Peacocks are known for their lavish displays, their prissy plumages, for being beautiful and showy, like supermodels in alluring dresses. Funny thing is, peacocks are all males. The females are called peahens. Grouped together they are peafowl. Peacocks use those brightly colored and arrayed feathers to impress, and the larger and flashier, the better.
The Peacock Inn was aptly named, not just for the plumage. With the lights on in most of its many rooms, I was reminded of eyes. The Greek goddess Hera is said to have taken the one hundred eyes of her servant, Argus, and transferred them to the peacock, explaining the origin of its brilliant decorations. Tonight, the Peacock looked like it had a hundred eyes, bearing down on the whole island of Tipee.
The driveway was lined with white dogwoods and lantern posts. Several hundred yards in, the lane gave way to a circle drive surrounding a mermaid fountain that stretched at least a dozen feet into the dark night. The Peacock was a gorgeous, Southern-style plantation house, five stories high, adorned with white columns, climbing ivy, balconies on every floor, and black shudders framing each window.
“Holy Moses,” I uttered, turning the Jeep toward the right around the circle, as the cars ahead of me had done.
“Told ya it was fancy,” Rachel returned, adjusting her four-inch heels. The slinky black dress and heels she’d insisted I wear suddenly didn’t feel as out-of-place as I’d predicted for a Tipee Island party. Images of beer and burgers flew out the window. As we neared the uniformed valets at the front entrance, I wished I’d worn my mother’s pearls.
The Peacock, and its many acres of land, including a gorgeous, though unused, lighthouse, was owned by the Kayne family, and they were known for two things: being rich and being geniuses. Lucius Kayne, the forty-five year old patriarch, was better known for being a cutthroat lawyer than the owner of an inn, the latter a title he inherited from wife, Miranda, who had died six years ago from cancer. It was common knowledge in Tipee that if you got in trouble, Kayne could get you out of it (though no one gave me that advice when I was in trouble. Go figure).
Tonight’s party was in honor of Chris Kayne, Lucius’ only son who held the distinction of being “Tipee Island’s Bill Gates” even though Chris’ specialty wasn’t computers, but science. He held two Harvard degrees in biology and chemistry. He was twenty years old.
Rachel had declared any boy over eighteen with a job eligible for her consideration, and Chris had excellent prospects. “I’m goin’ to catch that boy’s eye if I have to snag it with a fishin’ hook,” she’d decided. When her pregnant twin Raina refused to go with her, Rachel insisted, “that danged baby bump’s made you nothin’ but a lump on a log!” before turning to me. I was officially Rachel’s wingman, whatever that meant.
The last thing I wanted tonight (or any night lately) was a party, a fact made clear when instead of entering the lobby, I detoured to the mermaid fountain.
“What are you doin’?” Rachel insisted.
“Check it out,” I urged, pointing up to the mermaid’s chest. “She’s had a makeover recently.”
Rachel huffed, but complied. She met me around the front of the mermaid and we both stood ogling her like middle school boys seeing concrete breasts for the first time. Across her chest, the mermaid donned a drippy, asymmetrical red heart, and judging by the black burn marks, she’d been set on fire. The marks were faded from stringent cleaning, evident by the scrub marks and Comet leftovers sprinkled on her arms.
“How can you set a fountain on fire?” Rachel asked.
“The water only reaches up to her fins. Theoretically, you could douse her with an accelerant, like lighter fluid, and she’d burn for a few minutes.”
“Weird,” Rachel decided. “Can we please get to the party now?”
I could have stayed with the mermaid all night, speculating over her angry wounds and imagining stories around them. A jilted lover? A disgruntled employee? A serial vandal?
“Come on!” Rachel ordered. “I ain’t got much time. He’s leavin’ for Cambridge soon. Can’t compete with those European girls, with their long legs and fancy accents.”
I chuckled. “Are you kidding me?” I returned, glancing at Rachel’s long legs (made longer by a short dress and high heels). “You’re beautiful and you’ve got an accent, too. Besides, European women don’t shave their legs and armpits.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “That true?”
I shrugged unsure, but the suggestion was enough for Rachel, who grinned more confidently as we strutted into the lobby.
The party was lavish and lovely. As if ordered for the occasion, moonlight draped the huge banquet room through a wall of windows and skylights. Gorgeous hand-blown chandeliers dotted the ceiling with sea hues. A long bar occupied the left, dark woods and leather, leading toward a hallway. A stone fireplace held up the far right wall facing the ocean. And, even though it was still warm, a blaze gave the room an inviting feel. Round tables filled up the spaces in between, and even these were dressed for the occasion. Golden, sand-hued linens, even sashed around the chairs, formed the background to elegant, gold-rimmed place settings and tall, fluted glasses. In the center, tea lights in seashells and brass lanterns finished off the elegant look.
I noted the multiple forks at each table setting, and cringed.
My own fancy experiences were limited to rare encounters with my maternal grandparents, who I had affectionately labeled as “cleanse the pallet” people. On our visits to Baltimore, and much to my father’s chagrin, they insisted on dinners at restaurants that offered many courses. As a child, I remember being surprised and delighted when a glass bowl of sherbet was set before me after I’d picked through a salad.
“Dessert already?” I cooed to my mother.
“To cleanse the pallet,” the waiter corrected me.
This was a cleanse-the-pallet type of party, with anomalies.
I wasn’t the socialite Rachel had hoped for, so she abandoned me for her young friends. I enjoyed a quiet meal at a table with other guests just as socially inept as myself.
Lucius Kayne delivered a brief, but eloquent toast to his son, and all his great accomplishments, ending with, “Your mother would be so proud of you.” And when all the formalities were complete, the party continued with its meshing and drinking and laughing and networking.
I ended up perched at the bar alone. I rubbed at my nagging heels, letting my shoes dangle from my toes. My social faux pas didn’t matter. No one was paying any attention. I wished to go home, to see Sam, to cuddle up with Willie and finish reading Three Bedrooms, One Corpse. Instead, I people-watched, making a game with myself. Aside from my foot rubbing, what other lapses in social graces could I find? A young man hanging out in Rachel’s group had a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. Several young ladies wore tight tube dresses, little more than bathing suit covers, and one had an undone hem. A gruff fellow near the pianist wore a suit at least two sizes too small, and his bulky frame made him look like the Hulk, mid-transformation. Several gentlemen wore jeans with their suit coats and ties. Even Chris Kayne donned Converses with his suit pants. I spied one older lady licking the rim of her margarita glass like it was a Popsicle. I continued massaging my feet, realizing that for the most part, these weren’t cleanse-the-pallet types.
Rachel continued to laugh with her small group of friends, and when she glanced my way, I motioned for her to bust-a-move. She held her hands out, helplessly, and shrugged. The Kaynes were hard to corner.
The tall, dark, handsome Lucius Kayne worked the crowd like a seasoned politician, smile fixed.
Chris was not as seasoned, but just as charming. He was preppy handsome, with a mischievous grin and relaxed manner. He loosened his silk tie, and kept one hand in his pocket. His suit jacket was weighed down by a phone on one side and a tattered notebook on the other, the ends sticking out like a white Mohawk. The phone, he pulled out continuously, checking it between each lull in conversation (and sometimes mid-sentence). I thought that kind of rude, but like the Converses, his guests accepted it as part of his charm.
I huffed and turned back to the bar, bored. The bartender grinned. He was decked out in a white vest over his tuxedo shirt, a gold pocket watch chain dropping across his belly, and a bright red bow tie.
“These parties can be so droll,” he noted, “a flock of hens trying to peck their way to the roosters. May I get you something to ease the agony?”
His nametag said Hugh Huntley, and he had a lovely British accent. His sheet white hair and pale blue eyes gave him an angelic look. “A Long Island Iced Tea, easy on the spirits? I’d like to be conversational, not falling over.”
“Wise,” he returned. He started working the drink, and asked, “How do you know the Kaynes?”
“I don’t,” I returned. “I’m here with my hopeful cousin.” I pointed to Rachel – still no closer to the prize – and Hugh Huntley smirked.
“The Kaynes attract many such hopes,” Huntley returned. He placed my drink down on a coaster, just as the elder Kayne made a beeline to the bar. I half-wondered if he’d heard us talking about him to step to us so quickly.
“The Sauvignon Blanc is warm,” Kayne told Mr. Huntley, the gap between his eyebrows closing together in a stitch.
“Warm, sir?” Huntley repeated.
“Did I stutter? Warm. The wine should be stored at fifty-five degrees and served chilled.” Kayne’s words were soft, but severe and Huntley’s genial expression vanished.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I will attend to the matter.”
Huntley nodded, and headed toward the kitchen. Kayne sighed, turned, eyed me with annoyance, and reapplying his smile, went back to his guests. I had no idea about the wine, but he left me chilled.
“This is impossible!” Rachel announced, barreling over to me. The crowd seemed to be expanding. Rachel was bumped into the bar, further instigating her anger.
“I can’t even get close ‘nuff to smell his two-hundred-dollar cologne, let alone talk to ‘em,” Rachel fumed. “That slutty Lena Britt keeps gettin’ in my way, flashing her boobs at ‘em.” Rachel leaned over and whispered to me. “They’re fake, ya know. I saw the scar in gym class.”
I grabbed a couple of toothpicks from Mr. Huntley’s side of the bar, and said, “Maybe if we aim just right, we can pop them.” Rachel’s anger fizzled, and she laughed. She snatched the toothpicks from my hand, and pretended to aim them like darts at her big-breasted friend across the room.
“Not a bad idea,” Rachel grinned. “We could take out half the competition like that.”
Rachel was right. Big boobs were hanging out everywhere, pushed up and presented, like invitations. Our laughter turned to giggles. I sucked down half my tea, and almost let it come out my nose when Rachel said, “Well, if a tidal wave comes, we’ll all be safe. Just grab on to the nearest boob flotation device.”
We fell into laughter, and I considered, with chagrin, that the peacock wasn’t the only bird with plumages. The entire party seemed to be a strut-your-stuff showdown. Boobs. Bad jokes. Relentless flirting and tiresome schmoozing. Everyone had drinks and agendas. Me included.