“We should finish getting dressed.” Giovanni adjusted the straps of her black bodysuit. “She’s making her way down for the cake.” Giovanni looked at Elise and spoke with obvious insistence. “You’ll be down once Aaron arrives?”
“He’s here already.” She didn’t point him out, but Aaron had come as Count Dracula, with Maya dressed as Cookie Monster. Both were expertly disguised, but had given sneak peeks of their costumes on Instagram.
“Is Jasper coming?” Giovanni asked with a sly look.
“I hope so. We have a lot to talk about.”
“I bet.”
“The shoot is Friday.”
Noele had seen him but hadn’t met him. “He’s fine.”
“That he is,” Elise said.
“He flew cross-country to talk about the shoot you’re not even shooting here. He likes you. And you like him too.”
She did, but didn’t know what to think of him now. “He came for the photo of Kitty by the pool,” Elise explained, “not for me. I was a ‘side benefit.’”
“Who invited him?” Noele asked.
“His grandfather worked at Telescope.”
“That’s random.”
“Yes, it is.” She tried to keep a neutral face.
“Must be fate,” Giovanni said.
“I thought you liked Aaron,” Elise said.
“I do, but I’m not sure you do…” Giovanni looked at Noele for backup.
“Stop being stubborn and come to the party.”
“I’m in mourning.” Elise would rather plunge off the Perch than be subjected to a barrage of inquiries.
“Mom is going to be pissed. People will talk.”
“They’re already talking. She doesn’t care.”
“What do we say?” Noele asked. “When people inquire about your absence?”
“Jewish people sit shiva for at least seven days. Sometimes a month.”
“We aren’t Jewish.”
“We don’t know who or what we are. Theoretically.” By any chance set of circumstances, Kitty’s story could have been lost forever. Despite their positioning in life now, they were descendants of American slaves, and their ancestors’ records were hard to find and vaguely recorded, the oral histories long gone.
“Clearly you need to have some fun.” Giovanni didn’t know how foreign a concept “fun” sounded to Elise at the moment. The last time she’d had it was seven months ago, with Jasper. Her sisters left her then, to head down for the grand entrance in which she was supposed to partake.
Sarah floated down to the second level, where a Lucite stage covered their pool. Her hair had a few extensions that hung almost to her waist and blew in the wind, upping the drama of her costume. Sarah’s hair had always been long; she never got anything more than a trim because hair, as in most Black families, was a beauty mark. When Sarah wore hers back, her almond-shaped eyes made her look somewhat Asian, causing inquiries about her ethnicity. It says “Negro” on my birth certificate, she’d reply. The inquirer’s discomfort with her use of the word ensured the line always got a laugh.
Alison was behind her, dressed as a sexy lion tamer (to complement Elise’s planned costume), with fishnet stockings and long, fake red nails. James ascended the stage behind them. “Welcome, everyone!” He strutted on stage in his black tux, winking and pointing into the crowd at, Elise knew, no one in particular. He couldn’t see past the glare of the spotlight; his eyesight was failing, which he used as an excuse to smoke more weed. He was the only one who could get away with not wearing a costume; anyone else who arrived in plain clothes or dressed off-theme was turned away. The tux was a private protest of the event itself but, ever loyal to Sarah, publicly said he was the ringmaster.
“How is everyone doing?” he said. “It’s been a rough year, I know, but we’re still here.” He always gave a speech at parties, as if people needed a reminder of who their hosts were. Like her mother, he was his most pleasant self in celebrity.
He pulled his wife close and began to sing “Happy Birthday” in her ear. Sarah closed her eyes, nestling her face against his. To the world that would see the pictures later, they looked in love, suggesting that their rumored troubles were over.
The crowd joined in as waiters carried a three-tiered lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting, as it was every year, to the stage. Elise’s sisters trailed them like a parade.
Sarah blew out what appeared to be a hundred candles, to the crowd’s uproar. To avoid conversations about age, the cakes were always exorbitantly lit but never had numbers.
Elise took a picture and captioned it HBD MOM on Instagram, to document her presence. Framed through the leaves, her mother looked angelic with her hands clasped at her chin. The post got more than a million likes in a minute. A refresh of her feed showed Aaron’s repost of her post as a story. He was still on his phone at the edge of the dance floor, presumably texting Maya, who was at the bar. Elise had seen them separate just before the cake. He still hadn’t texted her.
The traditional birthday song morphed into Stevie Wonder’s version, and the whole backyard started clapping and singing along as if they were at a concert. Elise scanned the crowd for the real singers, waiting for them to take over, craving peer attention.
Billie stood out under the pole light on the left side of the stage, with her round face painted bronze like a penny. She was the circus admittance token. When Elise was growing up, Billie was always the first one at the piano, ready for a duet of one of her hit songs with the singer who’d recorded it. She had a great voice too. Billie wasn’t clapping or singing that night. Her beady eyes were on Sarah as she twirled about.
Elise wondered what secrets Kitty had left her friends with. Her scan for Lucy and Maude was soon interrupted by a text from Jasper: I’M HERE. WHERE ARE YOU?
She texted back without a second’s delay: MEET ME ON THE PATIO.
Elise hoisted herself through the window and ran to her closet, where she threw on a black dress and wrangled her unstyled coils back into a bun. To avoid being recognized, she put on the peacock-feathered masquerade mask tacked to her bulletin board that she’d worn some years before.
Expecting her to approach from the party, Jasper stood with his back to the patio doors. Prince was blaring, and she was able to get right up next to him before he noticed. He wore a werewolf mask.
“A mythical choice.”
“Your mom is a unicorn, so I’m on theme. You, however—” He gestured to her mask and plain dress.
“Come on.” They went down the stairs, past the bar stand and clusters of the animal kingdom.
“Is your boyfriend—excuse me, fiancé—here?” Jasper asked.
“He’s not either.”
“But is he here?”
“He was earlier, with his girlfriend.”
“You know Vogue is pulling wedding dresses for your cover.”
She stopped walking. “Is that what you flew for five hours to tell me?”
“You know why I’m here.” Jasper pulled the back of her dress as they approached the border of their yard. “Where are we going?”
She gently pushed a cluster of vines aside to reveal the third opening through the hedges. “To get your photograph.”
He didn’t let go even after they’d turned onto Kitty’s dirt path, lit every six feet or so by a staked bulb.
“Your mother looks like a fairy tonight. A unicorn fairy.”
Elise chuckled. “That’s Tinker Bell, always sparkling and floating about.”
Jasper questioned her sarcasm. “Sore subject?”
“I don’t think we should be partying, is all.”
“I can see that.”
“But no one can tell my mother anything.”
“Well, she is Sarah St. John.”
Elise smiled. “I’m aware.”
“Are you close?”
“Close enough, but we were raised by our grandma.” Stern and chocolate-skinned, Nellie had tempered the decadence of their environment with the heavy hand of Black Southern rearing. “My parents worked a lot.”
“Your dad’s mom?”
“My mother’s. She kept our heads screwed on straight.”