I let the moment stretch out between us. Farah’s eyes are trained on the ocean ahead. I know there’s more to the story, but I trust that she’ll tell me when she’s ready.
“So should we go meet this astrologer? You googled her?” Farah asks, changing the subject.
“I would say I can’t believe you didn’t, but of course you wouldn’t.”
“I don’t have time for that nonsense,” Farah says.
“Okay, so what are you picturing?” I ask.
“A wrinkly old woman in a muumuu?”
“Exactly. But she’s young and she’s wearing cute pants.”
I flash the photo of Rini on her website. Her shiny brown hair is swept over one shoulder. Wrapped in a red peacoat, she sits on the front steps of the black-and-white Victorian home, staring straight into the camera with a closed-lip, mysterious smile.
“She looks so normal. How’d she become an astrologer?” Farah asks.
“That’s every twentysomething’s dream job,” I say. In the days leading up to this trip, I had googled the astrologer obsessively, and now I pull up some of the best headlines to read aloud. “ ‘Young entrepreneur revives hospitality on the North Fork and zoning law changes thwart her competition.’ ‘What can’t she do? Success in the stars for this whiz kid.’ She sounds like an ingenue, while I wasted my youth partying and churning out articles with clickbait headlines for thirty bucks a pop.”
Farah brushes my arm with her fingertips. “Oh, Aimee, you’re still young,” she says. As always, Farah sees through to the core of me.
“Forty is on the horizon,” I admit.
“In three years.”
Ignoring Farah’s insistence, I fixate on Rini. Her youth isn’t the only thing nagging at me. I zoom in on the picture with my thumb and pointer finger, but I can’t place her, or the feeling.
“Well, I’m glad we’re doing this. The house is certainly pretty,” Farah says. “Shall we check in?”
It’s not our usual modern luxury resort, but it is charming. The Victorian house on the bluff. Green manicured lawns. The ocean in the background. The graveled road leading to the house is framed with tall knotty trees, their limbs gnarled in disjointed directions. The character of this home is so real that it greets us at the door, along with the astrologer, who introduces herself.
“This place is beautiful,” I say. As for meeting Rini, she doesn’t look as vaguely familiar in person.
Rini leads us around the first floor, pointing out the amenities and specialty rooms with practiced perfection. I notice the library is stocked with every Audra Rose novel in print and smile to myself. Rini couldn’t possibly know it’s my Adam who writes as Audra Rose, but he will be thrilled to see his thirteen published books displayed like treasure.
We ascend the grand staircase to the second level, where Rini explains that we are forbidden from using any of the rooms in the second wing unless we want to incur “exorbitant” housekeeping charges. Farah laps it up; she loves rules.
“What about the turrets?” Farah asks.
“There’s no access to them,” Rini answers tersely, as if she’s been asked that a million times before.
“Too bad, I bet the view is amazing from there.”
Rini leans in conspiratorially. “Can you keep a secret?”
Farah and I nod at the same time. Farah might be discreet, but I’m the one who’s as impenetrable as a vault.
“They’re purely decorative,” Rini states.
“Why? That’s such a waste,” I say.
“The zoning code would have recategorized me as a three-story B and B rather than a two-story vacation rental and that would have subjected me to more regulation without adding any bedrooms for increased capacity.”
“Ah, well, from the press it sounds like you’ve done right to stay in the good graces of the zoning authorities,” Farah says.
Rini clasps her hands behind her back, and I wonder if they teach that in Hospitality 101.
“Well, that’s it for now. Any questions?”
“None, thank you,” Farah says.
“Actually, yes,” I say at the same time. “She’s an obstetrician. We were at a farm stand earlier, and she said something that stuck with me.”
“What did I say?” Farah asks.
“You said you wished you could pre-deliver a baby.”
“That was a joke.”
“I know you were teasing me, but I thought, ‘Isn’t that what a scheduled C-section is?’ ”
“No, that’s not the same as banking content for TikTok.”
“I didn’t want to argue about my ‘work,’ ” I say, putting air quotes around the word like she does.
“Ladies?” Rini interjects.
I shoot Farah a look that asks her to be patient with me, the way I am with her. I turn to Rini to explain.
