We could be the next Helen Owen and Zack Kalter, I’ve heard Lexy muse on more than one occasional. The claim is outrageous on so many levels that it’s not even worth the attempt to pull Lexy back down to earth. She’s a dreamer and a dilettante through and through, but she’s also the most fiercely loyal person I know. In addition to punching Sasha Bateman in middle school, when Lexy overheard Hilary Mandeville telling people I belonged in a mental hospital, Lexy whacked her in the shins during field-hockey practice and got suspended from the team for the rest of the season. When the shit with Max LaPointe went down, Lexy publicly shamed him to her tens of thousands of Instagram followers. I didn’t ask her to, but this is the quintessential Lexy Blane Hill reaction when anyone wrongs one of her friends.
Still, Andie is the only one I can roll my eyes with at Lexy’s constant over-the-topness; Isabel is too nonconfrontational, and my college friends don’t know Lexy well enough to remotely understand why she’s posing in front of her pool in a yellow Kiini one-piece five minutes after we get to the Amagansett house.
“Friday evening is one of the best times to post,” Lexy explains as she cocks one hip and purses her lips in front of Isabel, who is dutifully snapping iPhone pictures from Lexy’s chosen angle.
After she takes twenty minutes to filter, caption, and upload, Lex shows each of us to our bedrooms. Andie and I are sharing, as well as Lex and Iz, and the others get their own rooms, which I’m happy about. I want everyone to be as comfortable as possible.
Everyone agrees that the house is insane and thanks Lexy profusely for hosting.
“Are you kidding?” Lexy waves her hand. “I would do anything for this girl.” She circles her arms around my waist and squeezes.
I can sense Andie’s annoyance at Lexy as Andie stomps off to the kitchen to start cooking. Iz and I join her while Lexy gives Kendall, Kate, Sophia, and Taylor a tour of the rest of the house.
We’ve decided to have a low-key dinner tonight and make Saturday our big night out on the town. On the menu is spaghetti and meatballs—simple, but one of my favorite meals—and kale Caesar salad. It’s a warm summer night, and we eat outside on the terrace overlooking the Blanes’ pristine turquoise swimming pool.
The dinner conversation is heavily based around engagements and marriage and babies in a way it would never have been two years earlier. Kate is four months pregnant and says that giving up wine has by far been the hardest part. Isabel has recently started taking prenatal vitamins, and Lexy says she and Matt will likely start trying to get pregnant within the next six months. I try to catch Andie’s eye across the table—Andie and I have only been half joking when we’ve agreed that a large part of the reason Lexy wants a baby is so she can post about it on Instagram—but Andie is gazing down into her barely touched plate of pasta. I realize then that out of the eight of us, only Andie and Kendall aren’t married or engaged. Sophia got married in May and is doling out loads of wedding advice, and Taylor got engaged shortly after I did.
Kendall is too self-assured and career driven to worry about her unmarried status, but I know Andie well enough to be able to tell that she doesn’t want to be grouped off as one of the only two single girls in the group.
Not that Andie is single—she isn’t. Andie has been with Spencer forever, but without a diamond on her left ring finger she’s on the outside of something that the rest of us aren’t. And I can tell she doesn’t like it one bit. As I watch her mix another tequila soda, I can almost feel the way she desperately misses her Williamsburg yogi friends, the ones who frequent Brooklyn Steel and are years away from investing in fertility vitamins.
I feel it in the bed we share that night, too, the disconnect in the silence between us as we itch for sleep. I can read the thoughts blazing through her mind beside me: I have been with Spencer for eight years. Skye has been with Burke for nine months. None of this makes any fucking sense.
The next day Andie wakes up in a cheerier mood. After breakfast she leads us in a group yoga session out by the pool. Post-Savasana, poor Taylor is tasked with snapping shots of Lexy doing Warrior II in her Bandier workout garb, a matching bra and leggings set in a blinding shade of magenta. Once a winning photo has been chosen and posted, we pack a cooler and head to the beach.
It’s a beautiful Saturday—one of those flawless summer days when the sun is whole and drenching, not a speck of cloud in the robin’s-egg-blue sky. Andie has given me a white one-shoulder Marysia bikini for the occasion; I know it was an expensive gift for her, so I wear it even though I hate being in a bikini around Andie and Lexy and Sophia, my thinnest friends. It’s not that I dislike my body—I run and work out enough to stay fit. It’s just that I know I’ll never look the way some girls do—the way my own waif of a mother did—no matter how many miles I log at the gym. Genetics were kind enough to give me Mom’s face, but I unfortunately inherited my grandmother’s broad shoulders and curves.
We spend a few blissful hours at the beach, sunbathing and drinking Whispering Angel while Lexy continues to document it all. The Marysia bikini bottoms are digging into my hips, and I swallow annoyance toward Andie for getting me a size small when she knows I wear a medium.
When everyone is sunned out, we go back to the house to shower and play the special surprise game that Andie has planned. Lexy opens more Whispering Angel—she bought a whole case.
I’m not surprised that Andie’s surprise game turns out to be Bachelorette Jeopardy. We played the game at both Isabel’s and Lexy’s bachelorettes, and it’s hilarious. But more than that, Bachelorette Jeopardy is the perfect opportunity for Andie to publicly show just how little Burke and I truly know about each other. This part makes my stomach sink. This part—if I’m being honest—is the reason I was hesitant to have a bachelorette in the first place.
Andie has set up a poster board with SKYE’S BACH JEOPARDY in block lettering across the top, and on the second row underneath, five categories each heading their own column: BY THE NUMBERS, BABY BURKE, BURKE’S QUIRKS, BEDROOM BOUND, SKYE’S WORLD.
Andie stands up front by the board to explain the rules. She’s showered and changed into a pale yellow maxi dress, her towel-dried hair twisted into a topknot, and she’s wearing makeup. Her body is skinny and tan in the places I’m fleshy and sunburned, and any lingering guilt I feel for her relationship status evaporates. Perched on the couch in a red jumpsuit, Lexy is filming everything.
“Okay!” Andie claps her hands together and looks at Isabel. “Izzy, you start.”
“Hmm.” Isabel twirls a lock of sand-colored hair around her pointer finger. “Bedroom Bound for three hundred!”
“Iz!” Lexy whoops. “Someone’s mind is in the gutter.”
“I’ve been overserved!” Isabel lifts her glass and rosé sloshes over the rim and onto the floor.
“Shhh,” Andie says. “Bedroom Bound for three hundred, here we go. The question is, ‘What is Skye’s favorite sex position?’” Andie gestures toward me. “Skye, you’re up.”
I exhale, grateful that the first question is something simple. “Girl on top.”