The Magnolia League

31





Well, my grandmother was right. It’s the Magnolia League Christmas Ball, and everyone in Savannah is here.

Josie drives me to the Oglethorpe-Williams House, where the ball is always held. I look out the window, trying to stay far enough behind the tinted glass so that the crowd filing in won’t see me as we cruise past the front porch. I was supposed to arrive with Hayes and Madison, but after Thaddeus ditched me, I texted them to say I’d rather get ready solo. Josie parks at the back of the house, near the kitchen entrance. Magnolia girls who are being presented go in through the back so no one will see them before they make their entrance down the grand staircase in the front hall. For months my grandmother has been telling me, “In through the kitchen, out through the hall,” as if it’s some kind of magic charm.

“Going in?” Josie asks.

“I guess.”

“You look very pretty,” she says kindly.

I shrug.

There’s a loud pop, and I jump at the sound. Josie hands me the warm bottle of champagne that I was supposed to enjoy with Thaddeus.

“It’s not cold, but it’ll do,” she says. “Drink yourself some liquid courage.”

I take it from her and slug back a gulp.

“I heard you and your boyfriend talking about that root magic,” she says. “He’s right. It’s no good for love. You got to do love on your own.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? What does okay mean? Miss Alex, you listen to me. The Buzzards never use their own magic—other than some beauty tricks. What does that say to you? They sell their mojos and their roots all day and all night, but they don’t ever bite off any for themselves.”

“So what?”

“You ask yourself, who’s stronger? The Buzzards or the Magnolias? One knows the spells; the other can’t get along without them. The cleverest ladies I know, they’ll use a little pinch here and there, but they make sure those pinches are spread out. Like your grandmother. She knows how to conjure, but she thinks twice before doing it.”

“Well, thanks for the too-late advice,” I say, handing the half-empty bottle to Josie. “Okay. Here I go.” I open the car door and lurch onto the sidewalk, my head spinning. I don’t mean to be rude to Josie, but shouldn’t she have told me all this a few months ago?

No one’s supposed to see my dress yet, but the wannabe girls, like Orang-Anna, wait around the kitchen entrance to get in a final bit of ass-kissing before the main event.

“You look so awesome!” Anna squeaks, running over to me. “This is so cool. It’s the first year I’ve been allowed to come. Thanks so much for the invitation.”

“Yeah, sure. No problem.” Because I’m me and had to do something at this ball to annoy my grandmother just a little, I’ve invited the entire junior class—nerds, jocks, potheads, and all. Apparently, they actually care about this crap. Idiots.

“I love your dress. Where’d you get it?”

“It was my mother’s.” The mention of my mom brings the shame rushing in. What would she say if she knew how easily I’d been taken in by the very thing she’d run so far away from? I want so badly to talk to her that I feel a sharp pain in my chest. “She wore it in 1989.”

“Well, it’s still awesome, even if it is super old.”

“Thanks.”

I push past Orang-Anna and hike through the kitchen. Two waiters in black tie show me to the cramped back staircase.

“This way to the Pretty Room, miss,” one of them says with a little bow. I notice that most of the kitchen staff are black. One of them looks familiar to me, but I’m not sure why. Then I place her: the night of my initiation. She catches my eye and stares at me like I’m something in a zoo. I blush and hurry up the staircase.

At the top, another tuxedo-clad waiter ushers me down the hall to the Pretty Room, where the debutantes are stored like pieces of meat before being introduced to Savannah’s richest white people at the Small Ball upstairs. Hayes and Madison and the other three girls who are making their debuts are already inside. Since this is the South, there’s plenty of champagne and not a thing to eat.

“Alex!” Hayes whoops as she links arms with me. “We thought you were getting cold feet. Did you see Thaddeus? You haven’t seen my brother until you’ve seen him rocking a tux. And I’m so glad you’re here, because I am about to officially explode. Do you know who Madison’s secret date is? You won’t—”

“Uh… Thaddeus isn’t coming,” I say.

“What?” She whips out her BlackBerry. “What the f ? Did he fall asleep or something? Let me call him. I’ll tear him up one side and down the other.”

“No, don’t. It’s totally my fault. I screwed up.”

Hayes’s voice drops when she sees the tears in my eyes. “What did you do?”

I want to tell her so badly. I want to tell her and cry and have her hug me, and then she’ll fix my makeup and tell me that everything is going to be okay. I want her to take me under her wing and protect me from all these awful people and, more important, I want her to protect me from myself. I want her to fix everything that I’ve ruined. But how can I tell Hayes that I put a love spell on her brother? Just as Madison did, but worse, because I knew what might happen to him, and I ignored it. I can’t disappoint her like that.

“I got jealous of him and Madison. And I did something stupid.”

“What did you do?” she asks quietly.

“I didn’t… nothing like that, Hayes,” I lie. “I freaked out on him. He came by the house and I freaked out and screamed at him like a crazy person and accused him of cheating on me with her and told him I never wanted to see him again.”

Hayes’s eyes are laughing. “Do you want to know who Madison’s escort is?” she asks.

“Who?”

Just then, Madison comes out of the carefully concealed door that leads to the powder room (God forbid anyone in Savannah actually say “bathroom” out loud), and Hayes waves her over.

“Madison, you have to tell Alex!”

“Calm down, for Christ’s sake,” Madison says, rolling her eyes. “It’s no big thing.”

“Spill!” Hayes can hardly contain herself.

“It’s Dexter, okay,” Madison says. “My escort is Dexter. And he’s wearing a powder-blue tuxedo, which is probably the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to me in my life.”

But she looks kind of proud of him too.

“But I thought you and Thaddeus—”

“What?” she says.

“You aren’t…”

“Nope!” Hayes squeals, and she actually claps her hands.

“OMG,” Madison says, realizing what I meant. “I’m a bitch, but not that kind of bitch. Thaddeus likes you. He’s been coaching me on how to clean up Dex and make him behave himself, that’s all. If you want that kind of man stealer for a friend, then head back to Cali. The MGs don’t roll that way. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say weakly.

Hayes waves for the champagne, and I take two glasses. She and Madison are acting as though this is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.

“Relax, Alex,” Hayes says. “Thaddeus will be here. Our mom will actually commit murder if he doesn’t show up. I’ll talk to him, cool him down. He’ll be fine.”

“Oh no, look who’s here,” Madison says, staring over my shoulder.

We turn and there’s Constance Taylor, standing awkwardly in the door, wearing a loose denim dress.

“A jean dress?” Madison mutters. “She’s actually wearing a jess? To a ball?”

My heart plummets even lower when she spots me and walks over.

“You all look…” She searches for the word. “Very appropriate. Alex, I need to speak with you privately.”

“She’s got a full schedule tonight,” Madison says.

“It’s okay,” I tell her, and I let Constance lead me to the powder room.

The powder room has a love seat, vanity tables, makeup mirrors—anything to hide the fact that this is a room where a woman might actually hitch up her dress and pee. Carson, that little monster who got the snakebite out at the Field, is leaning out the window smoking a cigarette. When she sees Constance and me, she stubs out her butt and swishes from the room.

“I work so hard to educate you kids,” Constance says. “And yet you all insist on doing the same dumb things over and over again.”

“Just because one of us smokes, it doesn’t mean the rest of us do,” I say. “Is this what you have to tell me? Smoking causes cancer?”

“I’m talking about the Magnolia League. You have to get out now.”

“Constance—I can call you Constance off campus, right?”

She nods.

“I hear you, okay? The Magnolia League is elitist and privileged, and it’s totally not fair that we have the advantages that we do. It’s like hogging the carpool lane of life, and it sucks for everyone else. I get that. But it’s really important to my grandmother that I be in it, and my friends are here, and it’s not as stuffy as it seems. And there’s some other stuff—”

“The hoodoo,” she says.

I’m too surprised to lie. “Who told you?”

“You all think you’re so unique and special. The Magnolia League has been around for more than fifty years. You kids are not the first to discover hoodoo and think you’ve found the solution to all of life’s problems.”

“Why do you even care?” I ask.

“How deeply are you involved?”

“Not too deeply,” I say. “Well, we did this big ritual to cleanse me of my ex-boyfriend.”

“At the Roost?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything else?”

“Some hair spells. And…” I’m hesitant to tell her. I don’t want to be fat again.

“What?”

“I’ve got a bird doppelgänger that eats all my food.”

She exhales with relief. “Those are relatively harmless.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Listen, Alex. You’re the star of the show tonight, so we don’t have much time. Have you heard of a Blue Root?”

I shake my head.

“It’s a hex on someone to bring that person harm. If a Blue Root is on you, then you will die; the only question is how. There’s a Blue Root on the entire League. That’s the bargain they made: They can be queens of Savannah, but only Savannah. Your friends, Hayes and Madison? If they leave Savannah, they die.”

“But… my mother left.”

“She had this,” she says. “This is your ticket out of here.”

It takes me a second to realize she’s pointing to my necklace.

“This fugly thing?” I say. “Come on.”

“That fugly thing is more powerful than you can imagine. It protects the wearer from all harm.”

I want to laugh in her face, and then I remember what Sina said. “A Fear Not to Walk Over Evil,” I say.

“Who told you that?” she asks.

“Sina mentioned it.”

“You need to go. This place is poison. You’re a bright, intelligent girl, Alex. You can write your own ticket. I’m begging you: Walk out that door and go. Now. Tonight. Before it’s too late and you’re trapped here for the rest of your life.”

“But if I have the necklace, why should I worry?”

“How do you think your mother died?”

I shake my head, speechless. What could Constance possibly be talking about?

“She had the necklace. Then someone conjured it off her. I don’t know how she was deceived or manipulated, but she lost that buzzard’s rock, and the Blue Root took her. Someone meant her harm and it happened, necklace or not. And… I’ve been having a dream.”

I can’t help laughing.

Constance grips my chin with one hand. “Don’t you dare laugh at a dream,” she says. “Not after what you’ve seen. Dreams are where the dead travel. Your mother has been coming to me every night for weeks. She says that the one who harmed her wants to harm you. Your life is in danger, Alex. The necklace didn’t stop the Blue Root when they came for your mother, and it won’t stop them when they come for you.”

“If she’s been coming into your dreams for weeks, then why are you only telling me now?”

Constance bites her lip. “I was scared.”

“Of what? The Magnolias?”

“Back when your mother and I were in school together, I thought the League was exploiting the Buzzards. I did a big school paper article on hoodoo, and I told Miss Lee that I’d expose the Magnolia League’s secrets. If no one believed me, I’d keep talking until I found someone who did. I made a big scene about it—I was like someone else I know, full of big world-saving ideas.

“Then one day, a snake came up out of the drain while I was in the shower. It bit me once, and while I lay there paralyzed, it struck me in the leg again and again. There was so much tissue damage, the surgeons thought they were going to have to amputate. When I got out of the hospital, this was waiting for me.”

She hands me a worn envelope made of heavy yellow paper. I take out a card, an ivory square embossed with a navy outline of a magnolia bearing only six handwritten words:


Next time, it’ll be an alligator.




My fingers feel numb.

“I’m sorry I let them intimidate me,” she says. “Your mother was my friend. I should have watched over you more carefully.”

I throw the card back at her. “I don’t want to listen to this!”

“Alex, I know this is hard, but you need to deal with it.”

She hands me another, flimsier envelope. “It’s only five hundred dollars. It’s all I could get out of the ATM tonight. I’d mail you a check, but it’s better if you don’t tell me where you’re going. They might get it from me.”

My eyes fill up with tears. I haven’t cried in a long time. Mostly, I’ve just felt numb. “I’ll pay you back,” I say, then hug her.

She stiffens. “Be careful. Go out and pretend to socialize for a bit. Then run.” She turns to the door.

“Constance, wait,” I say. “Who conjured the Blue Root?”

“The Buzzards,” she says, not turning around.

“They don’t conjure for free,” I say. “Who asked them to conjure the Blue Root?”

One of her hands is on the doorknob. She lowers her head as if she’s suddenly very tired. This is how I’ll always remember her—the way she looked right before she told me.

“Your grandmother,” she says. And then she opens the door and is gone.

I sit, trying to take in everything that Constance has told me, but my mind just keeps replaying the last thing she said.

Your grandmother. Your grandmother. Your grandmother.

I walk out into the Pretty Room and, like a bad joke, my grandmother is standing there waiting for me.

“Magnolias!” she trills from the doorway. “It’s time!” She looks at us, as if counting her chicks. “Alex, Hayes, Madison. Carson, Mary Michael, and…” She pauses for a minute. “And that other one. It’s time to meet your guests, girls.”

Madison and Hayes are full of energy.

“I can’t believe Dex is wearing that thing,” Madison moans. “Do you think he wants to embarrass me to death?”

“At least it’s vintage.” Hayes giggles and then turns to me. “What did Constance want?”

“Nothing. Just apologizing for being such a pain all year.”

“I’m surprised it didn’t take her longer, then,” Madison says.

“Come on,” Hayes says. “Society awaits.”





In a way, all this fake formality helps. Once the Christmas Ball commences, it keeps rolling from one silly tradition to another with no time in between. First there’s the receiving line, where all six of us young Magnolias stand with our families and get introduced to every important person in Savannah, from the mayor to the head of the historical society.

“This is my daughter, Madison Telfair.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Smile, handshake, curtsy.

Then we strip off our white gloves (made grimy by all the handshaking), take a new pair of kid gloves from a silver tray, and “walk the stairs.” The house has a grand, curving staircase that descends to the front hall, and each debutante’s father escorts his daughter down the stairs as her name is announced. At the bottom of the stairs is the real party: food, booze, guests, escorts, the band. The only thing left to do after you walk the stairs is give your dad the first dance.

There’s only one problem: I don’t have a dad. No mom either. My grandmother took care of that. So I am to be presented by the queen of the Magnolia League herself, Miss Dorothy Lee. Just looking at her makes me want to scream. I have to get away from her. I have to go somewhere quiet so I can think and figure everything out, because as long as I’m near her, my brain is like a roaring river full of nothing but hate. But at the moment I have to stand at her side in the receiving line.

“Dr. and Mrs. Jonathan Bailey, this is my granddaughter, Alexandria Lee.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I say automatically.

They give me limp handshakes and move down the line.

“Are you on drugs?” my grandmother hisses out of the side of her mouth.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Don’t vex me. You are being obnoxiously vague tonight.”

“Okay, then. Here’s the deal: I want to go to college.”

“Mr. and Mrs. William Cox, allow me to present my granddaughter, Alexandria Lee.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Handshakes. They move on.

“You are going to college,” my grandmother whispers.

“No, Grandma,” I say, and I relish at how she stiffens when I use the G-word. “I want to go to NYU or Brown. Or Reed. Somewhere out of state.”

“Out of the question. We will be far too busy to send you to some godforsaken Yankee school.”

“Also,” I say, “the Blue Root would kill me, wouldn’t it? I mean, my car might careen off a cliff or something.”

To her credit, my grandmonster doesn’t even flinch as the next guests approach.

“Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Bradshaw, allow me to introduce you to my granddaughter, Alexandria Lee.”

“Hello,” I say.

“She looks just like you,” Kate Bradshaw says, beaming, and then moves down the line.

“This is neither the time nor the place,” my grandmother hisses. “Whatever that Sina told you is sheer lies and manipulation. Only a child would believe anything she says.”

Sina? Why would she think Sina told me anything?

“Oh, Buck, Hattie. How special to see you. Mr. and Mrs. Buck Getty, meet my granddaughter, Alexandria Lee.”

“She looks just like her mother,” Mrs. Getty says.

“I bet she’s as curious and as smart as her mother too,” Buck adds.

“Well, I always try to remind her of what curiosity did to the cat,” my grandmother says under her breath.

The Buck Gettys move on.

“So tell me the truth yourself,” I hiss.

“Khaki Pettit ran off to New York thirty years ago,” she says. “She’s always been a blabbermouth, and she told her new society friends there about our secret. People started asking questions—someone even sent a reporter down. God forbid! We had to go collect her and end her engagement to a horrid man she’d met.”

“How nice of you.”

“She would have been miserable, and she would have ruined everything.” My grandmother smiles at a passerby. “After that, we all realized that there needed to be an incentive to stay in Savannah. There needed to be limits. So I did what was necessary to restore some security and order. I put Khaki in a local Betty Ford for a while so that no one up north would find her credible, and I had the Buzzards set some boundaries.”

“So if I leave Savannah, I die?”

“A Magnolia may not leave once she’s had her initiation ritual,” my grandmother says, pausing and looking at me somewhat sadly. “Which you have.”

“So I’m stuck here?”

“All Magnolias return eventually.”

“And what about Mom?” I ask quietly. “She’d had her initiation too. Didn’t you think about that?”

To my surprise, my grandmother’s flinty eyes fill with tears.

A red-nosed penguin waddles up to her. “I hope it’s not the company,” he bellows.

“Eddie Reauchauer! You rascal! Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Reauchauer, please meet the light of my life, my granddaughter, Alexandria Lee.”

They shake my hand. They move on down the line.

My grandmother pauses before she speaks.

“I thought she was dead,” she says quietly. “It had been almost twenty years. I didn’t know.”

“That’s no excuse. You’ve still got her blood on your hands.”

“Don’t you judge me,” my grandmother says. “I lost my daughter, only to learn years later that I had lost her a second time. Even Christ was crucified only once.”

“Spare me.”

The line slows down.

“Ladies,” Khaki Pettit calls from the end of the room. “Exchange your gloves, please.”

“Ugh,” Madison calls over to me, peeling off her opera gloves. “These are disgusting. I want to go swimming in a big pool full of Purell.”

A waiter with a silver tray of fresh gloves and a basket moves down the line. He reaches me, and automatically I drop my damp gloves in the basket and take a clean pair from his tray.

“And now, if y’all will take your place to walk the stairs,” Khaki calls.

All the mothers race to the back stairs so they can go down to the front hall and witness their daughters’ moment of glory. All the fathers take their daughters by the hand and proceed to the head of the grand staircase. My grandmother tries to take my hand, but I keep it clenched. She grabs it and attempts to pry my fingers open. I’m shocked by her strength, but I’m stronger. I yank my hand away.

“Do not disgrace me right now,” she whispers fiercely. “This is not the time to give in to petty personal issues.”

I hear Khaki Pettit on the microphone downstairs in the grand hall.

“Making her debut tonight, and presented by her father, Mr. Michael Shaw, the Cotillion presents to Savannah—Miss Mary Michael Shaw.”

Applause, some weak wolf whistles, flashbulbs popping. A bigger roar when she does her St. James bow on the landing. Then a giant cheer—probably her dad kissing her on the cheek.

“Petty personal issues?” I snap. “You killed my mother.”

“You don’t have all the facts,” my grandmother says, drawing herself up. “I have been a victim in this more than anyone else, and unlike you I don’t have the luxury of throwing a tantrum. I have fed you and clothed you. I have welcomed you into my house and let you sleep under my roof. I have indulged you past the point of reason. And I will be damned if I let you humiliate me tonight of all nights. You will walk the stairs with me, Alexandria, and you will smile and be gracious, and you will have your first dance with a young man of my choosing if your escort cannot be found, and you will stop acting like a brat and comport yourself like a Magnolia right this minute.”

“Grandmother,” I say, “screw you.”

I walk to the head of the stairs, leaving my stunned grandmother in my wake. For once she’s speechless.

“Where’s your grandmother?” Hayes hisses as I approach the waiting area. Down the stairs we can hear shouts and cheers as Carson Moore is presented. Apparently her St. James bow is something else, because the yells practically tear the roof off the place.

“She won’t be joining us,” I say. “I’m walking the stairs alone.”

Hayes gapes at me. “But you can’t… you can’t walk alone!”

“You’re up, Alex,” Madison calls from up ahead. “Where’s Dorothy?”

“I’m going alone.”

“What?” She trots back to me. “What the—say what?”

“Alexandria,” I hear my grandmother call. “I’m coming.”

“If you were ever my friends, don’t let that woman near me,” I say. And then I take a deep breath and walk to the top of the staircase. I stand in the shadows, waiting for Carson’s applause to die down, just as we’ve practiced. Behind me, I hear the daddies doing double takes as they realize I don’t have an escort.

I look over my shoulder. Madison is blocking my grandmother’s way—not so obviously that you can tell that the maneuver is intentional, but firmly enough so that Miss Lee can’t get past her. I hear the silence. Khaki takes a breath, made audible by the microphone. I prepare for my public humiliation.

“And now,” she says, “making her debut tonight, and presented by her grandmother, Mrs. Dorothy Lee, the Magnolia League presents to Savannah—Miss Alexandria Lee.”

I feel a gloved hand grip mine. I turn and see Hayes grinning at me. “Hos before bros,” she says.

Another glove grips my other hand. I turn. It’s Madison. “Don’t ever doubt that we’ve got your back,” she says.

And hand in hand, the three of us walk the stairs.

There is silence for a moment as everyone gapes. Madison and Hayes are very obviously not my grandmother. The flashbulbs stop. The room goes so silent I can hear our dresses brushing the carpet as we walk. Even Khaki is staring up at us, her mouth open like a fish’s. But breeding trumps all, and while she might like her white zin a bit more than the next lady, let it never be said that Khaki Pettit doesn’t have breeding.

“I’m sorry, it must be too much celebrating, and I plain forgot. In the newest tradition of the Magnolia League, tonight our three youngest members are presented without their fathers. Savannah, please welcome Miss Madison Telfair, Miss Hayes Anderson, and Miss Alexandria Lee.”

The applause feels like an earthquake. The flashbulbs are like lightning. The only way I know we’ve reached the landing is because the floor is suddenly flat.

“Now,” Hayes whispers. “All together, St. James bow.”

The three of us sink gracefully to the floor, bow our heads, and then rise. Somewhere in the crowd, Dexter lets out an enormous “Boo-yah!”

“So embarrassing,” Madison mutters, but she’s loving it.

Hayes squeezes my hand. “One more flight, and then we can all have about twenty drinks,” she says under her breath.

We continue descending the stairs, and I feel like everyone in the world is cheering for us. Tonight is too much. I’m being pulled in too many different directions. I don’t know how to feel about any of it. And then, suddenly, I do know. Looking up at me, standing by the open front door, is Thaddeus.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Hayes says. “Go.”

I shove my way through the crowd and find him by the shrimp tower. “So, you came after all.”

“I’m leaving Savannah for winter break,” he says. “Backpacking somewhere. Costa Rica, maybe. Or Spain. The point is, I want you to come with me.”

This is one turn too many. I think my face goes slack. “What?” I manage to stammer. “But… you hate me.”

“I hate what you’re becoming,” he says. “And I’m going to hate whatever the Magnolias turn you into if you don’t get away from this place. And most of all, I’d hate myself if I just walked away and let it happen. But I don’t hate you.”

“I know I messed up,” I say. “I’m sorry. I was scared, and I did something stupid. It’s this place, I think.”

“Which is why we need to leave for a while. Now. Tonight.”

I grab him hard and don’t let go. I can’t talk and look him in the eye at the same time. Not after what I did.

“Okay—yes! Backpacking sounds rad.”

“You have to be sure about giving all this up before we go,” he says.

“I’m sure. Seriously. Very, very sure.”

He looks at me doubtfully. “Look, I know I really messed up and that you don’t trust me,” I tell him. “But I think—”

Oh God. Can I say this? Thaddeus folds his arms, waiting.

“I think this thing between us is real, Thaddeus. I don’t want to just give up on that.”

He doesn’t say anything—but he does kiss me. I’m so happy I want to die. Right here, right now.

“You can’t tell my sister. We’ve got to just go.”

“Well, it has to be tonight—or else I’ll never get out of here.”

He nods toward the buffet table, where Hayes, Madison, and Dex are huddled together.

“All right,” he says. “I’ll get my stuff and pick you up in an hour. We’ll have to buy our tickets by BlackBerry in the car.”

“Okay,” I say, thinking of the five hundred dollars Constance gave me. It was a nice gesture, of course, but let’s face it: Five hundred bucks isn’t going to get me much farther than Raleigh-Durham. Still, that’s the only money I have—I can’t use Miss Lee’s credit card, or she’ll find me. Speaking of which…

“Listen, don’t come to the house. My grandmother or Josie might see the car. Park off Drayton instead, and meet me at the fountain in Forsyth Park.”

“Fine.”

I look up at him, smiling like the hugest dork in the world. “Thaddeus, I’m really happy right now. I just… I’ve never… liked someone as much as I like you.”

God, can I be more of an imbecile?

“Me too,” he says.

I pat the top of my head quickly to make sure my brain hasn’t exploded with joy.

“But this is your only chance, Alex,” he says. “If we’re leaving, we’re leaving now.”

I nod. I want to say it, but I can’t. Just say it, loser! my brain screams. Give him the L-bomb! But then I see Hayes and Madison heading toward us.

“One hour,” he says, ducking out before they flank me.

“What was that all about?” Madison says. “Did you work things out?”

I look at Thaddeus’s retreating back. I really want to spill our plan, but I can’t afford to screw up our getaway. It’s too dangerous.

“No,” I say, trying my best to look devastated. “I said I was sorry, but he really was done.”

“Well.” Madison looks at me sympathetically. “This party rocks anyway. Just try your best to forget him, honey.”

“Yeah. My brother can be a stubborn ass,” Hayes says. “Come on. I can’t believe we did that. Your grandmother is ready to skin you alive, but Khaki seems happy for some reason.”

“I think she’s drunk,” Madison says.

“I’ll be right there,” I say, glancing around to see if anyone’s near enough to the door to see me slip out. My heart is pounding. Am I really going to do this?

“Okay, but don’t be too long,” Hayes says.

“Yeah, this booze isn’t going to drink itself.” Madison laughs, wrapping an arm around Dex’s waist.

But I’m not listening anymore. I don’t have to. I feel sorry for my friends, that they have to be trapped here. But I’ve got the key to freedom—the necklace.

I dive back into the party, then dart to the ladies’ lounge. I’ve already scoped out the window I’ll use to get the hell out of this place.