"We did?" I ask, thinking that if we looked like a couple, Dex must know that I'm not dwelling on him.

She nods, finds her "Corporate Challenge" T-shirt, and sniffs the armpits before tossing it over to me. "Is this clean? Smell it."

"I'm not gonna smell your shirt," I say, throwing it back. "You're gross."

She laughs and puts on her obviously clean enough shirt. "Yeah... You two were out there whispering and laughing. I thought for sure you were going to hook up last night, and that I would get the room to myself."

I laugh. "Sorry to disappoint."

"You disappointed him more."

"Nah. He just said good night when we got home. Not even a kiss."

Hillary knows about the first kiss. "Why not?"

"I don't know. I think we're both proceeding with caution. We'll have a lot of contact between now and September... You know, he's in the wedding party too. If things blow up, it could be bad."

She looks as if she is considering my point. For one second I am tempted to tell Hillary everything about Dex. I trust her. But I don't share, reasoning that I can always tell her, but I can't untell her and erase the knowledge from her mind. When we are all together, I would feel even more awkward, constantly thinking that she's thinking about it. And anyway... it is over. There is really nothing to talk about.

We go downstairs. Our housemates have already a.s.sembled around the kitchen table.

"It's kick-a.s.s outside," Darcy says, standing, stretching, and showing off her flat stomach under a cropped T-shirt. She sits back down at the table, returning to her game of solitaire.

Claire looks up from her Palm Pilot. "Perfect beach weather."

"Perfect golf weather," Hillary says, looking at Dex and Marcus. "Any interest?"

"Urn, maybe," Dex says, glancing up from the sports page. "Want me to call and see if we can get a tee time?"

Darcy slams her cards onto the table and looks around defiantly.

Hillary doesn't seem to notice Darcy's objection to a round of golf because she says, "Or we could just pop over to the driving range."

"No! No! No! No golf!" Darcy pounds the table again, this time with her fist. "Not on our first day! We have to stay together! All of us. Right, Rachel?"

"Guess that means no golf today," Dex says, before I am forced to become involved in the great golf debate. "Darcy's orders."

Hillary gets up from the table with a disgusted look on her face.

"I just want us all to be together at the beach," Darcy says, putting a benevolent spin on her selfishness.

"And you make the prospect seem so pleasant." Dex stands, walks over to the sink, and starts making coffee.

"What's your problem, grouchy bottom?" Darcy says to his back as if he is the one who just told her how to spend the day. "You are being such an old stinkweed. Sheesh."

"What's a stinkweed?" Marcus asks, scratching his ear. It is his first contribution to the morning conversation. He still looks half asleep. "I'm not familiar."

"Just have a look at one right now," Darcy says, pointing at Dex. "He's been in a bad mood since we got here."

"No, I haven't," Dex says. I want him to turn around so I can read his expression.

"Have too. Hasn't he?" Darcy demands an answer from the rest of us, looking at me specifically. Being friends with Darcy has taught me the art of smoothing over. But sleeping with her fiance has dulled my instinct. I am not in the mood to chime in. And n.o.body else wants to become embroiled in what should be their private argument. We all shrug or look away.

In truth, though, Dex has been somewhat subdued. I wonder if I have anything to do with his mood. Maybe it bothered him, watching me with Marcus. Not full-blown jealousy, just the territorial pangs that I experienced. Or perhaps he's only thinking about Darcy, seeing her for the controlling person she is. I've always been aware of Darcy's demands-you can't miss them-but lately, I have been less tolerant of her. I am tired of her always getting her way. Maybe Dex feels the same.

"What are we doing for breakfast?" Marcus asks through a loud yawn.

Claire glances at her diamond-studded Cartier. "You mean brunch."

"Whatever. For food," Marcus says.

We discuss our options and decide to skip the crowded East Hampton scene. Hillary says that she bought the essentials the day before.

"By essentials, do you mean Pop-Tarts?" Marcus asks.

"Here." Hillary sets bowls, spoons, and a box of Rice Krispies on the table. "Enjoy."

Marcus opens the box and pours some into his bowl. He looks across the table at me. "Want some?"

I nod, and he prepares my bowl. He doesn't ask anyone else if they want cereal, just pushes the box down the table.

"Banana?" he asks me.

"Yes, please."

He peels the banana and slices it into his bowl and mine, alternating every few slices. He takes the bruised section for himself. We are sharing a banana. This means something. Dex's eyes dart my way as Marcus flicks the last neat cylinder into my bowl, leaving the nasty end piece in its peel where it belongs.

Several hours later, we are finally ready to go to the beach. Claire and Darcy emerge from their rooms with their stylish canvas bags filled to the brim with plush new beach towels, magazines, lotions, thermoses, cell phones, and makeup. Hillary carries only a small bath towel from the house and a Frisbee. I am somewhere in between with a beach towel, my Discman, and a bottle of water. The six of us walk in a row, our flip-flops smacking the pavement with that satisfying sound of summer. Claire and Hillary walk on either end, flanking the house couple and the possible couple-to-be. We cross the beach parking lot and climb over the dune, hesitating for a second to take in our first collective glimpse of the ocean. I am glad that I no longer live in landlocked Indiana, where people call Lake Michigan "the beach." The view is thrilling. It almost makes me forget that I slept with Dex.

Dex leads the way down the crowded beach, finding us a spot halfway between the dunes and the ocean where the sand is still soft but even enough to spread our towels. Marcus puts his towel next to mine; Darcy is on my other side, Dex next to her. Hillary and Claire set up in front of us. The sun is bright but not too hot. Claire warns us all about the UV rays, that these are the days when you really have to be careful. "You can get severe sun damage and not even realize it until it's too late," she says.

Marcus offers to put suntan lotion on my back.

"No, thanks," I say. But as I struggle to reach the middle of my back, he takes the bottle from me and applies the lotion, meticulously maneuvering around the edges of my suit.

"Do mine, Dex," Darcy says cheerfully, shedding her white shorts and squatting in front of Dex in her black bikini. "Here. Use the coconut oil, please."

Claire bemoans the lack of SPF in the oil, says we are too old to keep tanning and that Darcy will be sorry when the wrinkles set in. Darcy rolls her eyes and says she doesn't care about wrinkles, she lives in the moment. I know I will get an earful later, that Darcy will tell me that Claire is just jealous because her fair skin goes straight from white to bright pink. "You'll regret it when you're forty," Claire says, her face shaded by a huge straw hat.

"No I won't. I'll just get laser resurfacing." Darcy adjusts her bikini top and then coats more oil on her calves, using quick, efficient strokes.

I have watched her grease up for more than fifteen years now. Every summer her goal was to have a savage tan. Often we would lie out in her backyard with a big tub of Crisco, a bottle of Sun-In, and a garden hose for periodic relief. It was absolute torture. But I suffered through it believing that dark pigmentation was a virtue of sorts. My skin is pale like Claire's, so every day Darcy would surge further ahead.

Claire remarks that cosmetic surgery won't cure skin cancer.

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Darcy says. "Stay under your d.a.m.n hat then!"

Claire opens her mouth and then closes it quickly, looking injured. "Sorry. I was just trying to help."

Darcy shoots her a conciliatory smile. "I know, hon. Didn't mean to snap at you."

Dex looks at me and makes a face, as if to say that he wishes both of them would shut up. It is the first direct communication we have had all day. I allow myself to smile back at him. His face breaks into a glorious grin. He is so handsome that it hurts. Like looking at the sun. He stands for a moment to adjust his towel, which has folded over in the wind. I look at his back and then down at his calves, feeling a surge of remembrance. He was in my bed. Not that I want a repeat performance. But oh, he has a nice body-lean but broad. I am not a body person, but I still appreciate a perfect one. He sits back down just as I look away.

Marcus asks if anybody wants to play Frisbee. I say no, that I am too tired, but what I am thinking is that the last thing I want to do is run around with my soft, white stomach poking out of my tankini. But Hillary is a taker and off they go, the portrait of two well-adjusted beach-goers leaving the rest of us to our trifling.

"Hand me my shirt," Darcy says to Dex.

"Please?"

"The 'please' is a given," Darcy says.

"Say it," he says, popping a cinnamon Altoid into his mouth.

Darcy hits him hard in the stomach.

"Ouch," he says in a monotone, to indicate that it didn't hurt in the slightest.

She winds up to hit him again, but he grabs her wrist.

"Try to behave. You're such a child," he says fondly. His edginess of this morning is gone.

"I am not," she says, sidling over to his towel. She presses her fingers into his chest, poised for a kiss.

I put on my sungla.s.ses and look away. To say that what I am feeling is not jealousy is a stretch.

That night we all go to a party in Bridgehampton. The house is huge with a beautiful L-shaped pool surrounded by gorgeous landscaping and at least twenty tiki torches. I scan the guests in the backyard, noticing all of the purple, hot pink, and orange dresses and skirts. It seems that every woman read the same "bright colors are in, black is out" article that I read. I followed the advice and bought a lime green sundress that is too vivid and memorable to wear again before August, which means it will cost me about one hundred and fifty dollars per wear. But I am pleased with my choice until I see the same dress, about two sizes smaller, on a slender blonde. She is much taller than I am, so the dress is shorter on her, exposing an endless stretch of bronzed thigh. I make a conscious effort to stay on the opposite side of the pool from her.

I go to the bathroom, and on my way back to find Hillary, I get stuck talking to Hollis and Dewey Malone. Hollis used to work at my firm but quit the day after she got engaged to Dewey. Dewey is unattractive and humorless, but he has a huge trust fund. Hence Hollis's interest. It was amusing to hear Hollis explain to us that Dewey has such a "big heart," blah blah blah, trying in vain to disguise her true intentions. I am envious of Hollis's escape from firm h.e.l.l, but I would rather be stuck billing than married to Dewey.

"My life is so much better now," she chirps tonight. "That firm was poison! It was so stifling! I thought I might miss the intellectual stimulation... but I don't. Now I have time to read the cla.s.sics and think. It's great. So liberating."

"Uh-huh... That's nice," I say, taking mental notes to share with Hillary later.

Hollis goes on to tell me about their penthouse on the park and how she's been working so hard on decorating it and has had to fire three designers for not adhering to her vision. Dewey contributes nothing to the conversation, just crunches his ice and looks bored. Once I catch him staring at Darcy's b.u.t.t, packed neatly into a pair of tight magenta Capri pants.

Marcus is suddenly beside me. I introduce him to Dewey and Hollis. Dewey shakes his hand and then continues to mouth-breathe and look distracted. Hollis promptly asks Marcus where he lives and what he does for a living. Apparently his Murray Hill address and his marketing job don't quite measure up because they find an excuse to move on to more worthy guests.

Marcus raises his eyebrows. "Dewey, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Dooo heee have a stick up his a.s.s or what?"

I laugh.

He looks proud of his joke, pleased to make me laugh.

"So, are you having fun?"

"I guess so. You?"

He shrugs. "The people here kind of take themselves seriously, don't they?"

"That's the Hamptons."

I survey the party. It is a far cry from neighborhood barbecues back in Indiana. Part of me feels satisfied that I have expanded my horizons. But a larger part of me feels uncomfortable every time I come to a party like this one. I am a poser, attempting to mingle with people who consider Indiana to be mere flyover country-necessary terrain to cross on their trips to Aspen or Los Angeles. I watch Darcy making her rounds with Dex at her side. There is no trace of Indy left in her; to watch her you would guess that she grew up on Park Avenue. Her kids will grow up in Manhattan, for sure. When I have kids, if I ever have kids, I intend to move to the suburbs. I look at Marcus, trying to imagine him dragging our son's Big Wheel out of the street. He looks down at our little boy, whose face is streaked with dried Popsicle, and instructs him to stay on the sidewalk. The boy has Marcus's short eyebrows pointing up toward each other like an upside-down V.

"C'mon," Marcus says. "Let's get another drink." "All right," I say, keeping my eye on the blonde in my dress. As we walk toward the poolside bar, I think of Indiana again, picturing Annalise and Greg with their neighbors, all spilled out on the freshly cut Midwestern lawn. If somebody wore her same pair of khaki shorts from the Gap, n.o.body would care.

After the party, we find another party, and then do our usual finale at the Talkhouse, where I dance with Marcus again. Around three o'clock, we all pile into the car and go home. Hillary and Claire head straight for bed while the two couples remain in the den. Darcy and Dex hold hands on one love seat; Marcus and I sit next to each other, but not touching, on the adjacent couch.

"All right, kids. It's past my bedtime," Darcy says, standing suddenly. She glances at Dexter. "You coming?"

My eyes meet Dexter's. We look away simultaneously. "Yeah," he says. "I'll be right there."

The three of us talk for a few more minutes until we hear Darcy calling Dex from the top of the stairs. "Come on, Dex! They want to be alone!"

Marcus smirks while I study a freckle on my arm.

Dex clears his throat, coughs. His face is all business. "Okay then. Guess I'll head up. Good night."

"All right, man. See you tomorrow," Marcus says.

I just mumble good night, too uncomfortable to look up as Dex leaves the room.

"Finally," Marcus says. "Alone at last."

I feel an unexpected pang for Dex that is somehow reminiscent of Hunter leaving Joey and me alone in the lounge at Duke, but I push it away and smile at Marcus.

He moves closer and kisses me without asking first this time. It is a nice enough kiss, maybe even nicer than our first one. For some reason, I think of the Brady Bunch episode when Bobby saw skyrockets after kissing Millicent (who, unbeknownst to Bobby, had the mumps). When I first saw that episode I was about Bobby's age, so that kiss seemed like serious stuff. Someday I will see skyrockets like that, I remember thinking. To date, I have not seen skyrockets. But Marcus comes just as close as anyone before him.

Our kissing escalates to the next level and then I say, "Well, I think we should go to bed."

"Together?" he asks. I can tell he is joking.

"Very funny," I answer. "Good night, Marcus."

I kiss him one more time before going to my room, pa.s.sing Dex and Darcy's closed door on the way.

The next morning I check my voice mail. Les has left me three messages. He might as well be a Jehovah's Witness, for as much attention as he pays to the holidays. He says that he wants "to go over a few things tomorrow, early afternoon." I know he is vague on purpose, not leaving a specific time or instructions to meet him at the office or call in. This way he can be sure that my Memorial Day is slashed in half. Hillary tells me to ignore him, pretend that I didn't get the message. Marcus says to jam him with a message back, telling him to "jack off-it's a national holiday." But of course I dutifully check the train and jitney schedule and decide I will leave this afternoon to avoid the traffic. Deep down, I know work is only an excuse to go-I have had enough of this whole bizarre dynamic. I like Marcus, but it is exhausting being around a guy who, as Hillary would say, "is potential." And it is even more exhausting avoiding Dex. I avoid him when he is alone, avoid him when he is with Darcy. Avoid dwelling on him and the Incident.

"I really need to get back," I sigh, as if it is the last thing I want to do.

"You can't leave!" Darcy says.

"I have to."

As she sulks I want to point out that ninety percent of the time we are in the Hamptons, she is completely distracted, in social-b.u.t.terfly mode. But I just say again that I have to.