“You’re just trying to impress Graham,” Posey snips. She’s entirely correct.
“He is her husband,” Peaches points out. “I think it’s sweet.” She makes a face. “I just wish Henri wasn’t playing. No offense but Graham is kind of a bad influence on him.”
“Graham’s a bad influence on everyone,” Posey says.
It strikes a chord. I’ve never been honest about Graham with Posey. Of course I haven’t. That would be weird. It’s awkward to even acknowledge that you dated the same person as someone else—loved them, pretended they were the only one for you—let alone have an actual conversation about that person with them. But I do wonder if she has some stories that would sound like mine.
I glance at Demi again. She looks uncomfortable. As always.
“You’ll have to play,” I tell her.
“No, thank you.” She swallows, watching the bubbles rise in her untouched champagne. “It’s not my kind of thing.”
“But you must.” She will.
“I don’t like violence,” she says in this sanctimonious thread of a voice.
I scoff. “I saw you punch a homeless guy.” The more she acts like a good girl, the surer I am that she is not. Margo said that she was nasty, that she left a trail of bodies on her rise to the top. This curled-in quiet is all an act. It has to be. A solid act, but still an act.
“You punched a homeless guy?” Peaches snorts. “Isn’t it usually the other way around?”
Sienna starts laughing suddenly, hysterically. I think she’s had too much to drink.
“I’ll play.” Demi’s voice is so quiet, I don’t think the others hear the edge. But I do. She says it again: “I’ll play.”
“Hooray!” I say, toasting her untouched drink. “You won’t regret it! It’s going to be so much fun.” I temporarily forget it won’t end well for her. I’m just glad she capitulated.
“What do I get if I win?”
I sip my champagne, nudge her playfully. “What you always get.” I smile, then quote her own words back to her: “To keep playing.”
* * *
DEMI HATES MY friends more than I do. It’s hard not to like her for it. We have all relocated to a private shopping room at a boutique on Rodeo Drive. My friends are still stuck on the homeless thing.
“My mom says they’re all, like, millionaires,” Peaches says, drunkenly twisting around in front of the full-length mirror in a beige taffeta dress. “That it’s just a lifestyle choice.”
“That’s a lot of fucking millionaires,” Demi grunts. She is slumped on the lounger beside me. I chose our outfits ages ago. Demi seemed perfectly happy for me to buy and pay for everything. She didn’t raise an eyebrow when I said I’d have it sent to our address.
“I once saw a Rothschild busking on the Third Street Promenade.” Peaches scoots in beside Mitsi, wearing the same taffeta dress and looking just as bad in it.
“Oh, my God!” Mitsi clutches her heart. “What were you doing on the Third Street Promenade?”
I nudge Demi’s waist. “Let’s go have a cigarette.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Neither do I,” I whisper, dragging her up by the elbow.
I take her out to a private terrace at the back looking out over a parking lot. It smells like gasoline.
“Your friends are horrible,” she tells me.
“I know.”
“Why are you even friends with them?”
“You have to be friends with someone.” I look at her and I look at the parking lot and I wish I did smoke. I’m not sure why I brought her out here. It’s not going to help me kill her. I guess I just felt bad for her. I guess I just wanted to help her. Not a wise impulse. “We’re trying to figure out what happened to the dog. Any ideas?”
“No.” Her voice is modulated, not too fast, not too slow. Is it a trick? But Graham is right: She doesn’t have a motive. “Maybe it was a coyote. Or a car.”
“An act of God,” I say.
“Exactly. God’s the worst.”
I laugh once, fast. “Should we go back?”
“No.”
I laugh again, sip my Mo?t. “What are your friends like?”
“I don’t have friends,” she says, which is kind of refreshing. “But I’d rather not have friends than have friends like those.”
I find myself telling her, “I had a really good friend once. We were like the same person in two different bodies. We used to stay up late, sitting by the fountain, just talking about how horrible everyone else was.”
“Why aren’t you friends anymore?”
It’s like I forgot Elvira was dead, how intensely it washes over me. “I guess we are,” I say, because I am not dumb enough to tell her what happened. “We’re just not as close. What about you?”
She looks unsure, like she is trying to decide if she can trust me, even with something as basic as this. “I had friends once. I guess I just started to feel like I didn’t deserve them. Like I was raining on everyone’s parade.” She sighs. “I think when your life is so different from everyone else’s, you start to feel like you don’t belong with anyone.”
My smile is genuine. “I know exactly what you mean.”
It’s really strange, connecting to a person you are going to kill. It’s probably not the best strategy to win.
LYLA
That night, Graham has birthday drinks with friends and I have to go to Margo’s house to oversee the party preparations. I have hired a crew to strip out all the valuables to protect them from any accidents. I want the party to be as out of control as possible. I want to impress Graham. We can’t be worrying about Monets and Fabergés and Biedermeiers.
I drop Demi off outside the house. She seems relieved that it’s over. She unbuckles her seat belt, starts to climb out of the car.
“Wait!”
She freezes halfway out of the car, leg dangling over the asphalt. I have this weird feeling, like I am dropping my daughter off at school. Like I should warn her about all the bad things when I am the bad thing that I would warn her about.
“I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for coming.”
Her shoulders are tight. “No problem.” And she climbs out of the car.
She vanishes and I grip the steering wheel, feel a twisting in my stomach. I must’ve had five glasses of Mo?t, and I am stone-cold sober. What if I am sober for the rest of my life? What if that is what murder means? A kind of manic frenzy that keeps you awake forever. A hyperconsciousness that never ends. Eyes stapled open. Stomach in knots.
I tell myself it’s not. I promise myself I’ll sleep once it’s over.
I put the car back into drive. I climb up the hill to Margo’s. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since Bean’s accident. She must know Bean is missing. She must be distraught.
As I arc into the drive, I see Margo. She is dressed in a bounteous white nightgown that ripples in the breeze. She looks like Lawrence of Arabia wandering in the desert of her terrace. My housekeeper is beside her, arm looped in hers, her guide. What. The. Fuck?
I pull up beneath the terrace and leave my car with her valet, who looks troubled. “I think she’s losing it,” he says under his breath as he climbs into the car. He doesn’t speak to me directly, doesn’t look me in the eye, so for a second it feels like he could mean me. Or both of us. Or all of us.
I take a deep breath, straighten my dress and march up the steps to the terrace. The sky over our heads is dark and milky with clouds. The perfect setting for these two wanderers. There are chicken bones scattered all over the ground and what looks like bloodstains on the marble. My housekeeper is lighting sage. She has acquired several new necklaces and a heap of scarves.
I don’t know what she is doing here, but if I tell Margo she is my housekeeper, she will probably make me fire her. It’s so hard to find good help. Plus, Graham really does like her cooking. Luckily, my housekeeper looks just as shocked to see me as I am to see her, and I think she is just as keen to keep our connection secret.