• • •
With a heavy feeling of inevitability, Asher swung his roadster down the gravel drive. In the distance, he saw the sprawling, white-shingled home on the bluff and the pale blue expanse of Lake Michigan taking up the entire horizon. A sharp feeling of nostalgia went through him. A pang for the loss of his childhood? He hadn’t been to the Gaites-Granville summer mansion since the July before he’d left for college.
He’d used to love coming here when he was a kid. An assortment of his relatives and his parents’ friends might be there on the weekend, which could be a miserable experience. During the summer weekdays, however, Asher was often left there just with his nanny, Berta, and occasionally with Jimmy Rothschild as an additional companion.
It was Berta and Asher’s well-kept secret that his nanny often left him to his own devices during those golden days and sultry nights. He’d swim, skimboard, and make friends at the local public beaches. He’d captain his little Sunfish, exploring the coastline to his heart’s content. When he got older, he’d had the speedboat at his disposal. He’d relished being alone at the house or hanging out just with Jimmy, thriving without the feeling of someone standing at his shoulder constantly monitoring him . . .
. . . Ready to disapprove and correct him at any moment.
Now he was here again for one last idyllic summer.
He had to admit: it had felt good, seeing how proud his parents were of him as he’d received his degrees, with distinction, in both journalism and international affairs. His father had been smiling broadly—a rare sight—when he handed Asher a Scotch on the rocks at his graduation party at the Union Club five weeks ago.
“Take some time off before you start work. Spend a couple weeks at Crescent Bay with your friends. The car and all the other stuff were gifts from your mother and me. But this is my personal gift to you, from father to son: one last carefree summer vacation. Goof off a little, have a few summer flings, do some things you’ll never tell your mom and me. Because I’m here to tell you, once you start the grind of work, there’s no going back. After that, you’re a man, son.”
Asher’s fate seemed to press down on him as he drove nearer to the house and the Lake Michigan landscape. He’d wanted to tell his dad the truth as they’d shared that drink together at his party. In the end, he hadn’t, though. His father had looked so happy and proud of his gift of a last carefree summer vacation . . . so proud of him—Asher. Asher could count on one hand, with a couple fingers to spare, the number of times he’d made his father look that way. He hadn’t had the heart to tell him that his gift had felt like he was throwing Asher a bachelor party before a marriage he’d never agreed to.
Because the fact of the matter was, he was going to have to do something adult and serious at the end of this vacation. It just wasn’t what his mom and dad believed it was. His parents thought that he was going to take a managerial position at Gaines-Granville Media in August. Asher had never really agreed to that. But his parents operated on assumptions when it came to their only son, not Asher’s actual choices.
The truth was, he’d already accepted a position as a reporter at the international affairs desk at the L.A. Times. He hoped to eventually get moved to a foreign post. Just this morning, he’d flown back to Chicago from Los Angeles after meeting with his new managing editor at the paper, signing an apartment lease and making other arrangements for his August move.
His parents had thought he’d been visiting a girlfriend in Bel Air, which was kind of true. He had met up with Anna, a girl he’d been seeing casually during his final two months at Stanford. He’d been so preoccupied with making arrangements for his new life that he’d apparently insulted Anna with his lack of attention, however. She’d been fairly pissed at him by the time she’d dropped him off at the airport this morning. On the flight to Chicago, Asher realized he wasn’t all that worried about it, a fact that had him feeling sort of guilty. Anna and he weren’t serious or exclusive, but clearly, he’d been insensitive.
What’s new?
According to his mother, he’d been born with a singular knack for insensitivity.
Anna Johansson aside, the die had been cast. At the end of this supposedly idyllic, carefree vacation, he was going to have to be an adult, all right. He was going to have to look his parents in the eye and tell them point-blank he had no plans whatsoever to take a job at Gaites-Granville Media. He was used to disappointing them, but this seemed especially harsh on his part.
Feeling weighed down by his thoughts, he pulled into the turnabout at the back of the mansion. He immediately recognized Jimmy’s dark blue BMW—sophisticated and sedate, just like Jimmy—already parked there. One of the other two cars must be a rental. Rudy Fattore had flown in at Asher’s mother’s request and rented a car at O’Hare. It was a sign of how much his parents wanted to please Asher that his mother had arranged the trip for his questionably respectable college roommate. Formerly, Rudy had barely been tolerated.
Rudy and Jimmy were the only friends he’d mentioned to his mother that he wanted for companionship on this “last holiday.” Who did the ivory-colored Aston Martin belong to, though? Asher wondered uneasily. It certainly wasn’t a rental.
“It took you long enough to get here!” someone called from behind him. Asher twisted in th
e seat to see Rudy Fattore coming out the front doors. The tension broke in him in an instant. He laughed. Hard.
“I see you’ve already found the beach,” Asher said dryly as he stepped out of his car. Rudy wore a pink child’s flotation device with a swan’s head stretched tightly around his waist, wet swim trunks and flip-flops. He carried a glass of Scotch in one hand and a soggy cigar in the other.
“First place I headed after I got here. But we’re out at the pool right now. This place is fucking amazing. I knew I lucked out, getting you in the roommate lottery. And guess what? Your mom got me a first-class ticket on the flight.” Rudy shoved the cigar in his mouth and grinned around it. “Imagine it, a Fattore in first class. Come on, Jimmy’s at the pool. We just broke open a bottle. Your cousin is kind of a dick, but he brought a box filled with unbelievable Scotch, not to mention these kick-ass Cubans.”
Asher froze in the process of lifting his suitcase from the backseat.
“My cousin?” He blanched and glanced over at the jaunty Aston Martin. “Eric?” he asked, referring to his twenty-three-year-old distant cousin. Eric had been a pain in his ass ever since they’d first been thrown together in the playpen at family functions.
“Yeah,” Rudy said, frowning around his cigar. “Didn’t you know he was going to be here?”
Ice shot through Asher’s veins, despite the sunny day and eighty-degree temperature. He couldn’t believe it. Of course. His parents’ gift hadn’t been completely innocent, had it? They just hadn’t been able to resist subjecting him to their version of a lesson. Eric the Perfect, their concept of an ideal Gaites-Granville male from the New York side of the family, had been sent to set an example for Asher.
And knowing Eric, he knew exactly why his presence had been requested and was all too ready to gloat about it in front of Asher.
“No,” he muttered, lifting his suitcase and unclenching his teeth. “I had no idea Eric was going to be here. If I had, I’d have stayed in California.”
And he’d worried this supposed carefree, idyllic vacation was going to be tough, considering his guilt factor. Now he had Eric to deal with on top of it all. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Jimmy coming out of the house along with the source of his mounting annoyance. Eric grinned broadly, coming toward him with his hand outstretched. Jimmy followed, looking worried. He knew what Asher thought of Eric.
“All hail the graduate,” Eric boomed, pumping Asher’s unwilling hand. He waved his glass of Scotch, the gesture every bit that of the prince of the castle. “Hope you don’t mind us getting started without you. The beach and the pool beckoned.”
His mom was always commenting how much Eric and Asher looked alike—both of them well over six foot, dark hair, blue eyes, skin that tanned easily. Every time she said it, Asher ground his teeth together and disagreed furiously in the privacy of his mind. His father was an avid Eric fan in general, but Asher had heard him disagree with his mom on this topic. “Asher doesn’t look like he spends hours in front of the mirror every day like that boy does.” Or, once: “Good-looking? Sure? Eric’s as good-looking as the prettiest girl in the country.”