“I JUST THINK WE should get it checked out.”
The moment had finally arrived. Nick Livingston was asking questions about their apparent infertility, and pleading with his wife to go to a specialist. Sara thought about the birth control pills in the hidden compartment of her purse, biting her nails as they drove through the dark, winding streets of Wilshire’s backcountry.
“How about next month? I’m so crazy with the house.”
A month should do it. One month off the pills would get the hormones out of her system, giving her clean test results. She’d pop one in the second they left the office, and no one would be the wiser.
“Okay. Next month.” Watching the road with its twists and turns, Nick did not sound at all satisfied. “It’s just . . . I’d like to have them while I’m still lucid. And Annie’s not getting any younger. They say it gets harder the more space there is between them.”
“They say a lot of things. Annie’s not going to like a baby no matter how old she is.”
Nick sighed, and Sara heard it loud and clear as she pondered the recent turn of events—her admission onto the now-famous blow job committee, the invitation to this party—and asked herself why, in light of those events, she couldn’t stop herself from taking those pills. Then there was Nick, the way-too-tall Napoleon sitting beside her. He had taken her face in his hands that night four years ago, a face drowning in tears and anguish. The face of a stranger. And he had opened his heart to her without reservation. She would give him anything she had to repay him for that night and every day and night since. Except this one thing. Another baby. She had already traveled farther down this road than she had ever imagined. She was a housewife at twenty-seven who didn’t know her own mind. And she needed desperately to stop and catch her breath.
“How far out are they?” Nick’s voice was curious, and duly impressed. Having grown up in this town, he knew as well as anyone that the estates grew in size the farther along this path you ventured. Nick had lived only two miles from the downtown. Not an awful address, not great either. Now they lived four miles out, but in an older house. It was a crazy system as far as Sara was concerned. Crazy and inconvenient. But that was the way of the Connecticut suburbs.
“There,” Sara said, pointing into the darkness at a pool of bright light that was unfolding through the tree cover up ahead.
In a moment, the woods disappeared, revealing a brilliant, star-studded sky that was interrupted solely by a stone homestead. Built along the reservoir in 1812 by one of Wilshire’s founding families, the mansion had been inhabited only by the wealthiest residents and found its integrity well preserved. Though nearly doubled in square footage, the architecture had been meticulously duplicated, giving the resulting structure a seamless, and timeless, appearance. And even in the darkness, the backdrop of the water against the magnificent stone pillars that flanked the house on either side was breathtaking.
“God,” she said, taking in the view. It was, to Sara, something out of a Jane Austen novel.
“This has gotta be worth thirty million.” Nick’s eyes were glued to the house as he pulled into the driveway through the wrought-iron gates.
“Thirty million?”
“Look at the land.”
Nick was right. Land was gold in this town, and the Barlow estate looked like it held at least two dozen acres—something unheard of in Wilshire.
Slowly, they wound around toward the front, where white-gloved valets waited for them. Sara could feel Nick’s excitement. Or was it her own? Judging from the number of cars already parked on the lower lawn, there were easily five hundred guests at this party, which implied, of course, that five hundred people could fit inside the Barlow home. How many square feet was this house? Sara couldn’t imagine. How many times bigger was it than their house? Ten? Fifteen? And she couldn’t even see around the back. There were gazebos and other random structures, perhaps a guest cottage, maid’s quarters. The landscaping was glorious, with weeping juniper trees spaced evenly along the front lawn, and what looked like a small apple orchard to the right side.
“I can’t believe we’re going to this party,” Nick said, almost giddy. Almost like a little forty-one-year-old boy at an amusement park. These were the homes, the parties, the world within a world that his family had been excluded from. They’d had a nice house, a three-thousand-square-foot colonial, in a prime part of town. They’d been members of the country club, and his mom had sat on the town council. Nick had felt privileged. But like most of the area, Wilshire had been plowed over by Wall Street money. Houses like his were leveled and replaced with enormous McMansions. And people like his parents became the hangers-on, the guests who didn’t have enough sense to know that the party was over.
Nick had always talked about his parents’ move to Florida dispassionately. But now that they lived here themselves, Sara could feel what was growing inside him, mostly because a trace of it was now growing inside her as well. Can we make it? Are we good enough? It was creepy, this intense awareness of the invisible exclusion that had been resurrected from Nick’s past and was now driving them to covet things they didn’t need, or even want. A huge house, friendships with people they barely knew. It was as though they were both playing catch-up. She for being too young and he for being too old.
They got to the front of the house, where they were ushered by one of the valets. Upon closer examination, Sara noticed the white fangs, the pointed collar on his black tuxedo jacket, and the streak of blood down the middle of his white shirt. They were in costume, these valets, each and every one of them. Devils and vampires.
The Livingstons were unfashionably late. Contrary to the Wilshire etiquette handbook, which required a delay of at least forty minutes from the time stated on the invitation, the rules were apparently suspended for this one annual occasion. As they were escorted through the foyer to a room the size of an auditorium, Sara was instantly consumed by the feeling that they had missed something.
A young attractive woman dressed like a turn-of-the-century French tart, down to her fishnet stockings and up to her protruding cleavage, met them at the entrance. “Good evening. My name is Heather, and I will be your party guide this evening. May I offer you a glass of Cristal?”
Sara gave Nick a puzzled look and shrugged. Party guide?
“Thank you,” Nick responded, accepting the chilled glass of bubbly and listening as Heather the tart explained the myriad events planned for them this evening. He was smooth, as though he always attended parties with guides who were tarts.
“Look at you!” Sara said, poking him playfully in the ribs.
“What?”
“Nothing, honey.” Her voice was sarcastic, but Nick was too preoccupied to notice.
Staring into the room filled with costumed guests—all of whom were dressed as French royalty—Sara hardly felt the glass as it was slipped into her hand, then barely noticed that it was half gone within a split second. Her mind played back the conversation with the assistant handling the party. French historical figures. That was what she had said, and Sara remembered it because it was such an odd theme. The word royalty had not been mentioned. And now here she was in her clever costume that was not only all wrong, but also unflattering.
Still, she listened as Heather continued with the long list of party goings-on.
“Shall I direct you somewhere in our main ballroom?” Heather asked, but Nick and Sara could barely take it all in. Scattered among the five hundred or so guests were dozens of other tarts and manservants, the latter wearing authentic reproductions of the long coats and breeches from the period. They carried elaborate silver trays of champagne and martinis in real crystal glasses, gourmet appetizers, and oyster shots. Along the sides of the room were gorgeous food stations with mounds of meat, fine imported cheeses, sushi, shrimp—it went on and on. The room itself was exquisite, easily two thousand square feet, lined with white pillars and accented with elaborate cornicing that covered the entire ceiling. The floor was interlaid wood tile that formed a symmetrical pattern from the center to the corners, and the walls were adorned with magnificent paintings, many of which were originals. It was impossible to remember that they were in a home when this room was most certainly built for parties of this nature, remaining idle for the vast majority of the year, and that somewhere in this same dwelling were bathrooms and bedrooms and a kitchen where the Barlows lived like the rest of them. They were, after all, human.
At the far end, there was dancing to live music from a twenty-piece band. The acoustics were incredible, giving life to the horns and strings that bellowed out baroque chords.
“I’m afraid you missed the vocal performance by the renowned Madame Somande. But you still have the band to enjoy,” Heather said with the same smile that hadn’t left her face. Not for a split second.
Sara nodded. “Yes. Then the beer-chugging competition, the best-costume award—guess we can skip that—the carving of the suckling pig, the raffling off of the ten-foot Versailles ice sculpture—where is there an ice sculpture?”
“There,” Nick said, pointing to the back right corner.
“Oh. Yes, very nice. After that are vodka shots, chocolate-covered strawberries, and the haunted house. At midnight, of course.” Her voice was laced with sarcasm.
“This is incredible.” Nick was lost in the extravagance, but Sara was making rough calculations.
“Two-fifty?” she whispered to Nick, betting he had already done the math.
“At least—and that’s without the haunted house. Heather?” Nick turned to the tart guide.
“Yes?”
“You mentioned a haunted house.”
“It’s outside, through the rear door. The line will form at midnight.”
“And do we just walk through it?”
“Oh, no!” she answered, coming out of her professional persona to display her own amazement at the party she’d been sent to work. “It’s a ride, like at an amusement park. I hear they rent it every year. Takes them three days to set it up.”
“Thank you,” Nick said cheerfully.
“Will that be all for now?”
Nick and Sara nodded.
“I’ll check back with you in a little while, then!” The woman actually curtsied before dashing off to another beckoning guest.
“Okay. Now I put it at three-fifty. Can you imagine the insurance they must have had to get? Come on—let’s go have fun. Are you hungry?”
“No.”
Nick looked at her, really looked at her this time, and saw her the way he had always been able to. “What’s wrong? Is it the costume?”
“You noticed?”
“Sorry. Is that what has you in such a funk?”
Yes. No. She didn’t really know, though she was grateful he had even asked with all that was distracting him. “I don’t want to spoil it for you.”
He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth, then caught her eyes. “You’re not. Just tell me what’s up.”
There he was—thank God—there was her husband. Her confidant. The man who had come to her rescue that night in New York and made her fall in love with him.
“It’s just . . . three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. On one party!”
Nick smiled at her lovingly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s about. I just feel like . . .” She paused then, not even sure what she was feeling.
“What?”
“Nothing. I see David Halstead over there. The King Something-or-other by the carving station. Why don’t you go say hello while I find a bathroom. Maybe I can cover my face with makeup, shove some tissues in my bra, and pass as a tart.”
Nick kissed her again. “I like the sound of that!”
Sara gave him a playful nudge. “I’ll find you in a little while.”
As she watched him walk away, she felt a wave of relief. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and she wasn’t even going to enjoy herself. At least she could save Nick from the same absurdity.