Page 28 of High Season

NINETEEN

For the second day in a row, Nina has not slept.

All night, she lay awake. She relived the conversation with Josie, over and over. Tried to quantify what it meant to her, how it had felt, to see the woman who had killed her sister. Or at least, who Nina had long believed had killed her sister.

Instead, she was left with her own thoughts which, it felt, were slowly driving her mad.

She kept going over and over the meeting with Josie Jackson. When she thought about it, the thing that struck her the most was how Josie had stood: her body braced, her legs shoulder width apart, her hands firmly by her side.

It was the kind of position that Nina counseled clients to adopt in confrontational situations, to show inner strength. The kind of pose that someone who was certain of themselves might naturally fall into.

Meanwhile, Nina’s own hands had been knotted in front of her. Her spine had been hunched and apologetic. It was not the stance of someone facing the woman who had killed her sister.

The body remembers what the mind does not.

Nina really believes that. It’s what she always told her clients, when she was in her final year of training.

And when she stood in front of Josie, her body was not afraid.

It was not defiant. Her body did not tell Nina that she was standing in front of a murderer.

For the first time, Nina felt sure that she did not see Josie kill Tamara.

And now she can’t stop thinking about what she might have seen instead.

With the sun beginning to set on the evening of Evelyn’s birthday party—an entire day survived without sleep—Nina should feel exhausted. Instead, she feels invigorated. Full of fury and drive.

The house is already full of guests, and for once Nina doesn’t care about making a good impression. The thought of making small talk and eating a tiny, measured portion of cake and then worrying about how many steps she’ll have to take to burn it off later feels ridiculous.

Instead, she sits alone on the terrace, a bottle of wine on the ground beside her.

The air has a heaviness that comes before rain, the sky clouded and yellow, the sea dark.

Her mother’s party guests have crowded inside the house, afraid that they’ll get caught up in the storm.

Abandoning the champagne station that her mother had set out in the garden, the crudités arranged on a long table on the front balcony.

Nina knows that Evelyn will be annoyed by the weather.

That tomorrow she will be in a foul mood that will seep through the house.

But for now, the pink house glows and teems with people.

Through the window, Nina can just spot her mother, resplendent in a fuchsia dress as the room hums around her, a queen bee at the heart of a swarm.

Nina drains her glass and pours another.

There is a frisson of exhaustion that pulsates beneath her skin.

Her body is in survival mode now, running on borrowed reserves of energy.

Her mind is foggy from the wine, and the lack of sleep, and the same thoughts that skitter through her head like electrical currents.

Josie Jackson. Tamara. The pool. The steps. The heat.

There’s an ashtray abandoned on the balustrade, an empty bottle of beer glinting amber.

A fly teeters on its neck, dizzy from the lingering fumes, fat from the spoils of plates left out in the heat for too long, the sugary hit of buttercream and stagnating crumbs of cheese sweating from the humidity.

Nina watches it climb inside the bottle, knowing that it will die in there, trapped in the dregs of someone’s forgotten drink.

Its bloated body makes her feel slightly sick, the green flicker of wings against the glass sharpening her desire to be moving.

To do something. To release some of the anxiety that simmers in her stomach, and in her limbs, and her chest.

She goes to stand, but the sudden movement sends a hot rush of pressure to her temples.

She hasn’t eaten today. It gave her a terrible, beautiful high to skip breakfast. To slip the sandwich that Sandra had made her into the bin when nobody was looking.

It made her feel powerful and untouchable, but now the wine has gone straight to her head.

A livid flush of color that blooms from the back of her skull.

A crash as the wine bottle topples to the floor.

She takes a second to stabilize, standing perfectly still as her vision darkens and then clears. When it does, she is looking at the exact spot where her sister drowned. She is almost surprised not to see the azure blue of the pool. To not smell chlorine on the air.

It’s only then that she notices her foot.

A shard of glass. A jagged tear, the flesh white and parted.

When it comes, the pain is swift and sharp.

Nina swears under her breath and starts to hobble toward the house, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind her, dark marks on the blank stretch of ground where her sister died.

Nobody seems to notice as she limps into the garden room, where an enormous white cake has been set up on a teeteringly tall stand. Three tiers, more like a cake for a wedding than a birthday. As if her mother hasn’t had enough of those, Nina thinks. The cruelty of her own thought surprises her.

Groups are bunched between the yellowing palms and snakes of ivy that wind across the walls, champagne flutes in their hands. A waiter breezes toward Nina, smiling, holding out a glass toward her. She takes it and drinks it down almost in one.

Nina has been to so many of these parties.

She has seen her mother bloom and glow as guests tell her how beautiful she looks, how she’s barely aged since last year, or the year before that.

People that Evelyn hasn’t seen since her last birthday, kissing her on both cheeks like they’re best friends.

One eye always turned toward the door, wondering who else has been invited this year, which recently divorced celebrity or socialite fresh from a scandal will grace them.

Nina does not usually enjoy herself at her mother’s parties. Usually, she’s careful not to drink too much, or eat too much. Usually, she’s busy ensuring that Evelyn has a nice time, too fearful of the black mood that will encircle the house at the smallest slight or guest-list snub.

But tonight, Nina takes a second glass of champagne from the waiter. Tonight, Nina—who usually cares so deeply about everything and everyone—is far beyond caring.

She moves from the garden room to the kitchen, tracking smears of blood across the terra-cotta tiles.

“Your foot—” someone says.

Nina walks right past them.

She spots Ryan close to the kitchen island talking to a young woman, probably the daughter—or even granddaughter—of one of Evelyn’s friends.

She has that exact beauty, the strong features that come from generations of pedigree breeding, the natural highlights that suggest winters spent in the sun.

Nina knows her type. She knows her type because she is her type.

She is Nina, without the headlines and the history.

Without the skin-picking, and the light-switching, and the counting.

The kind of person who, Nina imagines, is able to eat bread without thinking about grams of carbohydrates—or worse, who doesn’t even like bread, long for it, as Nina does.

Who doesn’t dream, sometimes, about her dead sister.

She is Nina’s type, and she is Ryan’s type, too.

She is the kind of person who Nina has always been afraid that Ryan secretly wants.

The kind of person whose entire being isn’t so tangled up in one terrible thing that happened to them that it bleeds into every part of her.

Ryan is Nina’s safe, stable place. Her biggest fear is that he might want someone safe and stable, too.

Right now, he is laughing at something the woman has said, swigging from his beer.

Nina grips the stem of her champagne flute tighter, takes another slug.

She hobbles around the edge of the room, slipping between discussions about which boarding school grandchildren are being sent to, the impossibility of finding good chalet girls in Val d’Isere.

Nina wants to scream. She wants to shake them all, tell them how little it all matters.

Can’t you see? she wants to say. My entire life is falling apart. Everything I knew about my life is disappearing, right in front of me.

She makes it through the kitchen without being stopped, across the hallway to the stairs.

Her foot is beginning to throb. She needs to get to the bathroom, to find antiseptic and bandages.

She grips the banister for balance. Starts to climb the sweeping steps.

She can see her mother’s pink dress, bright in the corner of her vision.

Halfway up she pauses, bending to assess the damage.

Blood is beginning to clot against her skin, an ugly line of black, as though the inside of her is rotten and spoiled.

The thought makes her woozy, and when she stands she has to lean both hands on the railings facing out over the room to steady herself.

A tide is rising up inside her. She opens her eyes and feels, briefly, as if everyone is looking at her, their eyes twitching upward even as their mouths move, their conversations continuing.

Above the hum of voices, she can almost imagine what they are saying.

The same things that she’s read online, over and over again, except for this time they are being spoken out loud.

Coming from the mouths of people who know her. People who were there.

I always said they should never have taken the word of a little girl.

I mean, children do make things up, don’t they?

She’s never really moved on from it, sadly.

But do you think she was telling the truth?

Do you think she was telling the truth?

The empty champagne flute slips from between Nina’s fingers and shatters against the stairs. The sound seems disproportionally loud for such a delicate thing, a crash of glass against stone. The hum of the room softens to quiet. A sea of faces turns up toward her, surprised. Wary.

All except for Evelyn. Evelyn, who is smiling. Expectant. As if she thinks that Nina might launch into a speech, her disaster a spectacle designed for her mother’s benefit.

And Nina does not like to disappoint.

“Whoops!” she says, her voice clear in the sudden quiet. “There goes my champagne toast.”

She laughs, but it sounds forced. Others join in, an uncertain chuckle rippling through the crowd.

They’re watching Nina now. Properly watching her.

Not the version of herself being talked about online, picked over in internet forums. The real Nina.

She’s here, and she feels electrified and solid.

Not someone who can be swept away in a tide of headlines and social media posts.

“Well, I suppose that as the daughter of the birthday girl, I should be thanking you all for coming to celebrate my mother,” she says, louder now. She sees Ryan coming into the hallway, the girl with perfect highlights on his left side. “Sixty-two years old! Who would have thought it?”

Someone starts to applaud, and then stops, realizing they’re clapping alone. Above her extravagant pink collar, Evelyn’s jaw has tightened, her eyes dark.

“Not that my mother likes anyone mentioning her age,” Nina continues.

“To most people, she’s remained in her forties for the last couple of decades.

And, as many of you know, today isn’t actually her birthday.

Because for the last twenty years, we’ve been celebrating her birthday a month early.

Because it’s terrible, really, isn’t it?

When your own birthday also happens to be the anniversary of your daughter’s death. ”

The room is completely silent now, as if everyone is holding their breath.

“Some of you probably remember it,” Nina says. “Lots of you were here. Isn’t it mad? How we all still come back? The same party, every year. It’s pretty messed up, when you think about it. All we had to do was change the date, and everyone was happy to come and celebrate.”

“Nina.”

Evelyn is pale. There’s a warning in her voice.

“But why should I be surprised?” says Nina. “You were all there that night, weren’t you? And you all let a child testify, just because you wanted to feel better about yourselves. Because you didn’t want to think that there was anything you might have done to save my sister.”

She’s openly crying now, tears damp against her cheeks. Through the haze, she can make out Ryan’s face. The look of undisguised horror.

“If I had a glass right now, I’d raise it,” she says.

“To all of you. To everyone who partied while my sister died. And everyone who’s done their best to forget it, in all the years since.

Because some of us have never been able to.

Some people have never been allowed to be anyone other than the kid who saw her big sister murdered. ”

A few voices are rising up to meet hers now, a murmur of protest, a hum of horror.

“In fact,” says Nina. “Maybe someone should bring me a drink up here right now, because I’d really like…”

“Nina.”

There’s a hand on her elbow. Blake, his voice in her ear. The weight of him holding her still.

“It’s OK,” he says. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

“I’m not finished,” she hisses.

“On the contrary,” he says. “I think that you are.”

A gentle steer, pulling her back from the edge. His body between her and the spectators below, shielding her from view.

“Show’s over, guys,” he says. “Everyone fill up your drinks. I think we all need another one after that!”

Then he’s leading her upstairs, and his grip is so assured, so gentle, that Nina almost believes that he will fix things for her. She almost thinks that he might be able to take everything away.

“Blake,” she says. Her voice is small. Childlike. “Blake, I think I’m going to be sick.”