Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
The food looks delicious, but I can hardly taste it. There’s too much restless energy buzzing through my veins. I feel like I’m on a stage, spotlight shining in my eyes, hoping that I’ll remember my lines.
It’s nerve-wracking… and exhilarating. I’ve always been the type to stand too close to the edge when I’m high up, relishing that low swoop in my stomach when I look down. Sometimes I think part of me wants to fall. I imagine it would feel, at least for a moment, like I’m flying. Free.
I allow myself tiny sips of wine. Alcohol takes the edge off, and makes sure nobody gets any ideas about this being a shotgun wedding.
Small bites of food, too, to make sure I don’t seem like a glutton.
I want to appear like I’m used to meals of this quality, like I don’t regularly shove cup noodles into my mouth while watching reality TV.
The food is surprisingly hearty fare. Braised red cabbage, rich dumplings, an entire roasted goose as a centerpiece.
“We always eat traditional German food over the holidays,” Louis’s father says, cutting into a goose leg. The meat is shockingly red and dripping fat. He shoves a piece into his mouth and chews heartily. “Our roots are important.”
“It’s delicious,” I say, though I’ve barely touched my plate. But it feels like everyone is looking at me now, so I cut myself a thin slice and chew with some appreciative noises.
“So glad you’re enjoying it,” Louis’s mother says, though there’s a hint of judgment in her eyes. I realize she’s barely eating, and Anna is pushing hers around her plate in between generous gulps of wine.
I dab at the grease on my lips with my napkin. “Did you cook it yourself?” I ask. I haven’t seen anyone here but the family.
Louis’s brother lets out a guffaw. “As if she’s ever touched a stove in her life.”
His mother looks at him with pursed lips, then back at me. “Our staff were kind enough to prepare it in advance. They were up here cooking half the night, though of course we let them go home to their families afterward.”
“How considerate,” I say, since she seems to expect it. As if asking her staff to come up a freezing mountain, slave away in the kitchen, and drive away without enjoying any is generous.
His mother waves it off with a pleased little smile. She seems to take all of my praise personally, as if she has any claim to money from her husband’s wallet and work done by people whose names I doubt she ever asked for.
“So what is it you do, Diana?” Louis’s mother asks. “You’re an art collector, is that right?”
Of course I’ve just taken another bite of meat. I chew as quickly as I can, one hand pressed demurely to my lips.
“Curator,” I say finally, tucking hair behind my ear as I feign humbleness. “I’m an art curator. I plan and arrange exhibitions, usually working with talented up-and-coming artists to help get their work in the spotlight.”
“We met at one of her exhibitions,” Louis says, taking my hand. I smile, although he’s preventing me from eating. Maybe it’s intentional, because it seems like his mother and sister-in-law have stopped touching their food.
“It was amazing.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly my best work,” I say with a theatrical little sigh. “You remember that whole fiasco…”
“Oh, please, that was hardly your fault,” Louis says. He looks over at his mother when he says, “The gallery somehow managed to mix up the dates. Diana arrived with all of her artists’ work ready to display and they told her they didn’t have her on the schedule. Can you imagine?”
“I was just so worried for my artists,” I say with a sigh. “I couldn’t let all of their hard work go to waste…”
“So Diana put her foot down, really kicked up a fuss,” Louis says, with a fond glance at me.
“The gallery ended up scrambling to make it work, and so the show went on.”
I smile at him. We’ve told this story so many times, it’s almost like a practiced con. As if he’d ever be savvy enough to pull one off.
“Well, I hope they compensated you for the trouble,” Louis’s father grumbles, stabbing into his goose.
“We reached an agreement,” I say. An agreement that involved me paying the gallery nothing while walking away with my substantial “artists’ fee.”
“Seeing her pull everything together last-minute was incredible,” Louis says, squeezing my hand. “When I saw it, I fell in love.”
“Oh, stop it,” I say, though my smile is genuine.
That exhibition was one of my favorite cons. Especially since the artists were all pretentious rich fucks all too eager to pay a substantial amount to hang their terrible art in a gallery.
Even better, that con led me to Louis, a much bigger target. All it took was a few dates of playing coy, followed by the best blow job of his life, and I had the man wrapped around my finger…
“Sounds like a scam.”
My eyes slide across the table to meet Anna’s. She’s not even pretending to eat anymore, just watching me with a surprisingly shrewd gaze.
“Pardon?” I say, forcing a smile.
“I mean, seems unlikely a gallery would just mix up an exhibition’s dates like that,” she says.
“Never underestimate the incompetence of the average man,” her husband says.
Anna rolls her eyes, but then she’s locked on me again. “And isn’t it, like, your job to work with galleries? Didn’t you vet them before arranging the exhibition?”
“I’ll confess it was my first time planning a show that big,” I say, tucking my hair behind my ear in feigned self-consciousness. “I don’t know… maybe you’re right? It didn’t really occur to me that a gallery might try to take advantage of artists like that…”
The way she purses her lips at me, I don’t think she’s buying it.
“You forget, Anna dear, she is awfully young,” Louis’s mother contributes, managing to make it sound like an insult to both of us.
“Oh, but surely not much younger than Anna,” I say, widening my eyes. She seems like the smartest person in the room; best to make an ally out of her if I can. “She’s so beautiful.”
“I’d hope so, given how much I pay for her Botox,” Adrian says.
Anna fakes a laugh and sips her wine, looking thoroughly unimpressed by all of us, but at least she’s no longer interrogating me.
The rest of dinner passes without anything of significance.
I had hoped to retreat to our room afterward.
It’s late—almost midnight, actually—and I want to check in with Louis about how I’m doing so far.
But instead of retiring, everyone rises and heads in the same direction without a word.
I’m left little choice but to follow. I keep glancing at Louis, hoping he’ll fill me in on what we’re doing, but he’s lost in a conversation with his father and brother.
His mother and sister-in-law are arm in arm, conversing quietly. I trail behind them feeling forgotten.
My breath hitches as I realize where they’re headed: the office that I was snooping in earlier. Louis’s father holds the door open and ushers us in, one by one. As we step into the room, a formal sort of hush falls, like something important is about to happen.
Louis takes my hand and tugs me to his side, but he doesn’t provide any insight into what’s happening.
Everyone is weirdly silent, so I stay silent as well.
My eyes find that ancient book sitting on the desk once more, and I feel the whisper of desire to touch it.
I probably would give in if not for Louis’s grip on my hand.
And when I glance around the room, I realize everyone else is looking at the book too.
And there’s something strange in their gaze. Something almost hungry.