“He’s fine.”
“He was very upset about the last girl.” He didn’t seem upset to me, but she often acts like he confides in her when he never does me. It’s another thing about Graham that drives me wild. I am sure that he needs my help, that I could save him, if only he would let me. If only he would come to me and not to Margo.
“I know,” I lie, and she loves it. I have walked right into her conversation trap.
“But you won’t let him down this time. You’ll keep him entertained.” The word is nasty on her tongue.
Bean jumps forward suddenly, barking at a phantom in the trees. Margo jerks her leash so the chain rattles, but Bean ignores it, lost as the predator, lost in the prey.
LYLA
That afternoon, I go to meet my friends. I hate them but you have to have friends. Today we are in Mitsi’s garden because she is throwing us all an un-birthday party. She ran out of real things to celebrate, so she has started creating holidays.
Her garden is California pastoral. It’s lush and stuffed full with a variety of plants but they’re spiky, they’re desert and tough, so the garden is beautiful but treacherous. An aloe plant scrapes my leg as I follow her staff up the red tile path. At the top of the garden, where Mitsi and my friends collect, the view opens up and you can see the hills and the gray fog of downtown Beverly Hills.
All the women are crammed artfully around a table with so much decor, the servers can hardly find space for the plates: There are fine china teacups and Fabergé eggs. The egg at the center of the table is cracked open and stuffed with gold dust. Everyone is doing gold dust this year.
I brought a whole case of Mo?t. Her staff sets it on the gift table.
“Thank you so much!” Mitsi exclaims. Mitsi’s expression is always tinged with the disappointment of discovering that she has her mother’s face after all. She is not beautiful, so everyone likes her the best and wonders about it: There’s just something about Mitsi! She’s not competition. She makes you feel like you’re winning.
“You brought that last time,” Posey says, sipping her Veuve. Posey is just pretty, but so stylish that she can afford to be an asshole. She has a way of dressing like she should be hanging in the Met. Today she wears some thick draped thing—the kind of dress an artist would use to study folds—with a matching scarf tied around her head. She looks ridiculous and gorgeous at the same time, which is the most attention-getting kind of gorgeous.
“It’s not a real party,” I snap back.
“These are from my real birthday,” Mitsi says, indicating the frothy white garlands crisscrossing above our heads. “I’m always trying to reuse. I almost wore this dress before.”
“It looks stunning!” Peaches walks in behind me, carrying a cut-glass vase of hothouse flowers. “Where should I put this?”
“Anywhere!” Mitsi gestures to the overcrowded tables. “It’s beautiful!” Peaches searches for a place, then finally hands the flowers off to the staff, never to be seen again.
We all arrange ourselves around the table. There are twenty of us, but only three who matter: the wives of Graham’s old school friends. Everyone is wearing pastels except me. I’m wearing my signature color.
“You know,” Posey says, sitting next to me. “I really admire your commitment to gray.” She makes “gray” sound like “drab,” and I question my whole existence.
We go through the charade of a tea party like a pack of twelve-year-olds. The staff pours tea and serves cakes. Everything they serve us changes colors, smokes or has to be set on fire. This usually involves a lot of awkward waiting as they struggle to get it right—It worked upstairs! Sorry. This will take just a second! And then, once everyone has moved on, it happens in a flash—Oh! And everyone gasps or offers halfhearted claps. We are required to “squeal” over something once every ten minutes. When you’re rich, there is no work harder than being impressed.
These women are a good reminder of what’s waiting for me if I ever leave Graham, if he ever leaves me. It’s impossible to be good in the world—even the good things you try to do, like saving someone, for example, can have terrible consequences. That leaves two choices: evil and mediocrity. I watch these women gasp at tea cakes and think: This is mediocrity.
I have never felt more alienated in my life, until Posey leans over the table and says to me, “How are things with Graham?” She dated Graham all through school. She got his best years, the years before he learned how much he could really get away with.
“Fine,” I say. I don’t mention that he, Margo and I are all participants in a silly but dangerous game, or that it’s my turn, or that I am still hoping for a chance to back out. This is the trouble with friends. You have to lie so much to keep them, rearrange the fabric of who you are to please them. It’s exhausting.
“Isn’t his real birthday around the corner?” I don’t know why she bothers asking. She knows it is. Every year she shows up at his party in a dress that would make Scarlett O’Hara blush. “Do you have anything planned?”
“Of course, I do.” I’ve been planning Graham’s birthday since Christmas, when we sat beside the fire at Margo’s and Graham—drunk and smoking like a chimney—complained bitterly: Fucking Christmas. I’d rather be crucified than have to unwrap another goddamn sweater. Graham is quite funny when he’s drunk. Never intentionally.
“What are you going to do?” Posey’s eyes glitter with challenge.
I glance at the other women, but they’re wrapped up in watching a server pour liquid nitrogen over a swan, revealing an egg underneath. “We’re going to play a game.”
Posey leans back in her chair, drums her fingers on the table. “What kind of game?”
“A shooting game. With real guns.”
I was trying to shock Posey, but Mitsi overhears and gasps. “Real guns? What are you going to do, kill people?” All of the women here are slightly in awe of Graham.
“Real guns but fake ammunition,” I say. “It’s called Simunition. It’s what the police force uses for training. I’m having it made special with gold dust, so when you shoot someone, they turn gold.” I pinch the gold dust on Mitsi’s table and flick it in demonstration. “It’s going to be spectacular.” I’m actually very proud of my idea, although I know it will be lost on these women. It won’t be lost on their husbands, who always act up for weeks after one of Graham’s parties. I hate to tell you this, Peaches once told me. But after Graham’s parties, Henri always threatens me with divorce. Graham’s parties bring out the worst in everyone. It’s a real skill to throw a party that good.
“Fabulous.” Posey grins with all her teeth. She likes the threat of violence. I suppose there is a reason she dated Graham.
Mitsi inhales slowly, less sure. “Graham is so masculine,” she decides. That’s one way to put it. “I’m glad Mark isn’t so masculine.”
“Women like games, too,” Posey says. She pinches a finger full of gold dust and blows it across her dress so it looks even more fabulous. I wonder what would have happened if she had married Graham. Would she have played the game? Would she have stayed? The truth is, I don’t know her, and she doesn’t know me. That’s why we’re friends.
“It must be very hard for you,” Mitsi says, “keeping up with him.” She meets my eyes and my chest aches.
“I’m not afraid of Graham,” I volunteer, which is not what she was saying at all.
LYLA
When I get home, the housekeeper is gone and the house is spotless. I have this uneasy feeling. I go to the cupboards and count all the bottles of Mo?t, just to make sure she didn’t take any.
Graham doesn’t return until after sunset. There are so many windows that the dark crowds in, punctured with little lights from the houses along the hills. There are only three stars in the sky.