“You look beautiful,” Daddy said, and kissed me on the cheek. Papa gave me a way-too-long hug. Gotami meowed.
I could hear Lily’s voice in my head: “You look like a girl who is overcompensating for a lack of confidence in her intelligence.”
I say, “Shut up, Lily.”
I think I may actually look like someone who belongs at a party at Ivy Avila’s house. Lily may not think that’s anything to be proud of, but maybe I’m done caring what Lily thinks.
I can hear the music before I even get to the road. When I reach the pavement of Olympic Road at the bottom of the hill, the horizontal beams of the setting sun blind me, and I pull my sunglasses out of my purse. I dust off my feet and stuff them in my shoes, pausing for a moment to look out at the water. It is calm and the sky glows with bright golden light. In a rare moment of stillness, there are no boats on the water, neither yachts and speedboats nor floating shacks. A convertible full of beautiful strangers drives by slowly, squinting their eyes to see if I’m someone worth noticing, but I am invisible in my sunglasses, and they park way down the road at the end of an already long line of cars.
The gate to Ivy’s waterfront property is open, with a stern-looking man in a suit standing next to it. I say, “Hello,” and he nods without looking at me.
As I walk up the short, flower-lined driveway, the sound of the party gets louder, and I feel something pulling at me, and I am simultaneously chasing it, some indescribable thing I want, and I get the feeling that I am crossing over into a new reality, a new world, one that will change me forever. Even though I’ve never been here before, it feels somehow familiar. Like I was meant to be a part of it.
It’s just a party, I tell myself. I’ve been to plenty of parties before. But then the house opens up before me, a huge glass structure, full of people and light and music and flowers, everything inside illuminated, everything alive and burning with an intensity I have never felt in my safe, wholesome life.
Everything feels special.
Tami called me special.
I want to be special.
I could watch the whole thing from out here if I wanted to. That would be the safe thing to do.
Or I could walk forward. I could take one step after another down the path that leads around the side of the house to the huge outdoor space, more like a resort than an actual home, with various levels of patios and decks and covered seating areas, a pool and a hot tub, two full bars with bartenders, tables with hors d’oeuvres, people dressed in black walking around with trays of drinks and food. A private dock has a few speedboats tied up to it, and a group is currently stepping off a water taxi, with another boat idling nearby, waiting for its turn.
It is still early, but the place is already packed with young, beautiful people, many of whom I recognize as varying levels of famous, and the others are people who look like they should be famous; all mixed in with a few boarding school kids and locals from the island, some of whom are huddled in the corner by a fountain, looking terrified and young and terribly out of place.
Most of the people here are much older than me. Much older than Ivy. They do not belong on this island. But this place, this property, has somehow turned itself into something with its own rules, its own agenda.
I don’t see Ivy anywhere.
Maybe I stay on the edges, hiding behind my sunglasses, watching. Maybe I make myself invisible, become a voyeur, and live through everyone else.
Or maybe Tami finds me. She grabs my arm a little too hard. She says, “There you are,” claiming me. She says, “Where have you been hiding?” I’m the one who told her about the party. I wanted to show her I’m friends with Ivy Avila and she’s not.
I told her because I wanted her to bring Ash. But he’s not here. Again. I’m starting to think he’s avoiding me.
If Ash were here, he’d be holding court with Tami on some centrally located couch where everyone would be sure to see them. Everyone is dressed in their socialite best, but he’d be in some obscure band T-shirt and jeans, just to show how good he looks without even trying. He’d be leaning back in that entitled, cocky way boys do, legs spread because they never question how much space they have a right to take up. But there’s almost an elegance when Ash does it, like a lion or tiger or some other purring beast, beautiful, on the verge of dangerous.
His eyes crinkle in a private smile only I can see, like this is all a joke and we’re the only two people in on it, and the lights flicker, and the room darkens, and there are spotlights on just the two of us. With this smirk, he has invited me to an elite, secret club, and we are its only two members. We will sit on a cloud somewhere together, watching everyone below us, and we will know exactly what’s going on, and we will be the only people who do.
“So Jordan, huh?” Tami says, breaking my trance. “How was it? Are you going to see him again?”
“No,” I say, and I’m surprised by the disgust in my voice.
“You surprise me, girl. There may be some life left in you yet. Let’s get a drink.”
“What happened with Vaughn?” I say. “Is he okay?”
Tami laughs. “Oh, Vaughn is fine. Just a little lovers’ quarrel. We kissed and made up.”
Did she tell him she was sorry? Has Tami Butler ever told anyone she’s sorry?
I imagine Ash holding the thin straw from his drink between his teeth, biting down, his white teeth gleaming. His tongue is hiding somewhere behind that smile, and I feel the teasing pressure of his teeth like a phantom stalking down deep into my body, the promise of his tongue warm and soft.
And then Ash would turn his attention back to the group huddled around him, back to telling some story about that band he hung out with backstage in Vegas, about some epic five-day party he went to in Rio, about his adventures with shamans in Peru. I’d be released, and he’d go back into disguise, and so would I, leaving a little piece of me with him.
I wonder what Vaughn and Raine are doing now. I try to imagine them at this party, but I can’t.
Maybe I sneak away when Tami’s not looking. Maybe I hide behind my sunglasses and eavesdrop on a pack of Seattle socialites sitting with their feet in the pool, as they talk about Ivy’s previous party, dropping names of the people they saw there. I half listen as I look around the crowd for Ivy. The only person I recognize in the vicinity is the girl who came in second on the last season of that singing competition show.
“Have you seen Ivy?” someone says.
“No,” another one says. “Didn’t see her at the last one either.”
“Someone said she has cameras installed all over the place,” says another. “And she just sits in her room watching everyone. She’s crazy, you know? That’s why she was in rehab. She went crazy on set and tried to kill a boom operator.”