“She’s a doll,” Sabrina says brightly. “She’s almost six, right?”
“Yep. I can’t believe it.” Molly stares into the bowl of her wineglass, which is somehow empty again.
“Is she a summer birthday?” Sabrina asks.
Molly nods. “August.”
Sabrina stands, smooths the front of her caftan. “I’m going to pop the salmon in the oven. We can eat in fifteen.”
Dinner is served in the dining room, another pristinely decorated space that leaves Molly even more curious about the source of Sabrina and Jake’s—or the Danners’， she supposes she should call them—finances. She knows nothing about Jake’s current income, but can’t imagine the profits of a few years of way-back-when rock band stardom would’ve extended so far as to get them a house like this in Flynn Cove.
“Jake, what do you do for work now?” Hunter asks, and Molly thinks perhaps spousal telepathy is real. “Sabrina mentioned the new music venture, but is there anything aside from that?”
Molly shifts uncomfortably at the way Hunter phrases the question.
Jake swallows a piece of sourdough, and Molly watches the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple. She still can’t actually grasp that he’s here, right in front of her. She is sitting in Jake’s grass cloth–wallpapered dining room. She is eating roasted salmon off Jake’s Mottahedeh china. The Jake she knew didn’t own matching socks.
“Sisi—sorry, Sabrina—her dad started an insurance company, and the Manhattan office was kind enough to bring me on a few years back.” A slightly rueful expression passes across his face. Working a corporate job is the last thing Molly ever expected of Jake. Even after Danner Lane’s split, she’d always assumed he’d found a career that kept him involved in music—or at least something creative.
“To be frank, I inherited a pretty sizable trust when my dad sold Randolph Group,” Sabrina adds candidly. “Which is how we bought this place. I’m consulting for a few brands right now, but no longer full-time. It was just too much to keep commuting into the city once we moved out here. Freelancing is more convenient.”
Hunter nods politely, but Molly knows he’s surprised. Most young couples they’re acquainted with in Flynn Cove wouldn’t be so up-front about their lavish lifestyles being subsidized by rich parents. Sabrina’s honesty is, at least, refreshing. Molly can also sense that she and Hunter are sharing the same thought. They’ve both heard of Randolph Group—everyone has. It’s a giant company. Sabrina must be absolutely loaded.
“And what about you, Molly?” Jake asks. “Still writing, I hope?”
She sips her wine, thinking of Bella’s voicemail sitting in her inbox. She should just delete it.
“Wait, you’re a writer?” Sabrina perks up at this. “You never told me that, Moll.”
“I’m not,” Molly says quickly. She gives a strained smile. “Back in the day, I wrote a bit. Not anymore.” She blinks, hating the way it feels to admit this to Jake, how lost she sounds in this moment, the lack of confidence in her voice. “But I’m still teaching yoga.”
“I told you that’s where we met, babe. At Yoga Tree.” Sabrina squeezes Jake’s arm, and Molly feels herself flinch. Out of habit, maybe. Old, ingrained jealousy. “Molly is an incredible teacher.”
“Always has been.” Jake smiles gently in Molly’s direction, and his eyes are so blue and disarming, and she wishes he would stop looking at her like that, like he’s trying to pass her a silent reminder that he’s seen her naked a thousand times. Or maybe he’s being friendly and normal, and she’s just being hyperneurotic as usual, ramped up on fertility hormones that distort and dramatize the way she sees the world.
Molly glances at Sabrina, paranoid that she, too, can sense an edge of flirtation in Jake’s voice. But Sabrina just sits there with a mollified expression glued to her face, nursing her rosé. Because why would her new friend be worried that something is amiss? Molly and Jake dated in their early twenties, when they were practically children. They’re both married to other people now; Molly has a child of her own.
So what, really, is the problem? Molly isn’t sure; she only knows that at this stage in her life, having come as far as she has from the girl she was at twenty-six, living in the same small town as Jake Danner feels impossible. Unbearable.
The problem is: she really likes his wife. Sabrina is the first woman Molly has met in her three years in Flynn Cove whom she’s clicked with—well, besides Whitney, but sometimes Molly wonders if she’s ever actually clicked with Whitney, or if she’s just tried to convince herself she has. And okay, clearly Sabrina is privileged, but she’s not gaudy or entitled like Meredith and Betsy and Edie. She doesn’t wear flashy jewelry or dress like a Stepford wife; she doesn’t believe that the sun rises and sets on the Flynn Cove Country Club.