by JD Hawkins
I move through the party like the conversation and brief greetings and witty exchanges are a dance themselves, always leaving before anything even threatens to get stale, always seizing any opportunity to reconnect or allow a group of delightful strangers to distract me.
“Where on Earth did you get those ice sculptures? They’re wonderful!”
“Call me Monday and I’ll give you the number,” I tell the woman whose face is familiar though she’s had so much work done I can’t think of the name.
“Are they anything to do with the rumors about you releasing some jewelry?” she leans in to ask.
“There are so many rumors about me even I don’t know what to believe,” I say as I glide from her to a handsome actor I almost slept with before he started getting a little clingy.
“Maeve,” he says, face brightening up into a poster quality beauty, “great party. That cabaret room is something else.”
“Don’t tell me, sweetie. Go compliment my assistant. It was her idea. She’s over there pretending to be a wallflower.”
I give him a gentle shove in Harriet’s direction as I spin away once again, intending to go and check on Brent’s little “DJ room” but getting sidetracked by a chatty young pop singer who I’d met once. If I suspected the girl was infatuated with me before, I’m certain of it now, and find it both flattering and curious.
After another circuit of the party, another blur of introductions, exchanges, and even a brief dance that an extroverted, eccentric European artist seizes me for, I find May in a corner. She’s with a group of people that nobody would notice, but happen to be the most influential people in the world of fashion and art.
May splits from the group to stop me and speak.
“Will your jewelry line be ‘simple classical’ then?” she asks.
“You know about it?”
May tilts her head and half closes her eyes. As if mildly insulted by the idea she wouldn’t.
“Intricate and baroque, actually,” I say. “Think ‘belle époque,’ with a bit of a modern twist.”
“That’s somewhat against the grain.”
“Beauty sometimes is. I want to make a statement.”
“Difficult to do.”
“The world’s already full of people who do the easy thing.”
She smiles at me, and I think I can detect a little pride in her protégé behind the well-practiced stoic expression.
“Some people are becoming very interested in you,” she says, nodding behind her.
I glance over her shoulder at the group of people, who watch the party with eyes like elder hawks.
“The secret society of the stylish stiletto?” I quip.
May laughs—a brief, breathy, sighing laugh as close as she ever comes.
“Who are you working with on it?” she asks.
As soon as she asks the question, Toby comes to my mind, and for the first time this evening I feel a tinge of something negative, something less than smoothly pleasant, something more complicated than the thrill of the crowd. I’d spent the whole evening pushing him out of my mind, as if this whole party were nothing but a gigantic distraction from the messiness of my sober, waking life. I’d braced myself to see him here in case he decided to show up, and even practiced a few things I would say to navigate those choppy waters.
May’s question brings to my mind all kinds of mixed feelings, but I show none of them, and instead smile demurely.
“I have my secret sources.”
May winks at me and steps away, as skillful in the art of timing as I am, and I squeeze her arm quickly as a farewell before turning to surf the rest of the crowd.
The party’s gone from being energetic to raucous now. The photographers have been sent home. Inside and outside there are shouts and dancers, bodies so close they’re bumping like it’s a heavy metal concert but having too much fun to care. I slip through the crowd, returning looks with nods and waves, inside being too loud to hear anyone unless they’re shouting. As I navigate the throng of well-tailored suits and shimmering dresses, I catch sight of a young couple, the man leading the girl away by the hand, both of them with excited looks on their faces. In another corner a group of drunk women are tossing champagne over an equally drunk man as he dances for them. Someone is being lifted onto someone else’s shoulders. Everywhere you look there’s some exuberant example of people letting go, enough to regard the party as at least something of a success. And it’s not even midnight.
But May’s reminded me of the cloud in this clear sky, and while I can just about push Toby out of my mind—especially since it seems he decided not to come—I’m also reminded that Harriet said Mia and Colin are here.
After what feels like fighting through a battlefield, albeit a very welcoming and happy one, I reach the large exit to the rear of the castle. It opens out to a high platform with steps running down either side, from which one can scan the partygoers around the pool, and the bar, and the various ice sculptures. Even the stone balustrade of the platform is packed with people—including a singer just about famous enough to make his necking session with another singer somewhat scandalous. I charm and nudge my way through a couple of men enjoying the view and look over the crowd myself, watching for Mia’s distinctively red hair.
My hopes aren’t high of finding her—I’m starting to feel a little tipsy myself. The party and the fresh air only add to my sense of light, euphoric dizziness. Yet after only half a minute of looking I spot her, mainly because of what she’s wearing. I smile more genuinely than I have all night and push my way back through the men, hurrying toward her as fast as it’s possible to do while still looking elegant in heels.
Once I’m close enough for Colin to see me, he smiles, turning away from the couple they were talking to, and nudges Mia beside him. She looks over at me and suddenly opens her face wide in an excited look, then opens her arms to embrace me as I reach her.
“I’m so sorry, Maeve,” she says when we pull apart, “Alison was being a little grumpy before we left and we didn’t want to leave her with Colin’s mom that way so we ended up being late. I’m so—”
“Oh, forget it, honey. I’ve been too busy fixing the party to enjoy it until now,” I say, then step back to look at her stunning figure. “You wore the red dress? Very good.”
“Of course!” Mia says.
She glances at Colin, and he can’t hide the glimmer in his eye. I start to think that maybe the dress has more significance for Mia than just the fact that it’s the most daring thing I helped her pick out for herself.
“This party’s incredible,” Colin says. “I think there are more people here than I’ve ever met in my life. Very ‘Gatsby.’”
“I think I overdid it to be honest. You can’t even move for all the people inside. I stepped on more Louboutins than carpet to walk outside just now.”
“Whether you overdid it or not, I’m glad,” Colin says. “We’ve been here an hour and three people have already asked to visit my practice. Who knew the rich and famous all needed good pediatricians this badly.”
“Well you’re here—that’s as good a recommendation as you can get. You will stay a bit longer, won’t you? We’ve got fireworks at midnight, although I think everyone here will be too intoxicated, aroused, or lively to even notice them.”
“Sure,” Mia says, looking at Colin as if to confirm it. “But we’ll probably need to leave by one.”
“Of course, honey. Don’t let me keep you from Alison. I’m just glad I saw you.”
“Asher’s here too,” Colin adds.
“Oh yes,” Mia says. “He actually just left to look for you, but I don’t think he had much hope he would after seeing how many people are here.”
“Asher…” I say, hiding the slight heaviness in my light spirits. “Yes. Well, I should talk to him.”
Colin says, “He went over by those ice sculptures, near the bar.”
“I’ll go look for him. You don’t mind me leaving you?”
�
��Go!” Mia says, as Colin waves me away with a smile. “I can see you whenever, and clearly everyone here wishes they could do the same.” As if to prove her point, Mia nods and I look in that direction to find an old coworker of mine waving frantically at me. I wave nonchalantly back, a regal smile, then turn to Mia one last time to hug her.
“Speak to you next week then, sweetie.” I release her and grab Colin to do the same. “Give Alison a kiss from me.”
A little reluctantly, I pull away and immerse myself once again in the crowd, the same routine of hellos and intros and brief conversations and silly jokes. But there’s something detached in me now. My whole spirit no longer fully in the smiles and laughs I afford others. The weight of the recent past holding me back from being entirely in the present moment…
It’s the impulse to put that negative stain in my mind to bed that makes me look for Asher’s recognizably attractive face in the crowd. He’s a lovely man. He’ll understand when I tell him that I’m not really that interested. He’ll probably play it off in a charming manner, making it easy for me even though he doesn’t need to.
I just wish he was the only man I had to worry about…
23
Toby
I’ve crashed parties all my life. In a way, it’s the story of my life.
A young college dropout whose sister inherited all the brains, leaving him with nothing but audacity and an appetite for fine things. I would never have been happy with a regular job and only my weekends to play—I wanted more. More than a guy with my upbringing is allowed to want. More than it was realistic for someone like me to want.
I came to L.A. like half the people here: as a nobody. But even as an outsider, perhaps especially as an outsider, I knew how things worked. The high life doesn’t hand out invitations—you’re either born into it or you break into it. Mia’s smart enough to run the country, but she still had to work her ass off just to get a stable doctor’s position and a tiny apartment. Me, I learned one lesson early on, and ended up owning the best jewelry business in town: it’s who you know.
A borrowed suit and the confidence to use side entrances got me into the bars and clubs only the richest could afford official entrance to. Arrogance and the ability to think fast got me backstage at gigs and events where I built up a phonebook that read like a who’s who. A great gift got me into the garden party that got me first dibs on the premises of my shop. A few bribes, a few white lies, a few more side entrances and I could be in the right place at the right time, meet and persuade the right men and women to bankroll my whole idea of a jewelry shop.
I can’t lie and say it was my plan all along. I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t extremely fun, that I wasn’t just living in the moment, that the thrill of living beyond my means, in places I would never have been allowed, charming people whom I would never meet otherwise wasn’t incredibly exciting. But don’t they always say to try to turn your passion into work?
Those are just old stories I tell for fun now. I haven’t had to borrow a suit, pretend to be a bartender, or sneak through a kitchen in years. Now I’m being begged to attend rather than doing the begging. I made it. I live the lifestyle I dreamed of. No longer an outsider. That’s the thing about crashing a party—once you’re in, you can leave whenever you want.
Except…here I am getting dressed in my finest suit, about to gatecrash an event I was deliberately not invited to, an outsider all over again.
The thought makes me stop as I’m buttoning up my shirt in the mirror. I look at myself and realize something: that’s exactly what Maeve makes me feel like, an outsider. Not to her party, or her world of fancy-ass fashion people, but to her. She’ll tease me and intrigue me, draw me in and play the game with me—in her house, at the dinner party, in my shop—but the second I get too close, she gets scared and holds me off. Keeping her heart in a glass jar, there just to look pretty.
Just once I want her to let me in. To show me the real her, the raw her. Even if she decides to kick me out, I’ve got to smash that glass and truly touch her at least once. Tonight.
It’s past eleven by the time I’m driving up the winding canyon roads that lead to the mansion. First rule of crashing a party: always show up late, when everybody’s having too much fun to even care if they notice you. I can hear the place throbbing and pounding half a mile off. As if the large building is amplifying the noise inside. The air seeming electrified even around it.
I decide to avoid driving in through the front gates and park under a tree a little down the street, walking the rest of the way. There’s security at the large front gates. They’re big and mean and look like they were hired from the cast of a mob movie. I hang back while I figure out a routine to give them, but as I’m figuring out how to grease my way inside, I get lucky.
“Toby?”
The voice is calling me from the rear window of a Rolls Royce that’s crept up beside me. I turn to it and see Dan Gibson, a financier I used to see around a few years back.
“Hey, Dan,” I say, smiling as if I missed him as I step toward the car. I catch a glimpse of a beautiful woman in a gold dress beside him, though she seems uninterested in anything but her phone. “Since when do you show up to parties as late as I do?”
He laughs and gestures to the woman beside him.
“I was planning an early night after a business dinner, but my daughter insisted. What are you doing walking out there?”
“My car broke down a little back down the road.”
“That Porsche? Those things never break down.”
“Depends how you drive them.”
Dan laughs, and his daughter huffs impatiently, as if I’m stealing precious seconds of the party from her.
“Hey,” I say. “You wouldn’t mind giving me a lift, would you? I know this place—the driveway’s like a mile long.”
Dan shoves open his door and gestures me inside happily.
“Thanks, Dan. You’re a lifesaver.”
“I wouldn’t dare refuse with how much my wife loves your shop,” he quips.
His daughter doesn’t look so irritated now that she’s seen me. Her huffing replaced by a bashful shyness as she crosses her legs and puts a lot of effort into looking nonchalant. I make small talk with Dan as we pass through the gates. Turns out he’s in town looking to fund a television series. Business is the last thing on my mind though. I feel myself get a little edgy, heart a little quicker, as we coast smoothly through the driveway—catching glimpses of random stragglers from the party looking for quiet spots under the oaks.
Dan’s daughter gets out almost before the car’s stopped, a group of equally wealthy-looking girls waiting for her there with loud screams and open arms. I open the door and turn to Dan so I don’t leave in such a hurry it seems rude.
“Listen,” I say, “tell your wife to drop by next month. I’ve got some new stuff coming in that’s perfect for her.”
“I’m not sure I will,” Dan says as he steps out of the car after me. “She’s got so much jewelry, she used some of it to decorate the Christmas tree last year.”
I laugh and pat him on the shoulder before leaving him to the girls and heading toward the mansion.
There are people everywhere, too many for even the large estate to contain, so they spill out into groups. Couples darting about in the shadows around the building conspicuous but for the laughter and shouts they throw into the constant, exuberant hum of the music and chatter. I leap up stone steps where some are glamorously sprawled and sitting, looking as decadent as a painting of the fall of Rome.
Inside, the atmosphere is more like a nightclub than a luxurious event. The sweltering body heat of hundreds of people in an old mansion causing men to discard their twenty-thousand-dollar coats and unbutton their shirts. Women who would have spent four hours getting ready now so hot and sweaty their makeup is running, messing up their own hair as they dance and slink madly through the crowd. More people clutching champagne bottles than glasses, as much bare flesh on display a
s clothing.
I push through the kaleidoscopic orgy of colorful dresses and glistening skin, pretending not to hear anyone call my name, ignoring the hands grabbing for me as I’m shoved and shunted about. The air itself is intoxicating, from the smell of sweat and alcohol and perfume. The sound is dizzying, a constant euphoric frequency of voices and music that shakes the muscles and disorients the mind.
At another time, in another place, I would have loved this. An atmosphere so good it’s as if everyone ceases to be individual. Where identities can be forgotten, and the typical structure of society, of thinking, don’t make sense. A chaotic, concerted pursuit of absolute rapture. I would have let myself succumb to it, orienting myself in the crowd by a glimpse of elegant thigh or a female face induced to something bordering on the erotic by the music and the dancing.
But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t let myself go. Like a stone in a pool, I’m too heavy, and I’m only immersing myself to find the bottom of this. The ecstasy around me only a distraction from my desires now, and no longer part of them.
I move through the crowd hard and focused, looking and thinking intensely. Maeve wouldn’t be here. Not in this mass of dancers who are letting themselves go. Maeve doesn’t do that—her inability to let go was maybe always her biggest problem.
Looking up, I see the balcony surrounding the main area, people coming and going and dancing and watching from up there. It looks like there are rooms, probably quieter places, probably places where the party has a more refined, composed tone. She could be in any of those, but I’ll check later. I can see the flung-open rear doors now, the cool night air shimmering, and instincts compel me to search there first.
