Great by Sara Benincasa Read Free Book Online Page A

mischievously.
    â€œWe should hang out sometime, if you want,” Jeff said in a low voice as the adults chattered to each other. “I’m a pretty nice guy. Really.”
    I looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. “We’ll see,” I said. He grinned at me, and I had to admit, he looked really good.
    I got out of the car, and we waved goodbye as Teddy tore off.
    Once the car was out of view, my mother and I stood outside the front door and looked at each other. Neither one of us was particularly pleased with what she saw.
    â€œI’m going to bed,” she said abruptly. “Do you need anything?” Now that no one else was around, she had dispensed with the doting mother act.
    â€œI’m just going to hang out here for a bit,” I said. “Stretch my legs.”
    â€œBe careful. Don’t wander or get lost.”
    â€œMom, this is like the safest place in the entire world. Nothing bad ever happens in the Hamptons.”
    â€œOkay, okay,” she said with a sigh. “I forget that you know everything. Just remember to lock the door behind you when you come in. You’ve got your key, right? I’ll take your suitcases in.”
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    â€œDon’t go on some kind of artistic walk through the yards and scare the neighbors,” she said. “The last thing I need is for you to get arrested for trespassing.”
    â€œWhat the hell is an ‘artistic walk’?” I asked.
    â€œYou know what I mean,” Mom said with a sigh.
    She gave me a dry kiss on the forehead and took my suitcases into the house. I stood and watched her go. She turned off the front porch light and the front walkway lights, leaving me suddenly awash in near-total darkness. And aside from the dramatic spotlights on the river pool, the enormous house next door had not one light on, either. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the almost-full moon cast enough glow to allow me to wander without too much trouble.
    On impulse, I took off my Docs and socks and dropped them on the front porch. It was summertime, and that meant I could go barefoot, building up the resistance on my feet until I could walk on even a hot sidewalk without wincing. I’ve always liked going barefoot in the Hamptons. It’s so clean that you don’t need to fear stepping on a needle or in dog crap like you do in Chicago. And it made me feel vaguely scandalous. When I get away from my mother for a solo journey in town, I’ll slip off my flip-flops and put them in my beach bag, wandering down the sidewalk “just like some kind of dirty hippie,” as my mother once said in disgust when she caught me. I don’t care, though. I’m a Chicagoan through and through, which means I instinctively shed clothes (not in a whorish way) every time the temperature passes sixty degrees. So my feet get a little more sun. So what?
    If moonburn were a thing, the tops of my feet would’ve been fried that night. The moon seemed to glow brighter and brighter with each step I took, acting like a giant lantern in the sky. I walked around the side of the house and watched the moonlight sparkle on the water through the trees.
    Something strange caught my eye, an unusual light from an unusual spot. It was tiny, and at first I thought I’d imagined it, but I hadn’t—it was a pinprick of green, and it was coming from some inscrutable spot on the back deck of the castle house, in an area shadowed by one of the big turrets. It seemed to hover in midair, and for reasons I can’t quite explain, I crept closer to the neighboring yard than I ever had before. I got so close, in fact, that I managed to make out the shape of a person cradling whatever it was that glowed green.
    Then, all of a sudden, light flooded the person’s face, and I realized it was a she. And what’s more, she had just snapped open a laptop. The green light had come from the charging dock on the laptop, where