Our Little Secret(35)
“Just to see HP.”
“That poor lost boy. Well, don’t engage with the Australian. Petitjean women do not allow others the opportunity to gloat.”
By the kitchen cupboard, Dad let out a wheeze of air that sounded like sarcasm. He was stirring sugar into a cup of tea.
“Is there something I can help you with, David?” My mother’s fingers gripped her coffee mug so hard that her fingertips pressed white near the rim. “Or did you have something to add?”
“Come on, Shelley. Can’t people marry who they want to marry?”
“Yes, but sometimes they regret their decision later,” Mom snapped back.
Dad paused by the back of the sofa before shuffling to his study, where he quietly shut the door.
Ezra was absent also—he was trying out for a pro water polo team in North Carolina and I always thought the fact HP didn’t reschedule the party to accommodate Ez was surefire proof that the event was more Saskia’s than his. In the same vein, HP’s parents hosted the party in their front yard but you could tell it was Saskia’s planning because it was all fairy lights and butterfly-themed cupcakes. They’d even hired a string quartet to play theme tunes from Disney movies, for God’s sake.
Yes, I went to the party with Freddy Montgomery. While HP had been doing his sun salutations in Sydney, the one positive development in my life had been Freddy moving to New York City. At least one weekend out of every four, he came to visit me. I was lonely in Cove: I started my online degree but didn’t have anyone to hang out with. Ezra was around, but he was either working weird shifts at the grocery store or training for his one shot at being a pro athlete. I welcomed the attention of Freddy. He showered me with gifts and I accepted them. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but it wasn’t like anybody else’s spotlight was on me.
When we walked into the garden party, I realized I hadn’t set foot on their property since before I left for Oxford, but the old birch tree was still there, stalwart and notched with secrets. It seemed a lifetime ago that HP and I had huddled against the bark.
Freddy headed straight to the drinks table, which was Old Man Parker’s workbench set up to the right of the house with an embroidered sheet thrown across it. Freddy hesitated, his Rolex glinting on his outstretched wrist. Novak’s right about Freddy’s fast fortune: whether or not his rise had been Machiavellian, money sat on every part of him now; it seeped from his very skin. He was more groomed than he’d been at Oxford, more spa-treated and fine-tailored. That day he was dressed in a pale-gray suit with a pink collared shirt while everyone else wore ball caps and shorts. At the drinks table, Freddy turned to show me a silver angel that hooked and tinkled at the base of each wineglass’s stem.
“What a glorious touch,” he said, meaning the opposite. “Where on earth have you brought me, Ms. Petitjean? The style palette’s verging on Ikea.”
We hardly mingled. Freddy and I hung back by the tree, while Freddy pointed out all the ways in which party guests were wearing their clothes wrongly. Look at that tapered waist! Go up a size, love. There’s no shame in it.
It was harmless enough, as afternoons go, until I returned from the bathroom inside the house to find that Saskia had discovered Freddy. He stood with one arm across his waist and the other one dangling a half-filled wineglass, which moved in rhythm with plot points of his anecdote. Saskia’s dress was a deep threat of red, and while Freddy told his story she gaped at him, the fingertips of her right hand on the upper arm of his suit sleeve.
“You’re funny as!” She giggled, with that way she had of ruining the simile. “Come and meet my new rellies!”
She dragged him over to HP’s mom and dad, both of whom stood quietly throughout the party holding hands. Mrs. Parker had on a dress, but nothing else about her shouted grand celebration. Were they surprised by the turn of events? I hadn’t had a chance to ask them. I dawdled a few steps behind, mainly because without Freddy alongside me, the whole afternoon took on a more difficult complexity.
“Parko,” trilled Saskia to one or both of HP’s parents, “this is Freddy Montgomery.”
“How do you do? What a pleasure it is.” Freddy bowed slightly to HP’s mother, who caught my eye as I stood a foot behind. “You must be terribly proud of your son.”
Was Freddy being ironic? He’d yet to glance back at me.
“We are, we are. Especially proud what with their news.”
Mrs. Parker looked straight at me. She always had such gentle eyes, and at that moment, I saw her flinch.
“News?” Freddy asked, as though he didn’t know. Saskia put a delicate hand to her belly. Shhhh, she mimed, with one straight finger against her lips. She took a breath to launch into her life’s most recent elation, but I backed away towards the house again, through the kitchen and into the cool leather of the armchair in the shadiest corner of the Parkers’ screened-in sunroom.
Mrs. Parker had been knitting a sweater—it lay wrapped in a wicker basket at the base of the chair, ready to be woven on like a story. I held up the wool, wondering who it was for, just as Freddy wandered into the room.
“How are you holding up?” He flopped down onto the sofa, which was less spongy than he’d anticipated. His wine spilled and he smudged it into the fabric of the cushion.
I didn’t feel like responding. Freddy lounged across the sunroom from me, staring at the general layout.