“No, wait. Why? Why Tiffany?”
“I ran into her a few weeks ago.” Simone shrugged. “It’s so strange. We’ve got a reversal. Once, I believed, absolutely, that this girl…” She trailed a finger over the unlined brow, the smooth cheek. “This girl ruined my life. She stole the boy I loved, the boy I just knew I’d marry and live happily ever after with. I blamed her for my misery. God, Mi. Sixteen.”
“Sixteen.” Mi slipped an arm around Simone’s waist. “But this girl was still a mean, conniving slut.”
“She really was.”
“To have a reversal means she believes you ruined her life? Blames you? How?”
“I walked out whole.” Simone traced fingers over the second face. “She didn’t.”
“JJ Hobart’s to blame for that. What did she say to you, Sim?”
“Do you see this face? Not just the flaws.”
“You mean the anger and bitterness? Of course I do. You have a genius for showing what’s inside.” Mi took a casual sip of her drink, matched her tone to the gesture. “So, she’s still a mean, conniving slut?”
And on a laugh, Simone felt the sticky, strangling vines of stress drop away. “Yes. God, yes, she is.”
“Tragedy doesn’t necessarily change us. More often, I think, it just brings out more of who we are—or were—all along.” Deliberately, Mi turned the bitter face out, set the bust back on the shelf. “Tiffany was always this inside.”
In a careless toast, Mi lifted her glass. “Maybe she isn’t as perfectly beautiful as she would have been—on the outside. But she’s alive, and plenty aren’t. She may very well be alive because of you. I am. Don’t shake your head at Dr. Jung. My blood loss? Another ten minutes—fifteen on the outside? I wouldn’t have made it.”
“Let’s not talk about all that.”
“No, let’s. Just for a minute because I have something to say. This? What you did with Tiffany—what the hell is her last name?”
“Bryce.”
“You remember. I don’t. That says something, too. What you did with your art? That’s healthy.”
“Is it?”
“You’re damn right it is. It’s not just who she is, Sim, but who you are. We all survived, and we all became who we are right now. Whatever’s inside you that created her out of clay? It was always there. The sixteen-year-old girl who thought her world crashed because of some horny jerk who wasn’t worth her time—and yeah, maybe I’ll go to hell for speaking ill of the dead, but he was a horny jerk—could have decided to wallow in misery, to throw away her gifts in bitterness.”
Mi turned back to the bust. “But what I see in this face is someone who’s throwing away the gift of her life in blame and bitterness.
“We lost a friend, Sim, and it still hurts. It’s always going to hurt. But you’ve brought our friend back to life, you’ve celebrated the life she had, even the life she might have had, in that amazing sculpture downstairs, and in others.”
“I don’t know…” Simone drew a shaky breath. “I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life.”
“You’re never going to find out. Me? I’ve channeled my skill, my art, I guess, into working to find ways to alleviate pain, suffering, to improve quality of life. It doesn’t make us special, but it makes us who we are.
“We’re better than Tiffany fucking Bryce, Sim. We always were.”
Simone drew in another breath, let it out on a long exhale. And managed a “Wow.”
“I mean every word, including the jerks dead or alive. And now, every time you look at those two faces, you should remember it. Screw the bitch, Simone.”
Frowning, Simone took a last study of the bust. “I can be sorry for what happened to her—nobody deserves it—but I can still hate her?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Even when I formed those faces with my hands, I didn’t think of that.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
“Well, best friend ever, you just answered the question I couldn’t quite grab on to. Yes. Screw the bitch. Now, let’s go down and get a lot more champagne. I’m going to need it to socialize until freaking dawn.”
“I love CiCi’s parties.” As they started out, Mi turned with a cheerful smile. “I bought a new dress just for tonight. It’s a killer.”
“Damn you. Now she’ll be all over me, even more. Well, screw that, too,” Simone decided. “I’m throwing caution to the freaking winds. She can pick out my outfit.”
Delighted, Mi gave Simone a shoulder bump. “This is going to be so much fun!”
*
CiCi had already picked the outfit, since she’d bought it and hung it in her own closet with the intention of cajoling Simone into wearing it.
After considerable champagne and gossip, she dragged her girls to her master bath for a makeup and hair session. She decreed sleek and sexy for Mi, then wielded the curling iron to give her uncharacteristically cooperative granddaughter a headful of tousled curls.
She approved Mi’s choice of off-the-shoulder red with its flirty skirt and tiny waist, and waited until Simone tugged and shimmied her way into the midnight blue.
The long sleeves and to-the-knees length might have hinted at modesty, but the deep vee front and back, the slit up the right leg hinted at the opposite—especially as it fit like a second skin.
“This is why you handed me the blue nail polish yesterday.”
“Good match,” CiCi agreed, then pulled out her next weapon. “Especially with these.”
The shoes, a series of metallic-blue straps from toe to ankle, boasted high, thin silver heels.
“Sexy bohemian,” CiCi declared.
“They’re gorgeous.” Simone sat, strapped them on, stood. “I may limp for weeks, but it’ll be worth it.”
“Happy Yule.” CiCi grabbed her camera. “Strike a pose, girls.”
As they hammed for the camera, CiCi thought she’d paint them as young sirens.
“Crap, that’s the caterer. Jewelry! Mi, delicate. Simone, arty and a little over-the-top. Go!”
In a flurry of swirling skirts, lace-up booties, and a flying mane of wild red, she rushed out.
“How does she do it?” Mi asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m determined to look just that good, move just that fast, live just that big when I’m her age. Let’s play with earrings and get down there, give her a hand.”
With the wind kicking, the temperatures dropping, CiCi’s house filled with people. The island came out for CiCi, as did off-islanders. People from the art world and the music world mingled with locals over mini lobster rolls, shrimp kabobs, and champagne.
Some spilled out on the patio with its portable heaters. Music blared from the speakers, or when those with talent and the whim picked up a guitar or played a keyboard and jammed.
CiCi mingled, enjoying every moment, even as she kept her eye out for one particular person. When she spotted him, she wound her way over to Simone.
“Sweetie, would you mind running upstairs? I think I might have left my Yule candle burning in my bedroom. Don’t want to burn the house down.”
“Sure. Great party, CiCi.”
“I never throw any other kind.”
As her gorgeous girl went on her fake mission, CiCi headed straight for Reed. He broke into a grin when he saw her.
“You said it’d be a party to end all parties. You weren’t lying. Merry Christmas.” He handed her a gift bag.
“Aren’t you sweet? I’m going to put this under my tree.” She kissed him first, brushed a hand down the sleeve of his dark gray jacket. “And handsome.”
“Gotta dude it up for the party to end all parties. You look amazing. Say, after the party why don’t we run away to…”
CiCi smiled as his words trailed off, as his face went from flirty to stunned. She didn’t have to look to know Simone had come back down the stairs, just as she’d planned.
He knew her—of course he knew her face. He’d studied it as he had so many others in his files. He knew her, too, from photographs artfully scattered throughout CiCi’s house, from the painting that had lit a low burn of lust and the fire of wonder inside him.