Mrs. King’s voice pulled me from my walk down memory lane. Her square chin was raised, and I stood up straighter, trying to come up with something to say.
And yet her tone smoothed over her words, as if her husband and her son hadn’t just been screaming at each other like the family tree was being chopped down.
“
I’m, uhm”—I paused—“I’m looking for my sister.”
I heard shuffling inside the big room and wanted to get moving before Shia came out and saw me.
“Your sister? The little blond one or the one with the long hair?”
I wanted to tell Mrs. King that I actually had three sisters, but I felt it wouldn’t do any good; she didn’t seem to remember their names even though I talked about them all the time. Well, I wouldn’t say all the time, since I didn’t actually speak much around Mrs. King, but when I did, I talked a lot about my younger sisters.
“That’s the one, yes. I’m sorry to disturb you.” I looked around me, trying to avoid her heavy gaze. She was so damned intimidating.
I looked at her outfit and wondered if I would ever dress like her when I was older. Her maroon blazer matched her pencil skirt perfectly, not even a fraction of a shade off. Around her neck was a thick rope of pearls, and her lips were dark fuchsia. She was a beautiful woman in her late forties. I couldn’t imagine what she looked like when she woke up. Even when I came in the early afternoon to do her makeup, she already had her hair done and she was usually dressed to the nines. Perfectly paired jewelry and all.
I wanted to be like her when I grew up.
I don’t think she wanted me to notice the way she glanced back to the open door as we began to walk down the hallway. “It’s fine, dear. Let’s go downstairs,” she said neutrally.
Mrs. King was at least five inches taller than me in her stilettos. The way she could walk in them made my already aching feet feel even more pathetic. I had a long way to go.
She made me feel both the oldest and the youngest I could ever be.
I looked up at my boss, and she turned to face me as we passed the upstairs bathroom. The door was closed and a thin line of light was cast on the floor. It was quiet, so when she spoke to me, her voice was as soft as a sprinkle of confectioners’ sugar.
“Have you enjoyed the party? I’m sure you heard some things you shouldn’t have. We can just forget about that private family moment, can’t we?”
I nodded. Yes, please.
I hoped she didn’t call me out for calling out sick for work and being here, dressed up and obviously not sick.
“Of course. And, yes, the party is stunning. I’m happy for your son, and for all of you.”
Her smile slid up her dusted cheeks. Whoever did her makeup tonight did almost as good a job as I do.
“I wouldn’t be too happy,” she said so low that I almost thought I had imagined it.
Neither of us talked as we crossed the upstairs of the house. The music and voices from the party downstairs carried up to where we stood. It was weird how quiet it was upstairs. In my parents’ house, I can hear every single noise from wall to wall. I will have a house like this by the time I’m thirty.
“Do you want to have a glass with me before we rejoin the party?”
I never thought I would see the day that Mrs. King would invite me for a drink. I didn’t even know what the glass she was offering would be full of. But at that point, I would have gulped down a cup of molasses just for the sense of inclusion.
“Sure.” I tried to keep my smile chill, not too excited. Mature girls keep their cool. All the time.
I followed her into a small butler’s pantry. While we walked, I pulled my hair out from behind my ears and tugged down the hem of my dress. After she pulled down a black bottle with a diamond-shaped sticker on the front, she turned to me.
She pointed above my head. “Grab two glasses.”
When I looked up, there were racks of glasses and goblets. Everything from champagne flutes to beer mugs. I grabbed two cups that I thought looked good for whatever it was that she was going to have me drink. When I handed them to her, she turned her wrist around, and her watch sparkled under the light. Everything about her dripped elegance and class. She gave me an approving smile, and my heart leaped. She then opened a small fridge built into the wall. She bent down, and I heard ice clinking into the glasses.
I read the label on the black bottle: HENDRICK’S GIN. I had had gin only once until that night, with my ex–best friend from Texas, Justina. That was an awful night. The beginning of the end of our friendship.
“Here we are.” She slid my glass to me and set hers down. Her slender fingers wrapped around the glass bottleneck and she yanked the top off. Her crème-brûlée nails looked so posh and beautiful against her dark skin as she poured the clear gin over the ice cubes.
When she finished, I waited a moment, hoping that she would pull out a mixer of some sort. She didn’t. She just took a drink of it straight and said, “I don’t drink often, but when I do, it’s the real deal.”
I smiled and followed her lead, raising my glass to hers. I took a small sip and my tongue burned, but truly it wasn’t so bad. It was a hell of a lot better than cheap beer or the wine coolers my friends in Texas always stole from their moms’ stashes. To that day, I couldn’t stand the smell of wine coolers—they reminded me of those fake bitches who ruined my life in Texas.
Mrs. King put her glass down on the counter in front of us. “So, Meg, are you seeing anyone?”
I couldn’t help but wonder how her lipstick wasn’t smudged even a bit.
I nodded and hoped that I wouldn’t choke when I went to speak.
“Yes, Mrs. King. I’m dating a man named John Brooke. He’s graduating from West Point next week.” I wanted her to be impressed.
“I know him, I believe. Good for you, he’ll take care of you. That’s all we can hope for.”
The way she said those words grated on me a little, but if she weren’t anything close to right, why did I mention John’s West Point graduation?
“Yeah” was all I said.
“Let me tell you something, Meg.” It wasn’t a request. She was going to speak regardless of my response.
I nodded anyway. I took another sip of gin, and it burned just a touch less than the first.
“My son thinks he knows everything about the world and the way it works. He has these illusions of himself being some type of savior.” She waved her hand in the air like she was dismissing someone who wasn’t there. “All we want for him is to be successful. We want him to make our family proud and carry on his father’s legacy around here. Do you know how much pressure is on our family already? To be the wealthiest family around here and be black?”
My boss’s eyes fell on me, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. I didn’t know how much pressure there was. I only knew the way people talked about the Kings, as if they were somewhere between a fairy tale and royalty.
“My son has a responsibility to carry on our name. Both of my daughters did what they were supposed to—hell, even more than they were supposed to. Ineesha graduated top of her class and is now the youngest partner in her firm’s history. My youngest daughter’s husband is running for Senate. And here’s Shia, wasting his time in these countries, letting the delusion of liberty affect his future. He dropped out of college, for Christ’s sake.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t feel qualified to give advice or even comment, but I wanted her to keep talking.
“What would you want him to do?” I asked.
She didn’t hesitate. “Go to law school. Enjoy this engagement to Bell Gardiner. Listen to his father.”
“Shia doesn’t want to be a lawyer, though?” I wished I could clip my mouth shut.
Her eyes hardened a little, but she nodded. “You’re right. He doesn’t want to, but when he’s an adult living in a house like this, he will thank us. Wouldn’t you be happy living in a house like this, Meg? Even if you had to make a few sacrifices to get here?”
I looked around the butler’s pantry, which was nicer than most rooms in my parents’ house. “Yes, I would be.”
When Jo and I talked about the future and our plans for it, I always felt reflexively guilty about wanting to be a mother and a wife. Jo has a different plan for herself, and the idea of being a wife and mother, without a c
areer, would be hell for her. But for women like me and Mrs. King, there’s no shame in it. Is it so bad that I would sacrifice a few things to be a wife and a mother? No, I didn’t think it was. To Jo and Meredith, yes, but to me, no.
“I knew you had your head screwed on right. Why couldn’t Shia have just done what we said and enrolled in law school? It’s still not too late; his father has connections. He could get accepted now, even after wasting two years pedaling around the globe. He just won’t listen to us, that impossible child.”
It was weird to hear Mrs. King talk about Shia like this, like he was making all these mistakes, when sometimes I wished I could be like him. I wished that I didn’t care what people thought about me, and I wished I could leave my family to travel the world. I wished I was brave enough to. At least for a little while.
“I’m sure he will come around. He’s lucky to have parents like you,” I reassured her, feeling slightly traitorous.
Mrs. King’s smile would have made up for my guilt if Shia hadn’t walked by the open door just then and given me a look that said he’d heard every word we’d said about him.
12
jo
Meg had been gone for twenty minutes by the time I got bored and wanted to leave. Well, to be completely honest, I was ready to go the moment we stepped through the wrought-iron gate separating the Kings from the rest of the world. It really did feel like some alternate universe where rich people stand around shoving tiny spoons of caviar into their mouths and wash it down with expensive booze. This was a world I never wanted to end up in.
Fortunately, the champagne was helping things.
“Isn’t this party beautiful?” a tall woman asked me. I had to turn my neck up to see her, and even when I did, I couldn’t see much of her face. She was wearing a big, feathery hat on her head. She was an elaborate, rich peacock. Perhaps just as useless.