The Summer We Read Gatsby Part 2

"About omelets? I can't reheat Miles n.o.ble? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" She laughed, gesticulating with her arms. "Well, let me tell you you something. I think you something. I think you can can reheat an omelet. You can reheat it and make it better. But I don't have any intention of experimenting. That egg's gone bad for me." She paused, suddenly thoughtful. "I mean, the level of deception that went into this charade of his, it's not to be believed. This is a guy who stayed up all night talking to me about a book he never read. Does that sound like someone who should be reheated?" reheat an omelet. You can reheat it and make it better. But I don't have any intention of experimenting. That egg's gone bad for me." She paused, suddenly thoughtful. "I mean, the level of deception that went into this charade of his, it's not to be believed. This is a guy who stayed up all night talking to me about a book he never read. Does that sound like someone who should be reheated?"

The Girls all chimed in at once-"But you invited him to your party!"-as Finn slid a fresh omelet from the other pan on the stove onto a plate and handed it to me. I put my fork into the center and a delicious ooze of thick melted cheese poured out.

"I was just being neighborly neighborly," Peck explained with an earnestness that belied her words. "I'm very charitable that way. You know that about me. He said he wanted to see our house. So naturally I told him to come see it."

"Everybody out here always wants to see people's houses," Lucy said. "Isn't that right, Finn? Aren't you always showing people your house?"

"I'm an architect," he pointed out with a smile, as though that explained it. I wondered if he was one of those tedious creative types who always had to be right, fussing about the light fixtures on a site or rejecting ten different stones for an office lobby. My dislike for him intensified. At the same time I couldn't help but smile almost automatically in response.

"That's just it," Peck exclaimed. "Miles n.o.ble just wants to make sure his is still the biggest. I may have neglected to mention that Fool's House could fit in his dining room. I think he heard Southampton and inheritance and came to his own conclusions. He was always a terrible sn.o.b sn.o.b."

"You'll be sleeping with him within the week," Betts predicted, and the others concurred with concern.

Peck shrugged. "Did you not see see him? Besides, he has absolutely no taste at all. He could be the tackiest man in America. And now that I think about it, there was always something vaguely him? Besides, he has absolutely no taste at all. He could be the tackiest man in America. And now that I think about it, there was always something vaguely criminal criminal about him." She said all this as though none of it were that bad. about him." She said all this as though none of it were that bad.

The Girls murmured their dissent until Peck interrupted them to suggest an outing to the beach. "Let's slather ourselves with Bain de Soleil and get savage tans. My skin is the color of tofu."

I pointed out that we'd planned to spend the day getting organized. I'd already started going through Lydia's things and I wanted Peck to join me so we could make some decisions. We'd also talked about finding the code to the safe, hiring a real estate broker, and getting ready for that evening's party, although the only item on that list in which Peck was interested was the party. She'd managed to wriggle away from any discussion of selling the house or even deciding what to do with all the stuff in it. Now she turned to the rest of them. "See what I'm dealing with?" She wagged her finger between us. "It is absolutely perplexing to me that we could possibly be related." what I'm dealing with?" She wagged her finger between us. "It is absolutely perplexing to me that we could possibly be related."

"I'm as perplexed perplexed as you are," I said with a smile. as you are," I said with a smile.

"We should do a DNA test," she continued. It was not the first time she'd brought up the subject. "I don't see how the same father could produce two such different daughters. How do we know your mother didn't meet some other hippies at one of those Grateful Dead shows? Maybe your real father is still out there, playing hacky sack at a Phish concert, lamenting the day Jerry died." She laughed at herself. I'd heard this from her before and didn't take it seriously.

"Let's roll," she said to the Girls. "The ocean beckons. Let's buy surfboards."

"Call a locksmith about the safe," Lucy suggested as she headed for the door. She worked in fas.h.i.+on and was also apparently a genius at figuring things out, according to Peck. "Isn't that what they're supposed to do? Open locks?"

"There must be a code somewhere," said Betts, helping herself to another cupcake for the road.

"What year was Fool's House Fool's House painted?" Finn asked me. "I mean the Jasper Johns." The one whose name I suddenly recalled was Sasha stopped in the doorway to coo approvingly at him. "Oooh. Good idea." painted?" Finn asked me. "I mean the Jasper Johns." The one whose name I suddenly recalled was Sasha stopped in the doorway to coo approvingly at him. "Oooh. Good idea."

And then they were gone, out to the garage to gather the rusty beach chairs and striped umbrella for the beach. Finn and I were alone in the kitchen. I finished the omelet as he watched me, wearing the knowing smile I remembered from the previous night. Now it irritated me, smacking as it did of superiority.

"What happened to the beard?" I asked him.

He leaned across the counter toward me, his skin a rich, golden tan that caught the light nicely. "Beard?" he repeated, laughing. "What beard?"

"I remembered you differently." I knew I sounded rude, but it was true. I'd filed him away in my brain as an avuncular older friend of my gray-haired aunt, not this young, good-looking guy with the s.e.xy voice who was annoyingly confident. "You kept calling me kid, like you were ancient. And you had that beard beard."

"I've never had a beard," he insisted as he turned to rinse the pan in the sink. Fool's House did not come equipped with such modern conveniences as a dishwasher. "You must be thinking of another guy."

He'd had a beard, I swear. That was how I'd always told it, in my head. "It's been seven years," I pointed out grumpily. "Maybe you did have a beard, and you just don't remember. Maybe you're having a memory lapse?"

"Because I'm so ancient ancient?" He laughed. "I remember everything about that summer." And he stopped was.h.i.+ng the pan and turned around.

"You could've introduced yourself," I continued, wis.h.i.+ng I didn't sound quite so petulant. He seemed to bring out the worst in me. "You didn't have to let me embarra.s.s myself. I don't normally . . ." Here my voice trailed off.

"Don't normally what?" he interjected. "Guzzle martinis and throw yourself at strange men?"

"I certainly didn't throw myself anywhere," I protested. "And I was actually looking for you," I tried to explain, unintentionally making it sound like a romantic statement. The man fl.u.s.tered me. "I thought you might know something about Lydia's safe. And since that's apparently why you're here, why don't you make yourself useful?"

"Okay," he said. "I'll try. But she never mentioned it to me. I don't even know where it is. Will you show me?"

We were headed upstairs to the safe when Peck bounded back into the kitchen like one of Charlie's Angels, two hands up in the air, holding what looked, surprisingly, like a gun.

"Look what I found," she cried out, pointing at us a dainty pearl-handled revolver, the kind generally thought of as a ladies' gun, at least in movies and television shows. It was the sort of prop an elegant female spy might keep tucked into an evening clutch, but still, I imagined, it could get the job done.

"Is that real?" I asked, slightly nervous. Peck was not someone I wanted to see with a gun in hand. "Where did you find it?"

"That was Lydia's?" Finn looked surprised. "You need a license to keep a gun."

She blew on the end of it and posed for us. "I always wondered what it felt like to hold one of these things. It's so light. Hard to imagine it could do any damage at all."

"Where was it?" Finn asked her.

"I'm not so sure I should tell you," she said coyly. I shot her a look. "I was looking for the beach towels."

Finn reached for it. "It's not loaded, is it? I don't see Lydia keeping a loaded gun sitting around."

Peck pointed the gun at the screen door to the back porch. "How do I check?" She was about to pull the trigger-"I bet it is is loaded"-when a slouching figure appeared through the mesh. loaded"-when a slouching figure appeared through the mesh.

The visitor was the inhabitant of the studio above the garage, the last in a long line of creative people Lydia called the Fool-in-Residence. They would live-as Finn Killian had done the summer we met him-rent-free, for a period of time that was usually no longer than three or maybe four months, in exchange for what Lydia called "creating and maintaining an artistic environment." Finn had actually moved in as a friend of the family when the artist who was supposed to come that summer had landed in a prison in Thailand.

The current fellow went by the name of Biggsy. "Biggsy what?" we'd asked, naturally.

"Just Biggsy." He drove a motorcycle and had moved in at the beginning of the previous September, when, according to Lydia, the prior occupant of the studio, a photographer whose oeuvre consisted entirely of black-and-white self-portraits ("Remarkable hubris," she'd written in one of her letters), had moved out. Lydia had mentioned there was someone new, but nothing more. Peck and I had both a.s.sumed, if we'd given it any thought at all, that he'd moved out, as they all had, at some point during the desolate cold months when Fool's House was practically unlivable. There was no instruction in Lydia's will as to how we should handle such a person upon her death, and we were shocked to find him at the house when we arrived.

He was astonis.h.i.+ngly good-looking, with the p.r.o.nounced cheekbones and clear skin of those boys in the Abercrombie ads. He had very light skin that looked almost luminescent and his hair was the kind of streaky blond women spend hours at the salon trying to achieve. He was always wearing some sort of costume. That morning, it was a top hat and a seersucker suit, sized for a boy, so the ankle-length pants sat high over laced-up boots. His wrists were exposed by the too-short sleeves on the jacket, and the s.h.i.+rt underneath was b.u.t.toned tightly around his neck, although he wore no tie. His hair under the hat was disheveled, but looked like he'd used a hair product to get it that way.

Just Biggsy had shown absolutely no inclination to move out. When we arrived he'd greeted us with rum punches and hot hand towels and then helped us with our bags. Later he went to the grocery store, mowed the lawn, and mopped the kitchen floor. He had been careful, in the early stages of our acquaintance, to ingratiate himself with Peck and me, and after a few days he simply seemed to belong there. He was smart enough to know exactly how to do so, presenting himself as loving custodian to Lydia Moriarty's legacy and as all-purpose household help.

"He's like a butler butler," Peck had declared giddily. "Only free."

"Knock knock," he muttered now, as though he could hardly summon the strength to speak or actually lift his hand to knock. He slumped against the doorframe, looking ill as Peck still pointed the gun in his direction. "Don't shoot me. Please."

Trimalchio scampered over to greet him, uncharacteristically spry. "Dude." The Fool-in-Residence reached down to pet the dog weakly, as though he couldn't stand straight.

"Come in, come in," Peck and I said at the same time. "What's wrong?"

Peck was still pointing the gun in his direction as she waved him in.

"Is that thing loaded?" Biggsy asked. His eyeb.a.l.l.s danced in his sockets and he looked alarmingly sick.

"Of course it is," she said. "So you, young man, had better behave."

Biggsy swung the screen door wide and stumbled into the kitchen, clutching his stomach. "I don't feel so good."

I motioned for him to sit on one of the stools at the counter, but he shook his head-too ill to sit. He was hunched over with both arms wrapped around his stomach, and he paused before us. Peck and I both froze as Biggsy sank to his knees on the floor, still clutching his middle. I was surprised to see Finn roll his eyes, completely unsympathetic to the young artist who appeared to be about to throw up.

"I'm going to-"

I was concerned, a.s.suming he was a salmonella victim or that there was some terrible stomach flu going around. Peck was more of an alarmist, screaming, "Stella! Do something."

And then with a loud groan he threw up. A puddle of beige-and-pink chunky vomit splattered the floor.

Peck put the gun on the counter and pulled out her cell phone. "I'm calling 911."

Biggsy rolled over onto his side and held up a hand. "Wait." He lolled on one shoulder, looking down at the puddle of puke he'd deposited on our floor. "I feel better now." Peck clicked the phone shut. "I'm so sorry," he said, running one hand through his disheveled hair. "So sorry. I made such a mess. I'll clean it up."

We were all three staring down at him as he flashed us an insouciant grin and pulled a fork from the chest pocket of his jacket. He propped himself up on one elbow and held up the fork as we watched, completely bewildered. Then he lowered the fork to the pile of vomit on the floor, scooped up a big bite of it, and shoveled it into his mouth.

Peck and I exploded in disgust. "What the h.e.l.l?"

"Are you crazy?"

That's when he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he started to choke on what was in his mouth. "Dudes," he managed to squeak out, sitting up and doubling over in spasms of hysterical guffaws. "You shoulda seen your faces."

At first we didn't know how to react. We both just stood there, frozen, as he laughed at us. He took a deep breath and was able to contain himself enough to speak. "That was one of Lydia's favorites."

"You just made yourself throw up?" I stared down at the very believable vomit on our floor. "And then ate it? Are you crazy?"

"Literally? I almost threw up myself," Peck exclaimed. I could hear her already turning this into an anecdote, shaping the story in her mind in order to repeat it.

Finn looked unimpressed, as if he'd seen the vomit trick before, while he rinsed out the bowl he'd used for the eggs. Biggsy pulled aside his jacket and s.h.i.+rt to reveal what looked like a hot water bottle with a tube that he'd snaked up through the top of his s.h.i.+rt. "Cream of mushroom soup." He sat back on his heels and nodded, a proud grin lighting up his face. "Among other things."

Trimalchio nuzzled up next to him, licking his face.

"Trimalchio likes you, Fool," Peck said to him. She seemed to have made a decision about the young artist. She always had a weakness for a pretty face. "And he doesn't like anyone."

The dog looked up at her in agreement. True, not anyone anyone, his expression indicated.

"He does like soup, though," I said, watching Trimalchio move on to the mess on the floor, lapping at it eagerly.

"Let's go, kid," Finn said to me. "Show me the safe."

"Safe?" Biggsy glanced over at him. "What safe?"

As Finn followed me up the stairs I could hear Peck telling the Fool-in-Residence about Aunt Lydia and the wording of the will, in which she spoke of finding a thing of utmost value. It occurred to me that it was bad form to talk about this with too many people. But it was only a brief flash of a thought, surprise that my half sister with her obsession with manners would speak so loosely about something that should be kept private, and then it was gone.

3.

That night, as was tradition, we held the Fool's Welcome. Our first party on the porch started as a summer vacation does, giddily hopeful. The early part of the evening, with its fragrant, darkening air, held such expectation, like the beginning of summer: this is going to be fun. fun.

First, there were dressing drinks. "It's important to mark these moments in life," Peck said as I joined her in the living room, where a bra.s.s bar cart had occupied its spot in the corner since Lydia had moved in to Fool's House. For a few seconds I wondered what Lydia would be wearing for the party that evening, before I remembered in a rush of emotion that stung my eyes with tears that she would not be joining us. G.o.d, I would miss her. "Record this moment," she might have told me. "Paint it with your words." She loved to give me writing advice, little tidbits that were like expressions of fondness, coming from her. "Writing is rewriting," she would say.

Marking a moment, in Peck's parlance, meant drinking a c.o.c.ktail, so she was mixing up a batch of her "famous" Southsides, a minty concoction meant to be consumed while we dressed for the evening. "I coined that term, the dressing drink," she said. "It's the cornerstone of a civilized life.

"Isn't this so Something's Gotta Give Something's Gotta Give?" Peck asked as she held up a silver c.o.c.ktail shaker like it was a trophy. This was part of her continued attempt to convince me we could keep the place. She was referring to the movie with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in which a particularly spectacular beach home stirred house l.u.s.t in its audience. The dank little Fool's House resembled that light and airy-and large-house only in theory. Yes, they were both s.h.i.+ngled and in Southampton. But Diane Keaton's was on the ocean and surely didn't smell like mildew. Fool's House was close to town and reeked like an old shower curtain. Diane Keaton's house didn't have a pair of mannequin legs in one corner with silver platform shoes on the feet, or stacks of needlepoint pillows with sayings on them-A laugh a day keeps the doctor away, that sort of thing. It also didn't have a floor covered in a blue-green-and-yellow floral rug so loud it could be heard as far away as Montauk. It wasn't filled with stuffed sofas and chairs and lamps collected at the estate sales where Lydia went in search of treasures in other people's junk. And I don't believe it had a tiny closet tucked under the stairs, perfect for hide-and-seek or building forts, that was now jammed so full of old coats and pillows and boxes of things that it could not be opened.

Our house had a doll called the Pink Lady. It was a relic of an earlier era at Fool's House, before it had a name, when perhaps there was a young girl occupying the bedroom that was now mine, with its view of the tiny garden in the back. The doll had bald patches and hair that was supposed to be red but had faded to a punk shade of pink. She was missing an eye and wore an old-fas.h.i.+oned smock that had once been pink but was now a dirty mauve color. The Pink Lady was creepy, but she'd become the house mascot and sat on the edge of the second-floor landing looking down at the living room. There was a c.o.c.ktail of the same name, and Lydia had been known to invite friends to parties allegedly given by the doll at which only these horrible concoctions-something involving gin and grenadine and raw egg created during the Prohibition days-would be served.

The Something's Gotta Give Something's Gotta Give house didn't have a leaking roof, a gas stove that looked and smelled like it was going to combust any minute, or a raging ant house didn't have a leaking roof, a gas stove that looked and smelled like it was going to combust any minute, or a raging ant situation. situation. But there was a certain zany joy to Fool's House that the perfectly decorated movie set lacked, and I did love it, although I knew it was wise to keep my feelings in check. This was to be a brief summer fling, that was it. But there was a certain zany joy to Fool's House that the perfectly decorated movie set lacked, and I did love it, although I knew it was wise to keep my feelings in check. This was to be a brief summer fling, that was it.

"More like Grey Gardens Grey Gardens," I said. "Without the cats."

There was was something of Edie Beale's uncensored dramatics to my half sister. When she was thirteen she'd been in a car accident that nearly killed her. She hovered near death-at least that's the way she liked to tell it; "I hovered near death, for months, I tell you, something of Edie Beale's uncensored dramatics to my half sister. When she was thirteen she'd been in a car accident that nearly killed her. She hovered near death-at least that's the way she liked to tell it; "I hovered near death, for months, I tell you, months months!"-and then, slowly, she recuperated. She missed almost her entire eighth-grade year, spending weeks and weeks of bed rest with old movies on television and gothic romances to read, followed by many more weeks of physical therapy. Like a color photograph coming into focus, she grew bolder and brighter and more intensely saturated as she grew stronger. This process had continued until she evolved, as an adult, into a full-fledged character character who prided herself on being an eccentric. who prided herself on being an eccentric.

"Mum saw that play." Her mother was "Mum." Not "Mom," or "my mother," or even "my mum." Just mum." Just Mum Mum. As though she were a universal British parent. But Peck was not British and, thankfully, Mum was not anyone else's mother.

Mary-Alice O'Sullivan was a reasonably attractive Irish housekeeper with red hair hired to clean my dad's apartment twice a week, back in the seventies, when he was a bachelor artist. According to my my mother, who told the version she'd heard from Lydia, Mary-Alice had parlayed that a.s.signment into a lukewarm love affair, and then into marriage the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, through pregnancy. They were both Catholic and my father had remained unmarried into his late thirties-"There were rumors he was gay, of course," my mother told it-so it wasn't too much of a challenge, and Peck was born six months after the wedding. It was the late seventies in New York and even if anyone had been interested enough to do the math, n.o.body cared. mother, who told the version she'd heard from Lydia, Mary-Alice had parlayed that a.s.signment into a lukewarm love affair, and then into marriage the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, through pregnancy. They were both Catholic and my father had remained unmarried into his late thirties-"There were rumors he was gay, of course," my mother told it-so it wasn't too much of a challenge, and Peck was born six months after the wedding. It was the late seventies in New York and even if anyone had been interested enough to do the math, n.o.body cared.

Once she was Mrs. George Moriarty she poured all her ambitions into her daughter. She called her Pecksland, a name she insisted had somehow been pa.s.sed down through her family of potato farmers, and filled Peck's head with fanciful notions about the proper way to live a well-mannered life. She bought her daughter clothes that were too expensive, fostering her love of fas.h.i.+on, and insisted on lessons in diction, piano, and acting. She fueled Peck's fantasies about the life she would go on to lead, as a star of the stage or perhaps a fas.h.i.+on icon.

While Peck was still a baby my father had gotten more interested in music, letting his hair grow and staying out late at concerts. He met my mother, a Smith College graduate working on a PhD in philosophy she never finished, at a Grateful Dead show in Virginia. She was only twenty-two and, to hear Lydia tell it, extremely beautiful, with long streaked hair down her back. My mother told me they fell instantly and pa.s.sionately in love, and that it was a love so deep and true they were powerless to ignore it, despite the fact that my father was married with a young daughter. The intensity of their love allowed them to rationalize what happened afterward, when George behaved badly, abandoning his wife and child to follow the Dead with my mother, never looking back.

Lydia was the one who used those words, behaved badly behaved badly. My mother always told it as a straightforward love story, as though it was destiny that they should be together, previous wife and child or not. She'd leave out any judgment, or guilt, at their behavior. When she told the story, she used a lightly ironic tone, as though she herself were distanced from the emotions she described, as though G.o.d or some higher power had been at work and to refuse to go along with it would have been foolish. "Once in a while," my mother would say, quoting "Scarlet Begonias," "you get shown the light."

It hadn't been easy for Mary-Alice once my mother diverted her husband's attentions. She was a single working mother-she'd gone back to school and become a nurse-but there were arrangements where she traded housekeeping and other services for things like singing lessons for her daughter, and there'd been scholars.h.i.+ps, too, although those were harder to come by as Peck grew older and less interested in academic success. Peck had always taken small jobs to help out, babysitting and that sort of thing, but I knew it had been hard for her, growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan without money.

But Peck never complained. She'd simply convinced herself that the upbringing her mother had struggled to give her (the 10021 zip code, the girls' school, the many private lessons) was not a facsimile of a privileged existence (a one-bedroom rental on First Avenue, scholars.h.i.+ps, and bartered agreements) but the real thing. She believed she was extraordinary and that her background, as she chose to view it, was exactly the way a young woman who would go on to be a woman of style and creative substance would have been raised.

I wouldn't call her pretentious, though some people, without understanding the nuances of her performance, might use such a word, thinking she was putting on airs. But she really wasn't. She was always open about her mother and her background, and appreciative of the sacrifices "Mum" had made for her. She wasn't a sn.o.b, either. But she was a Method actor and she'd immersed herself so thoroughly into the role in which she'd cast herself that she knew no other reality.

If you asked her about this, as I once had, trying to reconcile the interpretations of the story of her life into one cohesive narrative I could understand, she would feign ignorance. But Peck was more astute than that, and I believed her refusal to grasp what I meant resided in a decision she'd made early on, that envy was far more palatable than pity. She viewed herself as a character and her upbringing as backstory. "If you need a subject subject," she would say, impatient that I'd yet to write anything resembling a novel, "why not me me?" And then she would add, "I'd write it myself, but who has the time?"

From the bar cart Peck now chose two gla.s.ses and, with great flourish, poured the drinks into the gla.s.ses, garnis.h.i.+ng them with two quarters of lime speared with plastic toothpicks from a collection in a small silver jar. The toothpicks had little figures on the end that were supposed to look like jesters, the kind of gift I suppose one would give to a person who named her home Fool's House.

The lemons and limes for the bar cart had been sliced by Just Biggsy. That afternoon he'd cut panini panini in the shape of hearts. He rolled chopped beef into meatb.a.l.l.s and cut phyllo dough, sliced carrots, and shaved thin sections from the salmon that Peck had brought home from the market. He worked efficiently, his hands moving quickly, and he knew where everything was. I'd expected some jockeying for position within the house between Peck and me, without Lydia to mediate. But there were advantages to taking up temporary residence with a woman who envisioned herself as one television gig and a jail sentence away from being the next Martha Stewart; Peck was constantly preparing food and drinks and trying new recipes. And Biggsy, who was gracious and proper and deferential and treated us exactly as a long-serving butler would his royal charges, helped enormously. In those first days at Fool's House the handsome young artist proved himself indispensable. in the shape of hearts. He rolled chopped beef into meatb.a.l.l.s and cut phyllo dough, sliced carrots, and shaved thin sections from the salmon that Peck had brought home from the market. He worked efficiently, his hands moving quickly, and he knew where everything was. I'd expected some jockeying for position within the house between Peck and me, without Lydia to mediate. But there were advantages to taking up temporary residence with a woman who envisioned herself as one television gig and a jail sentence away from being the next Martha Stewart; Peck was constantly preparing food and drinks and trying new recipes. And Biggsy, who was gracious and proper and deferential and treated us exactly as a long-serving butler would his royal charges, helped enormously. In those first days at Fool's House the handsome young artist proved himself indispensable.

The friction between my sister and me didn't have its source in the upkeep of our shared house, although Peck could be ill-tempered when I wasn't as quick with the compliments as she'd have liked. What we didn't agree on was the future of the house. Peck kept dropping hints about expensive renovations we might undertake and how she wanted to turn Fool's House into an artistic and literary retreat. She called me a "stick-in-the-mud" and a "nervous Nellie" when I pointed out that neither of us was in possession of money for such a plan. She even said, "Shut your piehole" when I suggested we schedule a meeting with a real estate broker.

Now Peck lifted her gla.s.s and clinked mine. She'd gotten some of the recipes for the food for the Fool's Welcome from a magazine article ent.i.tled, with absolutely no irony, "The Perfect Hamptons Party." The instructions on how to host such an event were accompanied by heavily styled photographs of carefully cast models posing as guests, looking maniacally happy as they lifted their gla.s.ses in a fictional toast to the "chef," a stout woman in a red taffeta dress.

"I wonder how they got the corn cakes to look like that," Peck had mused, staring at the image in the magazine. There was something in her voice, a poignant note. She knew, didn't she, that those freakishly grinning people toasting the model-slash-real-woman hired for the photo shoot to pose as the chef were all on the job, paid to sit around the table and raise their gla.s.ses over and over again as the light changed and the stylist angled the pasta salad just so? But she'd studied the aspirational glossy pages carefully and with yearning, as though they contained the exact formula for success.

My half sister was quite thrilled with her own social daring. She'd invited a hundred people at least, some of whom she'd never actually met. "This is how it's done out here," she informed me, when I'd wondered at the wisdom of inviting people who didn't know her.

Peck said things like this with total seriousness, to the point where you would start to wonder if you weren't actually the one who didn't make sense. "Isn't that a bit, well, arriviste arriviste?" I wondered aloud, speaking her language.

She waved away my suggestion with her c.o.c.ktail, spilling some of it on her wrist. "You'll thank me. Later, when you get invited to everything, you'll be grateful."

"I'm only going to be here a few weeks," I reminded her. "I don't need to get invited to anything anything."