5. Frenemyship,Is It Frenmity?
5
Frenemyship, or Is It Frenmity?
ANDREW
Oliver: Hey, the Fibonacci video got 20k views!
Me: Great
Oliver: And we hit 100k subscribers!
Me: Awesome
Oliver: Wait, aren’t you excited?
Me: Yeah. Just…yeah
Oliver: Want to talk?
Me: Not right now. Call you tomorrow
F irst stop after having your heart broken? I recommend the bar.
After turning off my phone, I leaned against the wall, sipping whiskey. A few people approached but veered off when they saw my expression.
Unfortunately, my scowl didn’t deter my mother.
“What are you doing over here? And why are you frowning like that? Smile.” Mother swiped a speck of lint from my lapel. “You should be mingling. Making connections.”
It was exactly the reminder I didn’t need that Carly had chosen to make connections over reigniting the chemistry we’d felt in Monterey. The chemistry I still felt whenever I was around her. I’d fully intended to greet her coldly, to keep my feelings contained behind a thick wall until I couldn’t feel them anymore, but they’d burst out like a high school football team through the cheerleaders’ paper banner. All it had taken was a glance at the curve of her jaw, and I remembered how it felt to kiss her there. That night, I’d felt like anything was possible if Carly Rose cared about me.
But as it turned out, she didn’t.
I needed to lock down my emotions the way I’d learned to do after Dad died. Emotions made me weak, and I never wanted to feel weak again.
“I need a minute,” I grumbled. “I’m not fit for mingling right now.”
“What’s wrong?” My mother turned up her blue eyes to me, so much truer than my grayish-blue. I looked past her face to her neckline, which revealed the edge of the pinkish scar from her heart surgery three years ago.
I wouldn’t worry her with my petty troubles. It was my job to protect her, to protect them all.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Hey.” A slender hand snaked around my waist and squeezed my stomach. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought it was Carly, then I noticed the slim white-gold bracelet on her wrist, the one I’d given my little sister on her twenty-first birthday.
“Ugh. Get off.” The loss of that momentary hope turned my stomach.
“Aw.” Natalie released me. “Someone’s grouchy tonight.”
“He is, isn’t he?” Mother said.
“It’s a shame since he’s danced with the two best-dressed women in the room.”
“He hasn’t danced with me.” Our mother arched an eyebrow.
Natalie chuckled. “Aside from you, of course. I wish we wore the same shoe size. I’d snag those heels.”
While they rhapsodized about designer footwear, I zoned out and sipped my whiskey.
“Who are these women Andrew danced with?” My mother’s words caught my attention. “I was talking to one of Charles’s colleagues.”
“Carly Rose, of course, and Bianca Waddingworth. She looks fantastic, doesn’t she? I can say it even though I dressed her.” Natalie tossed her long hair.
“You did a beautiful job. I always thought you should have stayed in fashion school.”
“Let’s not, Mother. Anyway, that color is fabulous on Bianca.”
What Carly said about Bianca Waddingworth stuck in my brain. “Mother, you didn’t have anything to do with Bianca canceling on Carly, did you?”
“You think I’d do that?”
“No, of course not.” I couldn’t sync up what I knew about my mother with what Carly had said.
“Maybe Bianca had a reason to do it.” Natalie was always the peacemaker of the family.
We turned at a too-loud laugh.
Brad Winner had his head thrown back, his arm around someone who—no joke—was around Natalie’s age.
Mother’s lip curled. “At least she’s free of that millstone. He can be charming, but…”
What had Carly seen in him? Clearly, something she didn’t see in me.
“Stop furrowing your brow, Andrew.” Mother fluttered her hands at my face like she could smooth away the wrinkles. “It makes you look old.”
I flashed her a smile. “Better?”
“Smile with your eyes, darling. That’s better.” She glanced over my shoulder. “There’s the state senator. I need to speak with him about the education bill. Care to join me? I know STEM education is an important cause for you.”
It was, but I was in no mood to schmooze tonight. “I’ll catch him later.”
Casting one more concerned glance at me, she strode purposefully away in her low heels.
“So.” My sister turned on me. “What’s with you caring about who styles who?”
“Me? I don’t care. I heard something and thought I’d ask.”
She snorted. “I saw how you two were gazing into each other’s eyes while you were dancing. ‘Heard something’ my butt.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. She said Mother trashed her stylist work. I wasn’t sure what to believe.”
“I wonder…” She frowned.
“What?”
“Mother was the one who told me Bianca needed help. Though that seems pretty underhanded, even considering their frenemyship. Or is it frenmity?” She wrinkled her nose.
“What are you talking about?”
“They’ve been frenemies for, like, ever. You know, they act like friends, but they secretly detest one another. So, friends-slash-enemies. Do guys not do that?”
“No?”
“Huh.” She shifted her weight. Her pointy-toe heels made my feet ache in sympathy. “Don’t you remember? They always volunteered for the same organizations and were on the same committees. They played nice in public except for the occasional snipe. You have to remember the Vulgar Bikini Boat Party.”
“The what?” How did she know all of this?
“Mother never stops talking about it.” Nat tapped her finger on her lips. “Or maybe it’s the whole first-wife versus second-wife thing. Carly was always trying to fit in with the first wives. She was a little younger than Mother?—”
“Seventeen years younger.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Or so.” I took a sip from my nearly empty glass to keep my mouth from betraying me again. “What was the deal with the boat party?”
Natalie leaned closer. “It was Carly’s first big party, right after she married Brad Winner. No one must’ve told her how things worked because she scheduled it on Labor Day weekend. That was when Mother and Dad used to host a huge house party. Remember?”
“Right, Dad made a big joke of wearing that barbecue apron even though Mother had it catered.”
“Yeah.” A sad smile flitted over my sister’s face. “Whatever happened to that apron?”
“Probably donated with all his other stuff. Anyway, this party caused a twenty-year feud because she stole Mother’s weekend?”
“That wasn’t the worst of it. Instead of a regular party at, you know, someone’s house or a hotel or the arboretum, Carly hosted it on their yacht.”
“That party?” It had been my pubescent awakening.
“Remember what she wore?”
“A white bikini.” I’d said it too fast, and she smirked at me.
“Right. Everyone else showed up in garden party attire, and she had the audacity to offer them swimwear. You can guess who took her up on it.”
“Not me.” I’d spent most of the party trying to hide my hard-on by sitting at a table with the van der Poel twins.
“Aw. You’ve always been such a loyal little Jones. But a lot of the husbands did, including Dad.”
“He didn’t?—”
“No. I mean, I was too little to notice things like that, but I don’t think he flirted with her. She had a little suit and life jacket for me, so, of course, I went in the water, and I remember Dad swimming with me.
“But I think what pissed Mother off was that Carly swooped in and did something outrageous. And then it got worse because every party the following spring was on a boat or at the marina. Plus, everyone begged her to repeat her yacht party the next summer. Carly hit a home run on her first at-bat. Mother both admired and hated her for it.”
“For twenty years?”
“She has a long memory. So, be aware, you know? In case you, um…start something…with Carly.”
“Don’t be such a mom . I don’t need you looking out for me. I’m the big brother here.” I glugged my whiskey too fast, and it singed my throat. As much as I loved my baby sister, I wasn’t ready to share what I thought I’d felt with Carly, or the pain of her abandonment.
If Carly was Mother’s enemy, it was for the best. My loyalty had to be to my family, especially my mother. She held our family together. Though she wasn’t one of those mothers who said it out loud, I felt her love at the dining table every Sunday. Every time I walked into a crowded ballroom and saw one of my siblings, that feeling of security locked into place. We Joneses had each other’s backs.
I thought I’d found that same security outside our family when I met up with Carly. We connected in a way I’d never connected with anyone else.
Until she’d slipped out of my bed in the dark and ghosted me.
Natalie punched my arm, not hard, but the way I’d taught her with the flat part of her fingers, her thumb on the outside. “Come mingle with me. We’ll make sure Mother sees us.”
I couldn’t face the idea of speaking to another person, not after Carly had shot me down again, this time to my face.
“I’m gonna jet. Give my apologies to Mother?”
“You’re not going home to sulk, are you?”
So what if I was? I was in no condition to impress anyone, not even for the benefit of the Jones family. My insides felt too raw and exposed. “Bye.”
“Andrew—”
I turned and left the ballroom. I needed time to rebuild the wall I’d let Carly Rose demolish.