamara had found a smile creeping onto her face.

“OK,” she had said. “Alright. You can help me, if you want.”

When Tamara gets back from her night in Montpellier, Blake is waiting up for her, sitting on her bed in the light of a single lamp, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” he asks.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” she echoes him. Grins. The room is swaying slightly, a slow, back-and-forth tilt, as if they are in the bow of a ship.

He stands.

“Harrison knows you took the car, by the way. He’s been fuming all afternoon.”

“So? What’s he going to do? Call the police on me?”

He pulls a face.

“You stink of booze. You shouldn’t be driving.”

“Sorry, Mum.”

“Yeah, right. Like Mum would care. Seriously though, Tam. I don’t know what’s got into you this summer.”

“Like you’ve never let Barnaby drive you anywhere drunk.”

“Tamara, stop.” He places his hands on both of her shoulders, maneuvers her to sit on the bed. “It’s like you’re in self-destruct at the minute. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“So don’t. Don’t talk to me.”

“Tamara—”

“You’ve been too busy fucking Hannah Bailey all summer to bother with me anyway.”

She regrets it as soon as she says it, the petulant, childish way that it sounds. But mostly, she regrets how it invites her twin brother, the person she loves most in the world, to lie to her again.

“I’m not—”

She covers her ears with her hands.

“Don’t,” she says.

“Don’t what ?”

He prizes her hands away from the sides of her head. His grip is firm. Strong. It reminds Tamara, briefly, of when they used to playfight as kids. How, for two glorious summers, Tamara had been taller than her twin, stronger. How she used to be able to wrestle him to the ground, triumphant.

Now, her brother has filled out, gained muscles that Tamara doesn’t have. Now, she looks Blake straight in the eye, and her voice is a hiss.

“Don’t lie to me, Blake,” she says. “I know you. I can tell.”

For a moment he is still. His body is all hard lines and angles. His hands are still around Tamara’s wrists. Then, something inside him collapses. He lets go of her. His shoulders slump.

“Fine,” he says. “Yes. I had sex with Hannah Bailey.”

Tamara should feel triumphant, but instead something inside her drops. As if she had still, somehow, held on to the hope that this might not be true.

“You’re an idiot,” she says. “Do you think no one’s going to find out?”

He collapses down onto the bed. Lowers his head to his hands.

“I don’t know,” he says, muffled. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Do you like her?”

He pauses. Then:

“I don’t know.”

“You do, then.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“She likes you.”

Still, nothing.

“Oh, Blake.” Tamara can’t help herself. She sits on the bed beside her brother. Wraps her arm around him. “You are in so much trouble.”

He nods.

“You won’t tell anyone?” he says thickly. “She’s different from us, you know? In a good way. I couldn’t help it.”

“Who would I tell?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to end it though. You know that, right?”

Slowly, Blake nods.

“And Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you do,” Tamara says, “do not let Hannah find out about Cordelia.”