The High Season(89)

He had picked up her hand. He had seen blue on her finger.

She couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe.

    Joe walked back to Daniel in the middle of the room. They spoke while Ruthie tried to limn each tiny movement of two men standing in a room, talking.

What was she doing, standing here in the dark with her mouth open.

Just continuing on her criminally stupid path. It had to stop.





57


IT WAS LATE, and the party was dying. Dying not out of inertia, but from the sweet exhaustion of a good time at the end of summer. The valets were running now because after lingering long at the party everyone was suddenly in a hurry, the fringes of their gifted pareos fluttering in a quickening breeze.

Daniel had left, the celebrities had gone, the board ladies had followed, and the last string of duty had been cut. Lark and Doe slipped away across the lawn to be alone. They lay on benches and looked up into the shadows of the trees. The blue-bulbed lanterns had been lit, and they swayed with every gust, flashing through the dark green like shots of phosphorescence in a watery world.

Their hands occasionally brushed each other’s as they reached for their champagne flutes in tandem and sipped. The champagne was ice-cold and filled with the same radiant fizz as the stars in the night sky over their heads. Doe felt herself floating in a deeply pleasurable state of intoxication, where tomorrow was far in the distance and summer was spinning on.

Lark tipped her head back. “I’m delirious,” she said. “Usually I get drunk at a party, or bored, or I feel useless. But tonight I feel as though everything in my life that’s wrong has been solved. Like I’m a kid again, and my nanny says tomorrow is a new day.”

    “It’s a teachable moment,” Doe said.

“Failure is how we learn.”

“Good job!”

They giggled.

Lark sat up to face Doe. Her smile was slow. She touched Doe’s eyebrow, the one with the scar she said she got playing lacrosse, only it was from tripping over a pool chair to get to Shane. Blood in her eyes, blood in the water as she fought her way to him.

“It’s all because of you,” she said. “You encouraged me. This feels so right. You said I could shape the job to my life, and you were right. You said I can do anything. Do you know what a gift that is?”

“Well. Not everything. You’re not a farmer.”

“You wench,” Lark said. “Thanks for bringing up my worst failure.”

“It’s not a failure,” Doe said. “You learned things that you’re going to use.”

“I like how I am when I’m with you,” Lark said. “It’s like…having someone believe in you. That’s totally a new thing for me.”

“What are you talking about, ethereal it-girl Lark Mantis?”

“I don’t want to be a hashtag. That stupid seekrit-hamptons account made me into some sort of icon of vacuousness.”

“Hey, it made you into a brand.”

“Please. It made me into a joke.”

“No, it—”

“Daddy’s right, it’s time I got serious.”

“Okay, let’s get serious. It’s time for your present.” Doe sat up.

“Oh, you didn’t have to. But, hooray!”

Doe reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out the present. “It’s the thing I love the most,” she said. “It belonged to my father.”

Lark unwrapped it carefully from the tissue paper, smoothing the silver satin ribbon. She withdrew the watch and held it up.

    “For the girl who has more than everything,” Doe said.

“Oh, honey. Are you sure? This is amazing. It’s a Patek Philippe!” Lark turned it over in her hand. “Vintage?”

“Vintage.”

“It’s gorgeous. But…I can’t accept your father’s watch.”

“You have to. It’s the best thing I have to give.”

“No, the best thing is that you wanted to.”

Doe leaned over and fastened the watch on Lark’s wrist. “You see? Perfect.” Doe was taking a chance, but she wasn’t worried. Even if Lucas were to see it, he wouldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t dare.

“I love it so much.” Lark took the ribbon and wound it around Doe’s ring finger. “Will you marry me?”

Doe looked down at her finger, at the silver ribbon twisted around it, two girls playing fairy tale. “Only if your father gives us a maid as a wedding present. You’re a slob.”

A shadow passed over Lark’s face. As though Doe had hurt her? Doe saw it happen, how the shadow grew and overtook the mood. “What is it?”

“Is it so funny, to think that I’m serious about you?”

Doe felt the precipice, ahead in the dark. There seemed to be some sort of call-and-response needed here, something not in her skill set.

Even as Doe’s brain was trying to move fast enough to solve this, the moment was flying by, and she was losing ground with every passing second. Soon whatever she said wouldn’t be enough. Doe was usually so adept at reading currents of emotion, of want and need, and tucking herself into them. How had she missed this?

Lucas walked across the lawn, heading toward them. The woman next to him stumbled in the grass—ridiculous shoes, Doe had no patience for women who wore stilettos to a lawn party—and she saw it was Shari.