THEY WERE STANDING TOGETHER, the three women, as Sara walked through the crowd. She didn’t see them, or at least didn’t recognize them in their ornate costumes.
“Rosalyn Barlow!” Eva said, scolding her friend. “Was that really necessary?”
Rosalyn smiled, her red lips pulling up against the white powder that covered her face. “What?”
“You know what. You should have made the theme a bit more clear, don’t you think?”
They watched the newcomer walk out of the room in her strange getup, dodging in between the partygoers, food stations, and general merriment that filled the enormous space.
“What is she supposed to be anyway?” Jacks was tending to the conversation, though with great difficulty. She was on edge, nervous, and most of all in an acute state of concentration.
“She’s actually very sweet. And I thought you wanted her to like you so she’d write a good article?” Eva was now scanning the room for the indiscretions that would inevitably be added to her file cabinet of information.
Again Rosalyn smiled. How could she possibly explain it? There had to be a certain level of discomfort to keep the woman off balance, to feed the desire to finally get it right. It was the source of the respect she commanded and, more important, the reverence. She looked at her friends who stood beside her. They had been let in completely, as completely as anyone ever was, and now they were at ease in her company. They took things for granted, and that was what she loved most about them. Everyone needed people like that in their lives or they would certainly go mad. But Sara Livingston could not be one of them or she would never be believed. Her tone had to reflect a hint of scrutiny, though in the end, she would write the truth that Rosalyn created—not because she was being loyal to a new friend, but because she was led to it by her own unsuppressable need to please.
Still, she was a sweet girl.
“Am I a complete bitch?” Rosalyn asked. “I just thought . . .”
Eva looked now at Rosalyn, her head tilted slightly. “No, Your Majesty. You’re just a little obsessed at the moment. Sara will write a nice article. She would never cast Cait in a bad light. Not everyone is out to destroy you.”
Rosalyn listened as she watched her guests. That was exactly how she felt at the moment, as if every person in this room hated her as much as they adored her. And now they had her daughter to use as ammunition. That was what had her head so muddled, so incapable of reining in the paranoia. Sara Livingston was a young girl. What agenda could she possibly have after living among them for under a year? She looked more carefully at the people occupying her home. Yes, she thought. You know who they are.
“You’re right. Not everyone . . .”
“Exactly. But at the moment, I happen to be one of them. My wig is fucking killing me. Could you have picked a worse theme this year? French royalty? There must be two hundred Marie Antoinettes in this room. Honestly.” Eva drained her champagne glass, then turned to Jacks. “No offense, Jacks—you’re the best one here, of course.”
Jacks smiled as though she had heard every word, but her attention was elsewhere, scouring the party for Ernest Barlow.
“Maybe you can help her out?” Rosalyn suggested, and Eva read her mind. She needed to repent for her little sin.
“I’m on it.”
Eva gave Rosalyn a hug, then left to catch up with Sara.
Feeling a sense of atonement, Rosalyn drank in the divine satisfaction from the spectacular accomplishment that now surrounded her. The band, the dancing. The flow of the crowd. All of it was working. There was a mood in the room that she hadn’t felt for several years—a genuine frenzy of consumption at everything she had dished out. They were, in short, eating it up, and that was the secret ingredient that one could never count on. She had tried in the past to force it, to map out what had worked in other years at her own parties and those of her peers in New York. But there was no map for this kind of magic, and being in its presence, having made the magic herself, was as unexpected this year as it was delightful. And it was just what she needed on the anniversary of her mother’s death.
She looked at Jacks, hoping to soak up more of the mood from someone else who would appreciate it, but Jacks was visibly distracted.
“Are you all right?” she asked, more out of curiosity than concern.
“I’m fine,” Jacks answered her, smiling with forced enthusiasm. “Just looking for David.”
“He’ll turn up.”
“And the Conrads?”
Rosalyn’s face turned hard at the thought of that family. How could they have raised a boy like that, and why hadn’t they called to apologize for his behavior with her daughter? “They had the good sense not to show. I heard they went to the Hamptons.”
“I should hope so.” Jacks was coming alive now. She had to. There was work to be done tonight, whether or not she had the nerve for it.
“Have you heard something? Did they say something about Caitlin?”
“No.” Jacks turned her attention back to the crowd. Where the hell was Barlow? “They really should have called you. Don’t they know you’re on the membership committee?”
“What would that have to do with anything?”
Jacks looked surprised. It seemed impossible for Rosalyn not to know, and this made Jacks wonder if her friend’s ignorance was genuine. “They’re applying to the club. The Dawsons are sponsoring them.”
Over the red lips and white face, a delicate manicured hand was drawn, and in that subtle action Jacks caught a rare glimpse of actual unfiltered emotion from Rosalyn Barlow. She hadn’t known, and the implications were numerous. The Conrads trying to join her club. The club that had been in her family for four generations.
“Rosalyn, I’m sorry,” Jacks said. And she was, truly. “I can’t believe I’m the one breaking the news—and tonight of all nights.”
But Rosalyn was gone now, to that bunker deep within herself where she prepared for battle. It had been short-lived, her reprieve from the paranoia, the bliss that the party had inspired. She’d foolishly let her guard down, allowed herself to be in the moment, a good moment that was light and easy. Stupid, she thought. You know better.
“I have to go,” she said, and Jacks could see a plot already brewing to undo the damage that had been done.
Jacks grabbed her arm gently and caught her eye. “I really am sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m grateful for you tonight.”
Rosalyn started to turn her back, but Jacks stopped her one last time. “Have you seen your husband? Maybe David is with him.”
Rosalyn shook her head. “I doubt it. My dear husband is punishing me by hiding in the wine cellar with a cigar.”
“Oh, Ros . . . it’s his loss. The party is fabulous.”
She nodded then in complete agreement. “That’s something, I guess.”