by Sadie Hayes
“And?”
“And I think he likes me, too.”
“Why do you think that?”
“We went on a hike yesterday. To a waterfall. And he told me so. He said he thinks about me all the time.” Patty’s face reddened. “He said he thought maybe he was marrying the wrong sister.”
T.J. almost choked on his smoothie. “Wow.”
Patty shook her head, as if trying to get the whole thing out of her mind. “It’s so stupid. It’ll all be over tonight, no matter what. I just have to stop thinking about it.”
“Maybe it won’t all be over tomorrow. Maybe it’s just beginning.” T.J. smiled coyly.
56
Panic
Adam slept deeply until ten o’clock in the morning. The sun was streaming through the flowing white drapes at the balcony windows, and he was full of the euphoria that only comes after a night of dreaming about your true love. Yesterday had been an emotional roller coaster, but everything felt right now that he knew Lisa loved him.
Not to mention that he’d discovered the problem with their presentation yesterday. RemoteX was trying to sabotage Doreye with that chip. They had decided not to say anything until they’d had a chance to tell T.J. and Roger. Roger’s flight was rescheduled to land this morning, and T.J. would be at the Hawkins wedding all day, though he said he’d slip out after the ceremony to check in on them.
Adam stretched his arms over his head and rolled out of bed, careful not to wake Amelia. Someone had slid an envelope under the door to the room, and he picked it up along with the free copy of The New York Times.
Inside the envelope was a handwritten note from Mike, the conference organizer:
Wanted to get you the questions for today’s Q&A in advance of the session. Good luck. —Mike
Behind it was a typed list of questions submitted by the press, which they planned to ask Adam and Amelia at the Q&A. Adam felt the blood drain from his face as he read the list:
What is your current relationship with the Dawson family? When was the last time you were in contact with them?
Are you aware of Mr. Dawson’s upcoming release from prison? Will you reach out to him?
Is Stanford aware of your criminal past? Do you worry about what will happen now that it’s public?
You’re on fellowship, meaning individual philanthropists fund much of your education. Do you feel a responsibility to tell them what you did?
How has Roger Fenway handled knowledge of your crime? Is he concerned about potential legal fallout?
When did you learn to hack through security walls? Have you ever done it since, for any purpose?
You know how to hack into very sophisticated systems. Is that how you infiltrated RemoteX and stole their technology?
Your peers have noticed that you are both wearing much more expensive clothes than you did a year ago. How have you funded your new wardrobes? Can you honestly say that your income is “clean”?
Every single question involved some aspect of Amelia’s past. And each was worded deceitfully. Even if Amelia’s answers to the questions were fair and honest, the way the questions were phrased made her sound like a criminal. Like the one about the fellowship: They weren’t even on fellowships anymore, but if someone in the public heard that question, all they’d focus on was this idea that Adam and Amelia were thieves taking advantage of naïve benefactors. It was appalling.
Adam felt his heart race. He looked at Amelia, still sleeping in the plush white bed. They’d gone to bed at 3:00 A.M., but he’d heard her get up in the middle of the night and was worried she wouldn’t sleep. He was relieved to see her sleeping so peacefully now and dreaded having to wake her. These questions were going to devastate her all over again. But they had to figure out what to do, and fast. The panel started in an hour.
Adam shook her gently. “Amelia?”
She rolled over and sighed with her eyes still closed. “I think I could get used to this bed,” she said, and smiled. She couldn’t remember them, but she knew that she’d had really nice dreams. Her smile turned into a grimace, though, when she saw Adam’s worried expression. “Oh God,” she moaned. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t freak out.”
But she could already feel serious anxiety setting in. She just couldn’t handle any more right now. She pulled her legs out from under the covers and put on her glasses. “What is it?”
“We got the questions for today’s Q&A. The journalists submitted them to Mike, and he slipped them under the door so we had time to prepare.”
“And?”
“And they’re all about your time in juvie and your hacking abilities.”
It felt like a nightmare. She fell into her pillow, shaking her head. “Why won’t they stop? Oh God, Adam, I hate this all so, so much.”
He didn’t know what to do. Amelia had always been the strong one, the one who could take a bad situation and rationally develop a plan of action. But she was in no state to solve this problem.
His mind raced. “We have to get them to cancel the Q&A.”
“How?” Amelia moaned from the pillow. “It’s why they all came. Adam, why did we ever do this? I just want to go home.”
“T.J. knows Mike, right?” Adam’s mind was suddenly lucid. “And, for that matter, everyone in the press. He can convince them not to ask those questions.”
“But he’s at the wedding, remember?”
“You have to go get him. No,” he reconsidered. “I’ll go get him. You might run into Ted Bristol.”
Adam scrambled to pull on a pair of shorts and a polo shirt—one that Lisa had helped him pick out—and dashed out the door. “Don’t worry about anything, Amelia. Order some room service and take a shower and I’ll figure this out, okay? Everything’s going to be fine.”
This was all going to work out. It had to.
57
Prepping and Primping
“Oh my God, you must be so nervous.”
Patty glanced up from the InStyle magazine in her lap and into the mirror at the very gay hairdresser wielding a hot curling iron and a coy grin. He was a super-thin, bald Asian guy, dressed completely in black, including thick plastic glasses, and he’d clearly had at least six cups of coffee already this morning, or a lot of something else. “Marc, with a C,” he’d introduced himself. Patty didn’t trust hairdressers who had no hair of their own.
She smiled politely. “Why would I be nervous?”
“Well, it’s your sister’s big day. I mean, I’d be totally nervous that I’d ruin it.”
Patty felt her cheeks burn. What did he know? She lifted her eyebrows and he quickly backtracked. “I mean, that I’d step on her dress or forget to grab her flowers or whatever.”
Whew, she thought. “No, I guess I’m not really that nervous.” She went back to the article about finding the right-fitting pair of skinny jeans.
“Ahhhh!!!!” Marc with a C squealed, dropping the curling iron in order to clap as he turned from Patty to Shandi, who had come out of her private room and was twirling in the middle of the Four Seasons salon for all to see, her veil perfectly affixed atop a knot of careful curls. Her bangs were swept gently across her forehead, and her makeup was flawless. Even in the tank top and shorts she was wearing, she looked like a princess.
The four other bridesmaids, two from college and two from Atherton, turned in their salon swivel chairs and chirped gleefully along with their respective stylists. Patty swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and called out, hoping she didn’t sound fake. “Oh, Shandi, you look so pretty.”
Not like Shandi heard, anyway. She was already at the mirror, examining each individual curl. “Are you sure?” she asked, pointlessly. Of course, everyone insisted she was absolutely mad if she thought she looked anything less than perfect.
Patty couldn’t wait for all this to be over. She’d gotten good enough at swimming to prove to herself that her athleticism matched that of her nationally ranked tennis-playing sister; getting into Stanford had validat
ed that she could match Shandi academically. But when it came to looks, Patty still felt totally, utterly inferior. She felt okay when Shandi wasn’t around. She could see that her legs were shapely, her stomach flat, her skin smooth, her face not so unattractive. But the minute Shandi came back into the picture, Patty felt like a fat cow. She looked at her sister’s thin frame and high cheekbones and knew that, even if she stopped eating for a month, she’d never be as pretty.
And all she could think about now, sitting here with her hair actually looking really amazing (maybe Marc with a C wasn’t such an idiot), was that she’d never get to feel the way Shandi felt right now, with everyone ooh-ing and ahh-ing around her. That on her own wedding day, when she ought to feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, Patty would come out of her private room, and Shandi would be sitting where Patty was sitting now, and, even in her veil, Patty would feel less beautiful than her effortlessly perfect matron-of-honor sister.
She put down the magazine. Now was not the time to be reading about skinny jeans.
When they were finished, the bridesmaids went up to their rooms to get dressed. Patty was following their lead when the photographer, who had been capturing the morning, asked her to stay behind. “I want to get a few shots of you helping your sister get ready. These are always fantastic.” She winked.
Patty grimaced, looking down at the workout suit she was wearing (why hadn’t anyone warned her the photographer would be on hand?) and reluctantly followed her sister to the bridal suite, where her $7,500 ivory-lace-with-buttons-down-the-back Vera Wang dress hung from a three-panel mirror.
The photographer instructed Patty quickly to put on her own dress while she sat Shandi on the chair at the vanity and directed her to peer into the gold oval mirror. “Just beautiful!” she kept saying.
Patty watched miserably as she slipped on the pale pink, empire-waist, floor-length strapless chiffon bridesmaid dress she assumed Shandi had picked out because it made her look especially like a blimp.
“Ready?” the photographer asked Patty, who nodded. “Okay, come help your sister put on her gown.”
Shandi slipped off her shorts and shirt, revealing the pristine white lace La Perla bra and underwear she’d saved for today. She looked like a lingerie model, her thin hips and shoulders balanced by round, firm breasts and butt. “Here, help me climb into this before Diane snaps one of me naked.” She motioned for Patty to come over.
Patty slipped the heavy gown off the hanger and, careful to avoid stepping on the fabric, knelt down so Shandi could support herself on Patty’s shoulder while she stepped into the dress. Patty stood behind her, carefully pulling shut the hook-and-eye clasps that lined the back, as the photographer snapped away.
When Patty was finished, she looked over her sister’s shoulder into the mirror, scanning the dress from the bottom all the way up to her sister’s face. But when she got to Shandi’s eyes, they were directed at Patty’s reflection, not her own. Shandi’s face was still and looked … sad.
She was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “You are so beautiful, Patty.”
Patty felt her skin tingle, but didn’t know what to say, and so said nothing. Shandi turned to face her, just a tiny glimmer of wetness in her blue eyes.
“I don’t know when you went from being my kid sister to such a gorgeous, strong woman, but I’m really, really sorry I wasn’t there—or wasn’t paying enough attention—to witness it.”
Patty shook her head and looked down at her feet, not knowing what else to do, but Shandi kept going. She reached her hands up and held her little sister’s cheeks in her hands. “Listen, you have something really special, Patty. Something I never had. You have fearlessness and decisiveness and a lust for life. And I don’t think I’ve ever told you, but I admire you so, so much for that.”
Normally, Patty would write off any affirmative thing her sister said as a backhanded compliment, a patronizing “Oh, you’re so lucky you have such a good appetite; I wish I could eat like you do!” kind of thing. But Shandi was actually being genuine.
Shandi took a deep breath and turned back to the mirror.
“Do I look okay?” she asked, really seeming to mean it.
This Patty could answer, honestly. She whispered, “You look absolutely stunning, Shandi. Completely, completely beautiful.”
“I’m so nervous, Patty,” Shandi confessed, swallowing hard.
“Don’t be!” Patty said, suddenly jumping at the opportunity to be her sister’s cheerleader. “You’re going to do everything just right. And even if you don’t, no one will notice. They’ll be too busy admiring how perfect you look.”
“Not about getting things right,” Shandi said slowly. “I mean, about the whole thing. About whether I’m doing the right thing. But I guess it’s too late.” She tried to laugh.
Patty felt her heart clench. Did “about the whole thing” mean “about Chad”?
“No!” Patty exclaimed. “I mean, I feel like it must be totally normal to have doubts right before the big moment, but seriously, Shandi, you shouldn’t. Chad is unbelievable. Totally unbelievable. He’s smart and funny and gorgeous and … you are going to have an amazing life together.”
“You’re the lucky one, Patty.” Shandi neither agreed nor disagreed with what Patty had just said. “You’ve got your whole life in front of you. Can do whatever you want, nothing to tie you down. And you’ve got the personality and courage to do it, you know? Even if I still had your freedom, I’m not sure I’d have your courage to take advantage of it.”
“You’re twenty-three!” Patty laughed. “You’re not exactly old! And you’ve got everything in front of you, plus you’ve got a partner to do it all with!”
Shandi gave her a thanks-but-you-couldn’t-possibly-understand smile. It wasn’t condescending, just … sad.
The photographer coughed softly from the corner. Both sisters had forgotten she was there.
“Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but your mother wants to take a few private pictures with the bride.”
“Of course!” Shandi quickly snapped herself back into wedding mode, her eyes shining brightly in fully confident, self-absorbed, happy-bride fashion.
“Thanks so much for your help, Patty,” she chirped as she followed the photographer out to meet their mother.
58
You Can’t Win All the Time
Adam punched the elevator call button furiously. “Come on!” he yelled at the button. Now was the chance to be a hero, and he wasn’t going to miss it. The doors finally opened and he rode the elevator to the lobby, dashing to the front desk.
“Where’s the Hawkins-Bronson wedding?” he belted.
“It’s in the Hibiscus Grove, down the street. The next shuttle should be leaving in about five minutes.”
Adam didn’t have five minutes. He rushed outside and stopped under the porte cochere, desperate for a solution. The doorman was helping a woman out of a red Porsche Carrera GT while her husband stood with the bags waiting for the valet. Adam rushed to the valet stand and grabbed a blank ticket. He ripped the ticket in half and gave the bottom portion to the man, who looked at Adam’s khaki shorts and flip-flops suspiciously.
“Our valet had an emergency phone call,” Adam said calmly. “I’m an office intern, and they asked me to stand in until he’s back.”
Adam glanced nervously over the man’s shoulder, spotting the real valet coming back. But the man seemed satisfied and handed Adam the key. Adam grabbed it, skipped quickly to the driver’s side, and sped off toward the Hibiscus Grove, his adrenaline pumping with the $450,000 accelerator under his foot.
He left the car outside the small villa nestled next to the Hibiscus Grove and dashed through the door onto the terrace. Elegantly dressed, beautiful people were milling around, sipping champagne, all smiles for the half-dozen photographers swarming the crowd. Adam’s eyes darted around, looking for T.J. Where was he?
He ran to one wall of the terrace. If he stood on it, he could get a be
tter view of the crowd. He climbed up and peered out, his heart racing with adrenaline. “T.J., where are you?” he muttered under his breath.
He scanned the crowd. But his eyes darted back to the corner. Did he just see what he thought he saw? Who was that standing under the palm tree? It couldn’t be …
Adam’s heart sank. No, it didn’t sink; it collapsed, crashed, plummeted to the center of the Earth. All the blood in his head rushed to support it and he felt like he was going to faint. Lisa—his Lisa—was in the gazebo. And she was kissing—it couldn’t be!—the Indian guy from the incubator.
He shuddered. He didn’t know how to process this. What the hell was going on? He climbed off the wall and sat down. He needed a drink. A waiter passed by with a tray of mimosas, and he grabbed one. He had to see it again, to confirm. He walked closer to the gazebo. There was no doubt: Lisa and Sundeep were holding hands. He was smiling and whispering in her ear and she was laughing, tossing her head, her perfectly sculpted golden curls falling down her back. Adam downed the mimosa and grabbed another.
“Did you decide to crash the wedding?”
Adam turned his head toward the voice. The man with the Scotch from last night stood next to him, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a glass of champagne.
“Are you okay?” the man asked, noticing Adam’s distraught expression.
Adam took a deep breath and tried to refocus on why he had come. “I have to find T.J.,” he stammered. “T.J. Bristol. Do you know him?”
The man chuckled. “Sure, he’s my son. He’s right over here.”
Ted turned to motion for T.J., who was standing close by, chatting with an older woman, and so didn’t see the stunned expression on Adam’s face. Holy shit. That’s where he’d seen this guy before; at the party last June, giving the toast for T.J. His brain couldn’t handle all of this.
Ted turned back before Adam had time to recover his expression. He lifted his eyebrows in a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-this-kid grimace as T.J. broke away from his conversation and joined them.
