For Lila, Forever Read online

  No folded swan towels.

  No welcome note in Junie’s whimsical handwriting.

  No secret welcome note from Lila tucked into my pillowcase.

  I head to the windows first, sliding up the sashes and letting some much needed fresh air fill the space.

  Collapsing on the bed next, I slide my hands under my neck and stare at the lifeless ceiling fan above. Everything … and I mean everything … has taken on an empty quality.

  The island.

  The house.

  Me.

  It’s like a substantial part of me is missing—and that part of me is her.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to rest despite knowing damn well my head isn’t going to stop spinning long enough to make that possible. But I need to calm down so I can come up with a game plan.

  There’s no internet access on the island—my grandfather contacted the local phone company once, and they were told there was not enough infrastructure to support running cable or DSL lines to Rose Crossing at the time, and then they said that running those lines to the island would’ve been humanly impossible. The only options he was given were satellite or dial up. My grandfather made the executive decision to forgo both—deciding that the island was better off with as minimal technology as possible because family time was too priceless to sacrifice for “computers and video games and the like.”

  I grab my cell from my pocket and check the service. It’s always been spotty out here, even at the highest point, which happens to be the attic of my grandparents’ house, so I don’t hold my breath.

  One bar.

  One bar is enough to make phone calls if you’re okay with the sound cutting in and out, but it makes any internet capabilities virtually useless.

  I try to refresh my email inbox as a test … my point proven in under two minutes when the app times out before it has a chance to load.

  I’ll have to try and sneak away to town in the next day and use the computers at the library.

  I’m sure a quick online search will tell me exactly where she is …

  Placing my phone aside, I close my eyes once more and listen to the crash of the ocean outside my windows.

  It doesn’t sound the same without her here.

  And it sure as hell doesn’t feel the same.

  I close my eyes and try to get some rest.

  I’ll look for Lila forever if I have to.

  I’ll start first thing tomorrow, and I won’t stop until I find her.

  PART ONE [ past]

  MAY 2009

  Chapter 1

  Thayer

  She arrives at the island on the mail plane the Tuesday after Mother’s Day.

  “Do we know her name?” I ask Granddad as we watch Ed and Junie, the estate’s caretakers, make their way up the cliffside to greet her.

  “Lila, I believe it is,” he says. “Anyway.” His massive hand grips my shoulder and he turns away. “Good day for a sail, don’t you think?”

  “Shouldn’t we say hi?” I ask.

  Granddad huffs, his barrel chest inflating. “Welcome her? Thayer, the poor girl just lost her mother and got shipped three thousand miles from the only home she’s ever known. Give her a chance to get acclimated before you unleash your one-man welcome committee.”

  For as long as I can remember, the family’s poked fun at my penchant for never knowing a stranger. In preschool, my nickname was Mr. Personality. In high school, I was elected class president all four years.

  Granddad has never said it, but I think he views my inclusive nature and inherent friendliness as a weakness. That or he resents the fact that I’m not more closed off—like him.

  In his older years—and since losing the love of his life back in ‘03, the man has become an island himself. It used to be he would only summer at Rose Crossing Island. But now my grandfather spends the entirety of the year here, biding his time until his daughters and grandchildren join him for three months of sun, sand, and sailing.

  “Why hasn’t she been here before?” I ask, staying put as I try to get a closer look at the girl. From here, all I see is sun-kissed legs as she rises on her toes and California sun-bleached hair cascading down her back and shoulders as she wraps her arms around Junie’s shoulders. I find it odd that the Hilliards have worked for my grandparents’ since before I could walk, but not once has their one and only granddaughter ever paid them a visit.

  “Why would she want to hang out with her grandparents while they work?” he asks, hooking his arm over my shoulders and leading me back toward the main house. “Speaking of which, she’s going to be working for us this summer, mostly helping Junie in the kitchen and with the laundry and housekeeping.”

  “Okay ...”

  He leans in as we walk. “I’m telling you this for a reason, Thayer.”

  He stops. I stop.

  “I won’t have you distracting that young woman from her work,” he says. “Nor will I have you creating any … liabilities for me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re a charming young man, Thayer. And the two of you are only here for the summer,” he says. “I won’t have you creating any liabilities, do you understand? She’s staff. She’s not to be some summer fling.”

  I lift my palms. “All right.”

  “There’s no limit to what a woman will do—or say—once her heart has been broken,” he adds as he begins to climb the steps toward the front door of the massive cedar-shingled home he once shared with my grandmother. Stopping, he turns back to me. “Have I made myself clear?”

  “Yes.” I lean against the porch railing, letting the spring wind rustle through my hair and the salty air fill my lungs.

  “I’m going to see if any of the others want to join us for our sail,” he says before disappearing inside.

  The screen door opens and slams, but a second later it swings wide.

  “Hey.” My cousin, Westley, steps out, adjusting his Red Sox cap, wavy tufts of auburn hair sticking out from beneath the blue canvas material. “You going on the boat with us?”

  Squinting back toward the cliffs, I watch Ed, Junie, and their granddaughter make their way down the stony, weather-beaten path that leads to their cottage.

  Westley tracks my gaze before hopping down the steps. “Ah, the mysterious granddaughter has arrived.”

  “Be prepared for Granddad to make it abundantly clear to you that she’s just the help and there’s to be no fraternizing.”

  Westley rolls his eyes. “Come on. He can’t expect us to ignore her all summer. It’d be cruel not to ask her to hang out.”

  “Who’s to say she’d even want to hang out?” I watch Ed struggle to lift her giant suitcase, and I get the urge to jog over there to help, but before I have a chance, they’re already heading inside. “Her mom died, I guess.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

  “I doubt she wants to be here,” I say. Rose Crossing isn’t for everyone. In fact, that’s exactly how my grandfather wanted it to be when he originally purchased this private island. It was meant to be a summer getaway for his wife and two daughters. A place where they could escape a sticky hot Manhattan for three months and unwind and recharge before life started over again in September. But over the years, it became so much more than that. A haven. A heaven. Another world entirely.

  Granddad Bertram had the main house built first: a massive, eight-bedroom cedar-and-white monstrosity with a million-dollar view, gourmet kitchen, and antique-filled library. Next was the Ainsworth house, built for my mother after she married my father in the nineties. When her sister married Ari Caldecott around the same time, Granddad gifted them with a house as well.

  Now we refer to the homes by their family names: The Bertram, The Ainsworth, and The Caldecott. The Hilliard Cottage looks like a shack next to the other houses, but Junie insists it’s the nicest house she’s ever lived in and the way Ed prunes the hedges around the front makes the place worthy of a magazine cover in the right light.
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  One big happy family.

  The screen door swings open again, and my mother steps out, her sandy hair wrapped in a Pucci scarf and oversized sunglasses covering her face.

  We’ve all been here a handful of days so far and this is already the fourth sailing trip Granddad has insisted upon.

  As a child, sailing enthralled me.

  As an extroverted nineteen-year-old who just finished his first year of pre-law, all I can think about are all the things I’m missing out on back home.

  Granddad steps out of the house, grinning wide, his favorite white visor over his salt-and-pepper head of hair, and he slaps his hands together. He gets like this every time we’re about to hit the water, all Christmas-morning smiles and childlike wonder in his eyes.

  Aunt Lorelai steps out next, an oversized Breton-striped bag hoisted on her shoulder, followed by Uncle Ari and Westley’s twin sister, Whitley. If my father wasn’t on a business trip in Shanghai until next week, the whole gang would be here.

  One by one, we file down the wide steps, to the stone path that leads to the boathouse.

  We’re halfway there when I catch the Hilliards coming out of their cottage maybe twenty yards away. Lila stops on the front stoop, gathering her hair in her hands and securing it at the top of her head. Almost as if she can feel me watching her, her eyes flick to mine.

  It’s the craziest thing, but in an instant, I can’t breathe, like the wind is sucked from my lungs. And while our eyes hold for maybe a second or two, it feels like an eternity.

  “Thayer.” My grandfather’s voice booms in my ear, and I jerk my attention away from the beautiful girl in the distance. “Did you hear what I said?”

  He knows damn well I didn’t.

  “Strong winds out of the north,” he says as we walk. “Might have to be a short excursion today.”

  I don’t tell him I’m fine with that.

  Just like I don’t tell him I’m going to invite Lila to the bonfire Westley and Whitley planned for Friday night.

  Chapter 2

  Lila

  It’s the strangest thing: my grandparents have called this island home for as long as I can remember, but it takes the untimely passing of my mother for them to let me actually visit.

  My entire life, they always came to us. Mom would pick them up at LAX and we’d drive up the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down on her vintage BMW, showing off the agreeable weather and abundance of sunshine. I always thought it was Mom’s way of trying to convince them to move west because she hated the East Coast—and that says a lot because Mom didn’t have a hateful bone in her body.

  I stand in the middle of a bedroom in the house my grandma simply refers to as The Ainsworth. It’s the last cleaning stop of the day. The weekends are mostly for cooking and food prep, but come Monday, we’ll have the joy of scrubbing the entirety of The Caldecott from floor to ceiling. The Bertram, I’m told, is a three-day job.

  If you look up “pretentious” in the dictionary, I’m sure you’ll find a picture of Howard Bertram surrounded by his spawn—all of them in canvas boat shoes.

  I giggle at the thought as I dust the nightstand beside a freshly-made bed. I’m not good at this cleaning business yet. As a child, I had chores. Sure. But out here, there’s a certain way things need to be done. The corners of the bed linens have to be tucked a certain way. The pillows fluffed and arranged in the right order. The floors are always last—I made that mistake the first day and I won’t make it again.

  These people take themselves way too seriously. Their wallpapered and wainscoted halls are lined in black-and-white family photos spanning generations. They keep antiques in every corner of every room. They wear boat shoes like they’re the only shoes in existence. And their dinners could give places like The Ivy and Spago a run for their money. But at the end of the day, it’s almost kind of nice living on this alien planet with these strange people and their unfamiliar ways. It’s a distraction. And I’m not constantly reminded of Mom.

  I lift a framed photo off a desk and wipe the non-existent dust beneath. Before I place it back, I examine the picture. It’s two boys—Howard’s grandsons I think. The one with the auburn hair and goofy grin has his arm around the one with the bronze tan and sandy blond hair and an attention-demanding Yale sweatshirt.

  I don’t know their names yet.

  Or wait, I don’t remember them.

  Grandma told me what they were in passing, but I was only half listening and now all I remember is that they were old-money names—the kinds of names that sound like they should be last names and not first names.

  In L.A., we had names like Ocean and Sea and Skye and Plum and Pilot. Nouns. Here it’s like people pluck surnames from their family trees and call it good.

  I return the picture frame to its home next to the shiny blue lamp and make my way to the en suite bathroom. Dragging in a breath of sea salt air, I tug on a pair of yellow latex gloves, grab a scrub brush, and drop to my knees. Months ago, I thought for sure I’d be spending my summer at the pool between putting in hours at the fro-yo shop, but here I am, on an island with no internet polishing some rich asshole’s toilet.

  But in all fairness, I don’t know if the sandy blond Yale guy is an asshole. It probably isn’t fair of me to make assumptions like that, but anyone who summers on an island and sails seven days a week and has a name like Remington or Bexley or Ellington or … THAYER.

  His name is Thayer.

  That’s right.

  Anyway, anyone who summers on an island and sails seven days a week and has a name like Thayer … and has a disgustingly wealthy grandfather and attends Yale statistically isn’t the most down-to-earth, relatable kind of person. At least not in my experience.

  Not to mention the fact that I’ve caught him staring at me a few times now—the first time was shortly after I’d arrived. The second time was when I was helping Grandma wash breakfast dishes and Thayer came in to grab a green apple from the fruit bowl (which I swear was nothing more than an excuse to be in the room) and locked gazes with me the entire time.

  I’m not sure what his end game is, but I’ll have no problem informing him that he’s not my type—if it comes to that.

  My hand throbs from gripping the handle of the scrub brush too tight, so I stop and rest for a second. Sweeping my hair out of my eyes, I take a look around at all the marble and penny tile and shiny silver hardware that surrounds me.

  It’s beautiful and timeless, and I hope these people know how lucky they are to have a place like this as a second home.

  “Oh. My bad,” a guy’s voice sends my heart ricocheting into my throat, and I glance up to find Mr. Yale Sweatshirt himself standing in the doorway of the bathroom.

  Shirtless.

  Glistening with sweat.

  Like he’s just gone for a run or a hike or whatever the hell people can do to work out on a rock-and-cliff-covered island.

  I’ve been here four days now and he’s yet to say a single word to me. He simply stares at me with those stormy sapphire blues that I’m sure make all the campus girls swoon.

  The burn of bleach cleaner stings my eyes. “I’m almost done. Give me two more minutes.”

  I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell him to wait or what the rules are in this kind of scenario. Grandpa said something about how we’re supposed to be seen and not heard and we’re never to argue with any of them or refuse a single request, but it seems ridiculous to be so formal with him given the fact that we’re practically the same age.

  “No problem.” He grabs a towel within arm’s reach and dabs at his damp forehead, messing up his hair in the process. I have an urge to finger comb it back into place for him, but I’m pretty sure touching these people in any capacity goes against the house rules too. “I can wait.”

  I don’t tell him he could alternatively use one of the other dozens of bathrooms in this place.

  Thayer lingers, watching me as I get back to scrubbing the marble penny tile floor of his bedroom-si
zed bathroom. I’m pretty sure you could fit an entire studio apartment in here. Maybe two if we’re talking Manhattan-style.

  I wipe the rest of the bathroom down in a hurry and snap off my gloves, returning all the supplies to my plastic caddy, and then I squeeze past him.

  “Lila, right?” he asks when I’m halfway across the room. I stop, pivoting toward him.

  I realize now that we haven’t been properly introduced, nor have we been alone in the same room together. The only introduction I’ve received so far was on my first day on the job when I was pouring coffee in the dining room as Mr. Bertram went around the table spouting out names I had no intention of memorizing, and then he asked me to grab the creamer from the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” I say, trying to keep my eyes on his when all they want to do is pore over the length of his perfectly-chiseled torso.

  He might not be my type, but it doesn’t mean I can’t find him attractive.

  I mean, honestly, you’d have to be dead or blind not to see how ridiculously, unfairly, and disgustingly hot this guy is.

  “Thayer,” he says.

  “I know.”

  He lingers, leaning against the doorway, the sweaty towel still in his hands.

  “You, uh, you like it so far out here?” he asks.

  No.

  But I can’t tell him that.

  “It’s beautiful here,” I say. “I look forward to my stay here this summer.”

  His full mouth inches up at one side and my heart revs in my chest.

  “You’re lying,” he says with the cutest smirk I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “Excuse me?”

  He takes a step closer.

  Then another.

  What is he doing?

  “It’s lonely here. It’s isolating. We’re an hour’s boat ride from the mainland. We get the mail and groceries once a week. There’s no internet. You don’t have to say you’re looking forward to your summer here,” he says.