by Poppy Dunne
“That’s…kind of a leap in logic, but I’ll take it.”
“Well, you should.” She finally smiles—damn, she looks like she’s glowing. “Because I don’t mean to get mushy, but when you find the right guy, everything else feels like it fades away.” She sighs, and looks back into the mirror. For the first time, it looks like she fits that pink, frothy dress. “You don’t have to worry about anything anymore, because you know that he’s going to be with you, loving you. Screwing your brains out in the back of your uncle’s truck. Nothing feels safer.” She nods. “The right guy’s worth waiting for.”
Yep. Right guy. Not right guy in the right place for the right price. Still, I give my best happy smile and squeeze her shoulders.
Even if most of my life’s in tatters right now, smiling for my little brother and his future wife is something I’m happy to do tonight.
14
What’s more exhausting than walking back and forth up and down an aisle, practicing in high heels for a wedding? Walking back downstairs in said high heels, with all the bride and groom families flanking you, to eat dinner while everyone speculates on whether the bride’s gained weight, or if she’s pregnant, or if she’s gained weight and she’s pregnant. Apparently, no members of our extended family can believe that Rollie and Katie decided to get married because they were in love and practicing safe sex. That part just escapes everyone.
At least Katie’s family is here this time. They’re much more about the tattoo and hip holster lifestyle. One of them tried to show everyone the new Glock he bought, even offering to teach the Harrington kids how to shoot. I’ve never seen such pinched, panicked expressions in my life. It was worth all this, really, to have Aunt Agnes ask Billy Bob what the safety on a gun does. That man laughed harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. So yeah, having the Beaumans around definitely eases the tension.
One other nice thing is that I’ve got my arm looped through Ben’s as we file our way into one of the hotel’s grand dining areas. This was apparently where Winston Churchill stopped to meet FDR on their way to kick some Nazi ass. You know, just two crotchety old grandpas having a scotch before saving civilization. New York has a lot of history. Someone important and influential has either puked or been groped behind every pillar and in every alcove.
“We’re close to the end now,” Ben whispers in my ear as we enter the dining room, a towering area of crystal chandeliers and pristine linen. “Soon you’ll be back in L.A., all the Harrington drama behind you.”
“Yep,” I say, trying to smile and mean it. Of course, going back to L.A. means that I’ll be leaving Ben and our quasi-relationship behind. And I might not even be back home that long, not if House of Jazz goes under.
Basically, nothing tonight is cheering me up.
Soon we’re all seated at a collection of round tables with white linen cloths and soft candlelight. The most elegantly acne-less servants New York high society could find are here tonight, pouring glass after glass of very tasty wine. Which I’m enjoying, maybe a little too much. When I start flagging down Fleance (which is actually this guy’s name) to fill up my Pinot Grigio (which actually sounds kind of dirty, now that I think of it) Ben deftly slides my glass out of reach.
“Pace yourself, tiger. There’s a whole round of speeches to get through,” he whispers. Right now it feels like the two of us against the room. My Aunt Agatha’s looking at Ben sourly—how she looks at everyone, granted. He’s wearing a sports jacket and nice button up, but apparently, that’s not good enough for a Harrington family wedding. Black tie and diamond tiaras all the way, baby.
God, even I’m getting sick of listening to myself gripe. And I’m in my own head.
“You know, I’m not like this back in L.A.” I cup my cheek in my hand, and nearly faceplant into the vichyssoise. Classy, always classy.
“Drunk?” Ben asks, expression innocent.
“No, I’m always drunk. But fun drunk.” I have to stop myself from doing spirit fingers. You know, like the dance move in the chorus during high school plays? I was a great chorus member. “Like, we have a few glasses of wine, go play a round of mini golf, then get someone to drive us up to the Hollywood sign and sneak around until the rangers show up and boot us down the hill.”
“You like drunk mini golfing?” He crinkles his eyes in a smile. “What are we, soul mates?” Oh ha ha, it is to laugh. Joke. Big joke, that. It’s funny because how could we be? He’s a handsome, together man, and I’m a hot, frizzy, soon-to-be unemployed mess. For some reason—maybe it’s the wine, maybe it’s Mom, maybe it’s the fact that I’m sinking my company while Nigel has an aneurysm three thousand miles away—but that comment makes me angry. Here I am, constantly revealing all my little idiosyncrasies and freak outs to this dude, and what do I know about him? What exactly?
I know he comes from a hard background. I know that he hates modern art. That’s not a foundation to build a relationship on.
Holy hell, I’m becoming what I never wanted to be. The mournful woman in her twenties feeling henpecked at family gatherings, paying a man for sex.
That last part especially feels novel and unwanted.
“I need you to tell me something about yourself,” I say to Ben. “Something corny, or funny, or dirty. But it has to be something that colors out the whole picture.” I definitely notice how he suddenly gets a little cagey looking. Christ, did this man shoot down a biplane full of small, fluffy dogs? Is that the dark secret of his past?
“What do you want to know?” he asks, then smoothly slides one hand down my back, making me want to arch my spine and purr like a cat. Cats and dogs, that’s what I’ve got on the brain right now. That, and good endorphins. Honestly, just being this close to Ben, to such a—oh no. No, I get what he’s doing. Making my hormones do a little pas de deux so he can sneak out the backdoor of question asking. Well, my hormones and I are pulling Ben onto the stage for a little ménage a trois.
I love wine.
“Why do you always get so weird when I ask questions about you?” I waggle my eyebrows. “You know it’s true.”
“I guess because I don’t have anything much to tell—because there isn’t anything much to tell.” He says it in that disarming, boy scout way of his, but he can’t fool me. Maybe his secret isn’t ‘hiding out from the Russians because espionage’ grade level, but it’s got to be something.
Or maybe he is hiding out from the Russians because espionage, in which case my third most cherished sexual fantasy just became a reality. No, focus. Don’t pin your hopes on that one.
“I don’t have a lot of family, and I’m from California. Those are the two biggest things to know.” Ben looks kind of pained now with that revelation. Shit. Just because I like to talk endlessly about my crazy, frustrating family doesn’t mean everyone else wants to show the darkest parts of their souls.
“Just tell me two truths and a lie,” I say at last, frowning. Ben blinks—classic guy speak for having no idea what I’m talking about. “It’s a game we used to play at camp. You need to tell me three things about yourself, one a lie, two of them true. That way I’ll never be a hundred percent sure what’s true, but at least I’ll have learned something.”
“One lie, huh?” Finally, some response. His blue eyes seem to crackle with the challenge. “Well then…”
Unfortunately, that moment of potential excitement gets shot down when my dad steps up to the microphone at the front of the room and calls for everyone’s attention. When he gets it, he beams a little. Dad’s a smaller man with thinning gray hair and a neat little mustache. He’s been a Philadelphia banker since his father was a Philadelphia banker, and so on and so forth. It’s basically turtles all the way down, except instead of turtles it’s bankers with neat little mustaches.
Point being, Dad’s used to having absolutely no one notice him. So when we all focus on him, it’s kind of a treat. Somewhere in the crowd, I hear the tinkle of ice in my mom’s glass. She’s probably waiting to see if he’ll screw thi
s up. She’s good at causing anxiety spikes in her nearest and dearest.
“I had a toast planned to the bride and groom,” Dad says, pleasantly tapping at the microphone. It squeals, sending half of us under the table for a split second. Fiddling with his tie, he says, “but I’m just not as entertaining as other people in the family.”
Dead silence meets this. Someone coughs. I’m pretty sure a few have fallen asleep. If this is your go-to destination for entertainment, might I suggest a ticket to literally anywhere else on this planet?
“So here’s my son Rollie’s—Roland,” he amends, quickly checking in my mom’s direction. “Here is Roland’s best man, his cousin, Abernathy.”
Aww, Abby. He hates when I call him that. But he also spends the weekends polishing his silverware and ironing his spat collections, so I call him that a lot. Poor Rollie, much like Katie, didn’t get a huge say in who his wedding party could include. Last time Abby and he really had a heart to heart, they were thirteen, and Rollie ruined the enamel on Abby’s dinette set starter kit. They’ve been frenemies ever since.
Abernathy gets up behind the microphone, already weaving a bit. Yeah, those white wine spritzers really do pack a punch. He tugs at the collar of his turtleneck—mauve, naturally. At least he didn’t go with taupe. He decided to be really adventurous tonight.
“Like many of you, I didn’t think Rollie was ever going to get married,” he says, slurring his words a little. Ho boy. It’s true, Roland had achieved the ripe age of twenty-four without shackling a she-Roland. In our family’s terms, any marriage later than twenty-two means your prime breeding years are already slipping away. And that’s how we think of marriage: find the best stud or mare for genetic purposes, then pump and keep pumping.
Sorry, I get a little dark when I drink. Hello darkness, my old friend.
Also, the idea of Harringtons pumping anything will sour even the hardiest stomach.
“So when he turned up with Kathy, I knew it was true love.” Okay, nice try there, Abby. Almost got the bride’s name right. He even consults a notecard in his hand. God love him, he’s trying. “From what I hear, it’s true love.” He pauses. “My room’s right next door to theirs, and let me tell you, true love is loud.”
Okay, maybe I should go up there and take the fifth tequila sunrise off the five-four dude. Probably a good idea. Rollie’s doing pretty well, bless him, and Katie’s sitting next to him, her shoulders slumped in her pink cupcake dress. She’s chewing a wad of gum and side-eyeing the hell out of Abernathy. We have many fun years of family reunions ahead of us.
“You know, Rollie never seemed like the settlin’ down type.” He hiccups. Aw. It nearly knocks him over. “So now that we’re sitting in the Courtyard hotel, drinking the most expensive liquor in the city, I feel like it’s a relief to his parents. At least grandkids are coming from somewhere, y’know?”
That sound you hear like crinkling cellophane? That is my womb, shriveling. Ben grips my hand under the table. He already knows what’s coming, and from the way he’s squeezing I think he wants to get up and take a running leap into Abernathy. But there’s nothing to be done. We have to sit and watch him, a tiny meteor about to collide with a planet and create a mass extinction event of sanity.
“Like, I love my cousin Alex. Not so much since she got the haircut, but, y’know.” He grabs a glass of wine from a passing waiter, by which I mean he lunges for it and nearly falls offstage. Now there’s a rippling laughter effect through the audience. Oh good. It’s all happening, my worst nightmare coming true. Lucky me.
“Point is, I like, love Alex. So much. But when you’re staring down thirty and no kids on the horizon, like, my aunt and uncle must’ve been freaked out.” He wobbles, steadies, then continues with confidence. “But now Rollie can, like, continue the family legacy. He’s like a tree, but like a redhead tree. Those exist. I saw a documentary one time. I—”
Unfortunately, Abby chooses this moment to take a giant step forward, and he falls off the stage, landing facedown on Aunt Cynthia’s family table. Everyone jumps up as silverware and glassware go flying, and Abernathy tumbles to the ground, dragging the white tablecloth with him. Which brings the dinner plates and Uncle Einar down with him. Now everyone’s standing over Abby and fussing. Waiters are rushing out from everywhere, probably praying that they don’t get sued. Everyone looks terrified right now. Except Katie, who’s got her arms crossed and is snapping her gum with a look of vengeance in her eyes. For her, karma must work fast. For all I know, she willed it to happen. She’s like a punk witch that way.
“Hold on,” Ben says, grabbing unsuccessfully for my hand as I take the opportunity to get the hell up and power walk my way out of the ballroom. I brush past a caterer, hop around a collection of waiters muttering to each other, and hightail it out of the place fast. Ben’s not quick enough to stop me, and he doesn’t come after me. When life gets bad, you get even.
Unless it’s family. If it’s family, you just go to the powder room to hide for a while. Hide and take a deep breath and maybe cry.
Or, in my case, you head toward the antiquated games room. Because the Courtyard doesn’t do anything by halves.
15
“You must really like Monopoly,” an adorable little ten-year-old girl says as she sits opposite me across the board. I’ve been moving the little copper shoe up Fifth Avenue, down Central Park, and right back to jail for the past fifteen or so minutes. Right now, jail would be kind of a paradise. There are no awkward family dinners in jail. The kid opposite me sits in the leather armchair, swinging her cute little patent leather shoe-d feet as she watches me start counting out the fake money. This set must have come from the vintage, early days of Monopoly. Everything has gold leaf on it, even the Chance cards.
That’s the Courtyard. Only the ritziest, most capitalist games will do.
“I like not hanging out with my family,” I tell her, slumping over in my seat and sipping at my drink. Maybe I’m having a gin gimlet. Who cares, let the children watch you drink early on in their lives. It’s good for them.
“Me too. My mom’s a jerk.” She pouts, adorably of course.
I smile. “Yeah? What’d she do?”
“She’s getting married again.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. Poor kid. She plays with the little dog figurine. “You’re in the wedding?”
“Mmhmmm. She’s marrying my uncle,” the kid says conversationally, picking up a wad of 500 dollar bills. “He was Daddy’s business partner. Then he bought Daddy out of his own corporation, and he and my mom got divorced. Now Daddy lives in the Bronx, and I see him once a month.” Her eyes get bigger as she flips through the wad of fake money. “But just wait. One day, I’m going to run my own Fortune 500, and I’ll show Uncle Hanscomb. Oh yes. I’ll show him.”
We’re really, really quiet for a minute while the future mogul prepubescently plots a sequel to Hamlet. Then, hoarsely, I say, “You should probably go get some ice cream.”
“Yay!” She brightens with the idea, then takes off in a flurry of taffeta skirts. You know, you think you’ve got problems, and then…
“There you are.” Ben strides into the room, pulling me to my feet. How did he know where I was? He answers my question for me, saying, “You told me when you guys were kids, and your parents fought, you’d play Monopoly to take your mind off things. I asked the concierge if there was a game room.”
Huh. Ben, you sexy hot genius, you.
“Here. Let’s get you back,” he says, attempting to bring me with him. He has to take another go ‘round, though, because I’m pretty bonelessly, sloppy drunk at this point. He whisks me off my feet then, picking me up and carrying me toward the door. “Remember what I was saying earlier, about being kind of amused by your family? I was wrong. Your relatives are massive dicks. I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he says when I slip out of his arms. Thank you, but drunky mcdrunkerson can stagger into the door just fine on her own, please.
“If I make a ma
ssive dick joke, will you think I’m horrible?” I mutter against his lapel. Making a wild, flailing gesture, I leap out of his arms and bang into some wooden door that probably came over on the Mayflower. Maybe it’s a closet. Maybe I can hide there.
“If you’re calling it massive, I think you have very good taste,” he says, kindly opening the door while I’m pawing at it like an intoxicated golden retriever. Inside, there’s a circular sort of cubicle room with pillows lined all around the walls. In the center, there’s a wooden table with cards and a crystal ball and a Ouija board and whatnot. Great, it’s like a séance room. We can raise the dead and ask them to haunt the shit out of my family. I like this plan.
I flop onto the cushions while Ben checks outside and closes the door. He sits opposite me, sighing as he looks at the hot mess he slept with. My eyes start burning, just a little. I have one really good night of sex, and immediately I have to pay for it by looking and acting like a crazy asshole.
“Why is your family like this?” Ben asks. He slips off his jacket and puts it under my head. I snort, which is very sexy.
“They say great-great-grandpa Carter Harrington made a deal with the devil. The devil took him to a mountaintop and said lo, I will give you all these treasures. Money, jewels, the wealth of ages. But only if you agree that your future generations shall be raging dick mules.”
“Satan has a nice vocabulary.”
“Doesn’t he, though?” I sit up, woozily, as Ben slides over and takes me into his arms. And there I am, my head spinning in more ways than one, locked in the embrace of a seriously beautiful man. A man who’s probably going to hightail it out of here as soon as the wedding’s done, and who could blame him?
