Eventually, I climbed into the pool too, my heels catching and falling off on the ladder, floating away, the water swallowing me up for a moment before I remembered to kick and I reemerged, next to Lonnie’s cold slippery body. The water was all lit up with colors.

Lonnie laughed, a sob of a laugh, spitting water from her mouth. She turned her face up, treading water. “Then rain, rain, rain,” she said.

I grabbed onto her too hard, expecting buoyancy, and we sank down, light shining through the water and then suddenly not. Everything on the other side of my eyelids went dark. I could feel Lonnie’s dress, Lonnie’s hair underwater, floating through my fingertips, between my thighs. We emerged into a dark world, a streak of lightning, a thunderclap, screams. Something was wrong, somewhere else, but I didn’t feel concern, didn’t feel fear.

I pushed Lonnie underwater again, without knowing what I was doing, wanting to encase her in something as if to save her. It was Carlow who grabbed her arm, pulling her to the surface, yelling over the roar of the storm, “You fucking idiots, you have to get out of the pool!”

Inside, the guests had cozied up in little clumps throughout the sitting rooms and the library. Most of the food was ruined, but the alcohol was all right. Waiters were weaving through them, lighting candles and handing out flashlights. The house was dark, the power out.

I WAS TRYING TO PUT SENSATIONS INTO WORDS IN MY HEAD, and having some trouble. Lonnie was shivering next to me, grinning and shaking, goose pimpled, jaw clenched. I noticed these things about her body as if it were my own, as if I could feel her temperature, her heart rate. A wave of heat came over me when I saw her jaw relax. Such pleasure in that tiny motion of her face; watching her mouth open slightly, her lips go slack, I could’ve cried. She wrapped herself in a towel, wrapped me in a towel. We were so similar. Something wonderful about being two people at once. What did we have to fear?

And then, the answer, the little bald-headed man in a wingback chair, leaning close to Gigi and eyeing the two of us.

“Be careful,” I whispered to Lonnie. “Dad.”

“What?”

“Dad.”

“Shit,” she whispered back, understanding my fear exactly, feeling it too. He was coming toward us then, his face still smiling politely at the guests, but I knew underneath he was outraged, having just learned I’d pretended to be his daughter in the Adirondacks. I knew he just didn’t like me, knew he was thinking about the holes in my underwear. And I knew he’d succeed eventually in getting me fired, despite what Lonnie wanted.

We needed someone to protect us. Where was James? We left to find him, left to escape her dad.