Page 31 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

MAREN

“ W hen do you land?” my mother asks. “If you’re arriving early enough, we can get lunch at Pierre’s.”

I’m still in bed, now sleepily throwing off the covers and opening the door for the dogs. And the engagement party is still a week away… what the fuck? “Mom, I’m not arriving a week early to help you with the party. I told you…I’m helping Charlie with the house. There’s stuff going on.”

“And as I told you ,” she retorts, “there’s absolutely nothing you can do that will substantially help with that house.”

“He needs moral support,” I argue, putting the phone on speaker so I can dress while we talk. “And there’s this big country club event Thursday night where we might meet some people who can assist with our appeal.”

“You’re talking as if it’s your house,” she says pointedly. “And I don’t know why you can’t be happy for your sister.”

“I am happy for her!” I say with a heavy sigh.

“But you seem to have no understanding of how awkward this is going to be for me. I dated Miller and now I’m getting divorced, and all your friends will be dissecting every look on my face, every sigh, and reading into all of it.

It’s going to be like the day after the Oscars, where they claim some actress was mad just because they’ve got a single photo of her not smiling. I can’t win.”

“Maren,” she tsks. “If you think they’re going to be examining your face to see if you are upset, just imagine what they will be saying if you haven’t shown up at the party at all.”

Jesus. “I never said I wasn’t going. But let’s stop acting like this is going to be super fun for me. All I can do is minimize damage, so I’m not arriving five days early to let all your friends get a head start gossiping about how upset I appear.”

“You could remedy that by not appearing to be upset,” she says.

“If even Oscar-nominated actresses can’t appear happy every second of a three-hour event, I probably can’t appear happy every moment over the course of several days.”

“You’re hiding out down there,” she says. “Plain and simple. It’s time to tear the Band-Aid off and return to real life.”

It’s possible she’s correct. It’s also possible that the longer I go without having to face all the fake-concerned looks from people about my divorce, the more daunting it will seem. “I’ll be there Friday.”

“With a smile on your face,” she warns as I hang up, and my stomach knots.

Even she’s doing it. Even she is acting as if I’m upset about Kit’s engagement, as if I have to hide my feelings, when what’s upsetting is that people will assume I’m hiding my feelings and are sort of hoping to see the cracks.

Charlie and I haven’t discussed the party. I’d assumed he’d go, but with the house being condemned, maybe that’s changed.

“Hey, you’re planning to go to that party for Kit next weekend, right?” I venture over breakfast .

He finishes his green juice as if it’s a shot before he answers. “I told your mom I couldn’t make it. There’s too much going on here.”

I bite down on my lip. I know it’s busy.

So busy. And he’s not even the one who wanted this house.

But I need him there. He’s always been the first to notice when I’m upset, when I’m cornered, when I’m in need of backup.

If one of my mother’s friends started in about how hard the situation must be, Charlie would ask some abominably rude question of the person giving me trouble, pull me onto the dance floor, or throw a drink if the situation was really dire.

“Are you sure you can’t come?” I ask.

He frowns. “Maren, Kit’s not even going to notice I’m missing.”

I’ll notice he’s missing, but maybe that’s part of the problem.

Maybe my mother was right—that it’s time to tear the Band-Aid off.

If my life was a house, Charlie used to be a single brick, but now he’s the entire foundation.

Except he’s not interested in being anyone’s foundation.

Which means that, eventually, he’s going to crumble.

On Thursday afternoon, I cut out early to get ready for the ball.

There’s no one in Oak Bluff I’d trust to do my hair and makeup, but I got pretty accustomed to doing it myself when I was modeling.

Once it’s done to my satisfaction, I step into the red satin ballgown and shoes I rush-shipped down here at ridiculous expense.

The shoes are a full size too small, but I can stand them for a few hours, and as I take in my reflection, I’m barely noticing the pain.

Will Charlie like it? Will he give me one of those long, slow looks of his ?

I shouldn’t want it, but I do.

I tell myself that all this effort is on behalf of the house, on behalf of some mysterious town council member to be swayed or a shady developer to be brought into line.

But it sort of feels like I just want to be a pretty girl in a dress, attending a fancy ball in an old mansion with the most handsome man I know.

Charlie is waiting as I emerge from the cottage. He wears a tux as if he was born in one.

“That’s one hell of a dress,” he says, his voice gravelly.

I fight a blush. “Anything for the cause.”

“What cause was that again?” he asks, reaching for me as I come down the last two stairs.

I forget. It’s something. It’s the house or the developer…I’m not sure why I’m struggling to remember the answer.

He drives us to Oak Haven, the mansion where the ball is being held. Broad porches surround the house on both the first and second floors. Every light is on, and classical music spills through the windows.

It feels oddly familiar, but maybe it’s just that I’ve seen too many movies about the old South.

We walk up the stairs side by side. As excited as I am to attend this thing, a part of me suddenly dreads having to share Charlie’s time and attention.

“You do look nice,” he says as we step through the door. “You look really nice.”

He’s so genuine sometimes, in moments like this. I don’t know what to make of it. “So do you.”

“Actually,” he says, spinning me toward him in the nearly empty foyer, under the glow of a massive chandelier, “you look?—”

“Maren!” calls a voice and we turn to find Kara, the membership director, sprinting toward us, hampered by her long gown. Wow, her timing is so bad .

“You must be Maren’s brother,” she gushes.

“Stepbrother,” he amends smoothly.

Her blink is apologetic, as if the error was hers when I’m the one who said he was my brother.

I’m not sure why I keep doing that. It’s not as if Charlie feels like a sibling…

He entered our lives far too late. It’s possible that I’m just trying to remind myself that he’s off limits, though it’s not as if I could forget it, could I?

She introduces us to the wife of the club’s president, who deftly steers Charlie away before I’ve even had a chance to shake her hand.

“Let me introduce you to everyone,” says Kara, leading me in the opposite direction.

I take one glance over my shoulder, hoping to catch Charlie’s eye, but he’s now surrounded by a cluster of beautiful women and has likely forgotten I exist.

I’m introduced to the president of the board, and then—more interestingly—the widow of one of the club’s founding members. “Welcome to Oak Haven,” she says grandly, “the former home of George Graves, who led Oak Bluff’s renaissance in the 1890s.”

A shiver runs up my arms. This is where the ball was held, the one where Margaret and William danced together. I knew it felt familiar.

“Did you know any of the family?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

“I didn’t grow up here. I met my husband at USC in the fifties and he brought me down. We bought the place in the seventies, long after the Graves’ descendants had moved on.”

She’s still talking about her husband while my gaze is on Charlie, who’s currently focusing all his charm on a pretty girl in a sleeveless, body-con floral dress.

It hardly suits the Bridgerton theme, but suddenly I feel old-fashioned and dowdy in the red satin I was so pleased with an hour before .

“Back then, going to college was considered a waste to most men,” the widow continues. “You’re so lucky to be young when you are.”

I’m not that young. Not like the girl in the body-con dress . But I’m guessing that youth, like old age, is entirely relative—to a child, anyone over the age of forty is old and to an octogenarian, anyone under the age of sixty is young.

“I didn’t actually go to college,” I tell her. “Well, I started, but then I left.”

She nods. “You’re the model. That’s right.” She pats my hand as if to console me. “No matter how things change, a pretty face matters more than smarts if you’re female.”

I’d like to be that rarest of things, a woman who’s considered equal parts lovely and intelligent. Like Kit. Charlie’s one of the few men who’s ever made me feel as if I was.

But now he’s off with some kid in an inappropriate dress. So maybe he just never found me all that lovely in the first place.

For the next hour, I’m led around to older board members, most of them male, who want to hear about my mother, and all the while Charlie is with that same girl, so I guess I know how tonight is ending—with me in my bed, listening to the rhythmic thump of a headboard next door while this girl shouts, “Oh Charlie, oh, fuck” again and again and again.

It was aggravating the night I stayed in his apartment. Now, it would be enraging.

“Maren, allow me to introduce you to Steve DeChen, Oak Bluff’s mayor,” says Kara and I somehow shirk off my sad thoughts and replace them with my broadest smile.

Because even if tonight has been an absolute waste, having a friend on the town council can’t hurt and having that friend be the head of the town council definitely can’t hurt.

“Kara tells me you’re living out at Riverbend, the old Ames place,” he says.