“Did a bomb go off back there?” Daria asked. She stepped back and let Isabel sit in the middle in front.
“Pay no attention to the mess behind the seat,” Isabel said, sliding in. She got a good look at Jonny. “Where did you make that appear from? A magic hat?”
“This old thing?” He shot the cuffs of his sports jacket. “A gentleman is always prepared.”
Daria gave directions into a gated community near the lake. The security guard curled a lip at the car and waved them through.
The shack turned out to be a mock Tudor mansion set in a football field of immaculate grass and towering oaks and pines. They parked in front of the five-car garage and walked through a flower garden to the back door. Jonny had done drawings for houses like this, lots of them, and he could almost guess the floor plan from the outside. The library, the study, the enormous kitchen with butler’s pantry, the media room. This one was tasteful and expensive. And big enough to house the Chicago Bears training camp.
The girls disappeared upstairs. The helping part was a ruse apparently. There was no point in helping the staff or the scads of caterers. They had things well in hand, running in all directions in white shirts and black slacks. Jonny stayed out of their way, wandering through cream silk rooms full of deadly sweet lilies. A caterer bumped into him, almost tossing a huge silver tray. He tiptoed back into the yard and admired the roses. His mother’s were prettier but these weren’t bad. Wandering the yard he found a pool tucked away behind a building big enough for a family of five. A pool house, somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed. He stretched out on a chaise on the terrace and promptly fell asleep.
People started arriving within fifteen minutes of the end of the service. Daria had collapsed in her old bedroom and Isabel was in the bathroom when the housekeeper, Solana, knocked on the door. Guests. No point in calling them mourners. Daria smoothed her dress and went downstairs. Isabel took a shower, dried her hair, and put on some mascara. She slipped back into her sleeveless black dress and flats. She looked terrible in black, she thought, biting her lips for a little color.
By the time she got downstairs the living room was full and the line at the makeshift bar was ten deep. Guests were devouring the rich spread on the dining room table: elaborate canapés, petit fours, French cheese, caviar. Her cousin Frick was into the champagne. He poured her a glass.
“So we meet again under such sad circumstances,” Frick said with a smirk. “How are the bees doing?”
“Fine. As if you care.” Isabel sipped the champagne. “Have you seen our mothers?”
“Not yet. Still time to party.” He poured himself another glass then startled. “Oh, Jesus, there’s my brother.”
Half-brother, more accurately, from his mother’s first marriage to a wealthy New Englander who decided he liked men better than women. Tall and as straight-laced as a Boston banker can be, James made his way through the crowd to Isabel. He kissed her on the cheek and shook Frick’s hand.
“Is that for me?” James asked, looking at the champagne in Frick’s hand.
“No but I’ll pour you one if you promise not to tell Lulu.”
James promised nothing. “Where is our mother?”
“At the cemetery. Did you just get in?”
“Couldn’t get an early flight. I had some business this morning anyway. What have you been up to, Isabel? I haven’t seen you for ages.”
Isabel sketched in her summer for him and his eyes glazed over. He was a capitalist, a chip off several silver-forged blocks, so it was hard to blame him. Still, enthusiasm for something besides money might have made him a little more interesting. She asked him if he had a special someone in his life.
He looked at her hard, as if she was asking if he was gay like his father, the last thing on her mind. Once in junior high, she’d wandered into the pool house and discovered James with his pants around his ankles, riding a sorority girl.
“I’ve been seeing a girl, thanks for asking. She’s getting her doctorate at BU. Psychology.”
“BU?” Frick sneered. “P-U. Couldn’t she get into Harvard?”
James himself hadn’t gotten into Harvard, but it was unclear if Frick knew that. “That where you’re headed, Fred?”
“Or Yale. Stanford’s my safety school.”
Isabel excused herself. Aging neighbors were a relief from male posturing. If Frick made it into any of those schools— oh, who was she kidding? He’d probably be president of Young Republicans at Yale next year. She made the rounds of the room, greeting as many people as would catch her eye, then headed to the kitchen. Solana was taking a break, sitting down with a cup of coffee. Isabel accepted a hug and talked to the housekeeper awhile, asked about her children and grandchildren. The kitchen window overlooked the back gardens cloaked in twilight. She could just make out the garage and several cars parked there. The Fairlane looked like a poor relation, which of course it was. Jon! Where was he?
“Have you seen the guy we came with?” Solana hadn’t. Isabel excused herself, slipping out the back door. She was looking inside the Fairlane at her mess when her parents drove up in the black Mercedes.
This would be the first time she’d spoken to her mother. Isabel was stiff, waiting for Edie’s greeting, if there was to be one. She always braced herself for conversation with her mother. Edie and Max got out of the car, Lulu and her husband Chuck emerging from the back seat. Max took Isabel’s arm and walked her around the car.
Edie was pale, her hair pulled into a tight twist. She straightened her shoulders, pausing in front of her daughter. “Is everything going all right?”
“Solana has—” Isabel paused. “I’m so sorry, Mother.”
Edie’s face twitched. “It’s been a long day,” she said. Then she turned on her heel and walked to the house.
An hour later, the house bursting with business associates, relatives, and neighbors, Frick whispered to Isabel that he’d gone swimming and there was someone sleeping by the pool. A bum, maybe a thief, he said excitedly. Her cousin waved an uncorked bottle of champagne by the neck, already quite drunk. Isabel grabbed it and a couple glasses, plunging out into the yard. She kicked off her shoes in the lawn. The grass tickled her feet. She was a little tipsy herself. The smell of the lake, fishy and rotting, was comforting. The buzz from the champagne made her feel light, as if she could fly across the grass.
The evening was warm. Fireflies flew in lazy circles. Out on the water a flapping sound like a duck. Through the trees lamplight streaked across the lake in golden ripples. She rounded the corner of the pool house and stopped on the flagstones. Where was he? The light was almost gone. She could make out lumps that must be lawn chairs, and the edge of the pool.
“Jon?” Her whisper seemed too loud.
The quiet of the night crept up from the lake, the croaking of frogs and the hoot of an owl off in the woods. She peered into the shadows. “Are you there?”
Then, two hands grabbed her from behind. “Boo!”
The next thing she knew, a piercing pain stabbed her foot. Glass, broken. She’d dropped the glasses but hung onto the bottle somehow. She was cursing, hopping, then trying not to hop. Where was the glass? He was jumping around, apologizing, trying to grab her. In the dark they couldn’t see anything. “Don’t move!” Suddenly she was off her feet. Jonny had picked her up and was carrying her and her bleeding foot toward the pool house.
“Open the door,” he said from behind her neck. He had pinned her arms to her sides so he had to lower her to reach the knob. She felt his breath and the strength of his arms. He deposited her on the sofa and flipped on the light.
Blood was everywhere, on his jeans and shoes, on the tile, on her foot. Isabel picked up her foot, crossing it over her knee, and began picking out slivers of glass. Jonny went into the bathroom and returned with a wet towel.
“What an idiot. Sorry.” He frowned, kneeling in front of her, dabbing the towel to her cuts. “Did you get the glass out? Is the other okay?” He took her left foot,
the uninjured one, stretching out her leg to look at it. “Looks okay. So you’ll be able to hobble around, maybe.”
“Don’t bring glass to the pool. I’ve been told a hundred times.”
Jonny went back into the bathroom and emerged with a box of bandages. He dried off the cuts, three large ones and two tiny punctures, and applied the bandages. He was solemn and kept apologizing. His touch was gentle and warm.
“You make a very good nurse,” she said, smiling. She didn’t care about the cuts. They didn’t hurt at all. She laid her head back on the sofa, her foot in his hands. “Have you thought of a career in medicine?”
“This is probably the first time the sight of blood hasn’t made me queasy.”
“Ah. So my blood is special?”
“Must be.” He pressed the adhesive ends of the bandages one last time. “There. I think you’ll live.” He stood up. “And I am really sorry for scaring you.”
“I forgive you. If you can find some cups we can finish this champagne.”
While he rummaged in the cupboards Isabel noticed her dress was hiked up almost to her crotch. She tugged it down a couple inches. Jonny brought yellow plastic cups and poured them each champagne. He sat on the sofa. “Cheers.”
They sipped then Isabel asked: “Why did you drive me here?”
He shrugged. “It seemed important to you. You were crying, remember.”
“So crying works on you?”
He looked sideways at her legs, then up to her face. “Was it an act?”
“Of course not. I’m not that kind of person.”
“I didn’t think so. I mean, I don’t really know you.”
Isabel felt the charge of the moment slip away. He didn’t know her. But she had the advantage of meeting his family, seeing where he grew up. All this— Edie and Max’s world— had to be weird for someone from Red Vine.
“Yeah, this house. Right out of ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Full of shallow women and men who love power.” She gulped down the rest of her champagne.
“It’s nice,” he said. “The house.”
She laughed out loud. “You don’t have to pretend.”
He smiled at her. “Okay. It’s a bit over the top. In the vein of Al Capone.”
“Very kind.” She frowned. “One thing you should know about me. I’m not like them. I don’t take their money. I got scholarships. I pay my own way. I’m emancipated.”
“Ah, you’re a feminist.”
“But— legally. When I was eighteen I hired a lawyer and got legally emancipated from my parents.”
“Why?”
“You haven’t met my parents. It was a matter of life or death.”
“That sounds serious.”
“Oh, it is.”
“Maybe you need some more champagne.” He refilled their plastic cups.
“My father wants to meet you. Because you drove me back, that’s all.” She cringed behind her cup. It sounded like she’d made some announcement to her father about him. “But you don’t have to. You don’t have to meet any of them. For your sanity, you shouldn’t.” She raised her cup to his.
He sat back against the sofa. His jeans were splattered with her blood but he’d managed to clean his shoes. “Do you want to watch TV?” he asked. A huge flat-screen hung on the wall opposite the sofa.
“One big capitalist conspiracy, television.”
He smiled. “To part you from your money?”
“Exactly.”
“So your parents, are they part of the conspiracy?”
“You’re teasing me.” She felt woozy suddenly and wedged her cup between her knees. Her injured foot lay on a pile of pillows. She wiggled her toes. “This place is like a poster child for the bored wealthy. Let’s see how much money we can make, then spend it on stuff to impress the neighbors. They bought the whole moneyed class thing, hook, line and sinker. Greed. Money. Consumption. Living well is the best revenge and all that.”
“So you don’t buy it?”
“You really don’t know me, do you.”
She drained her cup. The room was spinning. She should go back to the house and eat something, or go to bed, or something. She struggled to her feet then cried out.
Jonny grabbed her, sat her back down. “Whoa now. Your foot is cut up, remember?”
He was being so sweet, so helpful. He was so close now. Sitting hip to hip, his arm still around her waist. He felt warm, safe. She closed her eyes. Why was she doing this to herself? She would count, see how long until he moved away. She made a bet: five seconds, max. Thousand-one…
He removed his arm on thousand-three. Loser again.
He poured himself more champagne. Quiet now, no smart banter. Maybe she’d scared him with her populist leanings. Maybe he thought she was like Daria or Edie. That’ll teach him. The spinning slowed down and she closed her eyes again, leaning her head against the wall.
“Oh crap,” she whispered. “I should go to bed.”
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll get your shoes.”
Full dark now, the sky had cleared and stars popped out. Jonny found a broom and stepped out onto the patio. The pool shone blue and glittery like the inside of a seashell. Light from the house streamed across the lawn. The trees made long shadows like stripes. He swept up the broken glass then set off in search of her shoes.
He looked back through the glass doors of the pool house. Isabel seemed so normal drunk. Sweet. Talkative. A bit of a radical but he was okay with that. How did that fit with what Kiki told him? Isabel had a lot of opinions but she didn’t seem the cruel type. Daria, the talker, maybe. He could see her gossiping. He’d known girls like that, attacking the weakest to show their power.
The mansion seemed to grow as he moved across the lawn, the windows alive with lights and people. This high-flying, big money, big city life was a world he’d only seen on television. The Twin Cities, as big and diverse as they were, were mostly full of Minnesotans, friendly, unpretentious shit-kickers and Birkenstock-wearers. But people are the same everywhere. They have families, they love or hate them, win them or lose them. The Yancey’s had lost this week, but they’d win another week. They were used to winning.
Through the dining room window he saw people standing around the table, candles flickering, glasses sparkling. The women were slim and fashionable, the men all wore dark, neat suits. He couldn’t imagine this in Red Vine, home to the Minnesota Hot Dish and Blueberry Fest. Not a burgundy tuxedo in sight.
The lifestyle was conspicuously wealthy, the house overlarge, the cars exotic and powerful, the people stiff and formal— but he didn’t find it disgusting. It wasn’t the way he would live but there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with it. Few would reject what it offered. Except apparently, Isabel. Strange to find your own parents so disgusting. His parents were difficult, old-fashioned and slightly unhinged. But he didn’t find them repulsive.
He found her shoes in the shadow of a tall pine. Back at the pool house her eyes were shut. She twitched when he opened the door. He slipped them on her feet and helped her up. “You okay?”
She took a step and cried out. “I don’t think…”
“Here you go.” Jonny put her arm over his neck. “Try not to put much pressure on that foot.”
They limped out of the pool house, across the grass, Isabel on the toes of the bad foot, hanging tight to his neck. She was pretty light, he could pick her up again. Maybe he should, he was thinking as she lost her grip and tipped sideways. He righted her with both hands around her waist.
“Upsy-daisy. Okay?”
She grabbed his shoulders, her head falling onto his chest. “I am so drunk,” she said, her voice muffled. “I should never drink champagne.”
He leaned back to tip up her chin. “It’s okay.” He could see the starlight reflected in her eyes. Her skin glowed in the shine of the moon. They exchanged champagne breath, moist and sweet. Her mouth. She kissed him. And despite himself, or maybe because it had been a long time since he’d kissed anyo
ne, he kissed her back. She tasted tangy and sharp, like honey and strong cheese.
Sometimes when he was kissing a girl he didn’t really know— long ago— it just felt clinical. No chemistry. Not so with Isabel. Things got warm. Quickly. It wasn’t just that he was out of practice. He felt something odd, like the earth tilting. Wind rustled the pinecones high in the trees. Champagne swam in his head. Her lips were soft and accepting. She pressed against him, he heard himself moan. He ran his hand down her back, sliding down, pulling her into him. He wanted her, he realized. Badly. And yet.
He stepped back, catching his breath. “Whoa there, Queen Bee.”
Her mouth was open and wet. He wanted to kiss her again, reached out for her. Then stopped himself. They were drunk. She dropped her arms to her sides. Her face was flushed and moist. She straightened, eyebrows together. He had a hard time reading her.
“The Queen Bee. That’s right. So high and mighty.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You think you know me. Who I am. You make assumptions that I’m a— a snob. A rich snob. This enormous house, this palace, that makes me untouchable? Money makes me who I am? You have no idea how I’ve tried to— These people, my parents, they aren’t me! They have no idea who I am.”
“I’m sorry. I—” He reached for her again but she pulled her hand away.
“You’re like all the others. You see money and it blinds you.”
“I didn’t know you were rich until Kiki told me.”
“Kiki? Oh, sweet little Monica. How kind of her to fill you in. She’s your new girlfriend, is she?” She stepped closer, angry now. Her eyes were ablaze, their dark centers impossible to fathom. “She flatters you. Tells you all about me. She has you wrapped around her finger. But think again, Mr. Polka Hottie. She likes you because of me. She couldn’t stand it that I was there in Red Vine with you. She is jealous. Of me! Impossible, right? Who likes the Queen Bee, right? Here’s what you don’t get. Monica Calhoun doesn’t like me. She wants to be me.”
All Your Pretty Dreams Page 14
