Page 11 of Old Money
“You thought you needed a college kid for this? Simon could knock this out in a day.”
Jamie pauses, frowning.
“Simon,” I repeat, my little joke hanging a little awkwardly now. “Theo’s son—the younger one.”
“Oh,” Jamie says, shaking his head. “Right, no, I— Right.”
He heads into the gallery. I watch him for a moment, then hurry to catch up.
“Sorry, I spaced for a second,” Jamie says as we pass the pink ballroom. “Theo and I don’t hang out much anymore.”
“What? Really?” I ask, taken aback. “He didn’t tell me.”
Jamie shakes his head dismissively, looking ahead.
“Nothing to tell. I work here, and he’s doing his whole—” Jamie gestures in the air. “Our paths don’t cross a lot.”
He’s so flat and inscrutable that it takes me a moment to put two and two together: Theo’s becoming a big shot, and Jamie’s a concierge.
It’s only now occurring to me how odd it must be working here, not just as a former staff kid, but a former Wheaton normie.
He must cross paths with lots of old schoolmates, but no old friends.
“I guess you see Susannah though,” I blurt out into the silence. “She must be here a lot.”
“Hmm?” says Jamie, his face briefly, and reasonably, alarmed. “Oh. Not much. They don’t really—I mean, holidays, yes, but they don’t really—”
“Jamie.” I smile, patting his arm. “Relax. And please slow down.”
He stops short, his shoes scuffing softly on the felted carpet. We’re nearing the end of the gallery, and I glance toward the lobby, ensuring it’s still empty.
“The whole thing is beyond weird already,” I say, quiet but still smiling. “You can’t possibly make it weirder.”
He winces—a proper wince. And then he checks the lobby too.
“Wanna bet?”
***
Jamie waits until we’re back in the office and sitting down, and then he tells me: the wedding—Susannah’s wedding to Patrick Yates—is happening here.
“Why?” I demand, no longer keeping quiet. “Why would she—why would he ?”
I grip the arms of my chair with clammy fingers.
Jamie sits with his hands folded.
“So, you didn’t know then.”
Now I recall the little exchange at the end of our interview yesterday. Jamie double-checking that I knew “about Susannah” and “everything going on here.”
“Not that part. I knew they were getting married here, but not here . The wedding announcement said Briar’s Green.”
Announcement s —I’d read three of them. One in the Times , one in the Hudson Valley Journal and one in the Wheaton alumni newsletter.
They’d all been revoltingly breezy, as though this were any other charming couple, not a murderer and a woman voluntarily marrying a murderer.
And none had said anything about the club.
“Well,” Jamie says, tilting his head. “This is the usual Yates wedding venue. His parents, his grandparents, all of them.”
I glare across the desk.
“I’m just saying ,” he says, hands flying, a little whine in his voice—a little of the old Jamie Burger.
“Trust me, I get it, but if you think about it from their side—Alice, quit looking at me like that. From their side it’s like, if he doesn’t get married here like everyone else, then how would it look?
Respectful? Rational? The only reasonable thing to do?
Every inch of me wants to argue, but he’s right. To them it would look like acknowledgment—maybe even an admission of guilt. Patrick, of all people, getting married here, of all places (of all summers), is a great way to demonstrate how unbothered he is.
“Alice, I apologize,” Jamie says calmly, a professional again. “I should’ve been more explicit. If this changes things with the job, I understand. No harm, no foul, you can just leave.”
I turn my eyes downward, giving his desk a hard stare. I see a leather blotter , I think. I smell shoe polish and oiled wood. I hear someone hitting tennis balls outside .
“When is it exactly?” I ask, breathing slow breaths. “I know it’s August, but—”
“Second of August.”
I exhale in a gust. The second of August is pretty much July.
“It doesn’t change anything. Of course I’ll stay.”
Jamie looks incredulous. “Really? Because she’ll be here more than usual. With wedding stuff.”
I shrug—a little forced, but I pull it off.
“It’s fine. She’ll be out there, planning centerpieces or whatever, and I’ll be—” I pause. “Actually, where will I be? When I’m not ‘floating’?”
Jamie bows his head and gestures to me—to exactly where I’m sitting. I look at the desk again and see the blotter’s been nudged to one side and the computer monitor to the other, making space for my laptop. I’m not sure where my knees are supposed to go.
“It’s tight, I know,” Jamie says, scooching up in his chair. “I’d find you another closet, but this is the only one with an internet hookup. And without asbestos.”
I feel the paneled walls closing in. How am I going to get anything done? Any of my real work? I picture it: Jamie on one side of the desk, yakking with Susannah’s wedding planner, and me on the other, investigating the groom.
Jamie’s face is shifting into that curious-suspicious look I noticed earlier.
“It’s fine,” I repeat in a game voice. “It’ll be fun.”
Jamie’s eyebrows lift just slightly. Too game—I try again.
“It’ll be fun and weird. But I mean it, the wedding changes nothing about the job. I’m here to do spreadsheets and scanning, so—” I nod, trying to put a period on the end of this conversation “—where shall I start? Who’s first on the list?”
The suspicious look holds for one more second, then Jamie cracks a smile.
“Pretty sure you do know this one.”
And immediately, I do.