Of course it does. It’s homemade and funny-looking.

Kiran and Jane step into the rain. Patrick holds a steadying hand out to Jane and she grabs his forearm by accident. He is soaked to the skin. Patrick Yellan, Jane notices, has beautiful forearms.

“Watch your step,” he says in her ear.

Once on land, Kiran and Jane scurry toward an enormous black car on the dock. “Patrick’s the one who asked me to come home for the gala,” Kiran shouts through the rain.

“What?” says Jane, flustered. She’s trying to shield Kiran with her umbrella, which sends a rivulet of icy water down the canopy straight into the neck of her own shirt. “Really? Why?”

“Who the hell knows? He told me he has a confession to make. He’s always announcing shit like that, then he has nothing to say.”

“Are you . . . good friends?”

“Stop trying to keep me dry,” Kiran says, reaching for the car door. “It’s only making both of us more wet.”

There is, it turns out, a road that starts at the bay, continues clockwise around the base of the island, then enters a series of hairpin turns that climb the sheer cliffs gradually.

It’s not a soothing drive in a Rolls-Royce in the rain; the car seems too big to take the turns without plummeting off the edge. The driver has the facial expression of a bulldog and she’s driving like she’s got a train to catch. Steel-haired and steel-eyed, pale-skinned with high cheekbones, she’s wearing black yoga clothes and an apron with cooking stains. She stares at Jane in the rearview mirror. Jane shivers, tilting her head so her boisterous curls obscure her face.

“Are we short-staffed again, Mrs. Vanders?” Kiran asks. “You’re wearing an apron.”

“A handful of guests just arrived unannounced,” says Mrs. Vanders. “The spring gala is the day after tomorrow. Cook is having hysterics.”

Kiran throws her head against the back of the seat and closes her eyes. “What guests?”

“Phoebe and Philip Okada,” Mrs. Vanders says. “Lucy St. George—”

“My brother makes me want to die,” Kiran says, interrupting.

“Your brother himself has made no appearance,” says Mrs. Vanders significantly.

“Shocking,” says Kiran. “Any bank robbers expected?”

Mrs. Vanders grunts at this peculiar question and says, “I imagine not.”

“Bank robbers?” says Jane.

“Well,” Kiran says, ignoring Jane, “I announced my friend ahead of time. I hope you’ve set aside space; Janie needs space.”

“We’ve set aside the Red Suite in the east wing for Jane. It has its own morning room,” Mrs. Vanders says. “Though regrettably it has no view of the sea.”

“It’s nowhere near me,” Kiran grumbles. “It’s near Ravi.”

“Well,” says Mrs. Vanders with a sudden softening of expression, “we still have sleeping bags if you want to have sleepovers. You and Ravi and Patrick liked to do that when you were young and Ivy was just a baby, remember? She used to beg to be included.”

“We used to toast marshmallows in Ravi’s fireplace,” Kiran tells Jane, “while Mr. Vanders and Octavian hovered over us, certain we were going to burn ourselves.”