ASHLEY’S HOUSE WAS ONLY A few doors down from her place, so A. A. lingered, helping clean up—which meant hanging out with Ashley and her mom at the Spencers’ kitchen counter while the kitchen staff did all the dirty work. This was A. A.’s favorite part of any party, when all the guests were gone and only a few close friends remained and everyone could relax and unwind and get down to the real business of eating. Too bad Lili couldn’t stay longer, but her mom was always ridiculously strict about her “timetable” and kept Lili on a rigid schedule. She’d marched Lili right home for violin practice.
“Well, that was a success, don’t you think?” Matilda Spencer asked, hands on her hips as she surveyed the copious remains of the tea. “Nancy always orders too much food, and with Trudy bringing in her whole entourage, we had enough to feed an army.”
“Yeah, Mom, you rocked it,” said Ashley, bumping her mother on the hip while opening the door to the Sub-Zero. She brought out a whole tray of gourmet tea sandwiches, a tub of chocolate pudding, and assorted cream puffs and pastries, and laid everything out on the island counter in front of them.
“Ooh, yum,” A. A. said happily, rubbing her hands with glee at all the bounty.
“Dibs on the éclairs,” Ashley warned, reaching for a gooey chocolate-covered treat. “Suzanne makes the best ones,” she added, referring to their cook.
A. A. waved her off. Ashley could keep the éclairs. They weren’t even made of real chocolate, and they tasted like cardboard—everything at the Spencers’ was carob this and yogurt that. Instead she grabbed one of the golden brown scones nestled underneath a folded linen napkin in a silver bowl. “You can have them. These are my favorite. Mmm. They’re still warm!”
“Can you believe they flew him all the way out to bake those just for the tea?” Ashley asked as she wiped dark brown icing from her lips with a monogrammed napkin. “Someone’s insecure.”
“Hey, if they want to throw their money around, that’s fine with me,” said A. A., spreading clotted cream on her scone and putting the entire thing into her mouth.
“Girls, be nice,” Matilda warned, picking up a cherry tomato from a crudités platter. “They just wanted to make an effort. I’m sure she was just embarrassed about last year.”
“What happened last year?” Ashley asked, looking up from her second éclair, a chocolate mustache on her lip. “I don’t remember anything.”
A. A. devoured three scones in short order while Ashley’s mom told them about Lauren’s mom’s sad turkey sandwiches.
“We had to give them to the homeless. I didn’t want them to go to waste.” Matilda sighed.
Ashley shot her a look, and A. A. snickered. Okay, so it was totally mean to laugh at someone’s social faux pas, but seriously. Picnic sandwiches? Even her mom, who was in Barbados with some senator during last year’s tea, had managed to send their maid over with a box of Italian cookies.
“Pass that cheese plate,” she requested, pointing to an oval platter stacked with five different kinds of artisanal cheese. A. A. wasn’t a secret eater like Ashley was, but she did relax knowing her mom wasn’t around to tell her to eat like a lady. Meanwhile, Ashley, who was on, like, a tissue diet in public, was a total hog in private. The girl had such a complex she never even let Lili see her eat. Those two were way too competitive.
A. A. counted herself lucky. She lived on ice cream and hamburgers every day and never gained any weight.
“Did you see her face when Sheridan’s mom announced that there was something wrong with the chocolate in the fountain?” Ashley asked, piling her plate high with totally tasteless gluten-free potato salad and organic crème fraîche squares.
A. A. nodded. It had been pretty funny. Trudy Page had been totally offended and had eaten a huge dollop of melted chocolate on a slice of pound cake. A few minutes later, she was clutching her stomach and hurrying Lauren out the door. The other mothers had quickly pronounced the fountain off-limits. Sometimes you had to hand it to Ashley. She knew how to make things exciting.
“Yes, wasn’t that odd?” Ashley’s mom mused, playing with her pearls and picking up a stick of celery. “I never trust those things.” She shuddered. “All that chocolate just melting there . . . it’s a haven for bacteria. I can never understand why people get so excited about them. They’re so tacky.”
Ashley smirked, and A. A. coughed into her hand.
“Well, I’m full,” Ashley’s mom announced, after having eaten, from what A. A. could tell, two pieces of vegetables. “I can’t possibly eat dinner.”
A. A. bet that Ashley’s mom was just like her mom, subsisting on tidbits and vitamin supplements instead of real food. Her mom always told her that one day she wouldn’t be able to eat the way she did, and A. A. hoped for her own sake that that day would never come. “Scone?” she asked, offering Ashley the silver bowl.
Ashley looked longingly at the buttery biscuit. Her mother paused, looking back at her daughter. Then Ashley quickly shook her head. “Carbs? Uh-uh.”
“More for me.” A. A. shrugged as she finished off the last of the golden brown pastries. She could never understand why anyone would deprive themselves of the good things in life.