Jillian climbed onto the table, her heart beating hard. Lindy was down on the side lawn. She smiled up at Jillian, making Jillian feel like she’d passed a test. She took a deep breath and climbed out the window. The rope waggled back and forth, but it felt strong. She climbed down, rung by rung, her heart loud in her ears. By the time she reached the ground, Lindy was running around the back of Jillian’s house and over to the White Elephant.

“. . . AND CINDERELLA FORGAVE HER STEPSISTERS—” KAYE READ. JAKEY was edging toward the lip of the couch. “But it’s not over yet, buddy.”

“I know what’s gonna happen,” Jakey said.

“Well, o—”

Jakey burst off the couch, racing up the stairs. Kaye sighed, closing the book of fairy tales.

She sat alone on the couch, eyeing the furniture, all Baker, all upholstered in white velvet: the $8,000 sofa, the $4,000 lounge chair and matching $5,000 chaise. The dining room table, visible through the arched doorway, had cost $11,000 and the ten chairs $2,000 each. The chandelier was nearly $9,000; it was made of glass from Venice. The painting of the rosy nude over the couch—$6,000, chosen by their decorator—picked up the pink of the stones around the fireplace. But what good was it all when you didn’t have any friends to envy it? Down in Beaufort, they were the popular family; here, they were nobodies. Why? She wasn’t doing anything differently that she could tell.

Not that she could complain! She was lucky and she knew it. To have all this stuff? God was looking out for her, no doubt. She’d grown up this side of poor, on a little South Carolina sea island where the tourists never came anymore. You couldn’t blame them. The beaches were worn away and the government had never cleaned up the old dye plant, where the old-timers used to work, Kaye’s father included. When Kaye was small the tap water still ran sweet, but since then they’d declared the water unsafe to drink. Residents had to get fresh water from the town hall in jugs. Her father had left her their little house on Sea Breeze Court when he died, two years ago. It wasn’t much, but it was hers. Everything else they owned seemed like Nick’s. He earned the money, after all.

Feeling nostalgic, she unlocked her phone and opened her Facebook app. There were Darla and Maureen clinking champagne glasses at Tara’s. There Amber, Kitty, and Bonnie after manicures. Tina and Lila and their kids at the beach showing off their tans. Kaye “liked” each photo, thinking, Don’t like. Don’t like. Don’t like.