Kiersten immediately grabbed one and took a long sip. Rosamund and Piper did the same.
“This isgood,” she whispered. Like Kool-Aid, with a kick.
She cast a furtive glance at the woman standing beside her in a short, low-cut Queen of Hearts dress and instantly felt out of place. Her own dress, her favorite, purchased a few years ago at Ann Taylor for a Rural Hospitals Medicaid Reimbursement conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota, suddenly felt dowdy, like something her grandmother would wear to church. During Lent.
It was as though she’d traveled through time and space and had somehow become a freshman in high school again, a freshman who had wandered into a party with all the cool seniors.
But unlike high school, the cool kids here were cool not because they were old, but because they were young.
She raised her flute and took another sip as her gaze darted around a room filled with unfamiliar faces. Her heart sank down into her sensible shoes. She’d lost Rosamund and Piper. They were probably making small talk with George and Amal Clooney. Or a lesser Kardashian.
She drained her champagne glass and grabbed a second one from a tray offered by a waiter who magically appeared at exactly the right moment.
So far this party was terrible. The punch, however, was terrific.
But she wasn’t here to have fun. She was on amission, like Trixie Belden, her favorite literary sleuth. She just needed to find Aspen. Ask questions. Figure out if Grammy and Grampy were here or at home.
Craning her neck, she spotted her target in the center of a little group taking selfies beside an archway made from giant playing cards. Aspen’s eyes widened when she saw Kiersten. She excused herself from the other guests and came forward.
“It’s areallylovely party,” Kiersten said, suddenly aware of a slight difficulty in pronouncing the wordreally. “Guess you didn’t have to worry aboutnumbers.”
Aspen frowned, although absolutely no wrinkles appeared on her Botoxed forehead as she did so. “What do you mean?”
“Your father-in-law.” She gestured in the direction of Chip’s house with her champagne flute. “He said you wereconcerned... that nobody wouldshow up.”
It suddenly seemed very important toemphasizeall thewords.
“He asked us tocome byand ...make sureyou had afull house.”
“Really?”
Kiersten nodded emphatically. Then she frowned. “Wait. So you didn’t ...inviteus?”
“Um. This is like ...so awkward.” Aspen wrinkled her nose in adorable embarrassment, like Cinderella slipping her foot into the glass slipper her ugly stepsisters couldn’t cram onto their enormous feet. “I actually didn’t ask him to invite you. But I’m, like,so gladyou came anyway.”
Kiersten’s mouth went dry as a trickle of fear slid down her spine.
Chip lied.
With effort, she managed to re-reorganize her face into a mask of polite nonchalance. “Is this aspecial occasion?”
“I’m trying to produce a lot of cool content right now while we’re in negotiations for this HGTV show. I figured everyone loves Alice in Wonderland, right?”
“It’s agreatidea for a party,” Kiersten said with a somewhat wobbly smile. She was supposed to ask her something. Something important. But it was so hard tofocus.
“Yeah. Super-cool visuals. Anyway, I’ve gotta circulate, but thanks so much for coming. Did Rosamund and um ... what’s her name again?”
“Piper?”
“That’s right. Piper. Are they here too?”
“They’re here too,” Kiersten repeated, working hard to smile through the layers of worry building inside her gut with each word Aspen spoke.
“Are Grammy and Grampy here?” she asked, articulating each syllable with fierce concentration.
Aspen shook her head. “Grammy’s been under the weather lately. She hasn’t left the house much since the Harvest Festival. It’s such a bummer. I made herthe cutestQueen of Hearts costume.”
She hasn’t left the house much since the Harvest Festival.Since the day she and Richard read Dottie’s diary.
