Лорен Кейт - The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

“Slightly easier said than done, dear,” Diana said to me.

“I promise,” I said, giving weight to each word. “I think your son and I have found a surefire way in.” I glanced at Mike, unbuttoning him right there in front of his very buttoned-up family. “Pretty soon. . we’ll have this thing nailed.”

Mike bit his lip. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether he was flushed from being turned on or whether he was embarrassed by a little innocent bon mot in front of his family. Everyone but me seemed relieved for the interruption when Binky brought out the palate cleanser.

“Thank you, Binky,” Diana said, settling back into her role as Queen. “I think we’ll ask you to serve dessert aboard P.J.’s sailboat. Of course, it will just be the four of us.” She motioned to everyone but Mike and me.

Mike looked at me. “You’re sure you don’t want to—” “Your mother and I already discussed it, remember? She was kind enough to consider my feelings after what happened to Daddy.”

“Of course,” Mike nodded, looking uncomfortable that he hadn’t remembered instantly. Not that I blamed him — it wasn’t exactly like I went around bragging about my dad’s disappearance all the time. The tragic sailing accident was just a convenient story — clean enough for company and tragic enough that no one, including Mike, had ever really asked for particulars. “We’ll just take the cigarette boat out then, Mother, if that’s okay with you.”

“Do as you wish,” Diana said, standing up to excuse us from the table. “Just remember that when it comes to Prince next week, we’re talking about more than just your wishes.” She looked at me. “This is a family affair.”

As Mike and I walked down the path toward the marina, he motioned me behind the pine tree where we’d once carved our initials. We stood pressed together in between the thick patches of green-mouthed Venus flytraps that grew like sun-spots on the King’s backyard. The plants’ carnivorous jaws were open, waiting for their evening meal.

“You and my mom are sure in cahoots over my Palmetto Prince campaign,” he teased. “Hey, I’m sorry about the sailboat thing. I should have realized.”

“Over and done with,” I said quickly. “And if being in cahoots with your mother gets you the crown, I guess I can suffer it for a week.”

But I didn’t feel in cahoots with Diana at all. In fact, my pride was still stinging from her little “family affair” quip. Why didn’t Mike seem to think anything of it? He was already busy untethering the boat. As I watched his arms flex while he worked, my whole body started buzzing. Really buzzing. Oh, wait — that was my phone buzzing in my purse.

I grimaced, thinking it was probably my mom, wanting me to pick up another bottle of wine for her on my way home. No mother has ever been so excited when her kid got her first fake ID.

But this text was no standard liquor-run call from Mom:

Guess who’s back from the proverbial dead? I’m a free man again and want to celebrate with my favorite daughter. Could we meet for a drink?

The cool facade I’d managed all through dinner suddenly disappeared into the night. A thick black water moccasin slithered by my feet, and I gripped the wooden buttress of the marina for support.

“Nat?” Mike called from the boat. “The boat motor’s running. Get down here so I can work on yours.”

“Be right there,” I said hoarsely.

Back from the dead indeed.

Dad.

“ E xplain to me how it is that you’re so calm,” Kate asked me at brunch the next morning. We were seated along the palmetto-lined boardwalk of Catfish Row, finishing up our second round of cappuccinos on the patio of the famous MacLeer’s Biscuit Café.

Anyone from Palmetto would tell you MacB’s was the only place to brunch — not just for their buttermilk biscuits and homemade peach preserves, but also for the chance to scope out who showed up with whom. Since the rain clouds had finally given way to sun, the weather was in the high 60s, and it seemed like our entire school was trolling the historic wooden boardwalk outside MacB’s.

At the round eight-top table closest to the cobblestone street, the student council kids — who never took a break— struggled to make room for their bagels amid all their bulging Ball-planning binders. Near the water, Tracy Lampert and her junior-class coterie formed an amorphous cluster, swinging their bare feet over the boardwalk and tying dogwood blossoms in one another’s hair. And at my usual table in the back corner of the patio, a crew of senior girls sat side by side in one long row, looking out at the ocean as they finished their egg-white quiches.

“Facials at five, Nat?” Jenny Inman asked as the girls filed past me toward the parking lot.

“I’ll call you,” I smiled, trying to assuage the hint of confusion as to why I hadn’t filled in my usual MacB’s seat next to her this morning.

The girls knew Kate was one of my favorite pet projects. This morning, I’d agreed to offer her a second opinion picking out a Mardi Gras costume from the thrift store down the street. But as I watched her simultaneously slurp up her cappuccino, check the tail of her long ponytail for split ends, and try to flag down our slip of a waitress for the bill, I wondered whether Kate needed help with more than just her costume. So much unnecessary multitasking — and Kate was usually really composed. When I realized she was still waiting for an answer to her question, I decided not to mention the fact that frantic people had a strangely mellowing effect on my mood.

“I’m calm,” I suggested instead, “because I’ve already got a costume for tonight. You’re panicking,” I said, taking in the throngs of Mardi Gras-crazed Palmetto kids all around us, “because you’re just giving into the vibe.”

Just then, a table of Bambies brushed past our table, wailing over the limited stock of size-one fishnets at the costume store around the corner.

“You’re right,” Kate met my eyes and laughed. She flipped her amber hair over her shoulder. “Screw the vibe!”

I offered her a stick of gum and cocked my head at the sea of departing Bambies. “I take it you’re opting out of the sophomore-class costume this year?” I asked. “I heard something about. . brothel-chic?”

Kate snorted, signing the credit-card slip the waitress had finally brought over. We stood up and pushed in our wicker chairs.

“Please,” Kate said, “and become another Bambi blend-in?” She shuddered, making her long hair shimmer in the sun. “I’d rather join the church choir.”

I grinned at the image of Kate on the pulpit with a bunch of youth-group kids and threw down a couple of extra dollars on the table before we left. Though my mother would never willingly admit it these days, she’d been a waitress the first fourteen years of my life, so I was well-versed in the injustices of under-tipping.

Kate looked around and lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “Tonight is my night to seal the deal with Baxter — who still hasn’t asked me to the Ball.”

“ That’s why you’re freaking out,” I teased. Baxter Quinn was Palmetto’s most legendary drunk and the dealer for most of our school’s after parties. He was tall and light-haired and sexy in a lanky deadbeat sort of way. Even though he often couldn’t hold himself upright, somehow he was never at a loss for girls.

“And that’s why you’re so calm,” Kate said, tugging me over a series of puddles on the clapboard promenade — and out of the earshot of the rest of Palmetto. “You have the state’s greatest built-in date. I bet you can’t even remember what it’s like to stress over a guy.”