Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
SHARP OBJECTS
When the lemonade touches my tongue, I am immediately transported back to a very old, very distinct childhood memory. I am swinging next to Scott on the rusty swing set in our old apartment complex before my infamous tenth birthday that helped us pinpoint my allergy.
I can almost feel the breeze in my face as I pump my legs harder and harder to get as high as he is.
The exertion winds me, and just when I look over to see if I’ve caught up to him, I projectile vomit an entire slice of lemon meringue pie I had earlier that day in his direction.
Scott screams bloody murder as some of it lands on his arm, and our dad comes running to see which one of us is hurt this time.
The memory is replaced by a loud, sputtering cough happening in the present moment, as my body attempts to physically reject the lemonade that I just willingly ingested.
By some miracle, at the exact same moment, Delaney reappears in the dining room with a large bottle of champagne in her hand and pulls everyone’s attention to her with a loud hiccup.
It provides the distraction that I need to slip away, so I excuse myself from the table and run towards the bathroom at the front of the house.
Once inside, I turn on the faucet and shove my mouth under the running water to wash all traces of the poison off it.
After a few minutes of scrubbing my tongue and removing half of my makeup in the process, I turn off the faucet and hear yelling from back in the dining room.
I sigh and lean back against the wall as I dry my face and neck, content to hide in here until the fighting is over.
Not two seconds later, though, the door to the bathroom opens beside me.
“Drew, can I come in?” Val asks.
“Of course,” I say. She steps inside and locks the door behind her.
Val’s eyebrows raise as she takes in my disheveled appearance and the water that has darkened the front of my knit dress. “Don’t tell me that you’re the one with the citrus allergy?”
“Nope,” I lie, committed to taking Leah’s secret with me to the grave, while being simultaneously impressed with Val’s deduction skills. “I was just choking a little, and when Delaney showed up, I figured it would become another yelling match, so I decided to just get out of there.”
Val nods in agreement. “Cameron shouldn’t have let Judith rejoin the group. She should have had her own tasting in her room or something, if at all.”
“I agree,” I say, but hate the feeling of speaking badly about Cameron, so I add, “Delaney could have been better at de-escalating Judith, though. She must have dealt with other difficult guests before if she’s been hosting here for five years.”
Val shrugs. “Maybe, but Cameron is definitely overstepping. Although I do understand why he insisted the tasting be held here, considering what happened to his parents.”
I blink at her declaration and wonder how she knows that bit of information.
Is it possible that he disclosed that to her, too, when he picked her up from the airport?
The thought makes me feel insecure in a completely irrational way, because that would mean that I was jealous that Cameron may have shared details about the loss of his parents with another woman, as if opening up to each other about the deaths of our parents was a special thing just between us.
And that would be strange, to say the least, but before I can stop myself, I play dumb to try and get more details.
“What do you mean?”
“His parents died,” Val says, unceremoniously. “Car accident down the road during a storm.”
“Oh.” I try to act surprised. “Did he tell you that?”
“No, I found out when I did a Google search of the area and the house before coming. I ended up falling down a bit of a rabbit hole about Cameron in the process.”
I feel an embarrassing sense of relief at her answer and can’t help but press for more information. “What else did you find out?”
“About the area or Cameron?”
“Both,” I say, even though I only really care about the latter.
“Well, Charlotte is known as the Queen City because it was named after Queen Charlotte. It’s the most populated city in North Carolina.
” She continues with a few more facts that sound like they are straight off the city’s Wikipedia page, and I fight to stifle a laugh.
Val is both incredibly beautiful and incredibly odd.
“As for Cameron,” she continues, switching gears, “his last name is James. He is a fourth-generation lawyer and has been the managing partner of his family’s firm since his father died, although there were a few articles that suggest he’s not very good at it.”
I frown. “Not very good at being a lawyer or being a managing partner?”
“Both,” Val shrugs. “But I also found his name tied to a few small businesses in Charlotte, so maybe he’s just more focused on that.”
I nod at this information and add it to what I already know about Cameron from our interactions.
He is definitely a good guy, despite Val’s clear reservations about him.
Which is a relief since I have a silly crush on him.
He’s a little cocky at times, and apparently not a very good lawyer, but at least the long-dormant part of me that has decided to start taking notice of the opposite sex again seems to have good judgment.
The yelling back in the kitchen dies down as the sound of angry footsteps gets louder when someone approaches the bathroom.
Val and I freeze as the footsteps come within inches of the door, and we let out a collective breath as they veer left and continue up the stairs, slowly fading with each step.
“I don’t want to go back out there,” Val says, “but I don’t want to hide in here forever, either.”
“We could go up to our rooms,” I suggest.
Val shakes her head. “That was probably Judith who just stormed upstairs. Delaney was a little too wobbly on her feet to move that fast.”
“You’re probably right. Is there somewhere else we can lay low for a while?”
“We can go to the movie theater. I found it when I was exploring earlier.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say, but think back to how I abandoned Leah at the table. “Do you mind if I go grab Leah, so that she can hide out with us too?”
Val purses her lips as she considers my request. “I’d rather it just be the two of us, but you can get her if you want.”
I hesitate before reaching for the doorknob. “If you’re sure you don’t mind, I think I will grab her.”
“Okay,” Val says with that same unreadable expression.
I crack open the door to check if the coast is clear. “Where is the movie theater so that I can find you after I get her?”
“Just down this hall, past Cameron’s office.”
I balk again as I wonder how she was able to refer to Cameron’s office by name but push the thought away as I head out towards the dining room to find Leah. She sits alone at the table, pouring herself another glass of lemonade from the discarded bottle as I enter.
“Hey,” I say, and look around. “Where did everyone go?”
“No clue.” She lifts the glass to her lips without looking my direction.
“That was pretty wild, huh?” I pull out my chair to sit next to her.
She picks at a thread in the tablecloth to avoid meeting my gaze.
“I’m sorry for leaving you. I am the one who has the citrus allergy; I just lied earlier when Ollie asked, so that I could still drink the lemonade with you.
I had to run to the bathroom to wash my mouth out. ”
She turns to look at me, and her eyes are as wide as saucers as they search mine, then flicker down to survey the front of my soaked dress. “Drew, why would you do that?”
I take the cloth napkin from her outstretched hand to try in futility to dry off the wet fabric that clings to my neck and chest. “I promised you that I would cover for you, and I didn’t want to break my promise.”
She shakes her head incredulously and pulls me in for a one-armed hug. “Well, now I feel terrible for being mad that you ditched me. If I had known—”
“It’s fine,” I say. “The good news is, I doubt that anyone will remember what you did or didn’t drink when they think back to the wine tasting.”
“You’re probably right about that,” she says. “This retreat kind of sucks so far.”
My initial reaction is to say that it’s a lot better than I expected, but then I realize that all the good times I’ve had so far have been with Cameron, and not with the women, so I just nod in agreement.
“Val and I were thinking about hiding in the movie theater for a little bit. Do you want to come?”
“That sounds great,” she says. “Hopefully, it’s soundproof so we can have some peace and quiet for a bit.”
We walk together out of the dining room, down the hall, and past Cameron’s office to the door just past it, following Val’s instructions.
Sure enough, behind the heavy door is a spacious home movie theater with three large steps down that create a stadium-seating effect.
Val waves to us from the oversized modular sofa closest to the screen, and we head down to join her.
I take the spot in the middle, and Leah plops down on the other end.
The room is dimly lit, with classic burgundy-curtained walls and all black furniture.
I reach for the remote. “What should we watch?”
“Something relaxing,” Leah suggests.
“So, no true crime, then?” I tease as I test a few buttons and get the screen to whir to life.
“Absolutely not. Can you believe that there are some people out there who fall asleep watching murder documentaries?” she asks, wide-eyed.
“That’s literally my boss, Monika,” I say, and use the remote to open the Disney+ app. “If she didn’t own the bookstore we work at, she would totally be a detective. She’s completely fearless.”
“True crime doesn’t scare me, either, because I could easily defend myself against any threat, and my house is full of sharp objects,” Val adds, and we both turn to look at her with surprise. “From my cosplays.”
“You mean like knives? Or swords?” I ask.
“Both, and more,” Val says with a proud smile. “I always carry something on me too. For protection.”
I look to Leah to gauge her reaction, but she is busy scanning Val’s fitted outfit from head to toe. “Are you carrying something right now?”
Val opens her mouth to answer just as the door to the theater swings open behind us. The three of us turn to look in unison and are all relieved when Ollie walks in, instead of one of the people we are trying to avoid.
“There you guys are,” he says, with a broad smile as if the entire night hasn’t gone completely off the rails. “Come on back so we can finish the tasting.”