Page 51 of High Season
THIRTY-EIGHT
THE DAY OF THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
The day of Evelyn’s birthday is predicted to be the hottest of the year.
Tamara hears the weather warnings on the radio.
The talk of sea temperatures and keeping children and animals indoors.
Outside the Draytons’ house, the asphalt curls and buckles, and when Tamara drives into town with Harrison to pick up a wine delivery at her mother’s request they find the town empty and silent, the streets sliced through with heat, nobody wanting to venture away from their pools or their air-conditioned houses.
Farther down the coast there are wildfires that give the air a strange, burnished tinge, the sky a shade of gold as if the whole world is burning.
After days of Evelyn throwing increasingly explosive tantrums about the weather ruining her birthday, Harrison hires air-conditioning units, enormous metal things that are wheeled in on sack barrows while Evelyn complains loudly about the expense; about how her father would be turning in his grave to see his hallway filled up with those ugly contraptions.
When they are switched on, groaning and clunking into life, the humidity immediately easing, she falls quiet.
Within minutes, she is telling everyone how Harrison has saved her birthday, resting her head on his shoulder, looking at him as though he is explaining how he achieved world peace when he talks about how he tracked down a company who could deliver the units last minute.
Later, Tamara hears them having sex upstairs, her mother’s performative moans, and hates her for it. Hates how easily Evelyn forgives. How desperately she needs love, and how easily she accepts something far less.
She goes outside and sits on the terrace, leaning her elbows up on the balustrade, and texts Barnaby, asking if he can get hold of some coke for tonight.
She needs more than alcohol to take the edge off.
She needs something, if she is going to smile, and talk to people, and pretend that she is happy.
Last night, just before sunset, she had walked down to the small private beach at the back of the property, taking with her the diary where she had written down all her thoughts and feelings about Josie Jackson.
Where she had recorded each time they had met up with a small, purple heart at the top of the entry.
She had flicked through the pages, noticing how the sea of violet stamps had grown thinner over time until, this year and last, they were barely there at all.
Just an occasional purple mark on an otherwise blank expanse of summer.
She thought of how much those infrequent meetings had meant to her, how she had savored taking out her purple pen to ink each occasion into permanence.
Then she had thought of her life stretching out ahead. Without Josie, but perhaps also without the ability to be who she really was. To love the way that she wanted to. She had seen the shocked way that Josie had looked at her. She never wanted to feel like that again.
As the sun set, Tamara tore every page out of her diary with a purple mark, every single mention of Josie Jackson.
She shredded them until the loop of her handwriting was barely visible, and then she released them into the air, let them drift and fall into the water.
They looked, in the half-light of dusk, like ashes after a fire.
Tamara has a goal for the party, and that goal is to get exceptionally fucked up.
She has a bottle of Grey Goose, stolen from Harrison’s stash.
She has coke, bought from Barnaby, hidden in the secret compartment of her bedside table.
She mixes vodka with Coca-Cola, so strong that the liquid is a pale, insipid brown.
She drinks two full glasses while she gets ready.
A slick of kohl around each eye. A tight black dress.
Tamara looks at herself in the full-length mirror.
She looks thin, as though she has lost weight in the last few days, her cheekbones concave, her eyes too big for her face.
She can almost see the effect of the coke starting to take hold of her.
The hum of energy. The chemical glow that flickers beneath her skin.
She drains the last of her drink.
“Just a few hours,” she says to her reflection. “You can get through this.”
When it’s time for the guests to arrive, Tamara goes to the staircase and sits on the very top step, hidden by the stone banister.
She can make out the feet of the first partygoers, the people who Evelyn always complains turn up too early, as they filter into the hallway.
Can hear the greetings of the waitstaff, the offers of champagne and canapés on small silver platters.
It reminds her of when she and Blake were very small, before they were allowed to attend their mother’s gatherings.
When Evelyn was recently divorced from their father and made no secret of the fact that she thought two young children cramped her style, they would hide in this very spot and long to be bigger, and older, and taken more seriously.
To be grown-up enough to join the party.
Now, Tamara barely spends time alone with Blake. Now, the two of them keep secrets from each other, when it used to be the two of them together, against the world. Now, Tamara wants to curl into a ball and make herself as small as possible. So small that she begins to shrink.
She wishes she were younger. She wants to be sitting up here with Blake again, enthralled by their mother. Giggly with having evaded their bedtime, awestruck by the beauty of Evelyn’s friends. Tamara wants all of her problems that seem specifically grown-up to go away.
Her mind is drifting when she sees a pair of pale blue heels. The hem of a silken dress. A voice saying thank you very much at the offer of champagne in a way that makes Tamara sit up.
Her mother’s friends do not thank the staff. And besides, Tamara knows that voice.
She is on her feet, barreling down the stairs before she can think about what she is doing.
“Hannah,” she says.
She catches hold of her arm, champagne slopping out of the top of the glass that Hannah is holding. She turns to look at Tamara, alarmed. She looks different. Her hair, usually loose and long down her back, is shiny and groomed, tamed into an elaborate updo. Her makeup is carefully applied.
“Tamara—” she starts.
But Tamara doesn’t give her a chance to speak.
“Hannah,” she is saying. “You’re not supposed to be here.”