The Weekenders Read Online Free Page B

agreed. “I’m that tragic cliché—a short, sassy, gay man. Doomed to spend my life shopping in the boys’ department at J. Crew.”
    â€œHow come you’re so tan?” Riley asked, studying her brother’s face. His dark hair was close-cropped, and his hazel eyes looked almost green against his deeply bronzed skin. He wore a blue-and-white-striped boat-necked T-shirt tucked into white jeans with rolled-up cuffs and immaculate white espadrilles. “Has it been that nice in New York?”
    â€œI wouldn’t know,” Billy said. “I got summoned down here by Mama two weeks ago and I’ve been at her beck and call ever since.”
    â€œYou two are speaking again?” Riley lifted an eyebrow in surprise.
    â€œOh, sure. She sent out all the living room furniture to get recovered and refinished back in the fall, and she needed a stooge to pick it up and haul it back over to the island and rearrange it at Shutters. So all is forgiven. Until next time. I take it she’s not currently on speaking terms with you?”
    â€œNope,” Riley said. She cut her eyes meaningfully in Maggy’s direction, a clear sister signal that she did not want to discuss family drama in front of her daughter.
    â€œCount your blessings,” Billy said. “Hey, Saggy Maggy. Does your forehand still suck, or did you get some coaching since I played you last?”
    Maggy shrugged. “I’m not so into tennis. It’s boring.”
    â€œTennis is boring? Since when?”
    â€œI’ve started running. I want to try out for the cross-country team, but Mom doesn’t want me to.” Maggy stuck her tongue out at her mother.
    â€œI’m worried that her blood sugar could get low on one of those long runs and something … could happen,” Riley said.
    Billy ruffled Maggy’s hair. “Boring or not, you’ll still be my mixed-doubles partner this summer, right? Remember how we killed ’em in the round-robin last Memorial Day weekend?”
    â€œI left my racquet at home,” Maggy said, her face still sullen.
    â€œI packed both our racquets,” Riley said.
    *   *   *
    Riley and Billy made their way up to the ferry’s observation deck, stopping to greet and chat with island neighbors they hadn’t seen in months. Finally they reached their destination.
    Riley leaned against the railing and inhaled deeply—this, she thought, might be her favorite summer perfume—diesel fumes mixed with salt spray with top notes of sunscreen and popcorn. Seagulls wheeled and cried overhead in the dusk and, on the horizon, a line of pelicans flying in V-formation raced westward.
    As the ferry dock and the mainland slipped away, she felt the anxiety and frustrations of the past few months doing the same. Her shoulders loosened, her face relaxed, her heart rate slowed. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and let the dying sunshine wash over her face, the way she’d always done since she was a little girl.
    One way or another, this weekend, she would have to find a way to tell Maggy about the impending divorce. If she had to do it solo, so be it. Things were about to get really, really ugly. But for right now, she promised herself, she would live in this moment.
    Besides, being on the island, her island, her special place, would make things better. She and Maggy would burrow in here for the summer, weather the storm of divorce, and when the season ended, they would be healed.
    Riley found herself crossing and uncrossing her fingers, praying it would be so.
    â€œWhere’s Scott?” Riley asked finally, opening her eyes after she was sure the last speck of land had disappeared.
    â€œWho knows? Atlanta? Vegas? One of those television chefs is opening three new restaurants this summer, and he’s been driving Scott crazy. One day he hates the dining room chandeliers in Atlanta, the next day he wants Scott to