THE PLUNGE

In an excerpt from Emma Cline's new novel, The Guest, a young woman drifts among the Hamptons elite, looking for an escape.

They stopped at a metal gate flanked on both sides by a high wooden fence, a voice glitching over the intercom. Simon repeated his name twice before the gate swung open and they drove in on the pale gravel. Directly ahead, a semicircle of cars was parked in front of the main house. Alex could see a tennis court, a pool behind a smaller gate.

Alex kept her face blank and mild, though she felt a jolt at the obvious nearness of the sea. She poked her tongue along her top teeth, feeling for anything errant.

Simon cut the ignition. “Shall we?”

The door of the main house opened and a pug came trotting toward them. A man in a black polo and black pants followed, but the pug got there first, clamoring around Alex’s ankles.

“Welcome,” the man said. “This way.”

There were candles flickering inside the house in big hurricane vases. Even so, the entryway was too dark, disorienting after the sunshine. Alex turned to make sure Simon was behind her.

“Onward and upward,” Simon said, his voice echoing strangely, the pug’s nails clicking along the marble.

The big room that led to the patio seemed partially filled with mist, a dampness from the fog that had breached the windows. Beyond the patio was the spread of the ocean. The sun would set soon, the light already faltering.

The patio door was open. There, framed in the doorway, was Helen.

She was all in black, a sleeveless dress with a kind of cape hanging down the back. Her blond hair was pulled tight in a bun at her neck. How old was she? Alex couldn’t quite tell—her skin had been professionally blasted into the face of a bland 30-year-old. Her dark eyes wobbled until they finally focused on Simon and Alex.