The Identicals(86)

“Darling!” Tabitha says. She sounds happy—giddy, even—and Ainsley reels for a second. Xanax, maybe?

“Hi, Mama,” she says.

“I was just thinking about you,” Tabitha says. “You should see what we’re doing to Gramps’s house. It was a total disaster area, but we’re redoing everything, and it’s going to be gorgeous, like one of the houses in Domino.”

Who is we? Ainsley wonders. She says, “I thought you and Aunt Harper had agreed to tear it down.”

“Harper wanted to tear it down. She didn’t see the potential. Do you know what we found under the wall-to-wall carpeting?”

Ainsley tries to guess what would be exciting to someone like her mother. “Savings bonds?” she says.

“Basically,” Tabitha says. “There are random-width heart-pine floors under the carpet.”

“Sick,” Ainsley says, then she remembers that her mother dislikes this response.

“So tell me,” Tabitha says. “How’s the store?”

“The store is good,” Ainsley says. She isn’t sure what Harper has told Tabitha about the changes they’ve made at the boutique. “It’s really busy all the time. Meghan says sales are way up.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Tabitha says. “I heard you had a party.”

Ainsley is caught off guard by this. “A party?”

“Meghan told me,” Tabitha says. “I heard all about the punch and the popcorn—”

“I didn’t drink any of the punch,” Ainsley says.

“—and the avocado toasts… and the music…”

“The thing is, Mama, since the party? The reputation of the store has totally changed.”

“Oh, I’m sure it has,” Tabitha says.

“No, for the better. It’s become a place where people want to shop. It’s hip now, it’s cool.”

“Your grandmother doesn’t want a hip shop or a cool shop,” Tabitha says. “Your grandmother wants a dignified shop, a classic, timeless shop. That has always been the idea. That has always been the guiding principle.”

“But her designs aren’t timeless,” Ainsley says. “That’s why her Newbury Street store closed, isn’t it? The only people who want to buy the ERF label are, like, a hundred years old.”

“Your aunt is cheapening the brand,” Tabitha says. “She has always sullied everything she touches, and this is no different.”

“Mama—” Ainsley says.

“But I’ve washed my hands of it for the summer,” Tabitha says. “And I haven’t said a word to your grandmother because she’s trying to heal, but I assure you she will be very unhappy, and it’s entirely Harper’s fault.”

“Why do you hate Aunt Harper so much?” Ainsley asks.

Tabitha ignores the question. “I am curious about one thing,” she says. “Meghan says you hired a new sales associate.”

“Um… yes,” Ainsley says. She wonders how bad it would be if she hung up right now and later claimed the call dropped.

“Who is it? I meant to call the boutique and find out, but I’ve been consumed with this renovation.”

“Um…”

“Ainsley.”

Ainsley considers lying and making up a name—Carrie Bradshaw, or no, that won’t work, so something else—but she will be found out. And what is her new pledge? To be a good person. To tell the truth.

“Caylee Keohane,” she says.

There is silence. Ainsley cringes.

Then Tabitha says, “Caylee, the little girl Ramsay dates?”

“Dated,” Ainsley squeaks. “They broke up. They broke up before we hired her.” Ainsley wants to speak up in Caylee’s defense and explain the Facebook posts and the outfit of the day and how successful this campaign has been and why Caylee is such a good person and a team player and what a kind, supportive friend she’s been to Ainsley. And she’s not a little girl: she’s twenty-two years old, an adult. But Ainsley is afraid that if she defends Caylee, her mother will only get angrier, so she says nothing.

“Huh,” Tabitha says, and she hangs up.



Ainsley rides her bike home as fast as she can.

When she reaches the carriage house, she runs upstairs. For the first time all summer, the central air is on, and Aunt Harper is wrapped in the mohair blanket from Nantucket Looms, which cost as much as a new car; Tabitha doesn’t like Ainsley to use it. The blinds have been pulled, and the upstairs is as dark as a cave. Ainsley stares at her aunt. Is she sick?

“Hey,” Ainsley says. She nudges her aunt. “Are you okay, Aunt Harper?” It’s not like her aunt to sleep in the middle of the day. On her other days off, she is a regular Vasco da Gama, out exploring parts of the island Ainsley didn’t even know existed.

Harper’s eyes flutter open. “Yes,” she says. “I’m just really, really tired. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Ainsley says. “But I need to tell you something.”

Harper sits up—gingerly, it seems—with her arm bracing her midsection as though her stomach hurts, and she brings her feet to the floor. “What is it?”