Page 53 of High Season

FORTY

THE NIGHT OF THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Tamara’s dress is torn where it caught against a cracked tile. There is a smudge of dirt on her elbow where she caught her own fall. A deep, fierce pain in her ankle.

She hobbles into the house via one of the passageways leading straight from the pool, designed for staff to ferry trays of cocktails and fresh ice out onto the terrace for her grandfather’s legendary parties.

It leads straight into the service kitchen, a small, airless space with an industrial freezer and dusty cupboards, hardly used now that the Draytons’ staff has dwindled.

Tamara can feel her ankle swelling already, the tight throb of her skin stiffening over the injury.

She digs in the freezer to find a bag of ice and uncovers another bottle of vodka.

She slides to the ground and unscrews the cap with her teeth.

She takes a large swig as she presses the ice against her skin.

Already, she can see the pale shadow of a bruise beginning to form, can feel a tenderness that extends from her foot all the way up her calf.

It’s just a sprain, and yet she feels a wound that runs deeper than the thread of purple beginning to pattern her leg.

The fact that Blake did nothing to help her.

The fact that he has invited Hannah here, when he told Tamara it was over.

That her brother has lied to her, yet again.

Tamara waits until the ice is almost entirely melted before she climbs to her feet.

She tests putting weight on her ankle and feels a sharp twinge of pain.

She needs something stronger than ice and vodka; some of the painkillers that her mum keeps upstairs.

Tamara occasionally sneaks some for herself, knowing that Evelyn won’t notice.

She likes the rush of endorphins, the twitch of the chemicals taking hold beneath her skin.

The way that it makes something release inside her, the grasp of the world feeling a little looser.

She gets why her mother sometimes needs everything to feel slightly less real.

Understands the need to soften all the small losses that life deals out.

She hobbles up the back stairs, managing to avoid any of her mother’s guests, and makes her way through the arteries of the house to the first-floor landing.

She pushes open the door that leads to her mother’s dressing room, a small enclave that separates her bedroom from the rest of the house.

It’s messy, as always. Shoes left where they were slung off after a night out.

A pile of dresses, tried on and abandoned.

Makeup scattered on a countertop. Tamara digs through a drawer, crammed so full that plastic catches against the runners as she slides it open.

She holds the small, metallic packets to the light, until she finds what she is looking for.

Oxycodone. Much stronger than she needs, but something that she knows will do the job, and quickly. Enough to make it through the night.

Tamara pops two pills out of the packet. Places one into her mouth and swallows. Without anything to rinse it down, it leaves a lump in her throat. She winces as she forces down the second.

She plans, at first, to stay until the painkillers have taken effect. Long enough that she can shuffle downstairs and rejoin the party. She knows that people will be drunk by now, too far gone to notice the dark gaps of her pupils, the static hum of her movements.

But then she hears a murmur from behind the door. A clunk of something heavy being moved. A voice that unmistakably belongs to her brother.

As Tamara stands, she feels only a mild curiosity. Only a vague interest in what her brother is doing in their mother’s bedroom. A flicker of hope that perhaps he has told Hannah to leave. That he invited her tonight to break things off with her, properly this time.

She stands. Pushes against the door.

“Blake?” she says. “What are you—”

At first, Tamara does not exactly understand what she is looking at.

What she sees is a white flash of flesh. A dark tangle of sheets. Black lace, limbs that are bent strangely, a body spread out on her brother’s bed.

What she sees is her twin bent over Hannah Bailey’s inert form. His breathing heavy. Her head rolled back, her eyes out of focus.

It confirms both her worst fear and secret hope.

Tamara is not the bad twin.

Her brother has been the bad twin all along.

“Blake, what the fuck ?”

Blake scrambles back, his face flushed, fully exposing the sprawl of Hannah’s limbs, the lengths of exposed flesh.

Tamara pushes past him, seized with an urge to cover her up, to protect this girl that she barely knows from her brother. She drags the bedsheets up over Hannah. She can feel the heat of her skin, can see that her hair is wet with sweat.

“I wasn’t doing anything to her,” Blake is saying, but Tamara isn’t listening. She is leaning over Hannah, saying her name. Hannah’s eyelids flicker, as though she can hear Tamara from whatever distant place she inhabits.

“What’s the matter with her?” Tamara says. “What has she taken? What have you given her?”

“I haven’t… Jesus, Tam, I haven’t given her anything,” Blake says. “Look at her, she’s just hammered. I was trying to help her. Put her to bed. What the fuck are you implying?”

Tamara looks at her twin, who she loves in a way that she can’t explain to anyone else, that transcends all the other types of love she has ever felt.

Her brother, who is standing at the edge of the bed, hands on his hips, face flushed.

Who reaches up one arm to sweep his hair out of his face, a nervous tic that Tamara instantly recognizes.

Her brother, who she wants to believe, who she is desperate to trust.

But Tamara knows. She knows.

“Give me your phone,” she says.

“Tamara—”

“Give it to me.”

Reluctantly, he reaches into his pocket. He holds the small silver device out toward her. Tamara flips it open and thumbs into the picture library.

“Tam,” Blake is saying. “I swear I wasn’t doing anything.

Not like that. She turned up here hammered.

You saw what she was like earlier. She’d obviously been drinking to psych herself up or something.

And she must have had more drinks since then, and…

and I was just going to put her to bed for a bit, I swear.

Let her sleep it off. And then I thought…

I don’t know. I just wanted a bit of leverage, you know?

Something to make sure she wouldn’t talk to Cordelia… ”

Tamara can’t quite look at the pictures. She can only focus on small, specific details, the bare skin, the black lace. The slope of Hannah’s breasts. The tilt of her thighs.

“Tam, I love Cordelia,” Blake is saying. “I fucked up.”

Tamara snaps the phone shut.

“You don’t love Cordelia,” she says. “You need Cordelia. You need her family, and her connections, and all the other bullshit that comes with dating her. And you don’t understand the difference.”

Tamara means what she says. In that terrible, dizzying moment, she is not sure that her brother is capable of loving anything.

“OK,” he says. “OK, so I need Cordelia. You understand then; I can’t risk Hannah telling her. It would ruin everything.”

“So you thought you should blackmail her instead?”

“Tam,” Blake says. “I—”

Tamara stands. She can’t meet her brother’s eye.

“You’ll have to help me,” she says.

“Help you?”

“I’m going to put her to bed in my room. She can sleep it off there.”

“Tamara, I—”

“I’m not leaving her here with you.”

There’s a beat of silence. Blake blinks, stunned.

“Are you serious?” Blake says. “You seriously think I would do anything to her? You actually think she’s not safe here?”

“You already have done something to her, Blake.” Her voice is thick, knotted with the threat of tears.

“They’re only pictures.”

“Jesus, Blake, stop,” Tamara says.

She bends down, loops her arm beneath Hannah’s shoulders to pull her upright. Hannah lets out a soft groan, her head lolling to one side.

“If you won’t help me, I’ll do it on my own,” she says. “Where are her clothes?”

She lets Hannah’s weight rest against her shoulder. She’s whispering to her, the way that she does with Nina when her little sister is hurt or upset. It’s OK. You’re going to be alright .

“Here.”

Blake is holding up a dress. Pale blue satin, a color the exact shade of the sky on a hot summer’s day.

Of all things, this makes Tamara’s heart ache the most. She imagines Hannah buying the dress especially for tonight.

Carefully applying makeup, doing her hair.

Looking at herself in the mirror. Wanting to look perfect, for a boy who will break her.

Tamara eases the dress over Hannah’s head.

“Let me take her,” Blake says. “I can carry her.”

Hannah moans again as he slides his arms around her, her weight shifting from Tamara to him. As if she knows, Tamara thinks. As if she can tell. As she lets her brother lift Hannah, Tamara reaches out, squeezes Hannah’s limp hand.

I promise, she tries to convey to her, I’m not going to let him hurt you.

Hannah’s eyelids flicker again. As if she understands.