Page 21 of What You left in Me

In the center of the lawn a bonfire throws itself skyward inside a perfectly laid stone pit. The flames lick and roar,devouring stacked logs with the kind of appetite you either respect or fear. Sparks flit up and vanish into the tree canopy, little suicides, and the fire’s voice is the bass note underneath everything; the string quartet, the chatter, the muted laughter that says everyone knows who they are and is pleased to be seen knowing it.

I step into the current along the edge of the scene and let it carry me without ever letting it touch me. A waiter glides by with a tray of champagne, and I take a glass mostly to keep my hands busy. The bubbles bite my tongue and vanish. Eleanor might be annoying, but she never skimps on the quality of anything, least of all alcohol. Even so, I trade the champagne flute for a lowball glass from the next passing tray, bourbon throwing caramel and heat up my nose, and that sits with me much better. I keep it moving.

Guests bloom in clusters the way expensive people do. There’s a senator with a face the color of old leather and his wife who wears diamonds like a dare. There’s a hedge fund pallbearer in a tux that cost more than his first marriage, laughing with a laugh you can hear above the quartet. There are town grandees in their best clothes, eyes bright, hungry for proximity. Everyone looks like they’ve stepped out of a dystopian film about the elite—beautiful, bright, and vaguely inhuman.

The quartet is tucked at the edge of the lawn under a tent with no sides, four black silhouettes against paper-white music. Violin, violin, viola, cello.

“Finn, my boy!” A hand claps my shoulder from nowhere.

I don’t have to turn to know it’s Hal Yeats, a man who has never been subtle a day in his life. I turn anyway, because you acknowledge ghosts if you expect to walk away from them. He’s ruddy in the face from drinks and praise.

“Heard you’re conquering the coast,” he booms. “Tell me it’s true.”

“I’m keeping busy,” I say. The bourbon has smoothed out the more abrasive edges of my disposition for now.

He launches into a story about a startup that tried to sell him smart birdhouses, and I nod in all the right places until his wife thankfully retrieves him with a practiced set of fingers at his elbow.

I let him get hauled off into another orbit.

From the porch, I see Dad raise his glass in my direction. His smile is the same one he gave me when I was fifteen and had wrecked a bike into the garden wall, tired at the corners but warm in the center. He’s wearing an expression on his face that says,We’re happy if you’re happy.Right. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’ve got to keep making semi-pleasant conversation.

With a strained grin, I tilt my glass back at him. Not exactly what I’d call happy, but I can pretend a little for my old man.

After everything, I owe him that much.

###

I’m half-listening to a fundraiser explain to a councilman how to look “spontaneously delighted” in photos when there’s a shift in the atmosphere. You can feel it at parties like this when everyone collectively decides to look in one direction. Heads tilt. Conversations dip. The quartet leans into a phrase with a sheen you could skate a blade across.

And there she is.

The inimitable Ariane Vale steps out from the shadow of the east portico as if the house decided it needed a heart for the night and pushed her forward to be it. Emerald velvet moves like smoke around her… cut close at the waist, held by a narrow band that makes you aware of the lines under it; the skirt is a swirling waterfall around her legs, swaying with the kind of restraint that lets every small motion mean more. The neckline dips into a suggestion more than a declaration, framing her collarbones, offering the soft shadow between her breasts to the candlelight and letting it decide how generous to be. Her skin drinks the firelight and effuses warmth all over.

Her hair is set in waves that could have been careless if someone hadn’t cared very much. It’s swept over one shoulder, exposing the long line of her neck. A single earring catches in the fairy lights and returns them in miniature constellations when she turns her head to smile at a woman I don’t recognize. The smile is professional and calibrated, and it sits perfectly on her face the way a mask sits on someone trained not to fidget.

I set my glass on a passing tray because my hand doesn’t trust itself not to break something. I take in the fraction no one else sees, the way her ring flashes when she turns a certain way because the stone is cut to starve until it finds light, then gorge; the way her toes flex inside shoes you’re supposed to pretend aren’t hurting; the breath she takes before someone hugs her, the extra inch she gives them, the inch she keeps for herself.

She doesn’t look like the girl in the t-shirt sneaking down the dock at fourteen.

She doesn’t look like the woman who stood dripping in her scandalous little bikini under the lanterns last night, either. This is the version built for places like this. It is armor cut on the bias.

I angle deeper into the crowd, just enough to prove to myself that I can move without gravitating. People slide around me with the practiced ease of guests taught not to spill.

Eleanor materializes beside Ariane with that hostess float that means cameras are up. She takes Ariane’s elbow lightly and pivots her toward the fire, the photogenic pocket the rental people mapped at dusk. Eleanor isn’t doing anything she hasn’t trained herself to do: curate, optimize, maximize the conversion of a moment into a narrative. It’s the same language we use to kill other people’s companies. I respect the technique, but I hate the effect.

Dad swoops in and kisses Ariane’s temple and for a heartbeat the mask drops. She tips her face into him, eyes fluttering shut, and the smile that opens is real, small, and unguarded. I feel chest twist, an old wire pulled too tight.

The quartet modulates from something Baroque to modern a modern tone. Glass laughter rings from the tent as waiters pour another round of something that will taste like money and fruit. The bonfire noses up another log like a beast taking a breath.

At the edge of the lawn the gravel crunch changes. Tires slow, brakes whisper, doors open in a hinge-perfect duet that says a valet touched them before a hand with ambition did. Heads turn again, efficiently, the way they turned for Ariane.

This man, I recognize. I’ve seen the engagement photos.

A flutter goes through the cluster near the fire, staff shifting, a photographer lifting his camera, conversation bending its arc like a compass needle catching north. I follow their line of sight toward the driveway, and then I hear it a squeal. High and unguarded. Ariane’s.

Julian steps out of the car like he’s walking onto a debate stage. Ariane’s face lights up like someone set off fireworks inside her chest. The careful smile she’d been wearing all night shatters. What replaces it is bigger, brighter, reckless. She gasps, a hand flying to her mouth, then she screams his name. “Oh my God! Julian!”

She breaks into a run in her heels. Green velvet flaring around her legs as she cuts straight across the lawn, shoes be damned, eyes wide with the kind of joy you can’t rehearse. Guests turn to watch. Some laugh, indulgent. A camera clicks rapid-fire, eating it up.