Nine
WE REACH THE ENTRANCE, THE METAL DETECTORS JUST IN FRONT of us now. “Ready?” I murmur to Tom.
“Pardon?” he replies.
From the way his voice sounds, my eyes snap to him. The detached frost in his inflection matches the regard he watches me with now, half impatient under the sleek facade of his expressionless features. It gives me exactly the confirmation I needed.
Because next to me, in the finest suit I’ve ever seen on someone in high school, is not Tom Pham, the charming class clown who joined us in the van. Replacing him is Thomas Pham. Sophisticated. Wealthy. Slick, with just the right edge of “bad boy” to make him utterly irresistible to the girl everyone expects me to be.
Okay, to the real Olivia, too.
I grin. “Oh, you’re perfect.”
Instantly, Tom’s demeanor transforms. Drops, as if he’s let slip the debonair curtain he’s cloaked himself in for the occasion. It’s the usual Tom in front of me now. “For real?” He preens smugly under my praise. “I’m thinking I might put him into my audition reel.”
I nod in earnest. “You do that.”
Tom was my final recruit, when I was considering the optics of The Plan once I’d configured the mechanics. While we hadn’t spoken since I left Berkshire, Tom is fortunately very up-front on his social media. He wants to move to LA for acting. His family—his parents a financier power couple who met on opposite sides of their firms’ deals—has no problem with the idea. However, they insist he pay his own way, not wanting “acting” to wind up consisting of partying on the parental dime.
Tom is content to pay, no matter the means necessary. When I invited him in, I noticed hints of this dark resourcefulness hiding under his carefree humor. I found them intriguing. In fact, I found them impressive. I watch for them now, my own private fireworks show.
We reach the metal detectors, marching with the slow procession of women dripping in jewelry or wrapped in fabrics with French names while the men strut forward in shining leather shoes, reluctantly passing watches the size of house-arrest monitors into the scanner.
I step into the detector, which promptly goes off.
The guards notice the clutch I’m holding, which I open when one comes up to me. The tuxedoed Millennium man shakes his head. “No phones,” he declares as if it’s not his first issuance of this order today.
“Not even for me?” I stretch out the final syllable, pouting my pink lips. “I’m, like, literally Dash’s daughter.”
“No phones,” the guard repeats, holding out his hand.
I let some spoiled-girl flash into my eyes when I surrender my phone in its pink plastic case. “Like, such a shame,” I drawl. “Getting no selfies when I look this good is def ruining my hot-girl-wedding vibes.”
The lingo is for the guests’ benefit. If they’ve ever listened to even one of my dad’s episodes, they’re remembering callouts of Gen Z with their internet-speak and no work ethic ’cause they can’t live without their phones. Paired with my little-princess pretense, I know I’ll have everyone rolling their eyes behind my back.
Good.
The more people decide I’m just the shallow, vapid girl they expect, the better. Phoneless, I continue with Tom through the metal detectors. I told Maureen about my new boyfriend a week ago, and she was more than happy to add him to the guest list. I think she just wants to make sure I don’t get in the way today. While my counterpart upholds his bored sneer perfectly, there’s sincerity in his voice when he speaks under his breath. “Not bad,” he says. “Performing the ditzy heiress. You might be as good an actor as me.”
“I’m just playing the part they’ve already cast me in,” I reply.
Tom says nothing to that.
When we pass the foyer, we can’t help pausing. I understand Tom’s quietly startled hesitation, which I recognize from every Berkshire friend I’ve ever invited over—the realization of exactly how much wealth I come from.
Even I’m caught up short, however, getting my first glimpse of how this wedding has remade my childhood home into this opulent spectacle. Complementing the high Georgian columns of the grand living room, where the chandelier hangs over the impeccable white furniture, flowers festoon the room in white petals. Silks draped from interior railings play up the whole “summer palace” effect. Guests fawn over one another’s garments or delightedly exchange stories of recent weekend getaways to Fontainebleau or Florence.
We continue through the back doors to the terrace overlooking the grounds. The rose garden—where I hunted for Easter eggs when I was seven, read The Giver for school when I was eleven—is presidential, the fountains frankly royal. On one side of the stone deck, a string octet serenades the crowd. Past the roses, guests play lawn games.
Tom’s brow furrows when he realizes how many people he recognizes. Not from Berkshire, either. The websites weren’t wrong when they called this the event of the season. TikTok stars with bazillions of followers parade with petite entourages past the types of politicians you would not want noticed on your Instagram story. TV stars confine themselves to the shade of the enormous house, nonchalantly pretending they’re not protecting their complexions from the September sun.
Immersing myself in the event means fighting familiar dissonance in myself. I want to disdain everything surrounding me, to remember the many who’ve silently suffered due to the way my father shaped his empire. I hate everything I see.
Yet… a small, horrible part of me remembers how this was nearly mine.
I don’t know if one day it will be. When Dash kicked me out of this home, he cut me off so fundamentally from my former life that I guess I stopped thinking about inheritance entirely. Besides, complicated relationship or not, I don’t enjoy thinking of the day my father is no longer here, even if it might leave me with the home that should have always been mine.
In a way, it doesn’t really matter. I need money now. My mom needs money now. It’s a right-now problem. The only solution for right now, instead of in however many years of life my father has left, is simple—steal it.
I continue with Tom down the back steps into the rose garden. We walk slowly, exchanging impersonal, gaudy pleasantries with guests—the point is for me to be seen with my eye-catching new boyfriend, Thomas Pham. Then I notice unforgettable brown curls on one of the heads in the crowd. Curls you could rake your fingers through forever, which then you decide to do, until fifteen minutes later, you have no idea what’s going on in the Netflix episode and oh hey, how did our shirts end up on the floor?
Memories, I remind myself, fighting the yearning clench in my stomach. Just memories.
I entwine my fingers with Tom’s.
“Hey,” I say. “Why don’t we go somewhere more private?”