Against the Claw

by Shari Randall

  “Thanks, gorgeous.” He sprinted back to his friends playing corn hole on the other side of the pool.

  “You know him? Is he taken?” one woman asked.

  “Forget it. He’s with Eden,” her friend said. “Plays guitar in her band. I think they’re an item.”

  “Musicians are always trouble.”

  Some are worth it, I thought.

  “How can they be an item?” the friend said. “She’s built like a bowling ball. Plus what about that other guy? Lars. I thought they were together?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” The first woman shrugged. “Eden’s a big star. She can have anyone she wants. Come on, let’s go to the gypsy fortune-teller tent.”

  I scanned the crowd. Eden! Was Eden here?

  Eden was a singer as famous for her mysterious origins as for her amazing voice. Even though she refused all interviews, her face was on the cover of every magazine in Mystic Bay Drug.

  I threw one last glance at Henry Small and continued my circuit through Stellene’s sleek guests: actors, models, a couple of Bollywood stars, even politicians. The mayor of Mystic Bay, Keats Packer, and his wife, Blythe, sat poolside. Keats smiled. His wife turned her back on me.

  A towering NBA star swooped my last three lobster rolls in one hand and asked me to pose in a selfie. I obliged.

  After refilling my tray, I circulated on the patio, daydreaming of handsome Henry Small and listening for interesting gossip.

  “Tinsley launches her new jewelry line this fall. They’re doing a big splashy debut. Took oodles of advertising.”

  Stellene’s daughter was designing jewelry? Interesting.

  The voice lowered, conspiratorially. “You know what happened to her in Greece, right?”

  I tacked right and silently offered my tray to the group. A tiny woman with cornrowed hair languidly waved me off with a hand sparkling with diamonds.

  “Tinsley always was the wild child. She was at a party, a rave they call them? On some island in Greece on spring break.” Diamonds sipped her gin and tonic as I moved slowly around the group. “Well, some creeps gave her some local stuff called a bombe. It’s like drinking ethanol. She almost didn’t survive.”

  Someone said, “Poor little rich girl.”

  Diamonds threw me a look and I moved on to a group wearing Mystic Bay Yacht Club blazers.

  “You know Stellene had a whole medical suite put in here when she renovated,” a sweaty, red-faced man slurred and waved his drink. “For her face-lifts.”

  “Shut up,” a woman with him hissed.

  “Common knowledge.” The drunk man winked at me. “Hey, fish girl, how about one of those lobster rolls?”

  I angled the tray between us, pasting on a smile. He leered and tried to pick up two rolls in his free hand, spilling lobster on the platter. As soon as he had them, I spun away with my now empty serving tray. I didn’t want to be around when the lobster hit the floor.

  * * *

  Instead of returning to the kitchen to replenish my tray, I pushed through the heavy wooden door near the conservatory. To the right was the hallway leading to the servants’ quarters where Lorel and I had changed.

  My feet were killing me. The muscles in my face were frozen in an unconvincing smile. I stood in front of a grandfather clock. Eight forty-five. We were supposed to stop serving before the fireworks began a little after nine P.M. Close enough. Five minutes with my feet up would be heaven.

  The sound of water trickling in a fountain beckoned me to the conservatory. I started down the marble hallway past an open door. The room beyond was dark, but light from the party spilled in through a tall window. A gleam caught my eye.

  I stepped into the room. To my right was a table with a lamp. I switched it on.

  I gasped. Instead of what I expected—artwork, crystal, marble—weapons covered the walls: swords, guns, and rifles. Long guns and short guns, some with bayonets affixed. Hunting scenes on the wall broke up row after row of guns. What on earth was this door doing open? My skin prickled, but I slowly circuited the room, making my footsteps soft. This room was certainly supposed to be off-limits.

  Color photos on the fireplace mantel were the only nonweapon items in the room. One photo caught my eye. A girl with long honey-colored braids waved from a double kayak. I picked it up.

  The girl in the front grinned so wide her braces and orange elastics were visible. Behind her a woman with white-blond hair held her paddle over her head. Her chin was lifted, regal. Stellene Lupo. Behind them was Cat Island and beyond that Fishers Island. I set the photo down carefully. The guns made me nervous. I turned off the light and left the room, closing the door firmly behind me.

  I went into the conservatory. Much better—the air was humid and fragrant with the scent of dozens of tropical plants. The glass walls framed the patio where guests stood under strings of fairy lights glowing like stars. The room was instantly soothing, lovely as any stage set.

  White-painted metal garden furniture surrounded a large marble table. I set down my sterling serving tray. Leave it to Stellene to use old-fashioned, heavy silver trays. I kneaded my aching arms, settled on one of the couches, and put my feet up. The plush cushions cradled my body. I sighed.

  “I know. They’re so comfortable,” a soft voice said.

  I sat bolt upright. A girl about my age emerged from the shadows behind a fountain, one of those old-fashioned ones with a draped nymph pouring an urn of water.

  “Sorry—”

  The girl laughed and flicked on a wall sconce. “Scared you, huh?” She was dressed in a vibrant red and pink Lily Pulitzer sundress with a red scarf loose around her shoulders. She tilted her head, sending her honey-colored wavy hair cascading over her shoulder. Her striking light blue eyes were circled with heavy mascara and green eye shadow. It was the girl in the gun room photo, grown up.

  I swung my feet to the floor. “I’m Allie Larkin. With the Lazy Mermaid.”

  The girl laughed, a sparkling sound like the water splashing from the nymph’s urn. “With that getup I never would have guessed. I know. I’m Tinsley. I asked my mom to have you guys cater. I was at the shack earlier this summer. Loved it. I just had to have my own sideshow mermaids for the party.”

  What Tinsley wants Tinsley gets.

  She laughed again, a short bark. “Sorry about the whole mermaid getup. You do know you’re auditioning?”

  “Auditioning?” My eyes flicked to the corners of the room. Were there cameras? “For what?”

  Tinsley leaned a hip against the table. “My mom and I saw you dance last year in Boston. You did Swan Lake.”

  “One of my favorite roles.” I suppressed a pang of regret.

  “You were one of the four swans,” Tinsley said. “You stood out.”

  As a principal dancer, I’d had a role in the famous pas de quatre called the Dance of the Little Swans. With three other dancers, I did the difficult and precise traditional choreography with cross-linked hands.

  “Yeah, the red hair.” I shrugged.

  Tinsley shook her head. “No, it was the way you moved. You had me believing you were a magical creature.”

  A warm blush crept up my neck. “Thank you.”

  Tinsley pulled an orchid close, let it snap back. A couple of purple petals fluttered from her fingers.

  The clink of glassware, a shout from the pool, and laughter from the party filtered in through the room’s glass walls but now I felt as if I were under a microscope.

  “What do you mean, auditioning?” I said.

  Tinsley tilted her head and looked down her nose, hawklike. Her dress and petite frame made her appear very young, but her look was knowing. The secretiveness annoyed me. I stood so she had to look up at me.

  Tinsley arranged her scarf high on her chin. “My mother had this idea about using real people for models. But only special real people. Eden’s guitarist, Henry Small. A couple of my friends for a shoot in Montauk. She thinks you’d be a great model.” She smiled, then tipped her chin
and mouth behind her scarf. “I think so, too.”

  My hand flew to the mermaid crown. “No one’s told me anything about this.”

  “My mother doesn’t realize how much I know,” she said.

  Footsteps squeaked in the marble hallway. “Miss Lupo?”

  A sturdy woman in a nurse’s uniform, complete with white stockings and white rubber-soled shoes, rushed into the conservatory. Sweat shone on her upper lip. She took a deep breath to compose herself. “It’s time to go upstairs.”

  Tinsley rolled her eyes. “Okay, Olga. Gotta go. Nice to meet you, Allie.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I parroted, taken aback. A nurse?

  “I’ll see you soon.” She said it like a statement of fact. The nurse held an arm just behind but not touching Tinsley as the women walked out of the room.

  A nurse? What was that about? What had I heard while serving lobster rolls? Something about Tinsley in Greece?

  And modeling? Sure, it was flattering, but talk about out of left field. I already had one job I was dying to get back to, I didn’t need another.

  Still, modeling could be fun.

  I slinked toward a gilt-encrusted mirror over a marble bench. Looking in the mirror was a mistake. Dark gray circles ringed my eyes. Just get through the night, fish girl. My bed was going to feel fantastic after this.

  Footsteps whispered along the hallway. Lorel poked her head in the conservatory door. “There you are.” She joined me in front of the mirror and squinted at her reflection. “Ugh.”

  “Maybe it’s the lighting in here.”

  “Just one very long day,” Lorel said.

  Footsteps thudded down the hallway.

  “Oh, no, I hope it’s not that Australian tennis player,” Lorel whispered. “He’s an octopus.”

  We crouched behind the fountain.

  The very tan, muscular bald man I’d seen following Lorel earlier jogged into the room, looked around, then exited through the French doors to the colonnade. He left the doors open.

  Lorel exhaled. I laughed.

  “How can you laugh? Plenty of hungry sharks were after you, too.”

  I pulled on the straps of my mermaid top. “These outfits are way too alluring. Let’s put our work T-shirts back on.”

  “What’ll Stellene say?” Lorel twisted her hands. “Stellene’ll be angry.”

  A mosquito buzzed on my bare shoulder. I smacked it. “We’re done. Stellene can walk around in a clamshell bikini and see how she likes it.”

  Chapter 16

  Fireworks blossomed over Harmony Harbor, tendrils of white ice arcing across the sky. Bursts of red, green, and gold followed, huge chrysanthemums of light one after another.

  Looking down on the bay from the patio of Harmony Harbor, the effect was one of two fireworks displays: one in the sky for the earth dwellers and a mirror-image show for those beneath the waves. At the point the sky met the surface of the water, dozens of shadow boats, from satellite-topped yachts to fishing dories and a few suicidal kayaks, bobbed on the light-dazzled sea.

  In the distance, Mystic Bay’s fireworks rumbled and thundered, the lights a miniature version of the ones shot from Stellene’s hired barge out in the bay.

  The last starburst boomed and fizzled into the ocean. Smoke and the pungent scent of spent explosive rolled toward us. Lorel and I had slipped our Lazy Mermaid T-shirts over our clamshell bikinis and squeezed into a tucked-away spot next to an urn on the low wall enclosing the patio. The Australian tennis player was nowhere to be seen.

  After the grand finale fireworks, Stellene’s guests whooped and cheered. Applause carried on the warm night air. Then the thin note of a violin threaded its way through the chatter. Voices hushed and heads swiveled as guests tried to find the source of the music.

  I traced the sound high up on the west wing of the mansion. A blue spotlight bloomed on an ivy-covered marble balcony. A woman stepped into the light holding a jeweled half-mask on a stick in front of her face. She was dressed in—light. Her dress, with a high ruff behind her head like Queen Elizabeth I, glowed and strobed with rainbow hues. She lowered the mask. The crowd gasped.

  Lorel squeezed my arm. “I can’t believe it! That’s Eden!”

  Eden! Eden! The name traveled through the crowd. Cell phones and cameras were lifted.

  As Eden sang, the crowd danced and I lost myself in the music. Even Lorel, usually a stick in the mud, swayed with me, her eyes shining. Many revelers held giant sparklers and twirled them in the air in time to the music.

  Henry Small sat on the edge of a table by the pool, his face raised, the torchlight hollowing his cheekbones, his blond hair long and curling over his ears. Two women sat on the table on either side, their arms looped around him. Two more women sat in chairs by his legs. One woman rested her hand on his knee. Their stillness made a statue of a careless god surrounded by worshipful goddesses. All four women looked at Henry, not the woman singing from the balcony. Henry sang along, indifferent to his audience. With difficulty, I turned my gaze back toward the singer.

  Eden moved stiffly, with almost robotic movements, but the deep tone of her voice made me think of honey, golden, dark, sweet.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a tall, striking woman on the patio. Her long, straight silver hair shone like the sterling candelabra on the table behind her. Her chin was lifted, her back straight. Regal.

  Stellene Lupo. She was rapt, her hands folded and held to her lips, but she smiled broadly. Once again she’d cemented her reputation of giving the party of the summer. Who else could get Eden?

  Then it hit me. The song Eden had just sung was one I’d heard dozens of times at rehearsal. All week we’d been blocking a show for an opera singer no one had ever heard of, who would be slotted into the show at the last minute. Some names had been floated, but suddenly I was certain that Ondine was meant to be a showcase for this woman who was casting a spell over the crowd at Stellene’s party. Eden.

  A tall man moved next to Stellene, bent close to speak to her. Mac Macallen. He was dressed in a navy blazer over an open-collar shirt with an ascot. An ascot! On anyone else it would look ridiculous, but Mac owned it. Stellene leaned into him and he put one arm around her waist. With the other hand he raised a flute of champagne in a toast toward the balcony. Ah. Their friendship made sense. Their worlds overlapped. Modeling. Money. Music. Theater.

  I turned back to Eden. Just outside the ring of light encircling her, farther down the façade of the mansion, two shadows moved on another balcony: one stocky, dressed in white, bent from the waist then straightened. The other figure was seated.

  The song ended, Eden waved, the light blacked out. The audience exploded in applause and a last barrage of fireworks shot from the barge offshore. This time the fireworks were all silver and white, a fountain of diamonds that showered the partygoers with glittering light.

  For a moment, these fireworks illuminated the two people on the balcony, Olga the nurse and Tinsley. Why weren’t they downstairs at the party?

  Stellene and Mac headed into the conservatory. Her laughter rang on the marble walls.

  Moments later, Stellene’s footmen moved through the crowd with trays of sparklers. House music by a DJ on the patio amped the party energy. Strings of fireworks popped by the waterfront. Guests whooped and cannonballed into the pool, some wandered down to the private beach. Couples drifted into the long shadows of the gardens on either side of the house.

  Henry Small and his goddesses were gone.

  Lorel and I went to the kitchen, passing servers hefting platters of all-American desserts: miniature pies, chocolate chip cookies the size of a dinner plate, stacks of brownies.

  I snagged a pie as I passed.

  Lorel shot me a disapproving look.

  “What?” I bit into the pie. Gooey cherries filled my mouth. Bliss.

  “We’re staff, not guests.” Lorel folded her arms.

  I licked my fingers. “This staffer is starving.”

  In the mass
ive kitchen, caterers packed equipment while Stellene’s servants cleaned, their traditional black dresses and frilly white aprons standing out among the colorful chefs’ jackets. Aunt Gully tucked a wooden spoon into the plastic laundry basket holding her cooking essentials: her pink Lazy Mermaid apron, her lucky utensils and pots, and her secret ingredients in large glass canning jars.

  “Note to self,” Lorel muttered. “Get rid of Aunt Gully’s crummy old laundry basket.”

  “You girls ready?” Aunt Gully hugged Yasmin. “Thank you for your help, Yasmin. Anytime you want to come to the Mermaid, you’re welcome.”

  “Wait, we have to get a photo in our costumes.” Lorel and I removed our mermaid crowns then pulled off our T-shirts. Everyone crowded closer to admire the intricate beading on our crowns and clamshell tops.

  Zoe Parker strutted through the kitchen door carrying a small gift bag. Her beautiful sky-high stilettos clacked across the tile.

  “I have a little surprise for you, Mrs. Fontana, to thank you for the wonderful job you did tonight. And for you, Lorel and Allie.” Zoe reached into the bag and pulled out three gift boxes tied with red, white, and blue ribbons—the party favors I’d seen stacked on the table in the conservatory. Excitement buzzed through me.

  “Tinsley and Stellene wanted you to have them.” Zoe handed Aunt Gully a long, thin box and gave Lorel and me two identical square boxes.

  “Well, isn’t that the nicest thing? Thank you. Please thank them for me.” Aunt Gully admired the wrapping. It was beautiful, but I tore into mine, revealing a pink velvet box. I lifted the lid and tilted it. Underneath in curling gold script it read Treasures by Tinsley. Inside was a baby-blue leather bracelet, woven through with little silver medallions, like the coins on a belly dancer’s belt. The coins shimmied and caught the light.

  Lorel’s was the same as mine.

  “Oh!” Aunt Gully pulled out a necklace with a large hammered-silver medallion on a chain strung with crystal beads. “Really, this is too much.”

  “These are designs from Tinsley’s new line of jewelry,” Zoe said. “Won’t be made available to the public until the fall.”