Wyatt, when he appeared, was wearing a blue dress shirt and red suspenders, hair parted and slicked back, dark with gel. It seemed impossible that he was actually dressed as a banker, but she didn’t see what else he could be.
“Wall Street,” he said. “I mean, the movie. From the eighties.”
“Oh,” she said. She pulled at the hem of her dress, which kept creeping up her thigh. This suddenly felt extravagantly careless, the decision to come willingly into Wyatt’s home.
“It’s fine, Mariana,” he was saying. “Thanks for letting her in. You can go now. This is the last one. I swear.”
The woman sighed deeply and put three fingers to the center of her forehead.
“She said you were not allowed to go out. She said this to me once when we were alone, and twice when you were there.”
“Well,” Wyatt said, “I’m not out. I am staying home.”
Madison could tell that Wyatt was performing for her, slightly, that he was just a bit more brazen and cavalier than he would be if he were alone with Mariana. He was performing this disregard for his mother’s employee, thinking it made him look suave, commanding. The sad thing, Madison knew, was that Wyatt wanted to seem sophisticated, not spoiled—the product not just of his parents’ money, but of its weight. And this was not the way to do it, not in front of some girl he barely knew.
Madison watched him as he listened to Mariana’s scolding, as he adjusted to her darkening mood. Cocking his head to one side, squaring his shoulders to her. Holding her in the palm of his hand like a fistful of marbles, rolling them this way and that, completely in control in the way you can only ever control the people who have cared for you since before you had emotions, before you had impulses or desires. She saw, in that moment, that Mariana had been with this house for years, probably since Wyatt’s birth, even.
“We’ll be fine,” he said, his voice soothing. “We don’t need anything else, so you can go now.”
“There’s soda in the second fridge,” Mariana said, sighing again. “In the pantry.”
“Mariana, you’re killing me,” Wyatt said, throwing one arm around her in something that was halfway between a chokehold and a hug. “Anyone would think you didn’t trust me at all!”
And then Mariana dissolved, rolling her eyes at Madison and pulling at Wyatt’s ear so that he’d lean down obediently for her to kiss the top of his head.
“Fine,” she said. “Have fun. Be careful.”
“We will,” Wyatt sang, already slouching toward a room off to the right. Only then did Madison notice that there were lights, voices, off that way. The party she was here to attend. Mariana disappeared into the darkened part of the house, and Wyatt gestured to Madison. He waited for her to pass through the doorway in front of him, as if he was holding a door open. As if this was chivalry.
ZO? IMMEDIATELY PULLED HER DOWN, wrapping her arms around her and making a great show out of kissing her on the cheek. Which saved Madison from having to register, in front of everyone, the fact that Amanda was in the room.
There were a few boys standing somewhat near the couches, their eyes wholly on Zo? as she snorted and then coarsely swiped at the lipstick she’d smeared across Madison’s cheekbone. Madison knew she was a prop; Zo? had grabbed her not to show affection but to display something for these boys. Not because she was actually a bubbly girl in that moment, but so that they’d think she was.
Chip wasn’t here yet. Why? Madison had come late, on purpose.
“Come on,” he’d said to her at school earlier that week. “I’ll be there. Everyone on their best behavior, and by everyone I mean Wyatt. I promise.”
He had looked right at her, his jaw set, his gaze unwavering. He always looked at her for a few beats longer than felt normal, in daylight conversation. She did not know anyone else her age who did this.
“Don’t worry,” Zo? said now, shooting her a lascivious grin. “Chip will be here soon. Once everyone’s here, then we’ll go down to the ballroom.”
Allie had some purloined vodka, and they were all mixing Crystal Light into it with their index fingers. Amanda was drinking as quickly as any of them, throwing constant looks in Madison’s direction. Amanda, who had always been Madison’s conscience, warning against dangers that had never had any relevance to their lives. You never set down your drink at a party, you never drink from something you didn’t pour yourself. You never give anyone the chance to catch you when you’re falling, carry you away to some violation you can’t fend off. Look at her now, the smart one, the cynical one. Chugging from a Solo cup, her throat working, her eyes too alert and her cheeks too red.
“Downstairs?” Madison replied, turning to Zo?.
“Yeah.” Zo?’s eyes followed Wyatt around the room, Madison’s question a secondary distraction to be dealt with. “It’s right off the pool. Haven’t you been here before?”
“I have,” Madison said. “But only outside.”
Zo? peered over the rim of her cup, her attention now squarely on Madison. “For the museum party.”
Everyone’s family had a chosen cause. Jim McGinniss, her father’s closest associate, had lost his first wife to pancreatic cancer. And so even though she’d died several years after their divorce, he threw a party in the Hamptons every year. Madison’s Grandpa D’Amico had died before her birth—his body shutting down within two years of his ALS diagnosis, robbing him of his will to live as soon as it robbed him of the ability to show up for his job as a doorman uptown. And so it was known among all her father’s top men at the bank that they were expected not only to fill a table at the annual benefit but to give generously, in concert with that year’s bonus, on top of that.
And Suzanne had the party for the Bruce Museum. It wasn’t, as her mother had once said, much of an event as fund-raisers went, but then, this was Suzanne they were talking about.
Isabel had said that without thought, one April evening years ago. She’d been in the foyer plucking at Bob’s collar while he held his BlackBerry at arm’s distance, so he could continue to read e-mails while submitting to her various ministrations. Isabel swiped at his necktie with one final finger.
“What can I tell you, sweetheart,” she said. “And I know you’ve always thought Wyatt was a bore.”
“He’s . . . fine,” Madison said. “He’s neither a bore nor an asset.” At that point, it was still true. Her father howled, finally pocketing his BlackBerry and drawing her to his side with one arm, kissing the top of her head.
“Listen to that,” he said. “Neither a bore nor an asset. Couldn’t have put it better myself, kiddo. Could not have done a better job describing that family. Son and father.”
“We’re still late,” Isabel said, fiddling with the faulty clasp on her bracelet, and then they were gone.
Then they were here, Madison thought now, looking around her.
“Of course,” she said to Zo?. “They wouldn’t miss the museum party.”