The Restoration of Celia Fairchild - Marie Bostwick Page 0,59

I said. “She used to bring them to neighborhood things when I was little.”

“Sounds worth hanging around for.” Trey smiled. “Tell you what, I’ll keep you from being a wallflower if you keep me from having to talk to my brother.”

“Lorne’s here?”

“Everybody’s here,” Trey said. “I think she even invited Red and Slip but the terms of their parole don’t allow them to attend gatherings where intoxicating beverages will be served.” I looked at him blankly. He shook his head. “It was a joke.”

Okay. If he said so. But I hadn’t been thinking about Red and Slip.

“Why don’t you like talking to your brother?”

“We don’t get along.”

“Yes. I figured that out. But why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I love long stories. How about I buy you a drink and you tell it to me?”

“Uh-uh. We don’t have enough time or liquor for that.”

Felicia’s head popped through the doorway. She had on new red glasses, even bigger than the others, with one sparkly rhinestone at each corner. They must have been her party glasses.

“Hurry up and find a place to hide, you two. It’s nearly seven.” We watched as she tottered down the hall, kitten heels beating like castanets on the wood floor as she called out, “Hush, y’all! Find someplace to hide. They’ll be here any minute!”

Trey turned to face me. “If we hurry, we can probably score a couple of crab puffs before they’re all gone.” When he offered me his arm, the sleeve of his jacket inched halfway up his forearm.

“Why do you always wear the same suit?” I asked.

“Because a couple of years back, I had a client who sold menswear. He was going bankrupt and didn’t have any money, so he paid me with the last of his stock. I’ve got five more just like it.”

“Hmm. Too bad he didn’t have any suits that came in other colors.”

Or a thirty-eight long.

He shrugged. “It’s all the same to me. I’ve never really cared about clothes.”

Yes, this much I had figured out. I took his arm and we walked down the hall toward the din created by eighty people telling each other to be quiet.

“Besides,” he continued, “this way I never have to think about what I’m going to wear. But that is a nice dress.”

I spread the skirt out with my free hand, pleased that he’d noticed. “Pris found it for me. You like it?”

“I do. My mother used to have one exactly like it.”

WALKING INTO FELICIA and Beau’s living room was like stepping through a time portal to my childhood. With the exception of the dark-blue velvet curtains that had replaced the brocade drapes in the exact same shade of blue, everything looked just like it had twenty-five years before. Which is not to say that the room looked dated or the least bit tired. That’s the thing about antiques, I guess. Once a good piece of furniture has endured beyond a certain age, it never really goes out of style. It occurred to me that this was a pretty good metaphor for Felicia herself.

I waved to Heath and Caroline, just before they ducked down behind a fainting couch. The scrolled back curved upward, so it was perfect for them. The top of Heath’s head was barely visible at the higher end of the sofa back and Caroline, who was wearing a robin’s-egg-blue dress almost the same color as the couch’s silk upholstery, was well camouflaged.

Lorne and Pris were plainly visible, standing on opposite sides of a mahogany tall-case clock, but didn’t seem to care. Lorne, who had spruced up for the occasion, topping his usual jeans with a crisp white shirt and light-gray sport coat, kept popping his head around his side of the clock, saying things that Pris apparently found pretty funny. I liked Lorne, I really did, but flirting was kind of a default setting with him and I was a little worried about Pris, especially after her comments about wanting to find a bad boy. Lorne wasn’t bad, not really, but he was too old for her. However, everybody gets to choose their own brand of heartbreak, so I looked away and kept searching for a place to hide. There wasn’t much left to pick from.

Five people I didn’t know were already crouched down behind the camelback sofa. Happy Browder, Deborah Jean Aiken, and the Mazlows were hiding behind a baby grand piano near the front window, their legs clearly visible under the ebony piano case. There wasn’t any place big enough to hide