“You’re the hottest girl here,” he said.
“Shut up,” she said, then realized she sounded like one of those dumb girls who couldn’t take a compliment. “I mean, thanks, Spence.”
“Psyched to show you my place,” he said, linking his fingers in hers.
She was grateful for the dying bonfire and the dusk settling, because she knew a spotty blush was spreading across her collarbone.
“And my bedroom,” he added.
The beach had felt safe. Even with the caterpillars. She thought of all the dark, empty rooms in the Foxes’ huge colonial on Horseshoe Lane. How many times had her mother warned her? Bad things happen to girls in the dark.
8.
Jules
He’d started drinking early. Martinis, manhattans, bubbly pink sherbet punch from a crystal bowl, sacrificing his usually fickle self (he was a beer man like his pops) in the mission to blot the panic he’d felt since he and Leslie had arrived at the three-house, three-course dinner. It wasn’t the whiteness of his fellow partyers that unnerved him so much but the brownness of the help. Hispanic waiters and bartenders. Honest-to-goodness butlers, straight out of his mother’s period romance novels. Don’t be a self-righteous prick, he told himself, knowing they’d chosen to be here, just like he had.
He’d never heard of a “progressive dinner” before that night, but after three decadent courses (appetizers, main course, and now dessert), three rounds of drinks, and a blur of ladies in lipstick and pearls handing him plate after plate of food, making sure their “guest of honor” was taken care of, he was as sedate as a pig led to slaughter. Caesar may have marched into his mind, that fool, but Jules was so soused he couldn’t pinpoint exactly when, where, or why.
Act one of the night was held at a house shaped like a wedding cake, the pink-and-white striped awnings as pretty as icing, and the interior like a dollhouse. Frilled floral curtains that matched the ladies’ sundresses, and pink-and-yellow paisley pillows propped on sofas and armchairs upholstered in plaid. How was it, he wondered boozily, that rich white people could get away with such a wild mix?
He had downed three cups of a candy-sweet drink the silver-haired hostess called a Whiskey Smash to wash away the salt coating his tongue after smoked salmon, whitefish salad, and chicken liver paté arranged on miniature slices of brown bread and served with tiny sour pickles. There were puffs of all kind. Who knew how many varieties there were—cheese puffs, cream puffs, artichoke and sweet potato. Puffs filled with meat and fish and goat cheese and sundried tomato and pureed this and that. He popped them in his mouth one after the other (even two at a time), figuring that if he kept his mouth full, moving from one waiter’s tray to the next, he might go the whole night without having to talk to anyone.
On to act two they went—a pack, a parade, there must have been a hundred of them, he guessed, walking the moonlit roads. Men in pale linen summer suits, women in strappy sandals and dresses that floated in the sea breeze. A trio of violinists led the way, young women with French braids down their backs, playing jazz with a bluegrass kick. With Leslie on his arm in her flowing flapper-esque dress, and he in the seersucker suit he knew she’d dropped big bills for, it felt as if time had stopped, wound backward. It was a Roaring Twenties starlight romp. All that was missing was the moonshine.
House number two was an enormous brick square, so stolid it reminded him of a fort. Puritanical red-brick and unadorned windows. As plain as the first wedding cake house had been decadent. Even the landscaping was stark, the only ornament a path of lean cypress trees leading from the road to the front entrance. Soldiers keeping watch, Jules thought. When he and Leslie stepped through the front door, he let loose a booming laugh and she nudged him. While the outside was as modest as a nun, the interior was lavish.
“It’s like French countryside meets New Orleans boudoir,” Jules whispered to Leslie. “Where are the ladies of the night?”
“Hush now, the only reason the uppity East ladies let old Mrs. Bentley host anything in this…” She paused.
“Den of iniquity?” Jules finished.
Leslie pinched his ass through the thin seersucker and he yelped. A trio of old men with snowy comb-overs glared his way.
“Is because,” Leslie continued, “she’s an officer’s widow.”
She explained through a wave of giggles (Jules could see his wife too was uncharacteristically tipsy), that the widow hailed from the South, and as soon as her stodgy old husband, the major, had kicked the bucket, she’d hired a flamboyant decorator from the city who had gone to town. Satin-striped wallpaper. Red-and-purple floral upholstery, and so many down-filled throw pillows Jules almost dozed off on the ornate divan. The main courses were just as sumptuous—fatty filet mignon, buttered biscuits, and gravy to die for. He ate until his chest felt tight.
He kept watch over Leslie, who flitted like a white moth from guest to guest. He wasn’t going to have a repeat of the night at the fair, especially when he’d been drinking. And why had he drunk so much, he chastised himself as one after another lady smelling of talcum powder and a splash of Chanel No. 5 introduced herself—Vivian and Edith, several Elizabeths, and two women who went by Bunny. No joke. Their high-pitched delight made his head throb as they complimented him on his dashing/dapper/dandy suit and invited “you and your lovely family” to the Fourth of July party at the club next month.