“We’re late,” said Hadley. It came out accusatory. “Let’s go, before my mom murders me.”
•••
The Turner family home was a sprawling Georgian estate of weathered brick and shuttered gables. Sleek white columns propped up the entryway, beneath which sat tiered topiaries wrapped in yellow string lights. Several expensive-looking cars were parked along the hedges out front. It looked, to Thomas, like a scene from a Bond movie, and not a place real people actually lived.
He pulled into a spot indicated by a parking attendant, surprised when the attendant rapped a knuckle on his door. He rolled down the window to find a pimply boy in a red vest and borrowed loafers.
“Valet?”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks.” Thomas tossed him the keys and clambered out as three other doors slammed shut at his back. By the time he claimed his ticket, Vivienne and her friends were already halfway up the front staircase, linked arm in arm and laughing at some private joke. Off in the distance, heat lightning flickered in the sky. The air felt static with electricity.
Vivienne cast a glance back at Thomas as he ascended the steps behind her, his hands in his pockets, the pony beads pinching his skin beneath his shirt cuff. Her dress was the color of a cherry blossom, and she wore her hair pulled back in a matching bow. Gilded in the lamplight, the sky flickering white at her back, she looked like a painting.
Color swam into her cheeks, as though he’d told her so right out loud. He felt the heat of her gaze deep in his solar plexus. Suddenly, all he could think about was getting her alone.
“Come on, Superman,” called Frankie as they passed through the front gate. “You’re holding up the line.”
Vivienne’s mother descended upon her like a vulture the very moment she entered the party.
“You’re late,” she whispered, grabbing hold of Vivienne’s wrist. “He’s furious.”
Vivienne hardly managed to sneak in a backward glance before she was whisked off into the crowd. She caught a fleeting glimpse of Thomas staring across the room at her. Next to him, a woman in a sleek black dress and a too-tight bun harangued him into depositing his phone into the collection basket. They shared a look—one, single meaningful glance that she felt in her marrow—and then he was gone, swallowed up in the glittering crush of bodies.
A little dizzy, she let her mother lead her deeper into the house, careless of where they were going. Away from the crowd. Away from the lights. Down the long, dark artery of a windowed hall, where the curtains blew in off the veranda on a phantom breeze. The air smelled like ozone, pungent with a storm. They didn’t stop. They kept going, moving quickly enough to outpace the devil, her mother’s perfectly manicured nails biting into her forearm.
“There’s a reporter,” she hissed as they picked their way down a shallow set of steps. “He’s sniffing around. Asking questions. Philip is in a state. I’ve never seen him so angry.”
Vivienne wasn’t listening. She felt as light as a feather. Sparkling and effervescent—as though without a tether she might lift up off the ground and go tumbling skyward.
“You’ll have to handle it,” said her mother urgently. “The way you do.”
Distantly, Vivienne registered that her mother was saying something horrible. Something wretched. Whatever it was, it didn’t register. She couldn’t think of anything but the way Thomas had kissed her. Like he meant it. Like he needed it. Like she’d wanted him to, that day he’d come home and found her waiting in his room.
Vivienne had been kissed before, but never like that. She doubted anyone would ever kiss her that way again. Not if she lived to be a thousand. She felt as though she’d been flung clean outside of herself—forced to watch the evening unfold from somewhere apart from her body. Only this time, she wasn’t trapped on the other side of the glass.
This time, she was in the clouds.
“Vivienne!”
The sound of her mother barking her name brought her plummeting back down to earth. The real world careened into focus with razor-sharp clarity. They stood in the Turners’ tiled kitchen, baked gold beneath the warm light of a drum lamp. From the opposite side of the house, there came the intermittent sounds of revelry. Wild bursts of laughter. Airy snatches of music. The sharp clink of cutlery.
And beneath it, like a whisper, were the first faint rumbles of thunder.
In front of Vivienne, her mother swayed ever so slightly in her heels. She wasn’t quite drunk, but she was close to it. Her cheeks were rosy, her lips stained merlot red. She looked thinner than ever, skin drawn facelift-tight, so that shadows rendered her skeletal in the gloom.
Irritated, she asked, “Have you listened to athingI’ve said?”
Vivienne shook her head. On the counter, the faucet began to drip. Waterplink-plunk-plinked into the wide farmhouse sink as her mother reached into her handbag. Fishing through the contents, she procured a crisp white handkerchief.
“Clean yourself up. You’ve made a mess of your lipstick.”
Plink. Plink.The sound was maddening. When Vivienne didn’t take the kerchief, her mother took it upon herself to tidy her, leaning in and dabbing at the corners of Vivienne’s mouth. Rearing back, Vivienne swiped at her hand like an alley cat.
“Vivienne,really,” cried her mother, nursing a scrape. “What’s gotten into you? It’s like you don’t even care what happens to us. Tonight means everything to Philip.Everything.His entire firm is at risk, and you’re off dallying with the help.”
The accusation was like being doused in cold water. Whatever showed on her face must have been obvious, because her mother let out a laugh. It was high and thin, no humor in it at all.
“Did you think you were being subtle? You’ve been pining after that boy for weeks.”
