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Darcy pressed her lips into a line. “Have you talked to Eddie at all?”
“Nah. It’s all fake,” Rachelle said, her blood pressure spiking. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. We have one more month of filming left. I have to batten down the hatches, work, and not think about matters of the heart.”
Darcy wrinkled her nose, her face still echoing worry.
Grandma Estelle was up to her ears in kitchen work. Rachelle and Darcy hurried in to help her with appetizers, pouring glasses of wine for themselves and listening to the ruckus coming from the living room and the veranda. It was a Coleman family celebration, and everyone was there—talking all over one another, hopeful to be heard over the noise.
Aunt Hilary and her daughter, Aria, joined them in the kitchen for a while, chatting about their new gigs at Sotheby’s. Rachelle allowed herself to get wrapped up in other people’s worries and stories, grateful for the distraction.
“By the way,” Aria said, her eyes on Rachelle, “all of my friends are asking about the show. They’re obsessed with you.”
Rachelle grimaced.
“Tell me,” Aria said, bowing her head, “what’s going on with Eddie? Did Diana really go behind your back to flirt with him?”
“It’s all fake,” Estelle announced proudly. “It’s outrageous. I just hope everyone can see how hard our girl is working.”
Rachelle bowed her head. “Eddie and I hardly know each other,” she confessed. “And Diana and I don’t fight at all. It’s all made up.”
Aria’s jaw dropped. “That’s insane.”
“It probably looks so real,” Rachelle said with a sigh. “But it’s kind of a nightmare for me. I can’t wait till it’s over.”
Aria was flabbergasted. “You must be exhausted!”
Estelle asked Sam and Hilary their opinion on a painting she’d just bought. “You have to help me decide where to hang it,” she said, leading them away. Rachelle was grateful to her grandmother for distracting her family from the conversation.
Aria got the hint, too. She took a sip of wine and smiled. “Rachelle. Let me ask you something.”
Rachelle cocked her head.
“When was the last time you had any fun?”
Rachelle laughed, peering back through her memories, unable to find a single moment in the past few weeks when she’d felt like herself. The TV show had robbed her of joy.
“You’re coming out tonight,” Aria announced. “There’s a beach bonfire. Everyone will be there.”
“I don’t know,” Rachelle said. “I’m so embarrassed. I don’t want people to ask me about the show.”
“I’ll make sure they lay off,” Aria assured her. “We both will. Right, Darcy?”
Darcy set her jaw. “They won’t say a thing.”
That night, Darcy, Rachelle, and Aria set off for the beach bonfire on the southernmost tip of Nantucket Island. Rachelle reached out of the passenger window and felt the cool May breeze through her fingers. She felt something like hope.
Darcy parked in a mess of a parking lot near the beach. “I hope we can get out of here when the time comes.”
“Or we’ll sleep at the beach!” Aria said, jumping out of the car and heading toward the bonfire.
Rachelle and Darcy followed her, carrying a six-pack of beer and a bag of chips. Forty or fifty Nantucketers between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six were spread across the beach, and a speaker blared the hits of last summer. Overhead, stars spackled the night sky.
“It’s just like old times,” Darcy said.
And it was, at first. Rachelle cracked a beer and sat with her cousin and sister, chatting to Nantucketers she hadn’t seen since last summer. Some of them had been away, going to college or working jobs elsewhere. Others had been here, hibernating until the temperature went up a bit.
None of them asked Rachelle about the show. Rachelle couldn’t believe it. Maybe they weren’t paying attention? Or maybe Aria had warned them ahead of time? Relief loosened her shoulders and made her laugh even more. She felt like herself again.
When Rachelle reached for a second beer, Darcy leaned toward her and whispered something in her ear. Rachelle couldn’t hear her over the music.
