Perfect Life

Chapter 1

Fourteen Days Before the Hurricane

When the first call comes, I don’t hear it. Not because I’m ignoring it. That part will come later.

But that first time, I’m in my closet. It’s a room so large it could hold two of my first apartments, stacked together. A room anchored at its center by an island. An honest-to-God, custom-crafted, professionally organized island. Sunlight streams through an arched window at the front of the room, and the lake beyond throws glints back. Because I live in the middle of an Architectural Digest spread now.

I know. Such an unlikable thing to say, but it’s true.

I’m standing in the middle of my dream life, and my phone is somewhere on the well-appointed closet island, buried under a discarded silk dress. The ring is a muffled hum so low I almost mistake it for the bass line of my husband’s funk-heavy festival playlist—a playlist currently bleeding through every wall of said Architectural Digest spread.

Every day is like this in our house—our little bubble. The music playing, the sunset spilling over our lakefront view, and Beau charming me like it’s some kind of life mission.

But I’m so distracted I barely remember putting on the dress I’m wearing.

I’ve been like this all day. I’m fixated on a plan. A scheme, really. One that involves my best friend, Nora Somerset, and the man who’s been pining for her since the day they met.

Nora’s been widowed for a year now, and although neither one of them will say it, when no one’s looking, Marcus Campbell and Nora exchange starry-eyed gazes.

Tonight, he’s hosting an anniversary party for his restaurant, Lemon & Fig. And I have decided it won’t be just a party. It will be the beginning of something.

All they need is someone to nudge them together. To give them permission to shed the past and fall.

Luckily for them, I’m known for being a kind of force in the lives of the people I love.

Because when you’re living your dream life, all that’s left to want is for other people to live theirs, too.

Nora’s widowhood makes them both skittish, though. For all of the progress Nora has made—setting up her own place, spending hours in her home studio painting, managing to wash her hair on a semiregular basis—I can still see it. The faint shadows reminding me she’s been through hell. She’s a little more willowy, a little bit jumpy. And Marcus keeps acting like she’s made of porcelain.

I know she loved Will Somerset—and a part of her always will—but Nora deserves a second chance. We all do.

God knows I’ve had plenty of chances to reinvent myself.

She and Marcus have the kind of chemistry romantic comedies are built on. Sparks don’t just fly, they pull, like gravity or fate. But Nora fights it as if she’s standing over the yawning mouth of a volcano. Like falling will spell certain doom.

And if I can get her to relax around Marcus for more than ten consecutive minutes tonight, I’ll consider it a win. Maybe even a turning point.

I’m mid-daydream as Beau rounds the corner, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Almost ready?” he asks, stepping across the threshold of the closet. “Is that grass?”

I look past the closet island, harboring my abandoned phone, and follow his gaze to the spot where slivers of green blades litter our bathroom floor like confetti. A smile blooms at the memory of grass hissing beneath my feet last night. Stray blades sticking to my ankles, gummed by the humidity and itching where they clung.

“I took Polly out for some light mischief,” I say, moving toward my vanity, brushing a kiss on his shoulder as I pass. “Baby’s first misdemeanor.”

Another scheme. I like to keep a few in rotation.

Beau likes it, too, even as he raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t.

A few years ago, he sold his company for a sum of money that still doesn’t look real on paper. And everything changed.

Not us, of course. Not his adoration of me or the way he can still make my pulse race.

But how we live and what we worry about? Totally rebranded into something luxurious and easy.

Easy is fun. A privilege. But I find that a touch of friction keeps me sharp.

Which I suppose is how I’ve found space in my life for neighborhood pranks with twelve-year-old Polly McGinnis.

The sight of the grass slivers sends Polly’s giggles reverberating in my mind as I recall the way we crept down Isle of Sicily like amateur spies.

“Anyway,” I say breezily. I give a little flourish, showcasing my dress. “Behold, I’m fully dressed, entirely presentable.”

Beau doesn’t miss a beat, though, shaking his head with that crooked smile—the one that won me over years ago. Now, it says you’re incorrigible with a hint of I love that about you.

“You took our neighbor’s daughter out last night to commit a crime?” he asks, but the weight of the words is undone by his playful tone.

“Don’t look so surprised. You knew what I was when you married me.” I wink.

He’s right. I’m incorrigible, but only in the name of loyalty. When it comes to someone I care about, I don’t know how to not show up for them. This is and always has been my greatest strength and deepest weakness: I fall hard for people, and then, I’m all in.

Sometimes long after the smart money would be on getting out.

“Este, she’s twelve.”

“Well, she was sad. Ergo, crime,” I insist as if low-level crime is a well-known remedy for malaise.

Beau knows Polly’s had a tough year. The ESPN-viewing half of the country knows it, too. She’s the daughter of pro golfer Ford McGinnis. Once a wunderkind, Ford is in the final stretch of his prime, and to add insult to injury, he spent last year in a messy tabloid breakup with Polly’s mom, Heidi Nordene, an actress turned influencer. After Heidi posted a vodka-infused Instagram Live tell-all of the details, Ford was awarded sole custody of Polly. He promptly sold their home in Jupiter, Florida, and relocated here, or more specifically, next door in Nora’s old house. Now, Ford is always on the road, licking his wounds and trying to sap the last few drops of his competing years. Which leaves Polly in the care of a first-class killjoy of a nanny named Ms. Dowling.

“Polly’s the new girl at school, so she got left out of a slumber party,” I explain. “She started crying, saying she missed Jupiter and her dad. I tried to cheer her up by telling her that not getting an invite to a party is one of my favorite pastimes, and how all she was missing out on were the dumb pranks kids play on the first girl to fall asleep. But that only made things worse. She started to worry she’d never get to play a prank, so . . .”

“So you decided to remedy that?”

“Moves are stressful. And her parents split. And making friends here isn’t easy. You know that.” I’m animated now, building my case as if what came next was inevitable.

Rescues happen to be my specialty, and no one is more in need of rescue than Polly McGinnis. One day, I found her by herself with a skinned knee on the low, narrow bridge at the entrance to our street. I was out for a walk, and she had blood trailing down both of her legs and into her newly scuffed-up Rollerblades.

“I hate these stupid brick roads,” she had moaned.

There was something about the loneliness radiating from behind her eyes. It scraped against a feeling I tried not to name or think too much about. I had once been a girl alone in a too-quiet house with the hum of a heater rumbling through the air.

“They’re a bit much, right?” I agreed.

We both nodded, though the fact of the matter is people here are obsessed with these roads. Winter Park is a tropical paradise with a New England flair—everything the creative director for a Vineyard Vines summer catalog could ask for. And residents happily shell out piles of cash for the privilege of living here—embracing the posh zip code and the way their tires rumble over uneven brick.

But that day on the bridge, I flipped the brick roads off with both middle fingers as I helped Polly remove her Rollerblades and offered a couple Band-Aids for her knees. And this small act of kindness triggered the sort of loyalty I might expect from feeding a starved stray kitten. Since then, Polly’s become a familiar presence in my house, palling around like I’m her rich, childless aunt.

Because at this point, I basically am.

I don’t tell Beau that helping Polly feels like helping the kid I once was. He’d understand, of course. Beau knows everything there is to know about me. But I don’t like to dwell on that part of my past—I don’t like to dwell on any part of my past, in fact.

Instead, I tell him about Polly’s wailing over the sleepover and the fear she’d die friendless and uncool without committing so much as a single prank. “And then Polly asked, ‘What if we TP a house?’”