Pretty Things

by Janelle Brown

  I remembered then, with sickening understanding, the fight between my parents that I overheard through the heating ducts: Your addictions are going to destroy us all. Women and cards and who knows what else you’re hiding from me.

  The trust that Benny and I had been drawing off of was nearly empty—drained dry by the cost of Benny’s private institute and my high-flying Insta-lifestyle, and never replenished. Even our family’s holdings in the Liebling Group weren’t worth much anymore. The company never did quite bounce back from the recession, its debt load was staggering, and the Liebling family shares had been so sliced and diced throughout the generations that each branch now possessed just a sliver. Benny and I couldn’t sell them even if we wanted to.

  What we did have left after Daddy died: our house in Pacific Heights, the Stonehaven estate, and everything inside their walls. Benny inherited the former—which we immediately put on the market; the proceeds to cover Benny’s living expenses—and I (as you know) inherited the latter. This was no small thing; it was still a fortune on paper, albeit a far more modest one than I once imagined.

  That, however, didn’t take into account the staggering cost of maintaining Stonehaven—the reality of which I discovered upon my arrival in Lake Tahoe last spring. The cleaning alone was really a full-time job; and then there was the general maintenance, the landscaping, snow removal in winter. The old stone boathouse needed to be repaired. The roof required replacing. The exterior wood paneling was rotting. The gas and electric and water bills were astronomical. And then property taxes! Altogether, upkeep of Stonehaven threatened to cost me in the high six figures annually.

  And, with my V-Life sponsors fleeing in droves, I had no consistent income, either.

  I could have sold off Stonehaven’s art and antiques—I knew it was what I should do!—but every time I started to put together an inventory list to send to Sotheby’s, I faltered. Those things, that house—they were my legacy, and Benny’s, too (as well as all of those Liebling uncles and aunts and cousins to whom I rarely spoke but still felt some sense of duty). If I auctioned them off, or even sold off the house, was I eradicating my own history?

  And if I eradicated that, what did I have left?

  So instead, I rented out the caretaker’s cottage, solving two problems in one blow—isolation and income—and thereby setting in motion the string of events that had landed me there, in Stonehaven’s kitchen, looking at Nina Ross’s engagement ring and seething.

  * * *

  —

  In any case—the safe, of course I’d checked it, first thing after moving into Stonehaven, and the stacks of cash that I remembered were no longer there. Why would they be? In reality the go-cash was probably just my father’s gambling stash; he likely blew it all on high-stakes poker at the casinos across the border, where Lily Ross served him cocktails with a side of blackmail. All that he’d left us in the safe was a stack of old files and the deeds to the house; plus a few last pieces of my mother’s jewelry, which I promptly shipped off to the auction house where I’d already sold the rest.

  Did this woman somehow think there were treasures to be found in our safe? Was that what she was after here? If so, she was going to be sorely disappointed. I would have laughed out loud, if I wasn’t already fighting tears.

  Something heavy was in my hand: I looked down to see that Ashley had taken the ring off and dropped it in my palm. Surprised, my fingers closed around it. “Please?” she said. “I trust you to take care of it for me.”

  I looked down at my fist and then back at her, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed and confused. And then—Oh God, no, not again!—I was crying. Crying about my father, who did his best for us but still fucked it all up; and crying about everything that had been lost; but most of all, crying at the unfairness that she of all people was getting married to him, and I was not.

  When I looked up, Ashley was staring at me. Was that stricken expression one of genuine concern? Or was she just marinating in my unhappiness, getting some sick vicarious thrill from it? I saw her hesitate, considering something, and then she reached out and put a hand over mine. “You were engaged earlier this year, right?” Her voice was low and soft. “What happened?”

  She thought I was crying about Victor. I almost laughed. “How did you know about my fiancé?”

  “Your Instagram. It was pretty easy to figure out.”

  “Oh. Right.” I tugged my hand free of hers and wiped my face dry. She’d made a mistake: She already told me she didn’t “do” social media. Obviously, she’d been tracking me from afar: For how long? And to what purpose? I imagined her carefully clicking through my photo stream, entertaining herself with the details of my life, and felt ill. It’s too easy to forget about the invisible people out there on social media, the ones who observe in silence, the ones who never alert you to their presence. Not the followers, the watchers. You can never really know who is in your audience, or what their motives are for looking at you.

  “So, is that why you moved here? Because of your broken engagement?”

  “That’s why I moved here,” I began. Don’t tell her anything, I thought to myself. Don’t let yourself be vulnerable. But I was feeling so…off-balance. The words tumbled out regardless. “I needed a change of scenery and up popped Stonehaven, at what seemed like the right moment. Daddy left it to me, and I thought…maybe it would be comforting, to be back here, in our old family home. I thought it was serendipity. Turns out, I forgot that I hate this house. Terrible things happened to my family in this house, things we didn’t deserve.” I was getting overly emotional now; I was getting too honest, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I couldn’t control it, this exhausting compulsion to be seen and understood, even by (especially by!) my enemy.

  But more than that: I wanted her to know what she and her mother did. I wanted her to know exactly how they’d destroyed my family. I wanted her to feel sorry for me; and in doing so, to hate herself.

  “Stonehaven is just a shrine to the tragedy that is my family: Everything bad that happened to my mother and father and brother started here. Did I mention that my brother is schizophrenic now? It all began here. And my mother committed suicide right out there.” I pointed out the window toward the lake.

  Ashley’s face went pale. “My God. I had no idea.”

  Oh yes you did, I thought. (But was it possible she didn’t?)

  And still I went on, and on, I couldn’t stop myself. Years of pain and insecurity and self-doubt pouring out; why was I telling her of all people? But it felt good, so good, to tear off the facade and expose the truth of being me. “I’m Vanessa Fucking Liebling,” I heard myself say. “Maybe I am fatally flawed; maybe I am somehow less worthy of empathy.”

  When I looked over, Ashley had fallen from the face of the woman sitting in front of me. Nina was there instead, coiled up tight, her eyes dark and watching. I expected her lips to curl up in disgust, or cold calculation. Instead, she leaned in, and spoke in a voice I hadn’t heard before. “Pull it together. And stop asking other people to tell you that you’re worthy. Why do you care what they think, anyway? Fuck them all.”

  Her words were like a bucket of ice water, shocking me silent. No one talked to me that way, not even Benny. Did she really mean it? (And was she right?) “Fuck them all?” I repeated, dully.

  She shifted in her seat, looked down at the ring in my palm, and seemed to do some mental calculation. When she looked back up at me, Nina was gone again, and Ashley was back; with her little smile and her faux empathy and her goop-like prescriptions for serenity. She started nattering on about the need for mindfulness and self-care and suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. How dare she tell me how to be centered and peaceful?

  I stood up abruptly. “Here. I’ll go put the ring in the safe,” I said, if only to remind myself that I shouldn’t throw it in her face.

  The safe was behind a painting in
my father’s study, a murky English hunting scene with grim aristocrats in wigs and plumed hats, their dogs lunging at a terrified fox. I pried the painting back, punched my brother’s birth date into the keypad, and opened the lock.

  The engagement ring was warm from my palm. I held it up and turned it, but the light from the sconces was too dim to draw a sparkle from the stones. I placed the ring in the safe and then swung the door shut with some small satisfaction.

  I had her ring. And now I was going to get her fiancé.

  * * *

  —

  Another night, another meal with the enemy.

  But this one would be different. I was so done with this whole charade: It was time to blow it all open. (Or: Pull it together.) To put the imposter in her place, I decided to pull out all the stops and host a feast that would make the Lieblings proud. I summoned a caterer from South Lake Tahoe to produce a six-course meal; I hired a staff to serve and to clean, because I certainly would not be serving Nina Ross myself or scrubbing her lip prints off my crystal.

  I was mistress of Stonehaven; it was time for me to act it. (No more talk of fatal flaws! No more thoughts of unworthiness!) Let Nina see everything that she was not; let her burn with envy that she would never be a Liebling, no matter how she might connive to be. And when dessert rolled around, I would finally expose her for who she was, and claim Michael for myself.

  Before they arrived for dinner, I dragged the packing boxes from the corner of my bedroom and tore them open. I rifled through the dresses that had been hidden away in the dark for the better part of a year now: party dresses and prairie dresses, resort wear and club wear, clothes intended for day and for night and for every single moment in between. I dragged them out one by one and spread them around the room. Heaps of silk and chiffon and linen, in pink and gold and lime, a sartorial rainbow that piled up on the bed and the settee and, eventually, the carpet. The clothes breathed life into this musty old room, as if I’d thrown open the windows and let in fresh air. Why hadn’t I unpacked these sooner? Each dress was an old friend; each one came attached to a specific visual memory, stamped with a date and time and memorialized on my Instagram feed: the crocheted dress I wore in that shoot on the beach in Bora Bora; the gown I wore eating breakfast on the balcony of my suite at Plaza Athénée; the sparkly shift from that shoot on the Hudson Pier.

  I unearthed a floor-length green chiffon dress that I once wore to a Gucci dinner party in Positano—we took pictures on the boat on the way in. (22,000 likes! A near record!) Could that have been only eighteen months earlier? It felt like a lifetime had passed.

  I tugged the Gucci dress on over my head and studied myself in the mirror. I was thinner than I used to be and my spray tan was long gone; but still, there she was again, and I was happy to see her looking back at me. V-Life Vanessa, fashionista and bon vivant, liver of the good life, #blessed, was back. No, I wasn’t going to ask anyone else to tell me I was worthy: I knew I was.

  * * *

  —

  Dinner was awkward and strained. I drank too much and talked too loudly. Ashley was too quiet, nudging the food around on her plate with the tines of a fork. Only Michael seemed relaxed, sprawled comfortably in his chair, regaling us with stories from his childhood in Ireland as he tore through every course placed in front of him.

  I noticed that Ashley and Michael were avoiding looking at each other. Every once in a while, their eyes would snag and they’d give each other a long, indecipherable look. I wondered if they’d fought. (I was thrilled by this possibility.)

  The caterer uncorked a bottle of French champagne, unearthed from Stonehaven’s cellar. Michael and I each took a flute, though Ashley put a hand over her own to prevent the waiter from pouring. (“Still recovering from food poisoning,” she said.) The food kept coming: amuse-bouche, then a plateau de fruits de mer, followed by a salad course and a tomato bisque. Our meal was an hour in and we had yet to even get to our entrées; I still had to figure out how to get Michael alone. Ashley kept glancing at the clock on the sideboard, as if this was an ordeal she couldn’t wait to end. It was all a bit too much, I knew, but I was enjoying the uncomfortable expression on Ashley’s face as she struggled over the place settings. Michael seemed unfazed by the formality of it all; but of course, he had been raised with money, too.

  I would count the silver after she left, just to be safe.

  Finally the main course was served, a wild-caught salmon roasted with blood orange. A momentary silence fell over the table as we lifted our forks and prepared our stomachs for battle with yet another dish.

  The silence was broken by the faint trill of a cellphone. Ashley blanched and dropped her fork. “Oh God, I forgot to turn off the ringer.” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and tugged out her phone, muttering apologies; but when she saw the name on the display, her eyes went wide. She stood up abruptly: “So sorry, but I have to take this.” As she backed out of the room, phone pressed to her ear, she gave Michael a significant look and mouthed a single word: Mom.

  Lily, I thought, and my heart gave a little jump.

  And then she was gone. And Michael and I were alone. We could hear Ashley’s footsteps as she wandered farther and farther into the depths of Stonehaven, the murmur of her voice fading away, and then all was silent.

  “What’s that all about?” I asked. “Her mom?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  The chiffon of my dress was fluttering against my skin and I realized that I was trembling: How much time would we have before Ashley came back?

  He cleared his throat and smiled awkwardly at me. “So. I still haven’t told you about the college I’ve been teaching at, have I? It’s the greatest group of students, disadvantaged but so intellectually curious….” He launched into a speech about the joys of bringing knowledge to open young minds, a soliloquy so long and loud that it was clear that he was talking just to fill the silence.

  “Michael, stop.”

  He stopped. He picked up his cutlery and looked down at his plate with resolve. I could hear his knife hitting the china as he cut the asparagus into neat segments. Click, click, click.

  “Michael,” I said again.

  He remained intently focused on the salmon, as though if he broke his gaze the fish might swim off his plate and disappear. “What a treat this has been,” he said stiffly, forking up a neat square of salmon. “I haven’t eaten like this in years. It’s so rare to find people in Portland who appreciate formal dining.”

  I leaned in closer, so close that I barely had to speak aloud for him to hear me. “Don’t leave me hanging like this. There’s something going on between us, right? I’m not crazy.”

  His forkful of salmon stopped halfway to his mouth and hovered there, quivering and pink. He looked to the door, as if Ashley might be lurking right outside, and then he turned and finally gazed straight at me. He leaned in close. “You’re not crazy. But, Vanessa…it’s complicated.”

  “I don’t think it’s as complicated as you think it is.”

  “I’m engaged.” He looked forlorn. “I didn’t tell you that before. And I’m a man of my word. I couldn’t do that to her.”

  Finally, here it was, the opportunity I’d been waiting for. “But she’s not who you think she is.”

  His hand tilted, and the salmon slipped off his fork. The fish hit the table and scattered pink flakes across his lap. He dabbed distractedly at the mess with a napkin and I watched as a parade of emotions marched across his face: confusion, alarm, denial. “I don’t think I understand what you mean,” he said finally.

  I was about to launch into the whole sordid story, to run through a dozen years of history for him, but there was no time for that because we could hear Ashley’s footsteps coming back down the hallway. “Look, we need to talk, in private,” I whispered quickly. He was still gazing at me with a dazed expression when Ashley
materialized in the doorway. She was flushed, gripping her phone with bone-white knuckles.

  Michael stood up quickly. “Ash? What’s the matter?”

  She looked wildly around the room, as if she’d just woken up and was perplexed to find herself here of all places.

  “My mother is in the hospital,” she said. “I have to go home. Now.”

  * * *

  —

  Ashley left at dawn. I watched the BMW pick its way along the front drive, slipping in the fresh snow. Was that it? Was it all over, just like that? I felt almost…disappointed. Part of me wanted to know what she’d had planned, and if I’d managed to foil it.

  And what about Michael? In the flurry of action that had followed Ashley’s announcement—dessert and coffee bypassed altogether, the crème anglais forgotten in my fridge as the two of them hurried back to the caretaker’s cottage to confer—I hadn’t had a chance to ask whether both of them would be leaving.

  If he goes with her, it means he chose her, I’d told myself. If he stays, he’s staying for me.

  Now, as I stood in the parlor, watching the car vanish down the drive, I could see that there was only one person in the front seat of the old BMW. She was leaving alone.

  I had won.

  The pines closed in around the car, she turned the corner, and she was gone.

  I went upstairs, got the gun from under my pillow, and went down to the games room. The lights danced merrily off the swords hanging on the walls as I placed the pistol back in its position of honor over the hearth. I wouldn’t need that thing anymore. (She was gone! I had won!)

  My phone chimed with a text: my brother again.