Chapter 12
Jamie touched up her makeup as the Town Car eased down the driveway to Warner Estate. She had Natasha on the phone, currently on her lunch break in Etta’s office – and without Amanda in tow.
“You look great,” she reassured Jamie over video chat. “If any of those salty witches have a problem with you today, just let me know, and I’ll make them wait an extra half hour to see Ms. Coleman the next time they stop by the office. She’s busy, you know.”
“Don’t I know it.” Sighing, Jamie put her compact away and fluffed out the skirt on her purple peplum dress.
It had been a week since receiving the news she wasn’t sick.
I’m over it. Mostly. The more days went by, the more Jamie put thoughts of being a married mother out of her head and returned to her life.
Today? She was going to Monique’s debut party as Mrs. Helen Warner.
There would be a shitton of well-to-do women there.
Well, the ones who didn’t work or go to school, anyway.
So that left out the twin blondes of Kathleen and Eve and left the obnoxious forty-somethings who thought their shit smelled like roses and cherub breath.
Jamie had to make sure she looked impeccable.
At the very least, these women wouldn’t be able to say she looked like a trollop mess at Monique’s classy garden party on an early Tuesday afternoon.
She didn’t stand a chance.
Her only friend there was Monique, who was busy throwing a party and entertaining the other dozen women there.
Wives and daughters of CEOs, presidents, politicians, bankers, stockbrokers, and anyone else who could claim to have millions of dollars in a bank account somewhere.
Whatever they thought of Monique and her background, or the fact that she was pregnant before her big lesbian marriage, they minded themselves when in her presence, let alone in her home.
For she was a Warner now, and that family had deep roots in the community.
It also helped that Monique was a natural at entertaining and had the manners of a queen.
Not like Jamie, who fumbled with every word and action.
Luckily, nobody wanted to pay attention to her.
Her most interesting conversation came from a maid who complimented her dress.
“These place settings are absolutely delightful,” said an older woman, Francesca Blake.
She was the wife of one of the wealthiest stock traders in America, let alone the region.
Since she wasn’t into kink or often deigned to attend anyone’s parties, Jamie didn’t see her around much.
She was a country club woman, not a BDSM dungeon honey.
I’d rather hang out with those people. At least they knew how to let loose, have fun, and cut a fucking joke. “Where are they from? Bavaria?”
“Almost close,” Monique chirped. “Tuscany. I found them on my honeymoon. They were hand-painted by a man whose family has been doing it for over five hundred years. The details are impeccable.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Blake was most pleased with this answer. Or at least she was good at faking it. Jamie was still learning how to tell the difference. “I haven’t been to Italy in a good five years. Might be time to go again.”
To think, a few years ago, Jamie’s comeback would have been, “I’ve never been to Italy at all, so fuck off.
” Since dating a woman who loved Italy more than any other country, however, she had been a time or two already.
Etta even thought about buying a vacation home in Tuscany for them and their friends to use.
Even so, the tone of this woman’s voice nearly set her off. Jamie was eternally grateful that Etta didn’t come from a rich family and had made her own money. She didn’t think she could stand a whole brood of rich misfits. Her hippie parents were enough.
Halfway through the party, a latecomer arrived.
“Ms. Adele Thompson is here, madam,” said a butler. “Should I show her in?”
The quiet conversation halted. Monique sat up in her seat and renewed her air of sophistication. “Yes, please do. I’m sure nobody will mind Ms. Thompson joining us a bit late, would they?”
The other women, even Mrs. Blake, shook their heads and leaned in toward one another, hissing this and that until a feminine shadow appeared in the doorway.
“Sorry I’m so unfashionably late,” came a familiar voice.
Liquid. Like the finest milk chocolate to ever grace Jamie’s tongue.
She was both shocked and not surprised at all when a tall woman walked onto the patio, wearing an ivory high-waist dress and an equally impressive sunhat that shadowed the sharp angles of her otherwise feminine face.
Chestnut hair was pulled back into a low twist on her head.
The most dazzling thing, however, was the woman’s smile, which lit up the room with good humor that Jamie had yet to experience.
Her. It’s her. The woman she met in the elevator at Etta’s office.
Adele Thompson? Why did that name sound so familiar?
Monique rose from her seat and was at the end of the table in time to officially greet Ms. Thompson. “Thank you so much for being able to join us. I know how busy you are.”
“Oh, it’s my pleasure. When Monique Warner invites you to her house, you go!
” That got more than a few titters in the room.
Yet unlike the other women, who were there to stay in the Warners’ good standing, Adele Thompson appeared genuinely happy to be there.
Her delight permeated the room like a healthy dose of nitrous oxide.
Soon everyone was giggling and in a rush to accept a gentle handshake from this woman Jamie didn’t know.
When Adele reached her, she said, “So, we meet again, Jamie.”
Monique visibly stiffened, eyes wide. What is that about?
“Why, yes… although I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced before.”
“It’s always a pleasure.”
Adele winked at Jamie before taking a seat at the other end of the table. She was soon inundated with trite conversations from the guests leaning in toward her. Even Monique didn’t have to lead the party anymore. She almost looked glad of it.
Jamie survived the garden party only because most of the other women ignored her.
Even though she sat right next to Monique, women talked over her head, across her chest, and even right through her.
Jamie was invisible. She was a nobody. Most days, that didn’t bother her.
Sometimes, she wished they would extend a kind word to her.
Today? She was irked. Yet all she could do was grin and bear it for the sake of her friend.
Monique implored Jamie to stay behind at the end of the party.
“Let’s have a chat. Just let me pay my respects to the other guests first.” So Jamie remained behind, watching the other women slowly make their way by Monique, kiss her cheek, touch her hand, comment on her growing stomach, and tell her that the recent changes she made to the East Wing of Warner Manor were exquisite.
She smiled through all of this, gracious, kind, and more than happy to refer the designer she worked with.
Adele was the last to leave aside from Jamie. She leaned in and whispered something into the shorter woman’s ear before showing herself out. Monique’s lips were taut for a good few seconds before she smoothed out her dress over her protruding stomach.
A good five minutes had passed before Monique had time for Jamie again.
“Care for a walk through the gardens? I need the exercise.”
The Warners’ gardens were nothing like Etta’s.
Jamie’s girlfriend had a large, expansive, and colorful garden full of rainbow-toned flowers.
Monique’s new garden that she oversaw was mostly made up of greenery.
Beautiful greenery, to be sure, but between the ferns, bushes, and evergreen trees smartly cut and trimmed to curve with the bricks lining the walkways, it felt like walking through a storybook.
I prefer Etta’s garden. Jamie liked colors.
“I think you had a good party,” she said, breaking the silence. They walked, Monique setting a leisurely pace while Jamie struggled to shorten her strides. “I mean… nobody said anything nasty…”
“I wish that’s all that mattered in this world. I sort of miss a time when ‘nobody said anything nasty’ was the barometer for a good party.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. This is the life I signed up for.” She spared Jamie a wan smile. “Perhaps one day you will as well.”
“Yeah… about that…” Jamie wasn’t going to say anything about the “scare” to anyone.
Not even her own mother, whom she spoke to on the phone the day before.
Being around Monique, however, who was always the most sensible woman Jamie knew, it was hard to keep any secrets.
“Things have been wild these past few weeks.”
She slowly opened up about the supposed cancer, Etta’s problems with work, and ultimately finding out that there was no cancer at all. Jamie confessed that she still felt so stupid about her own body.
“There’s no need for that.” Monique sat on a bench along the path. Jamie joined her, happy to sit down again. “I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve thought I had this or that. Even pregnant! Before this, I mean. Intentionally.”
“Really?”
“Indeed. When you’ve had dominants like the ones I’ve been with, it’s something you always wonder. Even when I was with Etta… well, forgive me for bringing it up, but our mutual ex-whatever loved ‘surprising’ me in the bedroom. I’ll leave it at that.”
“Yeah…”
Monique put a hand on Jamie’s arm. “I’m sorry. It must be hard to deal with.”