“My favorite!” Paige said happily. She turned to me. “Ally, I wouldn’t abandon you but I know you’ll do your work so much better without us around to chat with you. We’ll catch you later, and try not to work too hard, okay? Have a little fun!”
“Sure, sure,” I said, waving them off. The second they were out of sight, I grabbed another champagne from a passing waiter who looked so fancy that anywhere else he’d have people waiting on him like royalty.
I was still seething and unbalanced, but I forced myself to sip this glass a little more slowly. I had to be smart about this. I couldn’t get drunk tonight. So I had to make this one last. See, I was feeling calmer and more in control already.
I’d just sip this champagne until I felt like I could head back out into the fray, and then—
“Was that Hunter Knox?”
The cultured voice, vowels sliding from Virginia nobility straight into British aristocracy, was so close that for a second I thought the woman was speaking to me, but then I realized that I was close enough to a circle of wealthy society women to overhear their conversation. Maybe there would be an in for me to chat up the company?
I turned my back to them while subtly edging closer, pretending to be interested solely in the contents of my glass and the handsome oil painting to my right.
“Indeed it is,” another voice, sounding equally made of money, responded. A mischievous tone crept in. “And isn’t he looking handsome! Why, if I were forty years younger…”
This was met with a series of polite chuckles and murmurs. “Oh, behave yourself, Ethel!”
There was a sigh, presumably from Ethel. “Well, if I had to lose out to the younger generation, at least it’s to a nice young girl like that. Who’s her family?”
My heart started, and I edged still closer, my dress almost brushing against the tuxedo of the waiter serving them miniature crab cakes.
Some hushed conversation that I couldn’t quite make out followed, and then, “the Bartletts, I believe…”
“Haven’t heard of them,” said yet another voice, one full of the creaking iron of an old battleship. Her tone turned musing. “Still, seems they’ve raised her right. I asked after her earlier and she’s so polite, so feminine, not like those young hussies you get nowadays.”
This was greeted with general sounds of agreement, then the original speaker’s voice rose over the others loud and clear. “Yes, those modern girls can intrigue a man for a time, catch his eye with their wild ways, but if a man of the world like Hunter Knox decides to settle down, you can bet it’ll be with a sweet old-fashioned girl like that one.”
My hand was trembling on the champagne flute.
My mother, lips pursed, shaking her head at me as she tossed my goth-style prom picture into the garbage can before sliding Paige’s pink princess one into a golden frame, to hang on the wall—
My high school boyfriend the night I brought him home for dinner, taking one look at Paige and instantly forgetting I was there, his hand dropping from mine as his mouth fell open—
Walking past the teacher’s lounge and overhearing my favorite art teacher: “Well, of course Ally’s got some raw talent, but nothing compared to what Paige—”
Somehow my champagne glass had become empty. I walked away as quickly as I could to keep from overhearing anything else, and grabbed another glass off a tray without looking. Had I been thinking something about taking it slow? What a stupid idea, I needed to take it as fast as humanly possible. There was no way I could do this event completely sober. I needed all the champagne in the goddamn world.
My shoulder bumped into something, and I backed up, already starting to apologize, “Sorry, sorry, so sorry—”
It was Ben Minister. He eyed me with concern. “Miss Bartlett, are you quite alright?”
I laughed, probably too shrilly. “I’m fine! Just fine! Just—it’s a little stuffy in here, and I—” Oh God, were those tears forming in my eyes? No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening! “I just need to get some air!”
I escaped as quickly as my high heels and remaining dignity would let me, trying not to let myself remember the dubious expression on Mr. Minister’s face before I’d made my excuses. This wouldn’t come back to bite me—this couldn’t come back to bite me—though it didn’t matter if it did, because I couldn’t have stayed—
I stumbled up the stairs to the roof, doing my best not to spill my champagne. By the third floor it got too hard and I downed the rest of it before setting it on the stairwell, an impressive feat considering that the whole world had started spinning.
I spilled out onto the roof, which was deserted, thank God. The evening air had barely a hint of a breeze, mostly muggy and humid, making me feel even more tipsy than I actually was. I felt like I was drowning in thick, wobbling Jell-O, each breath I took choking me, weighing me further down.
I was fine. I was fine. I was not drunk and seething with jealousy. I just needed to sit down for a bit.