Privileged

by Zoey Dean

  “And so I re-created it here. It is why we are drinking this rough wine and eating this cassoulet. It is his recipe. I bring few guests to this room.”

  I smiled. “Thank you, Madame.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “So, Megan. What will you do when you return to New York?”

  Talk about an appetite killer. I put down my fork and wiped my mouth with the rough muslin napkin. I hoped that the twins would get in to Duke and my college debts would be gone. I wouldn’t know that until the SAT scores were reported online two weeks after the test. Other than that, I had no idea.

  “Look for a job, I guess.”

  “Like the one you had before at Debra’s magazine?” She smiled, and I realized that Debra must have told her about the fit between Scoop and me. That is, nonexistent.

  “I hope for something . . . more substantial,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps I can help you to realize your lofty ambitions. I know several people in the publishing world. Some of them are at . . . substantial magazines. I can make some calls on your behalf. And in the meantime . . .” She reached into a pocket of her sheath dress and extracted a small envelope. “For you.”

  I opened the envelope. Inside was a business check for seventy-five thousand dollars. “Your bonus,” Laurel explained. “You worked hard, Megan. You have prepared the girls. There is not another thing you could do.”

  I stared at the money. The right thing to do would be to protest, to say that I hadn’t earned it until the twins were admitted to Duke.

  Oh, please, of course I took it. What am I, a saint? “I wanted to offer you another observation,” Laurel said. “It makes more sense in French than in English, if you’ll allow me. Tu es une jeune femme très débrouillarde.”

  I blushed. In French, the word débrouillard is about as high a compliment as one can pay. It means a combination of smart, thoughtful, practical, and above all, resourceful.

  “Thank you. Really.”

  “When I was just starting out in Paris, it was not easy. Few salons were willing to try the new beauty products of a French girl with an address in the dix-huitième arrondissement. I mixed these products in the sink of the common bathroom of our building—though I did not share that at the time. It took every penny I could beg, borrow, or steal.” She entwined her elegant fingers. “So from time to time it was incumbent on me to embellish the truth a bit. A generous backer bought me an expensive gown, and I wore it when I made my sales calls so they would think I was an upper-class girl. It was a means to an end.”

  Her eyes twinkled as she looked at me. And then I knew that she knew.

  “I’m sorry,” I managed.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “The Main Line of Philadelphia story was your means to an end,” she said with a half-smile. “In a way, you were emulating me without even knowing it.”

  “I’ll tell the girls the truth,” I volunteered. “After they take their test tomorrow.”

  Laurel nodded. “That sounds like the right timing.”

  I looked down again at the check in my hand. “This is so generous of you—”

  “What’s generous?” Sage asked. She and Rose were standing in the entryway.

  “Mon dieu,” Laurel exclaimed. “Rose, what have you done?”

  Rose grinned, then twirled. “Do you like it?”

  She’d cut off her glorious hair. It was now nape-of-the-neck short with choppy bangs that drew attention to her enormous eyes.

  “I love it!” I exclaimed, not only because that was the truth, but because the sparkle in Rose’s eyes made it clear that she loved it. She didn’t look like an imitation of Sage anymore. She looked like herself.

  “It’s . . . a departure,” Sage allowed.

  “Jean Seberg, À Bout de Souffle,” Laurel observed as Marco brought in a carafe of coffee and a platter of his tiny doughnuts. “Breathless. With Belmondo. You must see it sometime. Yes, Rose, I quite like it. Sit down, girls. It is time for dessert. And for me to congratulate you on a job well done.”

  Sage lowered herself slowly into a chair, staring at her grandmother as if she’d just grown horns. “Did you just say something nice to us?”

  “Yes, Sage,” Laurel confirmed. “I did. I think you have worked very hard. But what is more important is that you now see you are capable of working very hard. And when you work hard, there is success in the effort. That is why, whether or not you succeed tomorrow—”

  “You’re giving us our money anyway!” Sage squealed. She jumped up and began a happy dance. “It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday, not really, party anyway—”

  Laurel held up a palm. “No. Nothing motivates like motivation. Sit.”

  Sage slunk back to her seat.

  “Your incentive to do your very best tomorrow remains,” Laurel decreed. “However, Megan’s debt has been retired. In full. I think all three of us can agree that she more than earned it. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Rose agreed.

  “Definitely,” Sage conceded.

  “Very good,” Laurel approved. “Girls, your grandmother is proud of you. Megan, I think you’ve done everything you could.”

  “I don’t,” Rose said softly. “There’s something else she could do if she really wanted to.”

  Laurel frowned. “What is that?”

  I saw tears well up in Rose’s kohl-rimmed eyes. “She could not go back to New York. She could stay.”

  “Everyone must move forward, my dear,” Laurel explained. It made my heart ache. “Megan. You girls. Even me.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “A small toast would be appropriate? With something special?”

  “Small,” I cautioned her. “Very small.”

  “Some thimblefuls. I have cognac, from my great-uncle, in my office. Camus jubilee. Very special occasions only. I’ll get it.”

  She departed, leaving me with the twins. Of course, knowing what I did about her now, I understood that she could have called any one of a dozen minions to fetch it for her. She was getting it herself to leave Sage, Rose, and me alone together.

  “I just want to say—” I began.

  “Don’t even think about vocabulary,” Sage warned.

  “I won’t. You’re ready. No more work, I told you.”

  “You really like the hair?” Rose asked me.

  “I really do,” I assured her.

  Sage pulled out her new cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans. “While I’m thinking about it, give me your parents’ number in Gladwyne.”

  I gulped the rough red wine to bide for time. What parents’ number in Philadelphia? I didn’t even know the area code for Philadelphia.

  “Why?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “You’ve got my cell.”

  “In case you move or you go to Europe or something,” Sage explained. “Your parents will always know where you are. So what is it?”

  It was one of those life-passing-before-your-eyes moments. And then I was saved by fate.

  “Oh, shit, it’s not charged,” Sage groused. “Remind me to get it later.”

  “Sure,” I quickly agreed. Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow after the test. You’ll tell them the truth.

  I was limp with relief when Laurel came back with the Camus jubilee.

  “To tomorrow,” she toasted.

  I had seventy-five thousand dollars in my pocket, which made me feel fantastic, but there was a niggling feeling underneath. Eight short weeks ago, I’d hated these girls, and rightly so. But the hate was long gone. They were so much more than they’d seemed at first blush. However, I was so different from the person they thought they knew. How had it happened that they’d grown brave enough to be honest with each other and with me, yet I was still light-years from being honest with them?

  “To tomorrow,” I agreed. Those two words had special meaning now. The next day, right after they took the SAT, I’d tell the twins everything. “Chin chin.”

  Choose the pair of words that most closely resembles the following analogy:

/>   MOONLIGHT : CHAMPAGNE

  (a)strawberries : champagne

  (b)puppies : cuteness

  (c)one-night stand : tequila

  (d)suntanning : wrinkles

  (e)mascara : eyelashes

  Chapter Thirty-four

  One last night in paradise. One last walk on the beach.

  The cool sand squished between my naked toes. I stared out at the endless expanse of deep purple that was the ocean under a sliver moon. After feasting on Marco’s petite doughnuts—trust me, no human, not even the Baker twins, could resist them—the three of us waddled back to their house. I double-checked their alarm clocks, joked about putting them to bed like little kids, and gave them both massive hugs. We’d have breakfast together in the morning, and I would take them to the test center in West Palm. I tried not to think about whether they would hate me when I told them the truth. I held on to this: Once I had a chance to explain, they would understand.

  The night was cool and breezy. I pulled my True Religion jean jacket closer and watched the waves crest against the shore. Once I was back in the concreteness of New York, would I be able to conjure up the colors, relive the bracing bite of the salt air, remember the heady aroma of the flowers that perfumed the air of Les Anges? Would I be able to close my eyes and see how a cruise ship looked, outlined in lights, out at sea? Recall how the faint strains of its orchestra, playing music from a bygone era, wafted all the way to shore?

  Starting tomorrow night, all this would be gone from my life. Palm Beach wasn’t my home—it was as far from home as I could imagine a place being—but I was sad to leave it all the same. Why is it that for everything you gain in life, something is always lost?

  I found myself walking south, toward Barbados. I couldn’t say Will was something I’d lost, really, since I’d never had him in the first place. Whatever I felt—had felt—for him that day at Lake Okeechobee seemed so long ago and far away, like a dream.

  I crossed the nautical rope between Les Anges and Will’s family’s property. Maybe a thousand feet in front of me was a small structure I’d never noticed before, illuminated by gaslight torches. There was no one else on the beach, so I went to investigate. As I got closer, I saw that the structure was a thatched-roof pavilion with a bar and a few tables randomly scattered across a plank deck. The things Palm Beachers did to re-create a place where the gross national product didn’t equal one Palm Beach family’s fortune were simply too ironic for words.

  I began humming Bob Marley’s “One Love.”

  “Wrong island.”

  I spun, surprised to see Will stepping through the sand in a black tuxedo minus the tie, his white shirt open at the collar. He looked like one of those Rat Pack guys from the sixties, like Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin, singers my counterculture parents had loathed. Will’s sapphire-colored eyes shone in the torchlight.

  “It really does scream Caribbean, doesn’t it?” he asked conversationally, as if we were casual friends who’d happened to run in to each other. “It was my stepmother’s idea. She and my father went to, you guessed it, Barbados for their honeymoon. I’m sure they never left the resort and saw nothing of the actual island, but it’s the thought that counts.” He sat on one of the bar stools, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “So, hi.”

  “Hi. Long time no see.” I winced. Had I really just said long time no see? Me? Miss Wit? “I love a guy who trolls the beach in a tux,” I added. There. That was better.

  “My dad’s giving a thing for some buyers. Black-tie. Very stuffy bunch.” He nearly smiled, but not in a happy way.

  “Not really Hanan’s clientele?”

  Will laughed. “My father would die before he’d show Hanan’s work.”

  I kicked a toe into the sand. “But you told her you were going to. She’s counting on you.”

  Will frowned. “Never a wise thing to do.” He went behind the bar. “How about a Red Stripe?”

  “Aren’t we supposed to be in Barbados? Someone has geography issues.”

  “That would be the stepmother again. It’s not her strong suit. So few things are.” He took two beers from a small fridge, handed me one, and clinked his bottle against mine. We both took long sips. Will leaned an elbow on the bar. “I was actually about to come see you.”

  Okay, yeah, I admit it. I got a little thrill. “That’s nice.”

  “To wish the twins good luck tomorrow,” he clarified.

  Ouch.

  “We just got back from London,” he explained. “We were there for the winter auctions. Sotheby’s, Christie’s. Then Tajan in Paris.”

  “Nice life.”

  “Someone has to live it.” He took another long sip. “So I was wondering how they’re doing. If they’re ready for their test.”

  I ran my thumbnail around the beer bottle. “Honestly? I don’t know. But I do know they both worked their asses off.”

  “That’s a first.”

  “I’ll tell you something even more impressive. Laurel paid me.”

  “Wow. That should be on the front page of The Shiny Sheet.” Will came around the bar. “Walk?”

  “Sure.”

  We headed for the waterline, walking in silence. Something he’d said was bothering me. “Why did you say before that it isn’t wise to count on you?”

  “Every once in a while I get delusions of independence—forge out on my own with my own gallery, representing the kind of art that I love . . .” He shrugged. “But let’s face it, Megan. I’m a rich kid who’s never really had to work hard at anything. Why bother?”

  “To prove that you’re not your father.”

  He glanced at me. “To you?”

  “To yourself.”

  “Ah.”

  We strolled on in silence as the waves rushed to shore.

  “I have a question, Megan Smith,” Will said at last. “That morning on Worth Avenue. That guy in the café. And at the Christmas ball. Who was he, really?”

  A brief editorial comment: Lies are exhausting.

  Suddenly, I was overcome with malaise. I wanted to sink into the sand and go to sleep. Which would be one more way for me to avoid telling the truth.

  Okay. So, no sand nap. I would tell Will now and the twins tomorrow. But how to start? Where to begin?

  “I knew James at Yale,” I said carefully.

  “Yeah, I kind of got that.” I heard the tension in Will’s voice. “And?”

  “And there was a time when we were . . . close.”

  “I kind of got that, too. But why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “I should have,” I agreed. “When I first came here, after the twins pulled that nude-swim thing—I hated them. I hated their friends. And you were one of the friends.”

  “What does that have to do with the Yale guy?”

  I sighed. “Just . . .” I cracked my knuckles, which is not something I usually do. “Stay with me, it’s a long story.”

  “Ooooh-kay.” Will knit his eyebrows at me, kicking at the sand as he walked.

  “Until we went to see Hanan, I didn’t really care who you were or what you thought. But then everything changed.”

  He stopped walking and turned to me, waiting.

  “Because I saw who you really were.” I stopped walking, too. “And who you really were—are—is so . . . so . . . I thought if you knew—”

  In the movies, this is where the girl’s great confession grinds to a screeching halt, the guy pulls the girl to him, and then he kisses the hell out of her.

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my movie moment.

  His lips were on mine, one hand tangled in my hair, the other pressing me to him. Everything I’d ever imagined, including my bathtub fantasies, was left in the dust by the breathless reality of his mouth on mine. My brain flicked momentarily to Lily and how I’d seen him kiss her, too, but then he tugged off my jacket and pulled my T-shirt over my head, and all thoughts of everything and everyone were gone. Then he put his tux jacket on the sand and laid me down on
it. Soon I was naked and he was naked and I understood all those movie metaphors about crashing waves.

  I’m pretty sure I moaned some things that would indicate I really, really liked what was happening. I was even happy that I’d surrendered the pink—and that Will was the one who would see my, um, art.

  It turns out that sex on the beach really is hot. I mean, the sand thing does add a certain . . . tactile element that you’re not necessarily looking for, but it couldn’t have bothered either of us very much, because we went back for seconds. What can I tell you? I had a lot of sexual tension built up.

  I think we fell asleep briefly, what with all the fresh air, deep breathing, and aerobic activity. I woke up in Will’s arms. He kissed my forehead. Then his lips started heading south. I tugged him back up to me.

  “Let’s go to my bed,” I whispered to him. “I’ll sneak you in.”

  “How high school,” Will teased. He rose and hoisted me up. I pulled on my T-shirt and jeans but balled up my La Perlas in my jean jacket. Hand in hand, we headed for Les Anges. Every few feet he stopped to kiss me, to whisper my name in a throaty voice.

  We climbed the stone steps and padded across the pool deck, then tiptoed to the front door of the twins’ manse. He pinched my ass on the way up the grand curving staircase. I swatted at him and put a finger to my lips, warning him to be quiet. At the top of the stairs, he pulled me to him again and gave me another sizzling kiss.

  Something between a groan and a sigh escaped from my mouth. If my IQ hadn’t dropped to somewhere south of my navel, I probably would have been embarrassed. But it had, so I wasn’t.

  I was about to point the way to my suite, when the lights snapped on. There were Sage and Rose, blocking the way. They both wore Juicy Couture sweats. There was a hard darkness in their eyes that said something was terribly wrong.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Why aren’t you—”

  “How could you?” Rose asked, her face gray under her tan.

  “We know everything.” Sage stared at me with pure hate.

  Choose the best antonym for the following word: