The Lies They Tell(29)
You are cordially invited to
the Tenney’s Harbor Country Club
Formal Ball and Benefit Auction
She stared for a long moment, running down the details. Eight to eleven p.m., open bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres, auction to benefit the local nonprofit tutoring program. She checked again to make sure it really said her name on the envelope. This made no sense, unless she’d ended up on the list by mistake, somebody mixing up their spreadsheets at the club.
She heard the screen door open behind her and quickly shuffled the envelope in with the other mail, keeping her head down. “You want toast?” Dad said from the front steps.
“Coming.” She slid past him into the house.
She tried not to glance at the stack of mail until Dad was in the bathroom, at which point she grabbed the invitation and took it down to her room, hiding it between the mattress and box spring, along with Cassidy’s memory card.
Reese moved past her, no acknowledgment. Breakfast/brunch shift was tough on everybody, even on an average day: the prep cooks and busboys were still blinking sleep from their eyes, and the servers were sneaking coffee every chance they got. It was ten minutes before the dining room doors opened for the day, and as Pearl watched Reese taking chairs down from tabletops and setting places, she suddenly felt like hitting him—or at the very least, throwing some eggs Benedict at him.
“Really?” She stopped in the middle of righting a chair, looking at him across their sections. “You’re just not going to talk to me now?”
He dropped a chair heavily onto its legs, grabbed another.
“Fine. But you’re being stupid.” She glanced at him. He still had his back to her. “You don’t even know what’s going on. You didn’t even ask.”
Thump. Another captain’s chair landed on the hardwood.
“Reese—”
“Pearl, I don’t give a shit. Okay?” The next chair dropped so far that the bang echoed to the rafters. “Save it.” As she stared, speechless, he turned and went into the kitchen.
The morning continued as it always did, sunlight slanting across the room in the usual patterns, Lou Pulaski and some golf cronies meeting for artery-clogging breakfasts, talking too loudly and laughing too much for Pearl to keep her thoughts on anything but Reese’s words. How had they gone from holding hands in the dark to I don’t give a shit? She’d seen him annoyed before, irritable occasionally, but never like this—never to the point of completely shutting her out. Feeling slightly stunned, she went through the motions until she noticed a palpable shift in atmosphere, a redirection of focus to the patio entrance.
Frederick Spencer Sr., the patriarch, came in, removing his cap and smoothing the pure white feathers of his hair. He wore a pale-yellow sport shirt, khakis, and Italian loafers. Beside him, Bridges was a young, trendy version, Ralph Lauren to the old man’s Gucci. When the ma?tre d’ abandoned his podium—seldom done—to hurry over to seat them, Bridges said something quietly to his grandfather and pointed Pearl out.
The ma?tre d’ led them to Pearl’s section, Mr. Spencer meeting and greeting the whole way, patting shoulders and exchanging good mornings. Pearl felt a blush growing; she’d waited on him a few times before, but always as a nameless server, someone who would fade from memory before Mr. Spencer’s crepes had fully digested.
She walked over, provided menus, said, “Good morning, gentlemen,” in a tone that she hoped made clear to Bridges that she wasn’t out to endear herself, wouldn’t be leaping into his lap like a giddy cocker spaniel in front of the great man.
“Hey. I wasn’t sure if you’d be working this morning.” Bridges smiled. “Gramps, this is Pearl. Pearl, this is my grandfather, Fred.”
She hesitated, caught between roles. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
Mr. Spencer put his hand out. It was tanned, deeply lined, and she was surprised to feel calluses on the palms. “Likewise, young lady.” His eyes must be the wellspring of the Spencer blue, vivid and lively. “My grandson’s quite impressed by you. I hear you sail?”
“A little.” Everyone must be looking at them now, wondering what possible reason Frederick Spencer would have to shake his server’s hand. “I’m a novice. Not like Bridges.”
“Don’t listen to her. She knows her way around a boat better than a lot of the guys in sailing club ever did,” Bridges said.
“Sounds like we have a mutual admiration society here.” Mr. Spencer smiled. Something in the expression hinted that lady-killing might be a family tradition. “Will you do us the honor of joining us for breakfast?”
“Oh. Um—”
But Bridges spoke up. “Come on, she can’t do that. You’ll get her in trouble.”
“Well. Another time, then. When you’re off duty.” He continued to study her, then broke into another smile. “Do you happen to have any of those currant scones this morning?”
Pearl leaped on the segue, taking their orders and walking swiftly away. Everyone might not have been watching, but Reese was; she locked eyes with him for a moment. His expression lingered somewhere between disbelief and disgust before he turned back to the table he was serving.
Imagine his face if she’d pulled up a chair across from Old Man Spencer and his golden grandson, right here in the same room where she and Reese had scrubbed hardened lobster bisque off tabletops and returned meals two, three times for members who didn’t feel that their swordfish was “blackened” enough. Pearl got it; at the same time, she resented the hell out of it, gripped by that same why not me feeling she’d had in Dark Brew Saturday afternoon. Was it so unbelievable that these people would want anything from her other than bowing and scraping, that she couldn’t possibly have anything else to offer?