“How about you?” I ask Drea as we work. “Any post-high school plans?”
“Art.” She glances up through her long bangs. “You’re Liv’s friend, right?”
“Best friend.”
Another teenage eye roll. “Okay. But she’s been talking to me about, like, programs and jobs and things.”
“This makes my heart so happy,” I tell her and geez, does this kid ever run out of annoyed-at-adults facial expressions? I’m saved from becoming even more uncool in her eyes when Wyatt strolls into the kitchen, completely out of place in his mouthwatering tux.
Bad, CJ. There’s nothing mouthwatering about this man. You’re just thinking about the yummy pickled peaches, not this man’s yummy peachy anything.
“Why are you here?” I ask, attempting to shut down my intrusive thoughts.
“What, at this party?” He shoots me a smug smile. “Because I’m a very important member of the business community.”
“I meant in this kitchen,” I say, “although I’d love to ask the universe why you’re here on this earth at the same time and in the same place that I am.”
He drops his head and rubs his forehead like I’m giving him a headache, but I see the traces of a smile when he looks up again and motions to his sisters. “Everyone follow me.”
He leads them out through the door to the ballroom, and I follow them, not sure if that invite included me but too curious not to. He ushers us into a small gap between two huge, decorated trees in the back of the ballroom near the kitchen entrance. It is, I realize with pleasure, the perfect surveillance spot. The whole ballroom’s visible from here, but we’re hidden by the evergreen branches.
The four of us finish cramming into our observation hole just as we’re treated to another verse of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”—and not just any verse, but the showboat one.
“Five goooooolden rings!” Becks sings under her breath, and Wyatt wraps an arm around and gives her a squeeze. To banish the warmth this creates in my chest, I lean in and murmur, “What do you have planned, you deviant?”
The asshole turns his head and gives me an honest-to-god, light-up-his-eyes, kid-on-Christmas-morning, excited grin that sends champagne bubbles racing around my bloodstream.
“Just watch, Parrish.”
So I do, mouth slowly falling open as five people dressed in costumes that I can only describe as “holiday jesters who could pivot to do Carnival in Rio at a moment’s notice” strut into the room with juggling hoops that they proceed to light on freaking fire.
“Five. Golden. Rings,” Wyatt says proudly as they start whipping the flaming circles around the room with no regard for the trailing feathers of their headdresses or the trailing hair and hems of the guests.
“Um. Isn’t everything in this room super flammable?” Drea asks nervously.
“Probably,” Wyatt says. “But the building sprinklers work, they travel with a handler who keeps a fire extinguisher handy, and their Yelp reviews are dynamite.”
We watch wide-eyed as the quintet makes its way to Howard’s table and start tossing the flaming rings over the heads of the VIPs. The two private equity guys watch in glassy-eyed delight while the rest of the party ducks and cringes. The wife of the mutual fund guy actually pushes away from the table and walks backward until she hits the wall—smart lady, except she’s now directly underneath one of my durian-fruit garlands.
As I hoped, the passage of time and the increasing heat in the room is working their magic because she wrinkles her nose and glances around for the source of the smell. Her horrified expression alone is worth every last air hole Liv and I drilled into those hollow plastic ornaments and every last disgusting, stinky slice of fruit we wrapped in cheesecloth and stuffed inside. Despite what I know to be eau de rotting garbage perfuming the air, Mrs. Mutual Fund chooses to stay glued to the wall instead of exposing herself to fiery projectiles.
After the longest, most harrowing juggling routine I’ve ever seen, the performers douse their circles with a flourish and parade around the room to robust applause. The room’s filled up with the eight p.m. arrivals since I last circulated, but even with more tables than not now holding guests, the atmosphere’s more baffled than festive. And hey, the guests not hyperventilating in fire-based terror seem to be enjoying themselves. One of the younger guests is even recording the performance on her phone.
“Check out Howard. He’s not loving it.” I nudge Wyatt and point to where Howard’s gesturing apologetically to Mr. Mutual Fund, who’s got a protective arm around his upset wife. “Ugh, fine, this is impressive.”
“So glad you think so,” Wyatt says, and knock me over with a partridge feather; it sounds like he actually means it.
That’s good, because I mean it too. The partridge from earlier has been joined by two doves—turtle status unknown—in a cage near one of the exits. Three standard-issue chickens roam around a little penned area by the restrooms, and four white-and-pink birds are positioned near the bar, although whether the lack of traffic is from their periodic screaming or the gross drinks is anyone’s guess.
Wyatt and I lock eyes until Becks makes a quiet alarm sound.
“Whoop, whoop, whoop. Megabitch incoming.”
We snap out of our trance and turn in unison to see a terrifying blonde strolling across the room, her hand resting on the arm of a handsome Black man.
“Um,” I say.
“Fuck,” Wyatt says.
