Page 9

9

The garden of Hemlock Hill comprised a honeycomb of many sections, and this part of it buzzed with activity. From the stories Lowell told, Rose had expected a small get-together. Close friends only. But the place crawled with teenagers. Just as many as there were at Lowell’s house party. More, even. The kids flitted through the space, Solo cups in hand, clutching each other, lounging, huddled in groups, indiscriminately making out in the grass, tripping over each other, roughhousing, pulling at each other’s clothes, licking marshmallow goo off their fingers and salt off the back of their wrists, hiding behind bushes, laughing, screaming, leaking with indulgence. A smudgy blur of glittering debauchery.

It was the setting that elevated the event into something more than the typical teen party. They were flanked by dense woods and even a large pond. Rose couldn’t believe all this belonged to the Hargroves. Kids lounged on the pond’s shore, as carefree and elegant as figures in a Manet painting. They gave the impression of people waiting to be fed grapes. And instead of thinking them strange for it, Rose found it fitting. If that sort of thing were to happen anywhere, it would be at a party and a place like this.

The sun had begun to wink behind the trees, but pockets of other light burst all around. Lanterns hung from tree branches; there was a firepit in the center of the lawn; and in the pond, the silky water shimmered with little full moons floating on the surface. No, not moons—orbs. Such simple sources of light, but Rose was struck by how they looked like they’d dipped down from the sky, unwilling to miss the festivities.

It was a lush, clandestine beauty, mixed with the unsupervised cacophony of the people disrupting it. The word “decadence” came to mind. Rose loved that in the middle of it all Hart seemed oblivious to it, stuck in tour-guide mode. “This is my favorite tree on the property,” he said.

Rose also loved that he had a favorite tree. Its curlicue branches plumed outward like long hair in water, and in certain spots, its leaves drooped and swept over the ground. “It’s a one-hundred-year-old weeping hemlock,” Hart said. “One of the oldest hemlocks this side of the Western Hemisphere, and the estate’s namesake.”

They walked beneath the canopy, where string lights and pearly garlands hung like so many gaudy necklaces on a dowager duchess. Rose had never paid too much attention to trees, but even she couldn’t deny this one’s majesty. “She’s a beauty.”

“Yes, she is,” Lowell whispered. But he wasn’t looking at the weeping hemlock. Rose followed his gaze.

Heather moved through the party like its queen bee. People seemed to sense her before they saw her, and parted so she could float right on through. All the other times Rose had seen her, Heather’s mood had ranged from ornery to aloof, but in the garden, she was in her element. Rose couldn’t put her finger on why she thought that, until she realized this was the first time she’d ever seen Heather smile. It was the sort of thing that hit you in the solar plexus. Like the string lights and the orbs that kissed the water, Heather’s smile was undeniably one of the party’s sources of light. In this place, Heather laughed easily, caressing the arms and shoulders of everyone she passed. And those touched by her seemed suddenly lit from within, as if her fingertips sparked with electric energy.

Curiously, Rose noticed that whoever Heather went up to opened their mouths wide, and when Heather came closer, she understood why. Heather held an unmarked bottle of some sort of tincture, with a dropper, which she used to dispense a bead of liquid on waiting, hungry tongues.

The only thing that made Heather’s smile dim was catching sight of Rose. As she came closer, Rose braced herself for a tantrum, knowing she’d come to this party against Heather’s explicit wishes. But Heather glided right past her without a second glance. She only had eyes for Lowell. She lazily swiped the pad of her ring finger down the side of Lowell’s neck, making him giggle. Her fingertip came back gold. “The old tattoo fern trick?” Heather said.

Hart must’ve communicated something to his sister using twin telepathy, because she responded with a grin and an eye roll. “Just teasin’, H.”

“Sure, H,” Hart said.

Rose couldn’t decide if it was adorable or deeply creepy that the siblings called each other by the same nickname.

“I’m Lowell!” Lowell declared before Heather had the chance to forget who he was again. “Remember? From—”

“Hi, Lowell,” Heather said, curling her tongue around the vowels in his name. She held up her small bottle. “Want some?”

“Maybe don’t take random substances…,” Rose began, but Lowell was already sticking his tongue out and Heather was already doling out the drug.

“Relax,” Heather told Rose. “It’s natural. Made from plants found in this very garden.” She swished the liquid in the bottle as a demonstration as well as an offering. Rose shook her head, and Heather turned her attention back to Lowell. “Can I show you around?”

“Yes!” he squealed.

Heather shot her hand into Lowell’s like a lightning bolt, killing him right where he stood. She managed to lead his dead corpse away.

Rose turned to Hart. For the first time since she’d gotten here, she found herself alone with him. He seemed to realize the same thing. “Wanna sit?”

Rose nodded and followed him to a spot facing the water. The grass was so plush it practically begged to be caressed, and Rose was helpless in the face of it. She had to rake her fingers through its manicured blades. It felt as good as running her hands through a boy’s clean head of hair. At first, she had looked at the garden with a skeptical slant, but she had to admit that she was coming around to it. Maybe everyone’s good mood was rubbing off on her, maybe it was all the twinkling lights, but the garden’s magic was starting to sneak up on her. And this shaggy grass really did feel amazing. She looked down at it, conscious of how close Hart’s hand rested, and conscious not to get too close to it.

“I wasn’t sure you would come,” Hart said.

“And miss my chance to go to a famous Hemlock Hill garden party?”

“Famous?” Hart said. “What have you heard?”

“Oh, you know: cake. Balloons. Orgies.”

Hart wasn’t drinking anything, yet he still managed to choke. He cleared his throat. “Who have you been talking to?”

Rose searched the crowd for Lowell and jutted her chin at him.

“Your friend,” Hart said, “he a freshman?”

“Junior. He’s just small.” Being among the Meadow Falls elites at an exclusive party must have emboldened Lowell, because he was talking to Heather in what looked like run-on sentences. Probably saying everything he’d ever wanted to tell her. And Heather kept surprising Rose with new parts of herself, because she was actually humoring Lowell, looking him in the eye, responding to him with more than just monosyllabic words.

Rose turned back to Hart. “Seriously, though, this place is beautiful.”

“We try to take care of it,” he said. “Two full-time gardeners, and two people who manage the house.”

“And your dad?” Rose was careful not to accidentally bring up Hart’s parents, plural . “He lets you have these parties whenever you want?”

“My dad’s never here.” Hart’s tone came off matter-of-fact, but Rose could feel the tension in it. “He works in the city. Has a place down there, actually, for the late nights. Which is every night. But when he does show up, our house is big enough that he’s easy to miss.”

It sounded pretty extreme, but Rose could relate. “My mom was always away on business, too.” She wondered just how much she should say, but it only took one glance at his warm eyes to know that she could tell Hart anything. “Turns out she was having an affair with a colleague from England,” she said. “She moved there to be with him.”

Hart’s eyes went wide, his cheeks puffing out. “So your parents’ divorce was… amicable.”

Her own laugh caught Rose off guard. “Super amicable.”

Their laughter tapered into a comfortable quiet. “I’m sorry,” Hart said. “About your parents.”

It was something Rose felt she should have said to him . And maybe this was the way to ask Hart about his mom. But the grass was so soft. She found herself involuntarily leaning back, lying on it, and turning to Hart so that it tickled her cheek. “This grass is…”

“I know,” he said. “It’s good grass.”

A giggle bubbled out of her, because it was the sort of thing she could imagine her dad dweebily saying as a teen after smoking a “doobie.” And then she laughed because she was laughing, as though she was the one who’d smoked a doobie. And then she laughed because the word “doobie” was objectively hilarious. Hart leaned back too, propped on an elbow. He was so close that Rose had a good view of the delicate underside of his jaw. She felt fizzy and light, and the grass really did feel like a fuzzy blanket, and she wondered, who was this gorgeous boy and where did he come from?

But a voice sliced into Rose’s thoughts.

“Hey, everybody!” Heather said. She was in front of the pond, and when Rose glanced at where she’d been chatting with Lowell, she saw that he now stood alone, his eyes, like everyone else’s, glued to Heather.

“It’s time for the show,” Heather said.

The reactions from the party guests varied, with some people pumping fists into the air and hollering, while others clapped daintily. Heather had said “the” show, not “a,” which led Rose to believe that this was not a spur-of-the-moment occurrence, but a ritual. Whether it was the same show every time, she had no idea. She sat up.

“Hey, you wanna go somewhere?” Hart asked.

Rose turned to him, a question wrinkling her brow. “But there’s going to be a show.”

Hart leaned over until his mouth was close to Rose’s shoulder. “Might get kinda rowdy. Just thought maybe you’d want to—”

His whispered words were hushed by Heather’s booming announcement. “I need volunteers!” She scanned the crowd until her gaze settled on two boys lounging by the tree line, in the back. “Patrick, Mason,” Heather said. “Thank you!””

Their hands had definitely not been up, but for two guys who had just been roped into volunteering, they seemed pretty okay with it. Patrick and Mason ambled to their feet, grins on both their faces as they came to meet Heather. Rose didn’t know who was who, only that one was shorter than the other and one wore a polo shirt, while the other wore a checkered button-down.

“Boys, I think what this crowd wants,” Heather said, circling the boys and trailing a lazy index finger over their torsos, “is a little striptease.”

More hoots and cheers. Rose snuck a glance at Hart. He looked none too amused. So, Heather could annoy her brother just as much as she could annoy Rose. Good to know.

“Can we get some striptease music?” Heather asked no one in particular. At her command, a new song started up on the portable speakers. It had the kind of bow-chicka-bowow beat that instantly garnered more hollers.

Rose watched Mason and Patrick to see if they’d go along with it. They bobbed their heads to the music, starting to sway to the beat. Rose half expected them to swat at each other and chuckle, in that way that boys did to psych each other up in embarrassing situations. But something else happened. Boy #1 flapped open one-half of his button-down, to resounding cheers. And Boy #2 toed off his sneakers.

“Are they really doing this?” Rose whispered. Hart only shrugged, like he’d seen one too many boys at these garden parties do something ridiculous.

Boy #2 bent awkwardly to hop on one foot as he peeled off his sock the way a burlesque performer might peel off an elbow-length silk glove. Boy #1 was on his second shirt, yanking the tee over his head. The whole time they performed, the boys didn’t laugh, didn’t speak to each other, didn’t even drunkenly stumble as they shed their clothes. They worked methodically, like the rent was due. Hips thrusting, palms slip-sliding down happy trails. But the thing that unsettled Rose the most—the thing she couldn’t stop looking at—was their smiles. Plastered on, unwavering. Cheesing like they were posing for family photos.

Boy #1 unbuckled his belt and slunk it through every loop until it hit the grass. Boy #2’s shorts were a button fly. Rose didn’t care to know that, but it was unmissable with how much performance time he gave each pop of a button.

Pop.

Cheers!

Pop.

Louder cheers!

Pop.

“They’re not actually going to get naked, are they?” Rose asked.

Hart did not answer. But the boys themselves did. In one fell swoop they hooked their thumbs into the elastic of their tighty-whities and pulled them down as a crescendo of cheers roared from the crowd.

“Oh” was all Rose could say. That wasn’t something she saw every day. With sudden shyness, the guys took off, splashing into the pond.

“Thank you, boys,” Heather said, coming back to the center of attention. “I think we can all agree when I say that your strip show was… a huge disappointment. Or should I say a tiny one?”

Rose glanced at Lowell. He was giggling so much it made his eyes water.

“One final thing,” Heather said to Mason and Patrick. She raised both hands and wiggled her fingers like she was waving goodbye to two toddlers at school drop-off. “Heads under.”

No one thought it an odd request. And no one thought much of it when Patrick and Mason dutifully sank beneath the surface of the water.

No dog-paddling, no flailing, the boys stayed still as statues, sinking as though they were made of stone. Bubbles gurgled to the top of the water. The sight pulled Rose forward, and she waited for more bubbles. Waited for heads to break through the surface. But now there was nothing but stillness.

“How long can they go, do you think?” Heather asked her audience. She didn’t have to shout over the crowd, because no one was making a sound. They watched, but more out of a lazy curiosity than concern. A girl on Rose’s left nursed a beer. The boy beside her shoved a handful of kettle corn into his gaping mouth.

Finally, the water stirred. Patrick or Mason started to flail, a hand breaking through, grabbing for a rung to an invisible ladder that was just out of reach.

Heather leaned toward the pond. “Not ye-e-e-e-t,” she singsonged.

Rose kneeled. Why weren’t they coming up? They were clearly struggling, but it was like a sheet of ice had solidified over their heads.

“Not ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-t,” Heather said again, sugar-sweet. She looked to Lowell, but Rose could not read the expression in her eyes. Was she checking for his reaction? Gauging his approval? Lowell wasn’t laughing anymore. Rose sat too far away to hear Heather’s next whispered words clearly, but when she turned back to the scene of the submerged, panicking boys, Rose could’ve sworn the next words out of Heather’s mouth were a cool, “Go on. Drown yourselves.”

The boys stopped moving.

Rose jumped to her feet, rushing to the pond, a torpedo through the placid audience. But when she got there, Patrick’s and Mason’s heads bobbed out of the water, and they took huge, gulping breaths.

“Let’s hear it for Patrick and Mason!” Heather said, leading the crowd in applause as if a tragedy hadn’t just been narrowly averted.

Hart caught up to Rose. Her pulse still raced, even as she watched the boys scramble to shore and grab at their clothes, dopey, breathless grins on their faces. Hart’s fingers encircled Rose’s wrist, as though to feel her pulse, or maybe just to calm it with his touch. “It’s a stupid game they play,” he whispered.

It didn’t feel like a stupid game. But all around them, everyone had already moved on from Heather’s strange skit, chattering away like it was just another typical night at Hemlock Hill. Patrick and Mason already had their shorts back on, grinning even as they coughed up pond water. Like they’d just performed some inane social media challenge and come out the other side looking stupid but ultimately triumphant.

Rose’s pulse slowed to a steadier rhythm beneath Hart’s fingertips. Of course it was just a game, she realized. Or tried to convince herself as much. It was her own bias against Heather that made Rose think she’d been doing something devious to the boys. But Heather hadn’t laid a hand on their heads to keep them under. She hadn’t forced them to do a thing. It was a weird, fucked-up performance, but that was all it was.

“Let’s get out of here,” Hart said.