Twanged Read Online Free PDF Page B

even if she wasn’t born there. He just wants her to be careful.”
    Nora sighed. “That’s where you come in.”
    Regan nodded. “That’s why she wants me around with her this week. Between the fiddle and the letter, it’s better if there’s someone looking after her. Besides, we’ll have fun.”
    “I suppose,” Nora said hesitantly. “You know, Regan, it actually works out that you’re not staying with us this week.”
    “What do you mean?” Regan asked as she folded the newspaper.
    “Now maybe you can stay next week instead. When you’re finished your job.”
    “Mom, why does it work out that I’m not staying with you this week?”
    “Well, you’ll never guess who’s coming out for a few days.”
    “Cousin Lou?”
    “No.”
    “Cousin Pete and the munchkins?”
    “No.”
    “Louisa Washburn and her boring husband, Herbert?”
    “How did you guess?”
    “MOM! They’re America’s houseguests.”
    “But they’re both so bright,” Nora said earnestly.
    “That’s your adjective for everyone who’s boring.”
    “She called the other night to set up a dinner date and mentioned they were staying in the City over the holiday week. They’re looking forward to seeing you, Regan. Louisa’s decided to write an article about the Hamptons. She’s done so much fact-checking for magazines over the years, she decided to try a little writing herself.”
    “I like them,” Regan said. “But not for days on end. Once they arrive, they do tend to stay. And stay and stay and stay.”
    Luke looked in the rearview mirror and winked at his daughter.
    An hour later they exited the Long Island Expressway, took Route III to Route 27, and eventually found themselves driving through Main Street in Southampton. They kept going and finally located the Chappy Compound, whose backdrop was the sparkling waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
    Luke pulled between the opening in the hedges and through the gates where a sign greeted them:
WELCOME TO CHAPPY’S COMPOUND GROUNDBREAKING WAS BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
    “Good to know,” Regan commented after reading the sign aloud.
    Luke drove slowly as the three of them looked leftward and took in the sight of the mammoth mansion perched in a spot overlooking the sea at the end of the long driveway. It was obviously built to resemble a castle, but it looked like the kind you’d see in an amusement park.
    “My God, how . . . vulgar,” Nora whispered, letting out her breath.
    “Not exactly a shanty in old shanty town,” Luke observed.
    “Or a little cottage by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea,” Regan offered.
    “I like the idea of a castle, but this one looks so new and fake,” Nora said.
    “It takes a few hundred years for castles to develop the lived-in look,” Regan noted. “Kit told me that Chappy built the castle a couple of years ago on the foundation of his mother’s old house, which he tore down after she died. He then renamed the place Chappy’s Compound.”
    “His poor mother,” Nora said.
    Regan looked around at the grounds, which included a circular drive in front of the castle, an expansive, probably sodded front lawn all set up for a game of croquet, and, along the sweeping right side of the property, an attractive rambling cottage that was more traditional—a weathered, shingled number that looked as though it would have made a sea captain happy. Farther out by the water was what looked to be a guest house.
    “Kit said she’s in the cottage here.”
    Luke veered to the right and pulled the car up to the front door. “Should I honk?” he asked his daughter.
    “No, Dad. Please. They only do that in the movies. Here comes Kit anyway.”
    Dressed in a bathing suit cover-up, her blond hair wet and combed back, Kit hurried down the steps of a wraparound porch. “Hi, everybody,” she called.
    As Nora, Luke, and Regan got out of the car, a horn blared behind them, making them all jump.
    “I thought they did that only in the movies,” Luke remarked,