She’s taken off guard. She hadn’t expected that. I can’t do truth. I literally have nothing to tell. They’re all so sophisticated. If they find out how dull my life really is … ‘Dare,’ she says.
‘Second wife,’ says Mercedes. Now the shock has worn off, she’s warming to the game.
‘Correct,’ says Tatiana. She points to a woman whose face is frozen by heavy-handed plastic surgery, her skin pulled so tight she can barely open her eyes.
‘Ohhh. I don’t know.’ Some of the third wives show obvious signs of ‘work’ but this one is in a league of her own. Her mouth looks as if she’s been punched, and her hair is dry like year-old hay.
‘Now that,’ Tatiana swings back and forth in her chair, ‘is a particularly tragic subset of first-wifery. That’s your first wife who won’t give in without a fight. Either that, or it’s revenge surgery. I’m pretty sure it’s the first, though.’
‘But why? Why would you do that to yourself?’
‘Ugh, God,’ she says. ‘Some of these guys love it when their wives look as if they’ve been in a house fire. It makes them feel important.’
‘So your father,’ she asks, ‘he is looking?’
Tatiana’s face freezes. Unblinking, she presses the remote to move the screens on. ‘Over my dead body,’ she says. ‘Oh, now look, here’s a good one.’
A voice bellows suddenly from the doorway.
‘TATIANA!’
The girls jump in their seats. Tatiana drops the remote. Matthew Meade stands in the doorway, puffed up like an ogre.
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ he shouts.
‘I was just … ’
‘CHRIST. Are you completely fucking stupid?’
‘Sorry, Daddy.’ She sounds unusually humble. Curls into her chair like a whipped puppy.
Matthew stamps into the room. Looms over his daughter.
‘Never, ever do this again!’ he shouts. ‘Get it? No one comes in here. No one!’ He turns on Mercedes. ‘Get out. Jesus. Get the hell out of here, you stupid little bitch! Forget you ever saw this place. Capisce?’
Mercedes is terrified. She’s never seen him like this. Certainly never seen him shout at Tatiana, who seems genuinely shaken. His teeth are bared and his eyes are slits. Like a snake about to strike. She nods, and starts to scramble from her seat.
A hand like a ham claps down on her shoulder. She collapses back.
‘You didn’t see this place,’ he tells her. ‘You don’t know it’s here.’
Mercedes nods vigorously.
‘I mean it, Mercedes Delia,’ he says. ‘If I ever hear this place mentioned, I’ll know exactly what the source was.’
Tatiana is frozen in place. She stares at her father and swallows.
‘I can destroy you,’ Matthew tells her. ‘Just remember that. I can destroy you and your whole family just like … ’
He snaps his fingers in the air.
‘ … that.’
*
Larissa’s not having a good time. She lasted five minutes with the priest, the awkwardness excruciating, and almost wept with relief when he made his excuses. And, since he left, she’s just eaten a load of weird canapés and smiled till her cheeks hurt.
There is some etiquette she has yet to learn, for smiling at strangers, it turns out, causes them to look shocked and turn hurriedly away. She feels a fool in her wrap dress and her crucifix, her feet aching in unaccustomed heels. She longs to be back in her restaurant, where she is boss. Where she can talk to anyone and one smile is met with another.
I hate this, she thinks. The whole town’s going to want to know all about it tomorrow, and what do I tell them? My entire family’s deserted me. Shows how much I matter.
She swears internally. It will be hours before the car comes back to pick them up. If I weren’t wearing these stupid shoes, she thinks, I’d just walk home. But I’m stuck here now. She shovels two crab profiteroles into her mouth and washes them down with champagne. And I don’t even like champagne, she thinks. I’m going to be up all night with trapped wind.
She wanders over to the glass doors that overlook the garden. It looks so lush and green out there. It must be lovely and cool, now. A different kind of cool from this dry mechanical air. If only I could … ah, hang it.
Larissa slides the door back and steps out into the night. Heaves a sigh of relief as she slides the door closed again and the roar of privileged conversation is cut abruptly off.
A shriek, from the dark. She tenses, squints to see where it came from. And then she sees a small crowd, running towards her at high speed, chasing a slender figure in a white dress. A dozen of them, pointing and laughing and baying. And then she sees that the person they’re pursuing is Donatella, and she braces to hurl herself into the fray. To fight these attackers off, to protect her child like a mountain lion.
And then she sees that Donatella is laughing. And then she has to cover her face for shame as her daughter barrels past her and flings herself, fully clothed, into the swimming pool.