blackballed from this club, and now you’re complaining because you have to pay for a drink at her memorial reception? Shame on you.”
“Yes, Marshall, Q-ten,” Lucinda says. She scowls at Penny. “I suppose you’ll be the person who speaks at my funeral and tells everyone how wretched I was.”
Penny suppresses a smile. The thought delights her.
“I look forward to you buying the next round,” Lucinda says.
Although it’s easy to get swept up by the food, the music, and the beauty of the day, many of us are keeping our eyes on Vivi’s children. Willa Quinboro Bonham is sitting at a table in the shade of an umbrella between her husband, Rip, and her mother-in-law, Tink. The Bonhams, like the Quinboros, are longtime members of the Field and Oar Club—Tink plays tennis, Chas Bonham sails—but unlike the Quinboros, they stay out of the sticky politics of the place.
Tink is worried about only one thing: the health and safety of her daughter-in-law, who is once again pregnant. Tink, as many of us know, is keen for a Bonham heir—preferably a boy.
“Is there anything else I can get you, dear?” Tink asks Willa. Willa has a glass of ginger ale in front of her. “What about a cucumber sandwich?”
“I can’t eat.”
Rip holds his wife’s hand. “Do you want to leave?” he asks. “We can go home and you can lie down in the air-conditioning.”
“I need to make sure Carson and Leo are okay,” Willa says.
Marshall the bartender notes that Carson Quinboro is on her fifth Tom Collins. He knows that Carson is slinging drinks at the Oystercatcher and he tries to strike up a conversation with her about the business, but she shuts him down, and he can’t really blame her. Her mother just died. She thrusts the glass in his face and says, “Stronger, please, bruh.” Marshall believes a Tom Collins should be light to medium strength; it’s supposed to be refreshing enough that you can drink several of them over the course of an afternoon and not get drunk. But the customer is always right. He hands her a cocktail that’s practically all gin.
Carson avoids her father, avoids her grandmother and Penny, avoids Leo, avoids Dennis. She uses Savannah as a touchstone, checking in, then spiraling out. After cocktail number four, she heads to the water and pulls out her cell phone and her vape pen. She starts sending off a string of texts and takes a few quick puffs off her Juul, but before she can even exhale, the assistant GM is striding across the lawn toward her.
She tucks both her phone and her Juul into her mother’s clutch and leans over to unbuckle her mother’s Louboutins. She has done a fine job of aerating the club’s lawn with the stilettos. She smirks at the assistant GM, and when he opens his mouth to remind her that bare feet, cell phones, and vaping are not allowed on club premises, she discreetly flips him off. Although this is unbecoming behavior, it’s the assistant GM who feels he’s made a faux pas. The young woman has, after all, just lost her mother.
Leo Quinboro is still in his blazer despite the sweltering heat and despite the fact that the ranking member—former commodore Chas Bonham—has taken his jacket off. Like his sister Willa, Leo has always followed the rules.
Leo’s school friends Christopher and Mitch pull him aside to ask if it’s true that Cruz was the one who hit Vivi.
“That’s what Marissa said.” This from Mitch.
“Yeah,” Christopher says. “Alexis told her that one of the officers saw Cruz blow through a stop sign and take off speeding a few minutes before your mom was hit.”
“Marissa should keep her mouth shut,” Leo says, and Christopher figures the rumors he’s heard about Leo and Marissa breaking up are true, even though they were voted Cutest Couple in the senior-class superlatives. Marissa was at the service, but she sat with her mom and Alexis, and she’s not here at the reception.
Even stranger, Christopher thinks, is that Cruz isn’t here, though Mitch said he saw Cruz at the church, standing in the back. Joe DeSantis isn’t here either. Christopher wonders if they aren’t comfortable at the club—it’s not exactly a diverse place; every single person here is white—or if there’s more to it. Was Cruz DeSantis the one to hit Vivian Howe? The rumor about him running the stop sign and speeding is pretty damning, and Christopher can’t think of any other reason why Cruz would not show