“There’s my girl.” My father breaks away from his cronies to greet me with a smile and hug. I hear the click of cameras and squint at the blinding flashes. “No date tonight?” He smiles.
“No. I see that pleases you.” I fake my best grin.
“Nonsense, sweetheart. I like Steven.”
“Mmm, you like Steven’s father.”
He ignores my comment as Rachel joins in our little family reunion.
“Darby!” Rachel greets me with feigned enthusiasm that she’s perfected over the years. She’s a walking billboard for Botox, boobs, and bulimia. “Look at you. Always the belle of the ball.” She’s complimenting her dress on me because when I’m not wearing one of her designs she never mentions my appearance.
“I just wear whatever arrives at the door.”
Rachel flips her pin-straight blond hair back over her shoulder and leans in for her signature air-kiss as the flashes erupt again. “Where’s Steven?”
It’s obvious how much she and my father communicate. “I’m not seeing Steven anymore.”
She looks around the room, giving me a fraction of her attention. “That’s too bad. Is there someone new?”
“Yes, my dear granddaughter, is there someone new?”
I turn. “Nana!” I hug her because she’s the only person here tonight that I’m genuinely happy to see.
“Grace.” Rachel steals her for more posed air-kisses. The only reason Rachel tolerates my nana is because she lived with us until I graduated high school. So when my father and Rachel married it was a given that Nana and I were a package deal. I was a junior in high school. We already lived in Barrington Hills, just a “smaller” home. Rachel insisted on buying the largest house she could afford and we all moved in with her. I couldn’t wait to graduate and get the hell out of there; neither could Nana.
“Well, if you ladies will excuse me …” My father’s met his three minute quota with his family. I’m sure he has some girl, no older than his own daughter, waiting with her dress up and panties down.
A server offers us champagne. I shake my head forcing a polite smile, while Nana and Rachel each take a glass.
“So, how’s your friend? You’ve kept me in the dark.”
Rachel raises her brows at Nana’s comment. “So there is a new guy.”
I smooth my palms over my dress, wishing I had taken a glass just to have something to do with my nervous hands. “It’s a long story, but Trick is good … we’re good.” Nana’s going to have to wait for the full version when we’re alone.
Nana winks at me; she’s such a character.
“Trick’s a unique name.” Rachel’s eyebrows furrow, eyes blinking.
“It’s short for Patrick.”
Her tongue brushes the inside of her lower lip as she gives a slow nod. “How did you meet?”
“He’s been doing my makeup for these ‘required’ events.”
“Well, you should bring him to dinner this week before I fly back to New York.”
“Yes, dear, you should, and you should pick your nana up on the way.” Nana’s posture stiffens with an air of readiness.
“Our schedules can be difficult to coordinate…” I glare at Nana for her encouraging this “…but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Perfect. Text me, darling.” Rachel flips her hair and waddles away in her black satin mermaid gown.
“Thanks for that.”
Nana wraps her arm around my waist. “It’s going to be the highlight of my year. I can’t wait to see how your father handles an entire meal with your rebel artist.”
“He’s not a rebel. That’s such a stereotype, Nana.”
Okay, the fact that he could show up to dinner packing might qualify him for rebel status.
“He’s a gay man banging the Senator’s daughter. If that’s not a rebel then I don’t know what is.”
My chest hitches and my skin flushes as I huddle down closer to her ear. “He’s not gay, Nana!” I grit through my teeth.
Her eyes light up. “Oh my, this just keeps getting better.”
*
I’m sure it’s a hundred ways of wrong that I won’t vote for my own father in the upcoming election, but I detest the limelight, the deceit, the scandals, and the whole mockery of expectations that has jaded our political system. Everything is so elaborate and so … not me. Nana fits in only because she’s lived this life for so long, but she’s managed to navigate through it all while keeping a sense of herself.
I can’t, not anymore. I’m tired of taking one for the team—a team I no longer want to be on. As our dinner plates are replaced with dessert plates, I push back my chair. The room is mammoth, but I feel so claustrophobic that I want to crawl out of my own skin. The orchestra, the numbing conversation, the eager waiting staff doing everything but wiping my ass—it’s too much.
“I’m leaving,” I whisper to Nana as she listens to some lady with diarrhea of the mouth go on about the exhausting task of organizing luncheons, tennis matches, dinner parties, and how she hasn’t had a mani-pedi in over two weeks.