Tom Dolby - The Trust

“Well, he’s from New Jersey,” Lauren said.

“And I like that about him-he’s not all stuck-up like everyone around here.” The elevator doors opened and they stepped out.

“Does he know about… you know.” She was referring to the Society, but they were walking through the lobby and she wanted to be discreet.

“I don’t think so,” Thad said quietly. “I haven’t told him. I haven’t gotten a haircut recently, so he can’t really see the tattoo. I keep wishing that by the time we have that conversation, we’ll all be out of it.”

“Here’s hoping,” Lauren said with a sigh as she stepped out from under her building’s awning and through the five inches of snow that had already fallen on the sidewalk. “Well, I’m really happy you can come on the trip.” She took Thad’s arm as they walked. “With you along, I’m starting to think it might be fun.”

The cocktail party was being thrown to celebrate the success of the Dendur Ball, though Lauren recognized it all as a sham. Letty Chilton-and probably Claire as well-felt awkward about the power outage and the jewelry theft and, more than anything, that the media coverage of the ball had focused more on its scandalous aftermath than on the new additions to the museum, the money that was raised, or all the hard work that Letty and her daughter had done.

When they got to the party, the first thing they noticed was the music. Mrs. Chilton had clearly made an attempt to keep the atmosphere “youthful” as opposed to the classical selections she usually would have played at an event like this. Lauren recognized the Rolling Stones’s song “Play with Fire,” a creepy, bizarre song about a woman with an heiress mother, beautiful clothes, diamonds, and a chauffeur. It seemed appropriate, somehow, for the evening: vapid and mysterious.

It also reminded Lauren of Alejandro, for it was one of the songs that had come on when they swam in that heated pool last November. Since that day, Lauren had found it on iTunes and would sometimes play it over and over again, as it reminded her of that moment. A moment she would never have again.

How would she ever get over his death, when she was reminded of him constantly? When every song, every movie, every novel was about love: finding it, having it, losing it?

“Hey-” Thad poked her. “You’re totally zoning out. Phoebe’s coming over here.” Thad had graciously taken Lauren’s coat and given it to the attendant.

Phoebe had just arrived at the party, separately from Nick, it seemed.

“I need to talk to you,” she whispered after she and Lauren had embraced.

“Sure,” Lauren said. “Let’s find somewhere quiet.” She left Thad at the bar and took Phoebe to a far corner of the living room. She surveyed the living room and noted that her mother would have her work cut out for her. The current arrangement was twenty years of chintz sofas and reproduction nineteenth-century furniture against faded yellow-and-white-striped wallpaper.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Phoebe said as they sat down on a couch near the window. “Nick and I had this terrible fight. I guess that should be the least of it. The important thing is that I think we had a chance to get out, and he totally blew it.”

Lauren felt her spirits drop. “Oh my God. What do you mean?”

“I can’t talk about it here. We might still have a chance. But the thing is, I completely screwed up, and now I feel like I can’t take it back. I said some really terrible things to him, about how he only cares about his family, and how he loves the adventure of all this more than he loves me.”

Lauren shook her head. “Love makes you do crazy things, right?”

“I guess so,” Phoebe said. “I was so frustrated with him. I just want us to break free from-” She motioned out at the room, at the Society members who had started to trickle into the living room, clustering around the fireplace. “From all this.”

“But how do we do that?” Lauren looked nervously out at the crowds that were gathering, at Anastasia and Jeremy and Bradley, all chatting excitably. Aside from the five of them-the “Infidels,” as they were called-the older class had merged with the younger one perfectly, as if they had always been friends.

“I think we just do it, consequences be damned.”

“Phoebe, I don’t think we can do that. What about the message my sister got? What if they do something to our families?”

“We don’t know that they would do anything,” Phoebe said. “But I suppose there’s no way of being certain.”

“Lauren!” They heard a voice from across the room.

The two girls looked up. It was Emily van Piper, headed their way. She was wearing a pair of high heels that must have been impossible to walk in outside.

“Lauren, I heard about your Paris trip!” She gave Lauren a hug and kissed her on both cheeks. “Are you so thrilled?”

Lauren had told Phoebe otherwise, but thankfully, Phoebe was smart enough not to say anything in front of Emily.

“Um, sure,” Lauren said. “It’s going to be gorgeous. I love Paris.” She hoped she was enthusiastic enough to sound convincing. With Thad, though, it would be fun. Still, something didn’t feel quite right about it.

“I need to go talk to Charles about something,” Emily said, looking over the girls’ shoulders. “But let me know if you need any tips about the city-I was just there a few weeks ago. I found the most darling little tea shop in the Marais.”

Lauren nodded as Emily flitted off. At the entrance to the living room, Claire Chilton was greeting everyone. Lauren saw that she was wearing another outfit from Giroux, a black cocktail dress Sebastian had designed.

“Look at her, she thinks she’s this grand hostess or something,” Lauren said bitterly.

“Just ignore her,” Phoebe said. “She’s not worth our time. Okay, so you’ve got to tell me: What do I do about Nick? Do I talk to him?”

Lauren sighed. “I don’t know, Phoebe, maybe you need to spend some time apart.”

Phoebe looked surprised at this statement, and Lauren was even startled that she had said it. Was she jealous of Phoebe? She didn’t want to date Nick herself, as they had known each other since they were in elementary school. But maybe she was jealous that Phoebe had someone at all. Was it better to have someone you were fighting with than to be completely alone? She immediately regretted being so underhanded. Phoebe had become her best friend over the past several months, and she should have been supportive.

“Maybe you’re right,” Phoebe said. “We do spend an incredible amount of time together. Maybe I should get out of town or something.”

“No, Phoebe, I didn’t mean-I don’t think you should do that.”

“Why not? You just said-”

Lauren sank back on the couch in resignation. “I don’t know, Phoebe. I don’t really know what you should do.”

As Patch and Lia rode up together in the Chiltons’ elevator, Patch examined himself in one of its panels of antiqued mirror. He was glad he had dressed up a little bit for the cocktail party, even if that had only meant trading his sneakers for loafers and jeans for wool slacks. Even after all these years, he still never felt like he knew what to wear to functions like this one.

“Stop primping,” Lia said. “You look great.”

“So do you,” Patch said, drawing her close and giving her a kiss on her cold nose. He hoped it would be okay that he was bringing a non-Society member to the event, but he figured it probably was-and after all they had been through, a big part of him didn’t care anymore about the Society’s petty rules.

Lia had been running late, so they had decided to meet in the Chiltons’ lobby; he hadn’t had a chance yet to tell her about everything that had happened. The previous day, when Patch had found out the news about his relationship to the Bell family, he had felt like he needed to process the information alone before sharing it with anyone else. Now he wanted to tell Lia about it, but he didn’t know when he would be able to find the right time.