Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER
Twenty-Three
My jaw literally dropped at Coriander’s confession that she and Millicent had been behind the mean posts and mean article, but not because I was shocked. They’d done meaner things in the past, honestly; this was nothing. It was that I kind of wanted my teeth out to bite them.
Maybe the effects of the drug hadn’t entirely worn off. I shut my mouth firmly so that there wouldn’t be articles the next day about how Pomona Afton had left unsanitary teeth marks in her friend’s arm and should be put down for the public’s safety. “What? Why? How could you?”
“We missed you so much,” Millicent said, her voice wobbling now too. Impressively so, considering I could hear it over the music. “After Opal went to jail, you, like, dropped off the face of the planet. You wouldn’t answer our texts or calls even though we didn’t even kill anyone.”
“Yeah,” Coriander said, as if I were the one who’d betrayed them, as if not murdering someone’s relative was the highest bar of friendship. “So after the gala, we were kind of drunk.”
“A lot drunk,” said Millicent.
“Okay, a lot drunk,” said Coriander. “The pink drink named after you that you served was really good, actually.”
“Thank you,” I replied, oddly pleased. At least I’d done one thing right that night.
“We were jealous of all your new important friends and your boyfriend you were spending all your time with. We thought that maybe, if they didn’t like you anymore, you would come back to us.”
I probably should’ve been angrier than I was, but, having had one friend murder a blood relative already, other friends saying mean things about me on social media wasn’t really that bad.
Also, they loved me! They’d been bullying me out of love!
I mean, probably part of it was because they enjoyed the attention they got from hanging out with The Pomona Afton, but at least part of it was that they actually liked me. Hopefully.
Still, I couldn’t let this go unpunished, or they’d keep leaking secrets about me.
I fixed my face into the sternest expression I possibly could, carefully facing away from the dance floor so that nobody would be able to snap a pic of me looking angry.
Who knew how they’d spin that? “Wow. I can’t believe you would do that to me.
” I shook my head slowly, taking a long sip of water to let them marinate in their shame and fear a little longer.
“And you’re supposed to be my friends.” A little lie to drive the guilt in even deeper. “My best friends.”
They gibbered and cried some more as I sipped my water, crossing and uncrossing my legs.
Honestly, this was kind of okay. The more upset they thought I was, the more they’d do to make it up to me in the future.
Coriander would get me into the good graces of her cousin, a designer who created the absolute best high-end kitchen implements—maybe I could finally get off the waitlist for that personalized baby-pink mixer.
Millicent had a phobia of show tunes, but I bet she’d go see something on Broadway with me now, maybe the jukebox musical I knew Vienna wouldn’t be caught dead at.
Marginally more cheerful, I stood, still frowning very hard. “I’m going to go home now and cry myself to sleep. Don’t even try to follow, or I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Pom!” they both shrieked tearfully behind me as I walked off in a mostly straight line, relieved that the effects of the drug seemed largely to have worn off. I made sure to keep a smile fixed to my face as I pressed buttons on my phone to call my driver.
And then I actually did go home and sniffle a little into my pillow, Squeaky curled into the back of my knees.
But, of course, it had nothing to do with Millicent and Coriander.
It was that empty side of the bed, the one that ached with Gabe’s absence, the one you might think Squeaky would spread out into but, nope, he’d rather stick as close to me as possible and stab me with his claws whenever I moved.
I was still sad the next morning when I woke up, the backs of my legs speckled with claw marks. I did not want to be alone. So I called Vienna. Please pick up.
She did. I love you, Vienna. “Hi!” I said. “I’m going through a little bit of a crisis. What are you up to?”
“Hi!” she said back, not thrown even a bit.
We’d been through so many crises together.
“I was actually about to text you, because, weirdly, Persimmon just texted me to go out to brunch. Apparently it was something you said? Are you two hanging out without me now?” She was joking, but also not joking.
“Of course not,” I said. “We ran into each other last night. We’re cool now. Where are you going?”
“I’ll send you the address.”
My car pulled up in front of Vienna’s favorite brunch spot, which was near the Whitney Museum, alllllll the way west in the Meatpacking District, presumably because it was where she’d go before visiting the museum.
It was high-ceilinged, softly lit, strewn with small, uncomfortable-looking tables and glowing things I wasn’t sure were lamps or art pieces, the opposite of the small, cozy breakfast spot Gabe liked to go to north of our apartment.
An acoustic guitar player strummed in one corner beside a singer who sounded a little bit like Enya and, wait, might actually have been Enya.
On the one wall that wasn’t hung with colorful abstract art, huge arched windows looked out over the Hudson River, the sun dazzling over the gray water.
I found Vienna sitting with Kitty, Libby, John, a few others, and Persimmon in the corner, beneath a massive painting of a bunch of pink dots over red smudges.
Vienna was sitting on the literal edge of her seat, her thighs probably burning with the effort.
The smile she gave me was a little nervous, a little shy.
“Pom.” She stood to greet me, leaning in for a brief hug.
Though it was early, she had on a full face of makeup above a boxy silk tee and gray pencil slacks.
“Vee,” I said, conscious that I, in my flowy white maxi skirt and cropped pink leather jacket, was about a hundred decibels louder in appearance than anyone else at this table.
But c’est la vie. The rest of the circle echoed her greeting; Persimmon, rewearing that cute ivy jumpsuit from yesterday, was the only one who stood up for a hug.
“Good to see you, Pom,” she said, her voice so genuine that Vienna and the rest of the circle raised their eyebrows. “How are you feeling?”
I glanced around the circle. A few eyes flicked up from my loud ensemble, lips pinching with disapproval.
You know what? Screw them. Being honest with Persimmon had gone great for both me and Vienna.
Being honest with myself had gone great too.
Might as well keep doing it. “I’m feeling fantastic, actually,” I said, pulling a chair over with a terrible screech on the subway-tiled floor.
Half the group winced. I ignored it and plopped down, crossing my legs so that my skirt billowed out and brushed the legs of the people next to me.
“I’m exhausted because I was out clubbing all last night.
I know, classy.” The other half of the group winced, probably because I’d just echoed their sarcastic thought.
“But it turns out I really love clubbing and I’ve missed it a lot over the past year.
You can want to do good in the world and appreciate art and have a blast at the club too. ”
From all the side-eye I was getting, I was pretty sure they didn’t agree.
But so what? What was the worst they could do?
Maybe boycott my galas and parties and deprive me of a crucial source of funding.
Ostracize me socially and spread terrible rumors about me, I supposed.
Also make it too awkward for Vienna to continue being my friend.
Okay, thinking about all that had been a mistake. I took a shaky breath and fixed a bright smile on my face. No going back now. “Anyway, honesty feels great. Anyone else want to share anything?”
My eyes found Vienna, who was studiously avoiding mine.
She was clearly not ready to share the secret Conrad had blackmailed her over.
It wasn’t my place to share it for her, but it would definitely come out eventually.
These things always did. I hoped she’d be able to share it on her own terms before someone else did it for her.
“I suppose I can share,” said Kitty. “Last night I took home a signed first edition of Jane Eyre from the New York Public Library benefit and silent auction. One of my absolute favorite books.”
I nodded along enthusiastically, deciding not to mention that when Jane Eyre had been assigned in school, I’d barely made it through the SparkNotes.
Even from those I didn’t love the sound of it—we’re supposed to be rooting for a “romantic hero” who locked his mad wife in an attic and then lied to his creepily younger lover and, oh, right, employee, about it? No way. “How fun.”
It hadn’t been quite what I’d meant by sharing, but Libby took her lead.
“Also last night, I cohosted a party meant to raise awareness of alternative contraception methods,” she said.
I nodded, kind of interested this time. My IUD was great, but it was coming time for replacement and the insertion had been a bitch.
If there was something out there to use that didn’t make me feel as if I were being sliced in half for a weekend but that I also didn’t have to worry about forgetting to take at the same time every day, I was all for it.
“Cool.”
The rest of the semicircle chimed in with their altruistic and/or scholarly pursuits of the week, some more pompous-sounding than others.
I nodded along, fighting the urge to feel silly and small.
I couldn’t host a benefit or raise awareness for a genocide every night.
Surely it was okay to just have fun sometimes.