I knew I was holding Sadie Loman’s phone in my hand.
SUMMER
2017
The Plus-One Party
9:00 p.m.
This was a mistake.
I stood on the front porch of the Blue Robin, watching as people emerged from the surrounding trees in groups of two and three, carrying drinks, laughing. Traipsing through the wooded lots from their cars, some not bothering with the front door, coming in through the patio instead. I hoped the sound of us would get swallowed up by the sea.
The party was supposed to be at the Lomans’ house this year, but Sadie was dead set against it. She and Parker had been arguing about it, Parker saying it was only fair, as if he were accustomed to playing by the rules, and Sadie appealing to his sense of control: You really want them in our house? Going through our things? In our rooms. Come on, you know how it can get.
Parker had tried to address each point, which was how he worked, in business and in life: So, Avery can help keep an eye on things. So, we’ll make the bedrooms off-limits.
Oh? she had said, her eyes wide and mocking. There are no locks, so how are you planning to enforce that, exactly? With a barricade of furniture? Are you going to fight them if they disobey?
You’re being ridiculous, Parker had said, turning away, which was the wrong move.
I felt my shoulders tensing as Sadie sucked in a breath, leaned toward him. Fine. You go ahead and tell Dad his desk was defaced by a drunken local. You can tell Bee someone vomited in her kitchen.
He laughed. Jesus, no one’s going to deface a fucking desk, Sadie. Stop acting like everyone’s trash. And really, he said, eyes leveling on her, nothing worse than you’ve already done.
It was then that I stepped in. We could have it at one of the rentals, I said. Both of the homes on the overlook will be vacant that week.
Sadie nodded, her face visibly relaxing, fists unclenching. I could see the idea taking hold in Parker, his jaw shifting around as he mulled it over. Sunset Retreat, he said, it has more space.
But I shook my head. No one knew these properties better than I did. No, I said, the Blue Robin has more privacy. No one will notice us there.
* * *
BUT NOW, STANDING ON the front porch while the party hit full swing, I wasn’t so sure about that. Cars lined the street in both directions, which was probably some fire code violation with the lack of street space left behind. I craned my neck to see my car, which I’d parked at the edge of the short driveway of Sunset Retreat across the way, facing out, to keep other cars off the property. Someone had already blocked me in, parking on an angle directly in front of the entrance to the drive.
Between the trees and the dark, I couldn’t even see how far the line of cars stretched. There were no streetlights up here yet—just the porch light above me and the occasional headlight shining down the stretch of pavement whenever a car turned in.
“Everything okay?” Parker stood behind me in the open doorway. He frowned, peering over my shoulder into the darkness.
“Yes, everything’s fine.” There was a list of things I could worry about: the number of people who were still arriving, the amount of liquor, the fact that, though I’d removed the fragile decorations, I had not thought to pull out the throw rugs from under the furniture, and those would be harder to replace.
But tonight I did not have to be myself. Tonight was for forgetting.
* * *
I FOLLOWED PARKER INSIDE, lost him in the mass of bodies in the kitchen. Found myself in the middle of a familiar game.
The music had turned, something frenetic, and no one was dancing or swaying to the beat. But there was a group hovering around the island, a cluster of shot glasses on the surface between them.
I wedged my way into the group. “Hear, hear,” I said, picking one up, smiling.
“Just in time,” the man beside me said. I recognized him vaguely, but he was a little younger, and I’d long since given up memorizing the names of the newer visitors. “I was just about to tell everyone about Greg and Carys Fontaine,” he continued.