But the sounds did not prepare me for the sights of my first Buchanan party.
The one dress I had thought to pack at the beginning of the summer was all wrong. I had found it one Saturday afternoon in the dollar-per-pound pile at the Garment District. I had loved the pale gray, the way the thin straps twisted and came together in the back, and how the soft cotton hit just above my knees. But the night of the annual party at Arcadia I couldn’t stop tugging at the bottom as if I could stretch it to cover more of my legs and then yanking at the top to try to stop my chest from spilling out.
I was standing on the landing and was just about to go to Julia’s room and beg her for a cardigan, even though anything of hers would cover me as much as a postage stamp covers an envelope, when Sebastian came down the hall, shoving his arms into a dark blazer. He stopped fumbling as soon as he saw me, dropping his arms, his blazer still half off.
“Wow. You look as good with clothes on as you do with them off.” With his tie looped loosely around his neck, his slightly wrinkled shirt untucked, he looked like one of the freshman boys who stood gawking any time St. Anne’s invited a boys’ school for a dance.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest, but that only seemed to make the cleavage situation worse. “You were peeking,” I said.
“Nah.” Sebastian shook his head and slid his arms the rest of the way into the blazer, then began to tuck his shirt into his pants. “I was a gentleman. I swear.”
I tried not to notice that I could see the top of his boxers as he finished getting dressed. “Do you often do that?” I asked as he straightened his tie and then attempted to smooth down his hair.
“Get dressed? I try to every day. Doesn’t always work out, though.” When he looked at me his smile came up slightly higher on one side and he rocked back and forth, toe to heel, his restless fingers drumming against his legs.
I rolled my eyes. “Say one thing then say the opposite?”
“Never . . . always. Come on. Julia’s already outside with the others.” He spun around and then slid down the polished banister, jumping off the end. He looked up at me and bowed. I patted the palm of my hand like how I imagined women clapped at the opera. He grinned and then disappeared through the front door. I took the stairs, but I took them two at a time.
Two hundred, maybe three hundred people swarmed across the lawn. It was hard to tell how many. The party was both so crowded and so spread out. Arcadia had been transformed over the course of the day. Small white lights covered the bushes that lined the porch and Sophie’s cottage, and white candles in navy hurricane lamps decorated the tops of tall tables whose ivory tablecloths grazed the lawn like the trains of wedding dresses. Catering staff milled around with trays, and a small bar had been set up in the front corner of the porch, complete with a bartender who looked as animated as a piece of furniture.
Men in light suits and women in wispy dresses that swished with every movement were standing in groups, chatting over the music coming from a five-member band that had set up on a small dance floor under a cream canvas tent. Salt air mixed with the sweet-smelling white flowers that had been woven into greenery and wound around the porch railings, the rich musk of expensive perfume, and the sharp evergreen scent of gin.
Even the ocean seemed to have been warned that a Buchanan party was happening that evening. Instead of crashing against the dock and pounding on the shore, it lapped at the sand.
I saw Piper surrounded by Eun Sun and a bunch of other St. Anne’s girls standing near the tent. Her blond hair was twisted into a complicated mess of curls on the top of her head, which she kept turning to search the crowd. I recognized some of the girls from Pembroke Hall. They all watched Piper with a mixture of fear and awe, following each sweeping motion of her hands. Piper saw me just as she was finishing her story, and it was like a bucket of ice water had been thrown on her. She dropped her arms and pressed her lips, and her eyes went cold. Her look was enough to make me shiver.
Eun Sun turned to see where Piper was staring, saw me, shook her head, and then forced Piper to move so her back was facing me.
She hated me. I didn’t know why, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
I could hear Boom somewhere in the middle of the crowd, his voice carrying like a foghorn over flat water. Sophie had on her unreasonably high heels. They were sinking into the grass like pegs for a tent as she talked with a handsome man in a dark suit. There was an actress I recognized, clinging to the arm of an attractive guy who looked young enough to be her son. I saw an older woman covered with so many gold necklaces either they had to be fakes or she had just robbed a jewelry store. A group of guys about my age suddenly appeared from behind Sophie’s cottage, their ties already loosened and their pants sagging. When they walked by the unmistakable skunk smell of pot surrounded them.
A man with salt-and-pepper politician hair was unbuttoning his shirt on the dance floor, flapping his arms like a duck trying to take off from mud as the woman he was dancing with swished her skirt and pumped a fist in the air. The sound of glass breaking against glass came from a bar set up close to the driveway, but no one paused their conversations, and few even turned their heads.
The air was swollen with music, shouting, and something I could not quite place—a feeling of happiness, but happiness with an edge, a sense of joy that was all the more meaningful because it was so fleeting.
It was a scene that had to be painted from a distance, because up close the colors would begin to blur. It was wild and lovely. Shocking and elegant. It was, as Julia had promised it would be, “un spectacle de merde.”
When I saw Julia cutting across the lawn toward me, I started down the steps to meet her, but then she held up her hand. “Bar first or I don’t think I’ll make it.” Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and she had a huge white flower tucked behind one ear. Her strapless pale blue dress made her look like a bridesmaid, even though the top was crooked and she had one of those stupid loops that are meant to help the dress stay on hangers dangling out from under an arm.
I tucked it in when she joined me on the porch.
“Thanks,” she muttered as we walked toward the bar. “Two gin and tonics. Doubles please.” If the bartender even thought of hesitating to ask how old we were, his unfocused expression gave no hint of it.
“Mon Dieu! I hate these parades.” Julia sighed before taking a deep drink from her glass. “Come on. Mummy wants you to meet some people. Let’s down these. Chat and then come back for another. Mummy doesn’t care about wine and champagne, but she pretends to have a problem with gin and whatnot.”
I took a sip from my narrow glass and had to press my lips together to stop from coughing. The bartender either followed Julia’s request a little too well or just didn’t care enough to add more than a splash of tonic. Julia, however, finished hers in a few gulps and then grabbed two champagne flutes from a passing waitress. I tried for another sip, but this time I couldn’t stop myself from sputtering.
“Oh, here.” Julia thrust one of the flutes at me. “I’ll finish it.” Still coughing, I handed her my glass. She threw back her head and gulped until the lime inside knocked against her teeth before setting the glass behind some fancy-looking crackers on a nearby table. Shaking her head, she started walking down the porch stairs. “Come on, then. Let’s face the firing squad.”
She walked over to where Mrs. Buchanan was standing with Sebastian, a short older man, and a tall, thin woman in an orange dress that showed off her tan arms. I followed her, tugging at the top of my dress with one hand.
“There you are, girls,” Mrs. Buchanan called when we reached the edge of their circle. “Tom, Claudia, you know my daughter Julia.”
“Of course.” The man bowed in our direction. “You’ve turned into quite the young lady.” The woman in the orange dress smiled tightly, as though to move her lips any more would pain her.
“And this is her friend Charlotte Ryder.” Mrs. Buchanan gestured toward me. “She’s at St. Anne�
�s with Julia.” Turning to me she said, “Tom used to work on Joe’s campaign, but now he’s in the Boston district attorney’s office.”
“Great place, St. Anne’s. I was at Choate myself. We used to come around for dances. Descend upon the girls like a bunch of sailors on leave,” the man said as he chuckled and reached out his hand, shaking my own so vigorously that champagne splashed over the side of my glass. The woman only pressed my hand long enough for me to notice her oval pink nails.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, trying to subtly wipe the champagne off on the back of my dress.
“Now, what year are you girls? Seniors?” He gulped his dark drink until the ice cubes clinked against the glass.
“Yes, this fall,” I replied. Julia said nothing.
“Well I know this one,” he said as he pounded Sebastian on the back with a thump that sent Sebastian lurching forward and some of the ice jumping out of his drink, “is a Harvard man. What about you girls? Where are you going?”
I caught Sebastian’s eye as he stepped away from the group to shake whatever drink had once been in his glass off his arm. And just like Julia did at parents’ weekend, he quickly made a gesture of tying a noose and slipping it over his head. He shook his arm one more time and then moved back near our circle, setting his drink down and leaning against one of the tall tables.
“Julia,” Mrs. Buchanan said, leaning into the circle, “is still thinking. She might take a year off. Help me with Joe’s foundation.” She started smoothing Julia’s hair down with her long fingers. “She might go some place nearby. Wellesley is my alma mater.”
Julia still said nothing. She had her arms wrapped around her ribs, her muscles tense as if she was trying to collapse herself inward. Her eyes were fixed on some point in the navy night beyond Sebastian’s shoulder. Her glass was empty.
“Good to stay close to home. What about you, Charlotte?” The man raised his cotton-ball eyebrows as he tipped his glass to his lips for another long pull. “Staying in Boston?”
“Oh. Well, no.” I shook my head a little and dropped my hand. I hadn’t even realized I was reaching toward Julia. “I’d like to apply to some art schools. I guess some are in Boston, but a lot aren’t.”
“She’s very talented.” Just as suddenly as she had disappeared into herself, Julia reappeared, grabbing another flute from a waiter and placing her empty glass on his tray as she spoke. “It’s a shame about the police record, though.”
“What?” The woman’s voice reminded me of a door that needed its hinges oiled.
“Oh, yes.” Sebastian moved away from the table back into the circle, his expression somber. “It’s a shame arson stays with you so long, isn’t it, Julia?”
“Yes. Terrible business, getting out of jail after something like that. But I will give you credit.” Julia raised her glass as if to toast me. “When you burn something down, Charlie, you do a thorough job. That factory didn’t know what it had coming.”
“How about that historical home in Cambridge?” Sebastian asked, looking around the confused circle as if inviting them to comment. “That was some good work.”
“Some of your finest.” Julia raised her glass to me, her lips pressed together to keep from smiling.
“I didn’t . . . I would never . . . I’m just . . .” I stammered, turning toward the couple, whose mouths were both hanging slightly open.
“Julia.” Mrs. Buchanan clutched her wineglass tightly between her two hands. “Stop teasing Charlotte. Arson is not a joke.”
Sebastian chimed in. “Of course it’s not a joke. Charlie takes it quite seriously. She plans to move up to becoming a hit woman. She’s ambitious, this friend of yours, Pip. Ambitious and beautiful.” He winked at me. “It’s a lethal combination.”
“Oh, murder for hire is really only the beginning. It’s what she does when she’s feeling lazy. Her real pastime is plotting military coups. Poor North Korea.” She made a sympathetic clicking sound with her tongue, shaking her head mournfully from side to side.
“I . . . I don’t really set things on fire,” I said, looking from the woman in orange’s shocked expression to the man’s amused one. “I make sculptures—”
“One woman’s art is another woman’s life of crime,” Julia said, her words keeping the beat of the chorus of whatever song the band had just started playing.
“Julia, darling, lovely, perfect daughter. Can I see you in the house for a moment?” Mrs. Buchanan put a hand on the nape of Julia’s neck and steered her toward the porch. “Will you excuse us?”
The man chuckled into his drink and nodded. “We’ve got to find the Gorensteins anyway.” He raised his chin toward me. “Charlotte, I’m glad to meet someone else who can put up with the Buchanan sense of humor. Sebastian, I want to talk to you more about that internship before the night is over.”
The woman fidgeted with the thin gold chain around her neck and whispered good-bye before she joined him across the grass.
I saw Mrs. Buchanan swat Julia on the back of the head as they walked up the porch steps and into the brightly lit house. As soon as they were through the door, I slipped my wedges off my feet.
“Come on.” Sebastian wrapped his fingers lightly around my wrist. “Before we get trapped again. I think I see Mrs. Hughes-Green heading our way. When I was ten—”
“As in Hughes-Green shampoos?” I asked as I followed him in the direction of the shore.
“That’s the one. She kept me up until midnight at one of these parties rambling on about free trade agreements with South America. I remember clutching a fistful of candy and promising God I would give it up forever if only he would rescue me. He didn’t. But eventually Julia did by throwing a huge tantrum in the other room.”
“She was passionate. That’s not a bad thing.” I felt like I could make out his individual fingerprints on my skin. Could you feel touch in your veins? As he held my wrist it seemed possible.
“Sure. Passionate to give Boom money for his campaign, so she would have an invitation to his election party.”
Sebastian led me out to the end of the dock. When we stopped, he suddenly seemed aware that he was holding on to me and dropped his hand. He sat, leaning against the last post. I set my flute and shoes down and perched on the edge of the dock, letting the waves wash over my feet. The salt stung when it hit the cuts my shoe straps had made, but I kept my feet in the water. I could still feel where Sebastian’s thumb had touched the inside of my wrist. I focused on that.
“You and Julia have quite the shtick going. You should take it on the road.”
“Sorry. Did we embarrass you?” He bent forward over his knees.
“I survived half a semester at St. Anne’s with a dye job so bad that the school counselor gave me a pamphlet about self-destructive habits. You and Julia have nothing on that.” The few slugs of gin and the small amount of champagne I had drunk gurgled in my stomach, spreading warmth from my center to the edges of my fingers and toes like I was standing next to a bonfire.
The music drifted down the lawn and floated across the surface of the water as he spoke. “I meant to tell you I like your hair like that. It suits you. Shows off your ears and whatnot.”
“My ears?”
“Yup. You have very show-offy ears.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“You don’t judge people, do you, Charlie? You just kind of watch them.” He changed topic without missing a beat. The lights from the party let me see enough of his face to know that he was looking at me, trying to read my expression.
“There’s a lot to see.” I gestured back toward the house, and then kicked at the water, watching the spray rise and ripple on the black surface.
“Not even the Buchanans can shock you?” He slouched a little lower against the post. “Pip will be disappointed. She lives to astound.”
“People don’t really shock me much in general. Julia surprises me . . . she likes to tease and embarrass me . . . but shock? That’s different.”
“How did a girl from the middle of nowhere get to be so worldly?” he asked, angling his head in that way that I knew meant he was really listening. His eyes met mine. “I’m . . . I’m not trying to be rude. Just curious?”
I shrugged, breaking his gaze before I lost myself completely. “Even in a town with more snowmobiles than people, everyone has a story. Everyone has something they’re hiding, right?”
Sebastian shifted closer and I could feel the warmth radiating off his legs, or maybe I was imagining it. I closed my eyes and breathed in the salt, the music, and whatever liquor had been splashed on his sleeve. I breathed in the lights from the house reflecting off the water like someone had lit a thousand candles and let them float on the waves. I breathed it all in because then maybe, just maybe, it would never have to end.
When I opened my eyes, he was searching my face with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. I leaned. Then he leaned. Our faces got closer and closer until his was so near mine I could feel his breath on my cheek. I closed my eyes again as he whispered, “Everyone has something to hide.”
His lips hovered. I waited.
“Helllllooooooo. Anyone home?” Julia’s voice floated down from the lawn. “Charlie, come out, come out wherever you are!”
I opened my eyes again to find Sebastian staring at me. Without looking away he shouted, “Down here, Pip. We’re on the dock.”
Julia wobbled toward us. The way she held her arms out from her sides and the sharp angles of her dress lit from behind made her look like a walking paper doll. “I hope you two have been behaving yourselves.” She came to a few feet from where we were sitting and crumpled to the dock in a swish of dress and air. “Tsk, tsk.” She wagged a finger at Sebastian. “What would H.G. think?”
“Who’s H.G.?” I asked.
Even in Paradise Page 10