not drinking?” She said this in the same way one might exclaim, Zach, you can fly?!
Zach explained he was driving, laying a hand on Darlene’s knee. The sensation zipped up her spine with such hot, unexpected electricity, she twitched. Reading this as reproach, Zach removed his hand.
“Why didn’t you get a driver?” Mark asked. Casually, Zach’s dad was in a three-piece suit, and shoes a crocodile had casually sacrificed its life for. “Don’t you usually get a driver?”
“Don’t you get it?” Imogene sipped her cocktail, her blue eyes flashing. “They wanted to be alone.”
“Oh,” Zach’s parents said. They exchanged a slightly mystified look. Unclear whether it was because of Zach’s sobriety, or that Darlene would want to be alone with their son.
The conversation moved on to Imogene and Mina’s upcoming wedding, an event Darlene was expected to attend with the family. On one hand, she felt guilty. The Livingstones were investing in her emotionally, and she was lying to them. But another, less noble part of herself was looking forward to it. Not just because she’d be attending a wedding with Zach that they wouldn’t have to work at. Because she’d be attending a wedding with Zach.
It was odd witnessing Zach at home with his family. Darlene was used to him being the life of the party, which was sometimes fun and sometimes annoying, but here Zach was muted. Perhaps he saw entertaining people as work. He wasn’t working now. He and Imogene seemed like partners in surviving two dramatic narcissists, in a place where expectations were so impossibly high he wasn’t even bothering to please them with a performance. And the irony was Zach’s parents still treated him like a clown.
Zach-as-annoying-idiot was a role he’d written for himself and played with aplomb ever since Darlene met him. But it had become less circumstantial, based on fact, and more institutional, based on assumption. Zach put himself down a lot, and often set up everyone around him to do the same. The heir and the spare. He wasn’t the spare. He wasn’t inferior. He was thoughtful and sensitive and flustered by her in a way that really was very cute. Darlene had realized that if she gave Zach the benefit of the doubt, she liked him more than she expected.
She scooted her chair closer and took his hand. An almost shy smile quirked his lips in a way she found absolutely adorable. Their hands settled between the two chairs, connected.
Imogene watched with a curious tilt of her head.
After they were all well on their way to getting drunk, it was time to head into dinner. Darlene excused herself to use the restroom. Gold-plated taps and instead of a hand towel, a pyramid of tiny rolled towels the size of handkerchiefs. On her way out, an abstract expressionist painting caught her eye. Bold slashes of color, as alive as it was unapologetic. She knew this painting.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?”
Darlene started at the sound of Imogene’s voice. “Absolutely.”
Zach’s sister came to stand next to her, admiring the colorful artwork. “So spontaneous. Unrestrained.”
Darlene nodded. “Joan Mitchell was ahead of her time.”
An approving noise sounded from the back of Imogene’s throat. “You know your stuff.”
“I did a minor in postwar American art,” Darlene said.
“At…”
“Princeton.”
Darlene watched the typical expression of impressed approval flit over Imogene’s face. She didn’t add that Princeton was much like the rest of society—a place where she had to work twice as hard for the same reward.
Imogene looked back at the painting. “You’re not really Zach’s girlfriend. This is all so he gets that stupid trust.” Imogene side-eyed her. Not accusatory. Just certain. “It was so obvious he was lying the night he told us. So you’re not really together. Right?”
If Zach hadn’t told Imogene the truth, Darlene wasn’t going to. Her allegiance was with Zach. “What makes you think we’re not together?”
Imogene gave Darlene an easy-breezy smile. “Darlene, you have your shit together in a thousand ways that he doesn’t. I love my little brother, but we both know women like you don’t go for train wrecks like Zach.”
Darlene’s skin burned. She wasn’t sure if this was something Imogene actually believed, or if it was some sort of test. Darlene cocked her head at the painting. “It’s funny: I never saw Joan Mitchell as a particularly spontaneous artist. To me, this is very controlled. Deliberate.” Darlene gave Imogene an easier, breezier smile. “Guess it just depends on your perspective.”
* * *
Dinner was served in a room the size of a small country.