The Identicals(80)

Caylee is bored. It’s Ainsley’s day off—she said she was going to stay home, eat ice chips, and binge on Girls—and Harper arrived at work in such a foul mood that Caylee suggested she take a long lunch, maybe drive her Bronco out to 40th Pole and go for a swim. Initially Caylee had thought Harper’s mood was attributable to the heat, but when she thinks back, she realizes that Harper has been irritable since her nondate date with Ramsay. Did something happen? Did Ramsay make moves on Harper against her wishes, or did he not make moves when she wanted him to? Caylee can’t ask Harper these questions because she and Harper haven’t developed the closeness that Caylee and Ainsley have. Harper is always friendly, always congenial, but she holds personal information in reserve.

As Caylee is cogitating on what might be up with Harper, the door opens, and a dark-haired girl wanders in, holding an iced coffee. The girl looks familiar, but before Caylee can suss out who she is, she has to deal with business.

“I’m sorry,” Caylee says, trying to sound genuinely sorry and not merely annoyed—although really, there is a sign on the door that says NO FOOD, NO DRINK, NO EXCEPTIONS. “You’ll have to leave your coffee outside.”

The girl tilts her head and hitches up the strap of what Caylee thinks is a Chloe hobo bag in saddle-tone leather. “When I was here before, there was food and drink. What’s up with that?”

Then Caylee realizes: this girl with the twenty-five-hundred-dollar bag is Ainsley’s friend—or former friend—Emma. Unlike Harper, Ainsley has confided everything about her personal life to Caylee. She told Caylee that she stole gin from her grandmother’s house and that Emma planted it in Candace’s locker, but then somehow the situation flipped on its head and Emma and Candace ganged up on Ainsley and Ainsley ended up serving a three-day in-school suspension. Then the girls egged her house. It’s enough to take Caylee back to the heartache of her own high school days. Kids are cruel because they are jealous or confused or simply badly parented. Ainsley has told Caylee that Emma lives with her father, Dutch, who owns the restaurant at the Nantucket airport. The mother lives somewhere in Florida; apparently Emma never sees her. Caylee feels for any child who has lost a parent to either death or desertion—Caylee’s own mother died of breast cancer three years ago, and Caylee misses her every second of every day—but she also suspects that in Emma’s case, a lack of a mother has curdled her soul until it’s as sour as a glass of expired milk.

“That was a special occasion,” Caylee says. “We don’t allow food or drink during regular business hours. I’m sorry. You’re welcome to finish your coffee outside.”

Emma places the cup on the front step. Caylee will bet fifty bucks that she forgets all about it and leaves it for Caylee to throw away.

“Thanks,” Caylee says. “Now, can I help you find something?”

“Actually,” Emma says, “I’m looking for Ainsley. Is she here?”

“She’s not,” Caylee says, though certainly that’s apparent. The store is deserted. “It’s her day off.”

“Oh,” Emma says. “Lucky her.” She takes an ERF dress off the rack—long-sleeved with a floppy bow at the neck, reminiscent of what Dustin Hoffman wore in Tootsie—and holds it up against her body. “This is hideous.”

Caylee happens to agree, but she isn’t about to bond with Emma over taste, nor is she going to let Emma insult the signature brand. “I’ll tell Ainsley you stopped in,” she says.

Emma sniffs and heads to the part of the boutique that features the other, younger lines. She fingers a black beaded Parker top.

“I have this in white,” Emma says.

Caylee smiles blandly. Emma moves to the table where the “littles” are kept—rope belts, scarves, sunglasses, and the jar of lacy thongs. She fingers the scarves, inspects the belts, tries on the sunglasses. Caylee stifles a yawn. Norah Jones sings “Come Away with Me.”

Then suddenly Caylee gets an idea.

“I have to use the ladies’ room,” she says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Whatevs,” Emma says.

Caylee steps into the back office and closes the door firmly with a click. She brings up the store surveillance camera on her phone as she strides with heavy wedge-heeled footsteps down the hallway. Sure enough, Emma Marlowe’s head is on a swivel, checking the store for cameras, but the camera Eleanor had installed is designed to look like a sprinkler head. Emma reaches into the glass jar and grabs two lace thongs. She drops the thirty-six dollars’ worth of merchandise into her twenty-five-hundred-dollar bag. If it were anyone else, Caylee would have handled the shoplifting herself, but for Emma, Caylee calls the police.

Gotcha, she thinks.



Nobody is surprised to hear that Emma Marlowe has gotten caught stealing. Even the officer who responds, Sergeant Royal DiLeo, is unsurprised. He has busted up every teenage beer party this summer, and Emma, with her snarky, entitled attitude, has been present at them all. People are surprised to hear that Dutch Marlowe actually leaves the airport restaurant in order to come to the store and lobby on his daughter’s behalf. Little does he know that this unprecedented bit of parental support will backfire. For the second he walks in to the ERF boutique and sees that it’s Caylee Keohane who has caught his daughter, he is sorry indeed.