The Identicals(68)

“Let’s assume it was our parents’ fault,” Harper says.

“Do you have someone special on the Vineyard?” Ramsay asks.

Harper shrugs. It’s too complicated to explain. “It was the right time to get away. I actually can’t believe Tabitha allowed me to stay. So she must have needed a break herself.”

“She did,” Ramsay says. “Explain to me how she can be so uptight and you can be so laid-back. Was it always that way?”

Was it always that way? Tabitha had long been an approval seeker, whereas Harper figured if other people didn’t like her, they could buzz off. Harper was, by nature, lazy and easily distracted. She had barely made it through Tulane; Bourbon Street was simply too alluring. As an adult, it seems, the traits that distinguished the twins from each other had only become exaggerated and solidified—although what, really, did Harper know of Tabitha’s life over the past fourteen years? Harper hasn’t spent any time with her sister since the week leading up to Julian’s death.

Those fraught, frantic days had been the time when Harper had felt closest to her sister. Isn’t that true? The fault lines created when Billy and Eleanor divorced had knit themselves back together and nearly healed. Until the final night. After that final night, the relationship ended.

“She lost a child,” Harper says. “That changes a person.”

“She lets that loss overshadow everything in her life that’s good. She does it still. She doesn’t open herself up to the possibility of future happiness, real happiness.”

“With you, you mean?”

“I wanted to have a baby with her,” Ramsay says. “No sooner did I say the words than Tabitha asked me to move out.”

Harper nods. She suddenly feels protective of her sister. She understands why Ramsay would want a child, but she also realizes that Tabitha would never have conceded. No way. The topic is too complex and painful to discuss any further, and Harper isn’t going to let the day go up in flames. “You know my sister far better than I do. I haven’t known her in a long time.”

“You never told me what happened between the two of you,” Ramsay says. “When I asked you about it at the brewery, you changed the subject.”

“For good reason,” Harper says. She gets to her feet. “How about a glass of that rosé?”



The afternoon sun beats down as Harper sips at her glass of wine and Ramsay does the Times crossword puzzle in his chair. Harper is lying across the blanket reading Valley of the Dolls, a book she found on Tabitha’s shelves that has Eleanor’s name written in pencil inside the front cover. Harper has never read it, but she knows it was splashy and scandalous in its day, and part of the joy of reading it is imagining Eleanor’s shock—and possibly her delight—at the sex and the pills. So many pills!

Ramsay looks up from his puzzle. “Myanmar, to JFK. Five letters.”

“Burma,” Harper says without looking up.

“Look at you!” Ramsay says.

“You’d never know it, but I had a very expensive education,” Harper says. “Winsor, then Tulane.”

“Tulane?” Ramsay says. “Impressive.”

“Not so impressive,” Harper says. “I barely graduated. I pretty much majored in shots at Pat O’Brien’s.”

“You’ve never told me what you do for a living,” Ramsay says.

“Until recently, I delivered packages for a Mickey Mouse operation called Rooster Express,” she says. “Before that, I did it all: ice cream scooper, cocktail waitress, landscaper, drug mule.”

Ramsay laughs, and Harper goes back to her book.



When Ramsay fills his glass with the last of the rosé, he settles down on the towel next to Harper. Harper immediately checks on Ainsley; she’s still snoring away on her towel. Harper has forgotten how long and deeply teenagers can sleep. Fish is dozing in the shade behind Ramsay’s chair.

“I’ve had enough sun,” Ramsay says.

He is too close to Harper. She sits up. “I could actually use some sun, I think.”

“You don’t have to get up,” Ramsay says. He reaches out for her blindly—his glasses are off—and he ends up grabbing her thigh. It takes her by surprise, and she responds by swatting at him. It’s meant to be a get-your-hands-off-me swat, but it ends up being more playful than stern. The little bit of wine she’s had has gone to her head, and the next thing she knows, she and Ramsay are tussling on the blanket. She tries to wrestle away but finds herself with her hands pinned over her head, Ramsay’s face hovering above hers.

“Ramsay,” she says. “Don’t.” She gets purposefully to her feet. Fish barks.

Ramsay holds his hands up. “Whoa,” he says. “Talk about mixed signals.”

Has she been sending mixed signals? If she has, it has been unintentional. She should never have agreed to come to the beach with Ramsay.

Harper stares at him, at a loss for words. Ramsay is a lovely and authentic person. She loves the buttoned-up order of him, the preppy clothes, the horn-rimmed glasses, his soothing manner, and his earnest desire to help. He is Clark Kent and Superman, or he has been until now. Now he’s just a man on the make. There is no way Harper is going to let anyone else get close to her, least of all Tabitha’s ex-boyfriend.