October 19
The Present
11:45 P.M.
It was so strange, seeing him again after all these years. It was like all the years melted away. He even sounded the same, if he didn’t look exactly like he did before. Everything came back in a rush—that night, what happened, what happened next, what happened after that. The things you forget. She remembered shopping without paying. What a little thief she had been back then! What would her kids say if they knew? How could she explain her hardscrabble childhood to her spoiled little princes and princesses? What did they understand of poverty, of not having enough, of always being lesser? It wasn’t just about money either. It was like, back then, they had been starved of everything—love, attention, care, even decency. How could she explain what she’d done? What would Todd say? What would Todd think?
But she had to put that out of her mind for now. Had to put him out of her mind. That was the past, and he was the past.
“Go get a drink! The bar’s back there!” she told him. “I’ll see you in a bit!” Did he still drink? He used to drink like a fish. They all did, but particularly him.
What did he remember? Did he remember that night?
It didn’t matter. This was about now. About her daughter.
She was still just Celine when they first met. Ellie couldn’t remember when she heard the “Mean” nickname or who had started calling her that. She was just Celine Barry, just another mom at Glenwood Prep, where they had just enrolled Sam in seventh grade. It was parent orientation, and Ellie stood out in the sea of puffy black tech vests, thin, ribbed turtlenecks, jeans, and status clogs. Welcome to the West Side. Ellie had just come from a meeting with her designers. She was wearing a cowboy hat and a fringed leather jacket over her white tank top, tight motocross jeans, and her Valentino Rockstud stilettos. She was easily twenty years younger than all the moms. Okay, fifteen. Ten.
She was sexy, and Brentwood did not do sexy.
But Celine, in a headband, padded vest, and Hunter boots, found her amusing. “I’m Celine, Alex’s mom,” she’d said, introducing herself to Ellie, who was standing alone, unsure of where to go. She’d never been a mom at a private school before. Montserrat was supposed to be here, but no one could find her. Todd was at work, of course. She had work too, but it was an unspoken agreement between them. Ellie dealt with the kids. Todd dealt with the network. Ellie did everything else.
“Ellie,” said Ellie. “I’m Sam’s mom. Well, stepmom.”
“Is that right?”
“We just moved from New York,” she explained. “At least I did. Todd’s been here. But this is a new school for Sam.”
“Sam . . . Samantha Stinson? Is that your daughter?”
“Yes!” said Ellie, relieved.
“Alex talks about Sam all the time; how wonderful to meet you.”
It turned out Sam was Alex’s favorite friend and since Alex was Celine’s favorite child (she had four and Alex was the youngest), it was only natural that Ellie became Celine’s favorite mom. And even if things weren’t the same between the girls now, it didn’t mean things had to change between the moms. Although of course, it had. They just weren’t as close as they used to be. They used to gossip about the girls endlessly. But that had ended, and for a while Ellie was worried the friendship was over. But Celine was still at the party, she had made her appearance, and she didn’t have to. Celine didn’t have to be anywhere she didn’t want to be. She wanted to be there, because she was still Ellie’s friend.
Husbands could lie, they could cheat, they could die, but in the end, you had your girlfriends. Ellie had never been much of a girl’s girl; she’d had a best friend when she was in high school but never anyone as close as the two of them had been. She was friendly with the model crew of her generation, the girls who used to run the circuit like she did—St. Barts, Aspen, St. Tropez, Palm Beach—just another girl getting a ride on the private jet and paying for the ride with a ride of her own. At least she’d married her ride—Archer. It bonded you, being young in a sea of gray money. She was used to flying solo, and that hadn’t changed—much. She wasn’t particularly close to any of the other moms, just Celine.
I knew you would fix it, Sam had said.
Thank you, Todd had mouthed.
How would she fix this? By being Celine’s friend, it was already a fait accompli.
“Celine!” she said, finding her friend at the entrance and dropping the nickname for once.
“Cupcake!”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Sure, honey, what’s up?” asked Celine, who was holding her Judith Leiber clutch in a way that made Ellie suspicious.
“Are you leaving?” she accused. “It’s not even midnight!”
Celine shrugged.
Ellie wanted to whine more to convince Celine to stay for the drag queens and the second after-party, to see the hotel suite that had been turned into a hookah lounge. But she knew once Celine was done, she was done. She had little time to explain.
“So, it’s about Sam.”
Celine nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“And Stanford.”
Celine raised an eyebrow.
This was hard. This was humiliating. Her perfect child. Her one perfect child who was not so perfect after all. But she did it. She told Celine the whole story, about the affair and the plagiarism and the Honor Board and the academic probation. “So, isn’t that wrong? I mean, he was sleeping with her! A student! He had a motive. He was jealous and he wanted to get her into trouble.”
But Celine didn’t say anything. She just chewed on her lip. “Hmmm, that’s going to be a dean issue.”
“Dean?”
“Dean of studies. He’d have to make the call. And we’d have to prove that it was malicious on the professor’s part, maybe even get him fired. It’ll be a fight,” said Celine, and she had a pugnacious look in her eye, the one she used to strong-arm benefactors into writing six-figure checks to her causes.
“We’ll fight. It’s Sam.”
“Who had an affair with her professor and whose girlfriend wrote her term paper.”
“She says she didn’t,” said Ellie hotly. “She swears she didn’t cheat.” It was a stretch. Sam had definitely crossed the line, but hadn’t the professor done the same? Who was guilty? Who was innocent? Maybe no one, so why should her child pay for her mistake?
Celine sighed. “Do you know how easy it is to fake a term paper these days? Who knows what happened? Maybe she didn’t or maybe she did.”
It was exactly what Ellie was thinking, but she took umbrage anyway. “Are you blaming my kid?”
“No, I’m just laying it out for you. It’ll be a battle; are you ready? Is Sam ready for that?”
Ellie nodded. They would do anything for their kid. Of course they would. They always had. “You can help, right? You’ll make this go away? Sam can’t be expelled from Stanford. Oh my god.”
“I can talk to some people,” said Celine. “But you know who you have to get on your side?”
“Who?”
“Blake,” said Celine.
“Blake?” Her lips curled. “Why?”
“His new boyfriend is the dean of studies at Stanford. He was just telling me about him,” said Celine. “I’ll talk to the board, you talk to Blake. Make sure he gets his boyfriend to open up the case against Sam again, and make a new judgment. He’ll do it if you ask.”
“Can’t you ask?” said Ellie jokingly.
Celine smiled. “Come on, Ellie. You love Blake.”
“Do I?”
Her friend patted her cheek. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. We’ll take care of it. But you have to talk to Blake. I can only do so much.” She placed her champagne glass on the nearest surface.
“You’re really leaving?”
“Yes, wheels up in fifteen.”
Ellie pouted. The evening was just getting started. She knew she had to usher Celine out the back way, lest other people get ideas and start to leave en masse. Her party could not end early. She would not let it.
“Come this way. I think your driver is parked over in back.”