Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) by Yona Zeldis McDonough Page A

lamely. But would she? She certainly hoped so.
    She tried to resume her swimming, but her concentration—and with it her sense of pleasure—was broken, so she climbed out of the pool, unbound her hair, and settled with the towel on the chaise longue. She wouldn’t stay out here, of course; she was always mindful of her pale skin, which burned easily. But, oh, the sun felt so good. She closed her eyes and drank in the warmth.
    “That’s an upstairs towel.”
    Gretchen squinted up at Caleb, who was leaning over her.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Your towel. It’s from the bathroom upstairs.”
    “So what?” The point of this exchange eluded her.
    “Mom said the upstairs towels should stay upstairs. Towels for the pool”—he shook a turquoise-and-yellow-striped towel in her face, as if he were the matador and she the bull—“are in the cabana. Over there.” He let the towel go limp and pointed.
    “Big deal,” she said, rolling over and away from him. “Who even cares?”
    “Mom. She made a point of telling me.”
    “So what is she going to do about it? Dock my allowance? Ground me?” She was annoyed; ordinarily she got on well with Caleb, but right now he was deliberately baiting her.
Regression
, she thought again. That was what happened when all four adult siblings were under a single roof.
    “No need to get all huffy,” he said. “I was just stating the rules of the manor. Milady’s pleasure, if you know what I mean.”
    “Grow up,” she muttered.
Fuck you
, was what she really wanted to say, but why go there? She closed her eyes and, because she’d left her sunglasses upstairs in her room, pressed her forearm over them. Maybe if she pretended to be trying to nap, Caleb would go away. No such luck.
    “You remember Bobby? From last night?”
    She opened her eyes to see her brother’s new boyfriend standing at his side. Naturally she remembered Bobby; did her brother think she was senile? But she just propped herself up on her elbows and said, “Sure.”
    “I told Caleb that you were the smart one,” he said in a low, confiding voice. Despite her annoyance with Caleb, Gretchen smiled. Bobby was charming; she would grant him that. Charming and good-looking too, with a thick sheaf of blond hair that fell across his intriguing, amber-colored eyes.
    “Going in for a swim?” she asked.
    He nodded. “Looks like you’ve been in already.”
    “I was. And the water’s just fine.” She settled back down.
    Caleb and Bobby laid their striped towels—their
cabana
towels—on the pair of chairs flanking the chaise longue and jumped into the water. They didn’t so much swim as frisked, splashed, dunked, and cannonballed; they made quite a racket. Gretchen could have easily left. She’d had her swim, and she’d had her flirtation. But she found herself wanting to stay, so she got up and dragged the chaise longue into the shade, where she would not have to worry about sunburn. Caleb and Bobby were swimming now, gracefully in tandem across the glittering blue surface of the water.
    Her brother looked so—well, so
happy
that Gretchen’s earlier irritation evaporated, leaving a tender and protective glow in its place. Caleb had been a sensitive, nervous kid. He cried easily and took even the smallest things very hard. So it was nice to see him enjoying the giddy little intoxication of this nascent romance. Caleb was a honey. Oh, he could be prickly, but that was only in self-defense; he was so easily hurt and needed some sort of armor. She hoped Bobby would understand this.
    Finally the two men climbed out of the pool and lay panting side by side in the sun. Gretchen saw Caleb reach for Bobby’s hand and give it a squeeze; Bobby leaned over to whisper something in Caleb’s ear that made him burst out laughing. He was still laughing when Bobby got up, crossed the lawn, and headed back toward the house.
    After a minute Caleb opened his eyes and waved at Gretchen.
    “Come sit with me,” she