Page 36 of Dead of Summer

FAITH

From the dressing room window Faith looks down at the vast lawn, where the final preparations for the Clarkes’ Fourth of July party are being made.

White-clad waitstaff zip across the grass, smoothing down tablecloths on round cocktail tables and arranging elaborate fans of florals.

Servers stock the bar with top-shelf bottles and towers of crystal martini glasses.

Faith squints down at a gazebo, erected in the center of the lawn, which looks to be set up as some sort of stage complete with microphones and speakers.

Off to the side a man hurries past holding a cello. Faith’s stomach clenches.

She turns to the dressing room and pulls her dress off the hanger and slides into it in front of the mirror.

She’d saved this dress for tonight. It’s the one Elena had insisted she buy when she tried it on in the Bergdorf’s dressing room even though the price was astronomical.

The print is innocent enough, a deep cerulean blue scattered with yellow flowers.

But the fabric is fine silk. It is thin and shimmery, clinging to her hips and waist. The neckline loops down around one shoulder.

Back then all she’d wanted was to fit in with the rich islanders, but now she isn’t sure she could even if she wanted to.

All this time she’s been wondering what it would take to make someone like Geoffrey accept her.

She suspects more and more that he lives in a constant state of paranoia, never truly accepting anyone, perhaps not even his own son.

“Can you help zip me?” Faith calls to David.

He stands behind her, so close she can smell the aftershave she loves. She holds her breath, waiting for his hands to grab at her waist the way he normally would. But he stiffly slides the zipper up without any further contact. Faith’s rib cage contracts uncomfortably.

“David?” He looks up into the mirror and their eyes meet.

Faith and David haven’t talked about the fight they had at the lighthouse. But Faith can feel the remnants of it in their every interaction. No longer a singular unit, they step carefully around each other now as though careful not to undo the thin tether that unites them.

“Yes?” He gives her a perfunctory close-lipped smile in the mirror before turning away to fasten his cuff links.

“Nothing.”

She puts her shoes on, bending to fasten the thin straps around her ankles.

She wobbles in them. Never wear shoes you can’t run in , her mom had often said.

What Faith would be running from went without saying: There are bad men out there.

Men who will take advantage. Men who only care about themselves.

“Are you ready for tonight?” David asks, slipping into his jacket.

“Sure am,” Faith says. Her heart flutters nervously.

But in her mind Faith has already begun to plot her escape from the Clarkes.

She goes over it again, the way she will slink off into the early morning.

She’s carefully packed a bag already and stashed it under the bed just in case.

Though she does so hate to leave all those beautiful clothes behind.

She isn’t sure whether she’ll stay in New York or try someplace else. Paris maybe. Faith thinks of Gemma and her stomach drops. There has been no sign of her yet.

“Elena should be here soon,” she says with forced cheer, putting on a pair of delicate diamond earrings. “I should go look out for her.”

“I can’t wait to meet her,” David says. “Any friend of yours is bound to be amazing.”

“You haven’t met?”

“No, but you’ve said so many things about her it feels like I have.”

“You must’ve though. All the parties we’ve been to together.”

“Maybe I’ve just forgotten.” He kisses her neck, and she feels her skin tingle there. She pulls away, trying to disguise her reaction. She would have left sooner were it not for her friend. She’ll tell her everything when she arrives.

“Yes, you must have.” But inside Faith thinks that Elena would be impossible not to remember.

She finds Elena near the front entrance of the house, gazing up into the stairwell, a rapt look on her face. She’s looking impossibly chic holding a stack of garment bags over her arm, her hair already smoothed into a tight updo. Faith is so happy to see her she could nearly cry.

She turns to Faith with a look of absolute awe on her face. It makes Faith feel better somehow.

“You’re here!” Faith squeals.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m just so happy to see you,” she says, squeezing her in a tight hug.

Elena turns to the huge windows facing the water. “These views! Wow, I could get used to a place like this. I can’t believe I am actually at David Clarke’s mansion.”

“I can’t believe you’re here either,” Faith says, feeling surprisingly emotional. Throughout this entire trip, Faith realizes, she’s been mostly alone.

“Show me everything!” Elena grabs Faith by the arm.

“It’s quite creepy really,” she whispers, leading her away from the front entrance and through the house. “After a few days alone here, you start to feel like you’re going insane.”

A rhythmic humming interrupts them. Elena points through a giant picture window as a helicopter lowers through a space in the clouds, its descent sending giant ripples of wind out across the lawn and flapping the tops of the white tents.

“Looks like Geoffrey Clarke has arrived,” she says dryly as Faith watches the staff scramble to save decorations from scattering across the lawn.

He’d been gone for the last couple of days, leaving his “boys” the run of the house.

Faith had found them lounging around the mansion, their feet up on furniture.

They would appraise her, their hooded eyes traveling silently over her body in a way that made her sure what they were after, leaving powdery cigar ashes in their wakes.

“Let’s go do your makeup,” Elena says quickly, squeezing her hand. “Show me your room.”

“The bedroom is this way.” Faith leads her up the marble staircase to her and David’s suite.

“This place is even bigger than I expected,” Elena says, falling into step with Faith, the garment bags dangling from her hand.

They sit across from each other at the long bathroom counter while Elena unpacks her makeup, setting out endless tubes of Dior lipsticks and Armani powders next to a row of brushes like she is preparing for surgery.

“What are we going for tonight? Sweet and serene? Or perhaps something a bit… darker.”

In the mirror, Faith watches as something passes over her friend’s features like a fast-moving storm. Is she jealous? It’s gone as fast as it came. Elena takes a brush and swirls it around in a pot of bronzer.

“And what about our little artist, Orla; have you been feeling any better about her?” Faith detects a bitter edge to the words.

“I haven’t seen her again,” Faith says. But David has , she thinks.

“Look up,” Elena commands. Faith trains her eyes on the crystal light fixture at the ceiling.

She feels the rough brush of a mascara wand against her lower lashes and tries hard not to blink. When she looks back across at her friend, her face has gone back to normal.

She’s missed Elena, missed having a girlfriend around.

They gossip about the Clarke family as they get dressed, and Faith calls down for a bottle of champagne to be sent up to the room.

It comes on a tray with a bowl of fruit next to it.

It’s funny how the luxury is starting to feel commonplace.

Incredible how quickly your expectations can shift. Amazing what we can get used to.

“What good is money if you can’t even talk to your partner?”

“Plenty.” Elena laughs, dusting Faith’s face with finishing powder. “Blot.” She slips a tissue between Faith’s lips. “Are you ready for tonight?”

“I’m nervous,” she says.

Elena smiles at her a bit wistfully in the mirror.

“Don’t be. You’re absolutely perfect.” She squeezes Faith’s shoulder with one hand before dabbing a thin brush into a square of iridescent powder.

Faith feels it touch the inside of her lash line, the tip of her nose, her cupid’s bow.

“There,” Elena says. “All done. Some of my best work if I do say so myself.”

Faith stands and Elena turns her to see herself in the mirror.

The woman looking back at her now is sophisticated and lovely.

Her hair, done earlier in the day by a woman she’d arranged to come up all the way from New York, is done like a 1930s movie starlet in thick waves.

Her cheekbones chiseled; her eyes framed with a smoky black-gold glitter. Her lips are a deep plum red.

Faith is nearly intimidated by her own reflection.

“You’re an artist. Truly,” Faith says, smiling at her friend in the mirror. She takes in their heart-shaped faces and Elena’s smooth brown hair. Elena strokes her hair affectionately. She puts her cheek next to Faith’s and smiles. “I know. Look at us. We could be sisters.”