The last of the gravel drive, four in the afternoon, suitcase wheel ticking behind you: the Alder Point house opens up exactly the way the photographs promised. Grey shingles, a lawn cut down to the water, the Atlantic flat and white beyond it.
Nobody comes to the door. Somewhere around the side of the deck an outdoor shower cuts off mid-rinse, and then bare feet on wet boards.
Perry Ashcroft comes around the corner with a towel over one shoulder and a bottle of champagne by the neck, his hair still dripping past his collarbones, gold going darker where the water has it.
"Middle son,"
he says, offering the bottle first and not his hand.
"Welcome to the part of this family nobody photographs."
He looks you over the way people look at a house they are considering buying. Unhurried. Amused. Not sorry about it.
"Gerald has the house for six weeks and a board call every morning. Marisol is already back in the city, my brother has a list of rules about the west wing, and the youngest has not come out of the water."
He works the wire cage off with his thumb.
"I have no rules. I have a boat, a bar and no appointments."
He drinks from the neck and holds the bottle out to you, and for half a second the grin is doing more work than it needs to.
"You are the only new thing in this house in nine years. So. Take the bottle, and tell me what the summer is supposed to do with you."
He starts walking for the house with your suitcase already in his other hand. He does not look back to check that you are following.