The Birthday Girl

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “If the Honor Board reverses their decision, then you can stay?” asked Ellie. “Is that how it works?”

  “It would help, because, um, all this stress has affected my grades, and with all my Fs from last semester, my average is pretty low. I could get kicked out permanently,” said Sam, looking anguished. “I was hoping not to have to tell you guys.”

  Todd took his daughter’s hands in his. “We’re glad you did. You know you can tell us anything. We’re going to take care of this. You’re not going anywhere. It’s not your fault.”

  “Mean Celine is on the board at Stanford,” Ellie suddenly remembered. She would have to confess Sam’s secrets of course, and she would have to grovel. But she would do anything for her child, even going so far as to admit that said child was not perfect. Mean Celine was a friend, despite the label. “Don’t worry, you won’t be going anywhere. And that professor is fired!”

  Sam threw herself into Ellie’s arms. “Thanks, Mom. I knew you would fix it.”

  Ellie patted her daughter on her back. “Of course I will.” She caught Todd’s eyes over Sam’s shoulders.

  Thank you, he mouthed.

  She nodded.

  Ellie left Sam and Todd to themselves, since Todd wanted to talk to his daughter about the dangers of falling for older men, and what exactly constituted plagiarism. Ellie had to find Mean Celine and get this straightened out as soon as possible.

  But instead of finding her friend, she bumped into a familiar face. One she hadn’t seen in more than twenty years.

  “Hey, stranger, there you are. Happy birthday,” he said.

  “Hey!” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “You made it!”

  Part Three

  JUST DESSERTS

  THIRTY-ONE

  Hell Hath No Fury

  October 19

  Twenty-Four Years Ago

  11:45 P.M.

  The bitch kissed her man. When Mish got mad, the voice in her head sounded like an angry, accusatory talk-show host riling up her guests in front of a hungry audience. She had played it cool at the party and had basically mauled her boyfriend to make him forget about kissing that slut. But inside, she was steaming.

  “Hey, you okay?” asked Brooks, when Leo had left. The two of them were still sitting in the car alone. This was so not what she had planned for the evening. They were supposed to show Leo a good time, because it was her birthday, but that didn’t include kissing the birthday girl.

  She turned away.

  “I didn’t want to kiss her, it was just a dare; you know I’m crazy about you, babe,” Brooks said, putting his chin on her shoulder and nuzzling her neck.

  She pushed him away. “Liar.”

  “God, you can be such a cunt sometimes,” he spat.

  “Fuck you,” she said, wiggling away and wrenching the door open.

  “Fuck you too,” he said as she slammed the door closed.

  She watched him drive away angrily, and felt vindicated. Good, let him feel it. From the corner of her eye, she saw Leo walk toward her house and pretend that she didn’t hear them fighting.

  Happy birthday, bitch.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Old Dames

  October 19

  The Present

  11:45 P.M.

  It was so strange, seeing him again after all these years. It was like all the years melted away. He even sounded the same, if he didn’t look exactly like he did before. Everything came back in a rush—that night, what happened, what happened next, what happened after that. The things you forget. She remembered shopping without paying. What a little thief she had been back then! What would her kids say if they knew? How could she explain her hardscrabble childhood to her spoiled little princes and princesses? What did they understand of poverty, of not having enough, of always being lesser? It wasn’t just about money either. It was like, back then, they had been starved of everything—love, attention, care, even decency. How could she explain what she’d done? What would Todd say? What would Todd think?

  But she had to put that out of her mind for now. Had to put him out of her mind. That was the past, and he was the past.

  “Go get a drink! The bar’s back there!” she told him. “I’ll see you in a bit!” Did he still drink? He used to drink like a fish. They all did, but particularly him.

  What did he remember? Did he remember that night?

  It didn’t matter. This was about now. About her daughter.

  * * *

  —

  She was still just Celine when they first met. Ellie couldn’t remember when she heard the “Mean” nickname or who had started calling her that. She was just Celine Barry, just another mom at Glenwood Prep, where they had just enrolled Sam in seventh grade. It was parent orientation, and Ellie stood out in the sea of puffy black tech vests, thin, ribbed turtlenecks, jeans, and status clogs. Welcome to the West Side. Ellie had just come from a meeting with her designers. She was wearing a cowboy hat and a fringed leather jacket over her white tank top, tight motocross jeans, and her Valentino Rockstud stilettos. She was easily twenty years younger than all the moms. Okay, fifteen. Ten.

  She was sexy, and Brentwood did not do sexy.

  But Celine, in a headband, padded vest, and Hunter boots, found her amusing. “I’m Celine, Alex’s mom,” she’d said, introducing herself to Ellie, who was standing alone, unsure of where to go. She’d never been a mom at a private school before. Montserrat was supposed to be here, but no one could find her. Todd was at work, of course. She had work too, but it was an unspoken agreement between them. Ellie dealt with the kids. Todd dealt with the network. Ellie did everything else.

  “Ellie,” said Ellie. “I’m Sam’s mom. Well, stepmom.”

  “Is that right?”

  “We just moved from New York,” she explained. “At least I did. Todd’s been here. But this is a new school for Sam.”

  “Sam . . . Samantha Stinson? Is that your daughter?”

  “Yes!” said Ellie, relieved.

  “Alex talks about Sam all the time; how wonderful to meet you.”

  It turned out Sam was Alex’s favorite friend and since Alex was Celine’s favorite child (she had four and Alex was the youngest), it was only natural that Ellie became Celine’s favorite mom. And even if things weren’t the same between the girls now, it didn’t mean things had to change between the moms. Although of course, it had. They just weren’t as close as they used to be. They used to gossip about the girls endlessly. But that had ended, and for a while Ellie was worried the friendship was over. But Celine was still at the party, she had made her appearance, and she didn’t have to. Celine didn’t have to be anywhere she didn’t want to be. She wanted to be there, because she was still Ellie’s friend.

  Husbands could lie, they could cheat, they could die, but in the end, you had your girlfriends. Ellie had never been much of a girl’s girl; she’d had a best friend when she was in high school but never anyone as close as the two of them had been. She was friendly with the model crew of her generation, the girls who used to run the circuit like she did—St. Barts, Aspen, St. Tropez, Palm Beach—just another girl getting a ride on the private jet and paying for the ride with a ride of her own. At least she’d married her ride—Archer. It bonded you, being young in a sea of gray money. She was used to flying solo, and that hadn’t changed—much. She wasn’t particularly close to any of the other moms, just Celine.

  I knew you would fix it, Sam had said.

  Thank you, Todd had mouthed.

  How would she fix this? By being Celine’s friend, it was already a fait accompli.

  “Celine!” she said, finding her friend at the entrance and dropping the nickname for once.

  “Cupcake!”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure, honey, what’s up?” asked Celine, who was holding her Judith Leiber clutch in
a way that made Ellie suspicious.

  “Are you leaving?” she accused. “It’s not even midnight!”

  Celine shrugged.

  Ellie wanted to whine more to convince Celine to stay for the drag queens and the second after-party, to see the hotel suite that had been turned into a hookah lounge. But she knew once Celine was done, she was done. She had little time to explain.

  “So, it’s about Sam.”

  Celine nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “And Stanford.”

  Celine raised an eyebrow.

  This was hard. This was humiliating. Her perfect child. Her one perfect child who was not so perfect after all. But she did it. She told Celine the whole story, about the affair and the plagiarism and the Honor Board and the academic probation. “So, isn’t that wrong? I mean, he was sleeping with her! A student! He had a motive. He was jealous and he wanted to get her into trouble.”

  But Celine didn’t say anything. She just chewed on her lip. “Hmmm, that’s going to be a dean issue.”

  “Dean?”

  “Dean of studies. He’d have to make the call. And we’d have to prove that it was malicious on the professor’s part, maybe even get him fired. It’ll be a fight,” said Celine, and she had a pugnacious look in her eye, the one she used to strong-arm benefactors into writing six-figure checks to her causes.

  “We’ll fight. It’s Sam.”

  “Who had an affair with her professor and whose girlfriend wrote her term paper.”

  “She says she didn’t,” said Ellie hotly. “She swears she didn’t cheat.” It was a stretch. Sam had definitely crossed the line, but hadn’t the professor done the same? Who was guilty? Who was innocent? Maybe no one, so why should her child pay for her mistake?

  Celine sighed. “Do you know how easy it is to fake a term paper these days? Who knows what happened? Maybe she didn’t or maybe she did.”

  It was exactly what Ellie was thinking, but she took umbrage anyway. “Are you blaming my kid?”

  “No, I’m just laying it out for you. It’ll be a battle; are you ready? Is Sam ready for that?”

  Ellie nodded. They would do anything for their kid. Of course they would. They always had. “You can help, right? You’ll make this go away? Sam can’t be expelled from Stanford. Oh my god.”

  “I can talk to some people,” said Celine. “But you know who you have to get on your side?”

  “Who?”

  “Blake,” said Celine.

  “Blake?” Her lips curled. “Why?”

  “His new boyfriend is the dean of studies at Stanford. He was just telling me about him,” said Celine. “I’ll talk to the board, you talk to Blake. Make sure he gets his boyfriend to open up the case against Sam again, and make a new judgment. He’ll do it if you ask.”

  “Can’t you ask?” said Ellie jokingly.

  Celine smiled. “Come on, Ellie. You love Blake.”

  “Do I?”

  Her friend patted her cheek. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. We’ll take care of it. But you have to talk to Blake. I can only do so much.” She placed her champagne glass on the nearest surface.

  “You’re really leaving?”

  “Yes, wheels up in fifteen.”

  Ellie pouted. The evening was just getting started. She knew she had to usher Celine out the back way, lest other people get ideas and start to leave en masse. Her party could not end early. She would not let it.

  “Come this way. I think your driver is parked over in back.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  No Fury

  October 20

  Twenty-Four Years Ago

  12:00 A.M.

  There was no one home when Mish arrived, but that wasn’t surprising. Mom was probably out with her sister; the two of them often found their way to the nearby tavern after their shifts at the factory, and her father was probably still at Starry Night.

  She didn’t even think of him as “Dad.” Mostly, she called him nothing. He’d been gone her entire childhood; he was a stranger who was hardly ever around. And when he was around, he was surly, and drunk, or angry and drunk, or quiet and drunk.

  Everyone said she looked like him, which she hated. She wished she looked more like her mom, who’d been a total knockout until the world wore her down. Mom had even won one of those beauty contests back in the day, and there were rumors that she had once dated Donald Overton; wasn’t that ironic? If they had gotten together, she and Brooks would be brother and sister.

  Mish was annoyed, and so drunk she couldn’t walk straight. The whole day had started out so promising, but had ended in a fight. Her head hurt and she was dizzy. The minute she got to her room, she fell on her bed and passed out cold.

  The sound of a car engine roaring up and shutting off woke her. Mish sat up and pulled aside the curtains to look out the window. There was someone going into Leo’s house. A guy. It was dark, and she couldn’t see who it was, or what car he was driving, but she knew, deep down in her gut, who it was.

  THAT FUCKER, thought Mish. HE CAME BACK TO FINISH.

  He’d gotten a little taste, and now he wanted the whole enchilada. The two of them had been making eyes at each other all night. Mish couldn’t get the sight of them kissing out of her head. Brooks had placed his hand on Leo’s cheek, the way he always did on hers. It was like he’d traded her for her best friend, like she was replaceable, as if the two of them were interchangeable with each other.

  She quickly put on her jeans and sneakers and ran out the door, her heart pounding. She couldn’t quite believe he had the audacity to do this; in a way, she’d believed him when he said he loved her. She thought she was special. He was the only one who made her feel that way, other than Leo of course.

  Her best friend with her boyfriend. It was unforgivable. She would shame them, she would scream, she would cry and she would hit, punch, claw—she pictured nails drawing blood—she would hurt them. She would. She would make them hurt as much as she hurt right now, all twisted and sad and angry and shaking from betrayal.

  The door was unlocked, and she let herself in.

  She heard the bed creak, muffled sounds, like kissing. Her blood began to boil. She had caught them in the act! She could picture it all too clearly, Leo underneath, Brooks heaving. His lips on hers, his body on hers, and he was hers, not Leo’s.

  FUCKING SLUT!

  She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and threw open the door.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Old Flames

  October 20

  The Present

  12:00 A.M.

  You love Blake. Do I? How much did Celine know? Did she just guess or had Ellie spilled the beans once? Ellie thought that maybe she had told her friend about her and Blake. Oh, Celine was right about that. She had loved him once. Very briefly. But she had loved him all the same.

  She had to find Blake to talk to him, at least this way she wouldn’t have to talk to him just yet. She had no desire to rehash the past. If only she hadn’t told so many people about her party.

  Anyway, Blake. It was right after she and Archer had broken up the first time. Blake came to take her out. Blake was always around back then. He was such a handsome thing. Todd once accused her of sleeping with everyone they’d met. All because she’d admitted she’d slept with Jared Leto when Todd introduced her to him at the Emmys! He was so jealous about that one. And oh my god, it was just Jared Leto. Everyone slept with Jared Leto, and Jared slept with everyone. (And he didn’t have a small penis; she just told Todd that to make him feel better.)

  She didn’t sleep with everyone she knew. Or did she?

  Ellie had to admit Todd was right about Blake. They’d had a fling. But did her husband have to know everything about her past? What did it matter whom she’d slept with if she wasn’t sleeping with them anymore?

  Anyway, Blake. He had come over to the
apartment when he’d heard she was depressed after the breakup with Archer.

  “Come on, let’s go out,” he said. “You can’t just stay here, moping.”

  Archer was in Spain again. He was always in Spain. And she’d just found out he was fucking the housekeeper. Only Archer would have a hot housekeeper. Only Archer would take their housekeeper to Spain for the weekend.

  She’d thrown one of her shoes at Archer when he left. “FUCKER!”

  Why did she think he would be faithful? Why would anyone think she was enough? Why couldn’t anyone love her the way she deserved to be loved? Would anyone ever love her the way she loved them? She loved Archer, but it didn’t matter. He loved his freedom.

  Blake came over and kicked her. Lightly.

  She was lying on the bed, unable to move. The place was a mess. (See: housekeeper. Ibiza.)

  “Come on, get yourself up; it’s just Archer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No one mopes around for Archer,” Blake said, sounding particularly posh right then. She’d always loved his British accent.

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” said Blake. “That’s just what he does. He slept with my sister. Did I tell you? She was mad for him. But he dumped her too. He dumps everyone.”

  “We. Are. Married,” she told him. “It’s different.”

  Blake shrugged. “Tell yourself that.”

  Blake was her age. Archer was old. Blake was fun. He had a lot of sisters. One of them was Archer’s age. That’s how they knew Blake.

  She couldn’t remember the first time she met him, only that he was always around and always up for another drink. Blake Burberry. This handsome, skinny boy.

  “Come on, Elle, get yourself up. There’s a party. I need a drink,” he said.