Page 25 of Old Money

I spun around, arms up, ballerina style. When I stopped, the room kept moving.

“You are amazing!”

Caitlin took my hands and spun us both around. The band was loud and the dance floor was crowded, and we were in the middle of it.

I didn’t quite remember dinner ending—only that we’d been among the last to leave our table and head into the pink room for dancing and dessert.

I didn’t know how much I’d drunk from Caitlin’s cocktails, but at some point I stopped worrying about getting in trouble and realized I enjoyed the pleasant frenzy tumbling through my body.

The game of Truth or Dare had escalated into an all-out competition, the two of us taking turns daring each other.

I’d put salt in someone’s coffee. She’d hung a teaspoon from her nose.

We’d both asked the band for song requests (“Happy Birthday!” “The Macarena!”) and run away giggling.

Then Caitlin coaxed me onto the dance floor, daring me to twirl.

Now we were both spinning. The band was playing some old jazz standard, and we sang out lyrics when we knew them. (“No, no, they can’t take that away from me.”) I stumbled backward into a couple behind me, and Caitlin reached out, yanking me toward her, apologizing through laughter.

“Time out!” she declared and pulled me through the crowd, suddenly producing a glass of water.

“Drink the whole thing,” she shouted over the music, leaning me against a wall—blissfully cool against my back. “I’ll be right back!”

I nodded, lifting the glass, forcing the water down.

When I lowered it, I saw Aunt Barbara, standing with Caitlin on the edge of the dance floor.

Her head was bent close to her daughter’s face as she spoke, and her eyes were hard and searching—angry in a way I’d never seen before.

The water roiled horribly inside me as I watched them in their quiet argument: Barbara inching closer, Caitlin looking away, her thumb and middle finger picking at each other.

There was a brief blip of quiet as the band ended one song and swung into another, and in it I could hear Caitlin snap at Aunt Barbara.

“He’s right,” I thought she said, but wasn’t sure.

Then the music resumed and Caitlin spun away from her mother, striding toward me in a hurry.

I caught sight of my own mother then, standing beside Theo at the coffee station, their faces in identical flat frowns.

Then Caitlin had me by the hand again, walking me out of the ballroom.

I remember the silent walk down the gallery. I remember waiting outside the cloakroom while Caitlin got her shawl. I remember her saying we needed fresh air, and the sudden wave of tiredness that came over me.

“It’ll help, I promise,” she said, bending over with a hand on my shoulder, so close I could smell the liquor on her breath and a hint of her violet perfume.

“It’s my turn, right?” she said, smiling. “Come on. What’s my dare?”