“Ohhh.”
The hum of disapproval was universal, as it always was when Jane Lee Lefferts de Vries came up. The fact that Eric, the most eligible (and for ten years, missing) bachelor in their milieu had up and married an outspoken, pink-haired, half-Korean nobody within six months of returning to New York would be gossip fodder for years to come. It didn’t help that in doing so, he’d tossed away Caitlyn’s affections. In the eyes of these women, Jane’s existence was a complete affront to their way of life.
“Is it true she elbowed her way onto the Met Gala committee of all things?” Caitlyn sneered.
“Celeste sat on it for years before she died,” Sylvia pointed out.
“I think it’s positively ghoulish,” Caitlyn rattled on. “Celeste de Vries hasn’t even been gone for six months, and that little hussy is taking over her life? Who does she think she is?”
Nina brushed her thumb over the now dark screen of her phone, trying and failing to ignore the ache in her chest whenever anyone mentioned Grandmother. Celeste de Vries had been neither warm nor kind. Ruthless. Calculating. These were more apt descriptors. Ones that Nina came to know intimately. Her upbringing had been full of sharp-tongued critique instead of hugs and kisses.
But she couldn’t say her grandmother hadn’t cared. Perhaps she was the only one who ever had.
In the end, too, Celeste herself had welcomed Eric’s unorthodox wife fully into the family. No one else had said a word, but Nina had seen the grand society wedding for what it was: Grandmother’s stamp of approval. Compared to the spectacle of Jane and Eric’s wedding, Nina’s own small ceremony was practically a servant’s affair.
She could have been bitter. But in the end, Nina had become quite fond of her cousin-in-law. It wasn’t difficult. Jane was candid, funny, and warm—everything Nina secretly wished she could be. More than that, Jane was unabashedly herself, no matter what. Something no one at this particular table could ever claim.
Nina opened her mouth to say so, but found that every beady eye was focused on her. Waiting for her to parrot their snide righteousness back to them or suffer the consequences.
Nina sighed. In moments like these, it was just easier to play the part. “Eric is chairman now. It seemed polite to step aside.”
“And now she’s pestering you for more?” Caitlyn cast a knowing look at the rest of the committee. “Forcing you to play nice with her sad friends too? Pathetic. There’s nothing worse than poor relations, is there, girls?”
Another hum, this one of assent, circulated the table. Nina frowned, biting back a retort about how Caitlyn had risen from humble origins in New Jersey herself, a scholarship student at Nina’s private school. Had she forgotten about the year she had lived with Nina and her mother? When her parents had been deemed unfit by the state?
It was how the two of them had originally become close. How many times had Nina given the girl her clothes? Her jewelry? Helped her mimic her own hair and makeup, even when they were older and Caitlyn no longer needed the gestures, only wanted them out of camaraderie and friendship?
Or so Nina had thought.
“Well, go on, then,” Caitlyn snickered. “Put poor ‘Maya’ out of her misery.”
Nina blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Caitlyn rolled her big blue eyes and tossed a honeyed lock of hair from her shoulder. She’d started lightening it again, Nina noticed. Looking more blonde than brunette these days.
“N, honestly. It’s one thing for Eric to expect you to be nice to his wife, but it’s unrealistic to expect you to do the same for all her random little friends. The Upper East Side is members-only, darling. Better cut her loose sooner than later.”
All seven pairs of eyes around the table watched and waited for Nina to do the dirty deed. And so, though she didn’t want to, Nina found herself tapping out a terse reply to Matthew’s request.
“‘Sorry, I have plans,’” Caitlyn read as Nina typed. “Poor thing. Of course you do. Just not with her. Ever. Am I right?” She tittered with the other women. “So oblivious. Ooh, she’s already writing back! What is she, staring at her phone? How desperate.”
Miserably, Nina watched the three moving dots in the corner of the screen while Matthew wrote his response. Please, she begged silently, though she didn’t know for what. Please don’t believe me? Please ask me again? Please send me another picture tomorrow when I’m not around all these hateful women?
And then, like she knew it would, his message appeared while Caitlyn continued spying:
Nina: Sorry, I have plans. Thanks for the offer, though.
Maya: Any time, doll.
“Doll?” Caitlyn’s chirping voice was suddenly covered in a layer of doubt. “She calls you doll?”
Nina swallowed thickly. “She’s, um, from the Bronx.” It was the best excuse she could think of.
Another round of knowing murmurs rounded the table. The Bronx only solidified this group’s larger assumptions about a friend of Eric’s uncouth new wife. For this set, any borough but Manhattan was completely unacceptable. It was why the few who couldn’t claim to be true island natives did whatever they could to mask the fact. Below Fourteenth Street was a descent into madness, and above 110th didn’t exist. Nina might as well have told them “Maya” grew up in a landfill.
Good lord, had she been like this before? So horrifically classist? So willing to look down her hyper-straight nose at anyone outside her social set? Had she always been this miserable?
She was beginning to think the answers were all yes.
“I’ll take care of the florist,” Nina said as she dropped her phone back into her purse, away from prying eyes. “Is that everything today?”
Her consommé had grown cold and looked like a vital fluid. Nina’s stomach turned. She craved a large bowl of the pasta Matthew had shown her. It would be the perfect antidote to this group’s poison.
The others quieted immediately, clearly taken aback by Nina’s sudden change of tone. This was breaking protocol. Nina was supposed to chime in. Add a few salacious tidbits about “Maya,” this woman they had never known but would take such pleasure in berating behind her back. She was supposed to laugh and giggle and taunt until they all bored with it and finally turned back to planning the next boring event full of the appropriately boring members of their set.
Maya was a made-up person, but Nina was suddenly quite protective of her.
“N?”
She turned to find Caitlyn watching her intently.
“Are you all right?” she asked in a low voice, only between them. “You seem a bit…distracted.”
It was a nice way to say, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Nina masked a smirk. Matthew’s sardonic candor—and profanity—was seeping into her thoughts.
“I’m fine,” she replied, grasping for an excuse. “It’s just…” She leaned closer, praying Caitlyn would remember at least something of their former friendship. “Calvin arrived on Monday. I should get home before he does. It’s—he wants me home.”
That unfortunately, wasn’t a lie. It was the truth she had been ignoring all day while dread built in the pit of her stomach. Calvin would likely be leaving again on another trip soon, but until then, Nina sensed she would have to deal with his…tastes…more than she would ordinarily.