“Mother.”
She gave me a look. The look. The one that she gave me when I was doing something to embarrass her, but we were in public and she couldn’t make a scene. “You weren’t on your way out, were you?” she asked.
“Actually, I was. I was going to ask where to leave the check and head out,” I said. Her false smile didn’t drop but I saw the irritation in her eyes.
“Well, we caught you just in time then,” she said. “Elizabeth, this is my son, Charles. Charles, this is Elizabeth Thomas,” she said.
I looked at the woman and gave her a polite smile. She was just my mother’s type. Tall, almost as tall as me in heels, light brown hair and eyes, flawlessly applied makeup, runway-model figure and predictably, a sky-high net worth. They were in real estate and basically ruled the Lower Westside. I wished my mother knew how little that kind of stuff impressed or even meant to me. She flashed a dazzling smile at me.
“Veronica, he’s even better looking in real-life,” she said. My mother beamed. I held a hand out to her to shake.
“Elizabeth, pleasure to meet you.”
“You aren’t actually leaving, are you?” she asked.
“I am.”
“Surely not yet,” Veronica said, laughing, covering my faux pas. You will not embarrass me in front of this woman, her eyes said. “You haven’t even heard the address yet. You two get to know each other. I just know you’ll have plenty in common,” she said, before floating away to talk to someone else.
“Is that Audemars Piaget?” Elizabeth asked, motioning to my watch.
“Vintage. It belonged to my father.”
“Very good taste,” she said. I thanked her. She flipped her glossy hair over her shoulder. “So, what do you do, Charles?”
“Oversee my father’s old businesses, mostly. My mother didn’t tell me what you do.”
“Oh, this and that. I spent the beginning of the year in the Arab Gulf on a friend’s yacht.”
“Did you have fun?”
“Finally got an even tan,” she said laughing. I smiled but didn’t laugh.
“Any business over there? Or was it just a holiday?”
“I just needed to get away. Fashion Week was so stressful. I just wanted some peace and quiet.”
“Oh, do you model? Are you a designer?”
“I’ve walked in a few shows,” she said. “I don’t enjoy it. The other girls on the runway… you really don’t know who they are or where they come from. I’ll only walk if the designer is willing to accommodate me.”
I felt my chest tighten. We had more things in common than not; our backgrounds, social circles, probably a boatload of mutual friends. I tried my hardest not to judge some of these women but the way they talked about people who weren’t lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon in their mouths was disgusting.
“What do you do in New York?” I asked.
“Oh, this and that,” she said. That meant nothing. She didn’t have a job and she relied on her family’s money, which was fine, but didn’t she even have hobbies? Didn’t she volunteer? Maybe she liked to jog or paint? Anything at all besides going to parties and taking private jet flights?
“A lot of charity stuff? Your family seems passionate about endangered wildlife?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said, waving a hand. “My parents do it, I think it’s a tax thing. I don’t know.” She took a swig of her champagne and I caught myself hoping she would choke on it. I wanted to die. I wanted to bash my head in. How was I here discussing this woman’s completely meaningless and dull life with her at a charity auction for a bird she didn’t care about when I could be with Brenna?
“Elizabeth? Elizabeth, there you are,” a woman said, coming up to her. “We need you on stage. Your parents are ready for the address.”
She flashed me another dazzling smile. “Excuse me please,” she said, handing me her champagne flute. I gladly let her go. I gave the champagne flutes to a passing waiter and prepared to make my exit.
“How was she? Isn’t she a dream?” I jumped hearing my mother’s voice suddenly behind me. How the hell… you know what? I shouldn’t even have been shocked anymore. She might have been watching us from a not-too-far distance this entire time. I shouldn’t have expected anything less from the woman who thought my future bride was at a place like this.
“What?”