Page 63 of Old Money

H e followed us. He saw us leave the party—Caitlin with her chin held high, pissed at her mother for scolding her in front of everyone, and me, trotting along beside her.

He’d been keeping tabs on me since dinner, watching us at our separate table, on the other side of the room.

He’d been curious at first, then concerned by the way Caitlin kept whispering to me—suddenly treating me more like a friend than a little cousin. It bothered him.

“She had this hold on you,” says Theo. “You were obsessed with her.”

As if it had been Caitlin’s fault for being an older, beautiful, confident girl.

He hadn’t realized I’d been drinking until the dancing started. He watched Caitlin and I spinning each other around, doing goofy dance moves and laughing loudly. He’d never seen me behave like that—certainly not at the club—and as more partygoers took notice, he started to get nervous.

“I was pissed off too. It was embarrassing, you know? We were guests and you—because of her , you were making an ass of yourself, in front of all those people. And Uncle Greg too—you know how I was back then. He was the closest thing I had to a dad, and I thought, Shit, they’ll never invite us again .

I just imagined losing all that because you’d made this big, stupid scene, and I knew it wasn’t your fault.

She was playing with you like a toy—dressing you up like that, making you perform for her, getting you drunk for the fun of it. ”

Then Barbara intervened, and Theo watched the tense exchange.

He been relieved when Caitlin stormed off, but then he saw she’d taken me with her.

He kept his distance, following just close enough to see us, but not close enough to hear or to be heard.

He watched us leave the clubhouse, alarmed to see us heading for the rear path.

It was dark. I’d been drinking and so had she.

What if we went to the pool? He’d slipped out the north exit and waited in the shadowed doorway, craning to see the bottom of the path.

He just wanted to make sure we stayed on the grass—that we didn’t wander too far.

Then he saw Caitlin jogging toward the pool gate, laughing and waving for me to follow.

“I got really scared then. The way you were walking...”

He took off after us, barely registering the floodlight clicking on behind him.

He hurried down the side of the hill, nearly running as he reached the bottom, and quickly ducked into the evergreens beside the pool.

From there, he watched with mounting panic as Caitlin hitched up the hem of her dress and stepped into the water.

She stood on the top step, up to her ankles, and she was saying something to me.

He couldn’t make out all the words, but her voice was loud and insistent. She was telling me to come in too.

“And then she fuckin’ did it. I couldn’t believe it,” Theo recalls, staring into his open palms. “I was waiting there in case you slipped or something. But she actually pushed you in.”

“What? No.” I shake my head. “No, Theo, that’s not what happened.”

He looks at me, his forehead knotted, his eyes wide and desperate.

“I fell in,” I continue. “She was getting out of the water, and she slipped on the step. I reached out to grab her and just lost my balance.”

Theo turns his head sideways, his eyes still on me. He shakes his head.

“Alice,” he scoffs. “Look, I know you think she was this goddess who could do no wrong, but—that’s just not what happened.

Maybe she pretended to slip, I don’t know.

But she grabbed you. She pulled you forward, and then—” He leans back and mimes a hard shove.

“She pushed. In fact, I think she pushed hard, to make sure you hit the water and not the banister or the edge of the pool. I thought about that a lot after.”

“You did?”

“Oh God, constantly. For years. I kept trying to convince myself that maybe she had wanted to hurt you. And then it wouldn’t be as bad, what I—”

Theo cuts himself off, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking off the image.

“But I knew it was a prank—just the kind of mean prank she’d do.” He sighs a ragged sigh. “But you could have been really hurt, you know? And in that moment, I thought you were.”

Theo had waited only a second as I thrashed under the water.

Then he fumbled out of the thicket, clumsy with fear and rage.

He tried to run, but the grass was slick beneath his dress shoes, forcing him to walk, which only made him angrier.

He was going to ream her out. He’d make sure I was okay first, but then he was going to let her fucking have it.

She thought she could do whatever she wanted, didn’t she?

She was like every other spoiled, snotty, upper-school bitch, acting like she was better than everyone just because she had big tits and blond hair and old money.

And the sick part was that no one ever stopped her.

Everyone fucking worshipped her, just like they worshipped Patrick—only she didn’t even have the excuse of a famous family.

She was just a high and mighty cunt who had it coming to her, and he was gonna be the one who gave it to her.

I was gone by the time he got to the pool—already walking up the rear path back to the clubhouse.

It didn’t matter. He took one glance in my direction, and then I was all but forgotten.

He exploded at Caitlin: Who the fuck did she think she was?

What sick game was she playing? How about she pick on someone her own size?

Caitlin had looked at him, confused but not frightened.

Theo lunged at her, and only then did she rear back with a surprised shriek.

He grabbed her wrists, not knowing why, and held on as she tried to pull away.

They lurched and shuffled in the awkward pose, Theo’s panic rising now, in tandem with his rage.

He shouted in Caitlin’s face—called her a nasty bitch, in a growling voice he didn’t know he had in him.

She yelped again, then twisted away and broke free.

She’d stood there, bewildered, catching her breath, and Theo thought it was over—this fight, whatever it was.

Caitlin’s mouth began to tremble, and Theo waited for the tears.

But then, she laughed. It was breathy and nervous at first, then she was properly giggling.

And then, seeing the wide-eyed shock on Theo’s face, she laughed and pointed.

She laughed so hard her eyes shut and she bent forward.

And in that moment, Theo, for the first time in his life, had balled his fist and stepped forward and slammed it into the side of Caitlin’s face.

She’d stumbled back, stunned silent. It was a hard punch, but a clumsy one.

She was hurt, but not terribly—just a red mark on her temple and the top of her cheekbone.

But she was incensed. She stood up straight and marched toward him, shouting at him, hurling expletives.

Theo felt himself react, surprised by his own swinging limbs.

He had the strangely lucid thought that they were two angry animals—all reflex and survival instinct—and then he wasn’t thinking at all.

He wasn’t even angry anymore; he was just shoving and snarling and hitting as hard as he could.

He didn’t even hear the sound of her skull on the cement.

He didn’t realize what he’d done—what he was still doing—until he saw the blood.

It pooled swiftly from the side of her face, a lopsided halo.

He reached out, but stopped short of touching her.

His hand throbbed, the pain slowly bringing him back to consciousness.

He nudged Caitlin with his toe (had he been kicking her?) and said her name.

He nudged again, harder. She wobbled, but wouldn’t wake.

Her mouth parted and he caught sight of bloodstained teeth.

Panicked now, he nudged again, only this time it was more like a kick.

Her body rocked back slightly, then rolled forward, the momentum tipping her over the edge and into the pool.

Theo stood, frozen in terror. Then he heard the sound of running footsteps from somewhere on the hill.

He turned from Caitlin’s lifeless corpse and fled into the dark.

“I didn’t want to, Alice,” I hear Theo say. “I swear to you. It just spiraled.”

He puts a hand on my wrist, and I jerk. He quickly pulls his arm back, then lifts both his hands up and looks at me, despairing. He covers his face with his palms.

“I didn’t plan to hurt her like that,” he says, weeping and muffled. “I never even knew I could.”

Theo drops his hands into his lap and sits back against the wall.

“It’s unforgivable,” he says, looking straight ahead. “But if you’d been there—I don’t know. I wish I could make you understand how it just—”

His hands go out in front of him again, like he’s reaching for something he can’t quite see.

“It happened. It just happened.”

I make myself look at him, sealing this moment in my mind.

“Why are you here, Theo?”

“Jamie called me. He told me about last night.”

“Jamie knew ?”

“No, not technically. I never told him everything. But he—at some point, he had suspicions.”

When? In high school? Did something click years later? Did someone tell him something?

Theo shakes his head, reading the thoughts on my face.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I never asked. We just stopped talking.”

“Who else?” I ask, wishing I didn’t have to.

“A lot of people, I think,” Theo says, eyes downturned. “No one says so—you know how it is here. But I’ll get a look. Or one of those comments, you know? ‘Staying out of trouble?’ ”

He cringes.

“You tell yourself you’re paranoid,” he adds.

“Jules?” I ask in a tiny voice.

Theo’s face pinches.

“I tried. I came close to telling her a few times. But no, never managed it.” He swallows. “Fucking coward, I know.”

I think of Jules telling me about how stressed-out Theo was this summer—because of the campaign, the work piling up. I wonder if he told himself that too.

Still leaning back against the wall, he lolls his head toward me.

“Hey,” he says wearily. “Let’s do the rest at the station, okay? They’ll need this on tape anyway.”

I hold still until he looks at me, his face all trepidation. I give him a reassuring smile—I can’t help it. He’s my brother, and this is it. Everything changes on the other side of this moment. So I smile. I tell him I love him. Then I reach into my pocket and take out my phone.

Theo looks down at it, the recorder still running.

“Atta girl.” He sniffs and nods, and then he smiles too. “You win.”