Days Of St Croix

by Felicity Pepper



  Days Of St Croix: A Novel

  By Felicity Pepper

  Days Of St Croix

  By Felicity Pepper

  Copyright 2013 Felicity Pepper

  All rights reserved

  One

  "Happy birthday, Princess! Pick one!" Mills was standing in front of a long glass case displaying tennis bracelets, earrings and diamond necklaces. Her birthday was not for three more days, but by then she would be tucked away at St Croix for another term, and she knew it was unlikely her father would visit her or take her out for a birthday dinner. Even now, as they stood in the jewelry store in Southampton, sharing their last few hours together, her father was looking at his iPhone and no doubt responding to a thousand emails from his campaign staff.

  "I don't know, Daddy - which one do you like?" Mills pouted at her father. The bracelets were beautiful, but what she really wanted was her father's undivided attention, just for a few hours. He had spent almost the whole of Labor Day weekend at their Fire Island beach house on the phone, pacing in his study or out on the deck, scowling at the ocean. Mills had barely managed to drag him away for a birthday omelet at Tierra Mar, and then he'd suggested she pick out her birthday present at Rose Jewelry.

  She looked again at the sparkling display.

  "That one - may I see it please?" She pointed at a slim gold hoop with a glistening line of diamonds, laid out tantalizingly against the soft black velvet of the display. On each end, nestled beside the clasp, a trio of ruby, diamond and sapphire stones gave the gorgeous tennis bracelet an elegant, patriotic flair. Her father nodded.

  "Very nice, Milly. Good choice." He hardly looked up from the email on his phone. He reached over and took the bracelet from the shop assistant and wrapped it gently around Mills' slender, tanned wrist and clipped it closed. "Beautiful, Princess. It's classy and contemporary. Your friends will adore it, of course."

  Nestor Dupont smiled his famous smile - the one which had won him his Senate seat twelve years ago. It was the smile which Mills had fortunately inherited from him; miles of straight, white teeth that screamed good breeding. The rest of her looks she had received from her mother, God rest her soul; a deep golden-brown complexion, a high, clear forehead, wide green eyes ringed with thick, dark lashes, and a petite chin that balanced her face perfectly. And of course there was the rest of her. At almost 16, she had the sort of figure that all women dream about; slender, long legs, a tight butt and belly, and a chest that was not afraid to say hello, but which stayed put when she needed it to. She was drop-dead beautiful, and she could see it in the lustful glances of the wealthy, gray-haired men at lunch, as well as in the poisonous stares of their old, saggy wives. At St Croix, though, there was only one person Mills wanted to appreciate her physical beauty in all its glory: her boyfriend, Jas, who she would be seeing again at long last, in a few hours. She could hardly wait.

  "We'll take it." Her father said confidently to the shop assistant. He was always taking charge, as if Mills was still a little girl who couldn't decide for herself. This time, though, she had to agree.

  "Thank you, Daddy! I love it. I can't wait to show Tibby. She's going to absolutely die!" Mills hugged her father, and just at that moment a photographer lurking in the doorway snapped their picture.

  "Perfect. That'll be in Hello! next week," Nestor beamed, immediately returning his attention to his Blackberry. "I need as much free publicity as I can get. This next election is going to be a total shit-fight. Excuse my French."

  Brand threw open the window of his bedroom, which faced out onto Central Park East just above Museum Mile, on the third floor of an exclusive building which his parents had occupied since before he was born. The wide leaves of the overhanging Chestnut trees obscured most of the view, but Brand wasn't interested in taking in the sights. Or breathing in the sweet September air. He wished it was raining so that he could sit at his desk beside the window, smoke, listen to the hum of the street, and contemplate the next chapter in the novel he was trying to write, A Soul In Purgatory. He imagined himself sitting in a simple wooden chair, at a rickety desk in a cold attic room overlooking the Seine in Paris, an old manual typewriter clattering under his nicotine-stained fingers.

  "Writers need to suffer." He muttered to himself. "How else can they write about true pain?". Ari Brandeis was very into suffering for his art. It was practically his motto. Unfortunately, he'd spent the summer in a gigantic mansion in Miami, wearing shorts and flip-flops every day and spending hours on his back beside his parents' sparkling blue swimming pool. A few hundred feet away, the Atlantic Ocean crashed into the beach. He'd been miserable.

  Well, okay, not completely miserable.

  He had enjoyed watching the hot Cuban girls passing by on the sand in their tiny bikinis. That had definitely helped him pass the time. And he'd had plenty of time to drink Mojitos, to read his favorite novels again, and to obsessively navel-gaze. But still, how was he supposed to have a lonely, existential crisis when he was forced to live such a life of pampered luxury? His parents couldn't understand that he needed to feel isolated, persecuted, alone. Sometimes, his life was just suffocating.

  There was a light knock at the door, then his mother came in without giving him a chance to object.

  "Ari, sweetheart, are you finished packing? I'll arrange for a car to take you up to St Croix this afternoon if you like. Your father and I have dinner with the Menkens at their house tonight, so we won't be able to have our last supper together. Is that okay?"

  "Sure, Mom." Brand sighed.

  "Why is that window open? Are you warm? You should tell Alice if your room is too hot, and she'll adjust the temperature. You don't want to breathe in all that filthy air."

  "Mom, this is Manhattan, not LA. And anyway, we're about a hundred feet away from the park. The air is fine."

  "Well, I just worry about your asthma returning. Or you catching something. Which reminds me, if you need to take some of my pills up to school with you, you know where to find them." She smiled and winked at him, then turned and slipped back out of his bedroom, leaving a trail of Chanel hanging in the air.

  Brand sighed deeply, ran his fingers through his curly jewfro and stood up and walked to the mirror. His hair had grown out a lot over the summer, just the way he liked it, and now the dark curls came down over his ears and rested on the collar of his faded Smiths t-shirt that showed the cover of his favorite album, The Queen Is Dead. Alain Delon's spectral face splashed across his chest, and the bold pink lettering made Brand feel as though he looked tortured, cerebral and alternative. He leaned in to the mirror and examined his chin; he had purposefully avoided shaving for weeks, but so far he had only managed to accumulate a small, thin soul patch beneath his lower lip. He knew he'd be forced to shave it off when he got back to school, and cut his hair, too. The strict rules of dress at St Croix dictated that boys were clean shaven and had tidy hair at all times. Brand pictured himself with short hair again, knowing that it would make him appear much younger. He'd be sixteen in a few weeks and he looked it, which would be fine, except that Brand wanted to look like he was twenty. No one took a baby-faced Jewish boy from the Upper East Side seriously. As a writer, at least.

  "Checking to see if you're still ugly?" A voice came from the doorway. His mother hadn't closed it, and his older brother had slipped in unnoticed.

  "Fuck you, Benjamin. Don't you knock?"

  "Door was open, dickhead. Just coming to say goodbye before you fuck off back to school. What are you doing, anyway? Writing?" Benjamin walked over to the desk, where Brand had left his Macbook open with his word processor on. Before he could leap across the room and grab it, his brother had slipped into his chair and was reading the first paragraph of his novel.

  "What the hell
is this shit, bro? Asshole in Purgatory? Are you serious? Why are you wasting your time on this?"

  "None of your business, Benjamin. Stop reading it and get out, please."

  "Easy, bro. I'm just having a little fun. Don't take yourself so seriously." Benjamin got up from the desk and walked over to where Brand stood, putting a long, bony arm around his little brother's neck and squeezing it. "I'm telling you, bro, when you get to Harvard, you'll understand. There's more to life than Camus, Morrissey and jerking off."

  "You're awfully patronizing, Benjamin. And anyway, I'm not going to Harvard. I don't want to be an attorney like you, David and Dad. I'm going to be a writer."

  "Haha, oh yes? Does Dad know? You're crazy. You don't want to be like Dad? You know how much coal he made last year?" Benjamin rubbed his fist into Brand's head. Brand scowled.

  "Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul. Thoreau wrote that." Brand muttered, wriggling out from under Benjamin's arm. He walked across the room and sat back down at his computer, pretending to ignore his brother.

  "Thoreau, huh? Well, I think I'm going to Thoreau-up!" He laughed at his own wit. "Seriously, bro, go ahead and tell Dad you don't want to join the family firm; see what he says. He won't find it as funny as I do. Sorry to break the news, but you're a Brandeis male. This is what we do."

  Brand didn't reply. He just pointed at the door without looking at his brother. Benjamin sighed, insincerely.

  "I can take a hint, bro. Have fun at your boarding school. See you in a few months." He shuffled out of the room and swung it shut behind him. Brand shook his head.

  "Not if I see you first, dickhead."

  Tibby Richmond ignored the flashing cameras on each side of her and pushed her white framed Wayfarers from her hair back down over her eyes. They weren't taking pictures of her, anyway, were they? It was her mom, Jodie Easton-Richmond, that they wanted to photograph, right? The leggy blond movie star who was walking just in front of her with a neat little Louis Vuitton trundle strode confidently through the VIP corridor, well out of the view of the general public as they navigated the arrivals gate at JFK International Airport. The Richmonds didn't wait at immigration with the rest of the plebs. They were met in First Class, escorted off the plane before everyone else and ushered past the fawning officers with the most cursory flash of a passport. The only time Tibby ever had to wait was when some poor sap begged her mom to sign an autograph. Otherwise they were straight through and out to a waiting car in just a few minutes. Their bags, of course, would be waiting for them when they got there.

  But wait. Wasn't that a British paparazzo calling her name this time? Surely she had heard him say, "Tibby! Over here! Just one picture, love!" She couldn't help herself. She turned to her left and smiled, just in time for a bright flash to light up her face. Thank God I'm wearing sunglasses, she thought to herself, my eyes must look all puffy and red. Was he really taking my picture?

  Now that she thought about it, this summer on the French Riviera had been different from any she remembered growing up. She had felt more confident, more conspicuous, and her mom and dad had been super cool about letting her stay out as much as she wanted. Not that she had wanted to; their clifftop house in Saint Tropez had been a meeting place for some seriously famous people. Tibby had hung around at home just as often as going out to the bars and clubs. Sure, her mom was famous, and her dad, the director Oliver Richmond, was well-known, but it was still exciting to have Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elton John in her kitchen at the same time!

  "Is Daddy meeting us this time?" Tibby quickened her pace to catch up with her mom. "I want to see him before I have to go back to school." They crossed over the elevated walkway that hid them from view of the arrivals lounge, and stepped into the VIP elevator. Jodie Easton-Richmond pushed EXIT with her manicured forefinger and the doors swished closed.

  "Of course, sweetpea, he's taking you out to lunch at Amaranth. Unfortunately I can't join you; I have a meeting with my agent. You'll drop me off on the way. Okay, petal?"

  Tibby didn't really mind at all. She had spent the last week in France with her mom after her dad had flown back to New York early. Plus, she knew her mom would come visit her at St Croix in a few weeks. And she loved having lunch with her dad in the city - everyone would stare at them and whisper to each other. When it was just the two of them, she could steal the spotlight from her famous mother.

  Tibby and Jodie strode out into the warm, late-morning air and immediately spotted the car. Tibby's dad, Oliver Richmond, rolled down the window of the gleaming black Range Rover and waved at them.

  "Hi, Daddy!" Tibby hopped up into the back and leaned forward to kiss her father on the cheek. He was in his late fifties - a handsome, tall Englishman with neat gray hair and a long, narrow nose. He looked tanned, fit and relaxed as he leaned over to kiss his wife of eighteen years on the lips. Tibby smiled. It wasn't gross to her to see her parents being lovey and intimate with each other. They were a good-looking celebrity couple, and she was their only child. She sat back and sank into the soft leather of the car and watched as the sweeping, shell-like curves of the airport TWA building receded into the distance.

  Jas Genovese relaxed comfortably into the creamy white leather seat of his father's private jet and looked away from the small rectangular window. They were airborne, finally. He breathed a long sigh and patted the breast pocket of his rumpled blue linen blazer, feeling the bulge of the packet he had tucked inside before leaving his parents' beach house earlier that morning. He was on his way back to New York; to school, to the start of a new year, and he just needed to make one final stop before he arrived at the dorm.

  The last few days of summer vacation had been a whirlwind. Meeting up with his mom and dad in Carmel, he'd gone from one long lunch to the next, from Pebble Beach with his father in the morning to Ralph Lauren with his mother in the afternoon. Their house on the ocean had been filled with clients, family and friends, and Jas had almost gone out of his mind wishing for some peace and quiet. Not that he didn't enjoy the pace of his family's glamorous lifestyle sometimes, but he had been hoping for a few days relaxing on the beach before the Michaelmas Term started and his memories of California began to fade away for another year.

  Jas leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and tried to remember the party the night before.

  He had finished dinner at home with his parents and then slipped out while they argued about where to spend Christmas vacation. He needed a cigarette, badly. Out on the beach, the moon lit up a silver path on the still ocean as Jas padded through the damp sand and sucked hard on a Marlboro Light. He was frustrated that his mom and dad had to spoil an otherwise pleasant meal, his last supper before going back to school, arguing over such a stupid little thing. Was that all his mom cared about? Which house to stay in? Which party to attend? Which doctor would be on call to provide her with her medications whenever she needed something stronger than a dry martini? And his dad! How many times had his cellphone interrupted the meal? Who was it this time? His secretary? His assistant? Or one of his mistresses? Jas understood that his father was busy and successful, but sometimes he acted like his own family just got in the way of his work.

  He lit another Marlboro off the butt of the first and carried on further down the beach. In the distance he could see the lights of the other beach houses spilling out into the darkness. As he approached the nearest one, he could hear music mixed with laughter and conversation. The bright, summery beat of a Vampire Weekend song shook the faded Adirondack chairs on the deck, and in the low light Jas saw a group of three people sitting on the steps that led down to the beach. They were smoking and drinking from large red plastic cups, and they looked up at him as he approached.

  "Hey, come over here!" One of them, a cute girl in tiny white shorts and a pale green bikini top, called out to Jas.

  "Want a drink?" Asked another, an older boy with blond hair that he flicked out of his eyes as he flashed a perfect smile. Jas pointed to himself
as if to say, "Me?", and then jogged over to the steps to join them.

  "Thanks, I'd love one." He replied, finishing his second cigarette and dropping it at his feet. He kicked the cool sand over it and climbed up onto the steps. The others were getting up and heading back inside, where Jas could see a crowd of forty or fifty party-goers - teens and adults - dancing and having a good time.

  "Come and join us. We've got pretty much everything you could possibly want in here." Said the girl in the bikini, smiling and touching Jas lightly on the shoulder as she skipped past him.

  He didn't need to be asked twice.

  The jet banked gently the north, and Jas yawned. He turned in his seat and motioned to his father's assistant who was sitting a few feet away beside the small kitchenette. She nodded and waltzed over, putting one perfectly manicured hand gently on the armrest as she crouched down next to Jas.

  "Would you like a drink, Jasper?" She asked, her Spanish accent was incredibly sexy, and Jas shifted in his seat and gave her his most charming smile,

  "You read my mind, Alba. Does my father keep any decent Scotch on board?"

  "Of course, honey. Lagavulin, Ardbeg, or Johnnie Walker Blue Label?"