“It’s an emergency meeting,” Lynn pipes up, sounding somewhat strangled. “About the flowers.” Karen shoots her lackey an angry look but doesn’t speak. Patricia raises her brows, demanding an explanation. “The florist canceled. So we need a new florist for the auction.”
If there were an empty seat, Patricia would sashay in and take it, but Karen has made very sure that’s not possible, just as she’s made very sure no one has alerted her co-chair to this secret meeting. The histrionic old bat is probably planning to bring in carnations with baby’s breath or some other horrific thing.
“That’s easy,” Patricia says, snapping her fingers and making her diamonds rattle. “Randall’s golf friend’s wife is a florist. They’re playing today. I’ll set it up. See? No problem at all. I hope you weren’t all inconvenienced by Karen’s…little meeting.” She holds up her wrist and smiles brightly at her new watch. “Well, look at the time! I wouldn’t want to be late for lunch with the judge. I’ll email you all confirmation of the new florist this afternoon. And I’ll make sure they go with our original plan for exotics. Those birds-of-paradise are going to look so classic. Ta-ta!”
Wiggling her fingers at them, she turns her back and sashays out the doors and toward the dining room. It’s not actually open yet, but the key to winning these battles is the same as it was when she was young and that bitch named Candy would try to steal her tips at the diner. Get in, go for the jugular, get out. She still has a hank of Candy’s hair saved somewhere, a battle trophy that reminds her that the best way to get rid of enemies is to make them regret ever opposing her in the first place.
She’s sitting on the settee outside the dining room, listening to the promising clink of silver and china, when her phone rings. She pulls it out of her Birkin and holds it just a bit away from her ear; she saw a Facebook post about how holding it too close causes cancer, and she doesn’t like the feeling of her diamond earrings scraping the screen.
“Hello?”
“That you, sugar?” Randall’s voice is low and honey-sweet, which makes Patricia frown. She knows what that voice means.
“Well, who else would be answering my phone?” She knows she sounds peevish, and she wants him to know it, too. “Where are you? They’re about to open the doors.”
“That’s just the thing, darlin’. I’m afraid I can’t join you today. The depositions are going long—”
Which is code for his secretary is staying in for lunch, which Patricia knows because early in their marriage she tried to surprise him with his favorite chicken sandwich and instead walked in on the trampy little thing scuttling out of his office with smeared lipstick, an unbuttoned blouse, and eyes just bleeding mascara.
“So I’ll probably miss dinner, too. You know how it is.”
Her smile is a scythe.
“Yes, I do.”
“So you just go on with your girls and order some champagne and have a day, okay? Whatever you want.”
The doors open, revealing an empty dining room sparkling and ready, fresh flowers on every table and sunbeams streaming in crystal-clear windows that showcase immaculate emerald greens beyond. She knows that if she keeps watching, she’ll see men driving golf carts with their wives by their sides, laughing and drinking beer and playfully taunting each other, and other couples happily power-walking the nature trails with English setters or riding the powder-blue bikes lined up outside the club office. Frank and Emily Lambert walk past her and into the restaurant, arm in arm, laughing, and are seated at the best table in the house, the one Patricia was hoping to secure for their lunch today.
“You have a good day, sweetheart,” he recites.
“You, too,” she dutifully responds, like the recorded voice box of those dreadful programmed teddy bears her youngest granddaughter loves so much, the ones with the elaborately obscene stuffing ritual at the mall that you’re forced to watch, some teenager shoving the furry rag’s rear end over a pipe as it fills to bursting with fluff.
The line clicks off, and she holds the phone up for a few moments more as if he’ll remember that he didn’t apologize at all.
Other women love their husbands, she thinks. But she loved a man once, or thought she did, and look where it got her. Eighteen and knocked up. Abandoned by him, driven away by her family. Destroyed. Every man after that has been merely a necessity, a ladder rung to safety and then, much later, when she’d earned it, to comfort. Her first husband, the contractor, found and secured after Chelsea was finally out of the house at eighteen, brought her legitimacy and respect. Her second husband, the judge, has brought her power and wealth.
Maybe when he dies, rutting with his secretary over his mahogany desk, she’ll finally get those new floors.
3.
Ella waits just outside H hall in a little splotch of shadow that only appears between sixth and seventh period. The brick wall picks at the back of her shirt and catches at individual hairs as she leans back, trying to feign coolness, arms crossed to hide the trembling in her hands. If she gets caught out here between classes, she’ll get suspended, or at least reprimanded. If her dad finds out she has a boyfriend, he’ll kill her.
He’ll straight-up kill her.
The door swings open, and Hayden appears, dressed as always in a button-down and khakis, his floppy blond hair riding that perfect line between class president and class clown. He’s grinning, and she used to think it was a special grin just for her but now she knows it’s because he’s anticipating some tongue.
“Hey, angel,” he says.
“Hey,” she answers.
He drops his book bag with a thump and puts a hand just over her shoulder, flat against the brick wall, pinning her in. She flinches a little and turns her face away, can’t stop herself from the reaction. He sees it, and his other hand caresses her face, roughly pulls her jaw around until she’s facing him again, and holds her chin so he can dart in for a kiss. She lets him, but…well, she’s not into it. It doesn’t feel like it should, like how it’s written in the books she reads, where girls describe good kisses as warm, dry, soft, gentle, probing. She reads those scenes and her tummy flutters, and the first time Hayden kissed her, her tummy fluttered like that, too. But now it twists up, tense, and nothing about his kisses is soft.
His lips are hard, his stubble scrapes, his tongue pushes, his teeth clack. His breath tastes like fake blueberry, and she wants to gag, knowing he’s been vaping with Tyler again even though he promised her he wouldn’t, even though if his dad found out, he’d be in tons of trouble. His tongue pokes and prods, reminding her of the dentist’s professional and practiced onslaught. She opens her eyes, just a little, and his eyebrows are furrowed. She feels him frown against her mouth as he withdraws.
“What’s wrong, El?”
“I don’t know.”