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“Jamie Bolton. And she doesn’t live there, her parents do. But they’re away.”
“I see. This should definitely be fun, then.”
“Yeah, hope so.”
And please, I thought, taking in her outfit again,if you end up flirting with anyone tonight, let it be Jamie’s brother or one of his friends and not a guy from my MFA program.With my luck, Carson would be hopelessly dazzled by her and forget all about me.
As I pulled away from the curb, Chloe seemed unusually subdued.I asked how she was doing, and she said fine, she was pretty sure she’d make dean’s list this term, and she was getting psyched for her internship. Nothing about the friend problems, though, and I didn’t press. Had she made a play for a pal’s boyfriend? I wondered. That wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility, but I still felt sorry for her.
In my experience Boston drivers were notoriously bad, and so I concentrated on not rear-ending another car as I navigated the tight streets. As the city fell away behind us, we both grew quiet, and once I glanced over to see that Chloe had her head pressed against the window with her eyes closed. She looked really sweet at that moment, and also the tiniest bit vulnerable, summoning a memory of the little girl I once knew. When she was a baby, I’d been so smitten with her and had to be constantly reminded not to squeeze her too hard. Once she grew into a doll-like, golden-haired two-year-old, nothing pleased me more than to have her toddle after me, babbling semi-intelligibly, or curl up in my lap in the den. But that seemed like light-years ago.
Finally, Chloe stirred, as if sensing we were nearing our destination, and soon enough the GPS led us to the end of a dark, tree-lined road. I’d heard rumors that Jamie came from money, but I was stunned by what was in front of us. The house was really more of a mansion, a huge limestone structure that looked like it must be a century old, though it had probably been built in the last thirty years. It was set far back from the road, with a rolling lawn in front and what appeared be a huge stretch of woods in the rear. I knew Dover was a very affluent town, but this was over the top.
“Holy shit,” Chloe said, taking it in herself as I parked behind a long row of cars on the road. “I’d throw a party too, if our family had a place like this.”
I’d predicted thirty or forty people, but all the cars suggested more than that, and sure enough, the second we stepped inside I sawthat the crowd was at least fifty strong. Jamie greeted us at the door, dressed in a cropped sweater, tiny skirt, and tights and with her raven hair piled high on her head. She shook hands with Chloe and introduced us both to her younger brother, Rob, who was lingering nearby. He was an attractive guy, tall and slim with hair the same color as his sibling’s and scruff to match, but he wore a vaguely smug look on his face.
“Bar’s in the kitchen,” he told us. “Help yourself.”
“But, please, no selfies,” Jamie urged. “I don’t want my parents seeing their house on someone’s Facebook feed.”
Rob stepped away to greet another new arrival, and Chloe announced she was going in search of a drink.
“Wow, you two aresisters?” Jamie said once it was just she and I. “You don’t look at all alike.”
“Different fathers,” I explained, used to comments like hers. I was five seven and lanky, Chloe was five three and voluptuous, and her facial features were more delicate than mine. The only thing we had in common were our almond-shaped light blue eyes.
There was no sign of Carson yet, but it was amazing to be in the immense house, which turned out to have five fireplaces on the ground floor alone, including a huge limestone one in the front hall. Rihanna was singing on the sound system, and in addition to white wine and bottles of beer, there was a vat of Mexican cheese dip on the kitchen table, along with bags of tortilla chips. After grabbing a bottle of beer, I located a few of my BU buddies and hung out with them, laughing and doing a postmortem on the semester. All of us were pretty giddy because summer was around the corner.
Like me, some of the guests seemed to park themselves in a single spot and never move, while others joined the steady flow from one room to the next, a river of people that circled endlessly through the house. Though it was typically cool for late April, I saw througha window that a group had gathered on the patio at the rear of the house, next to an enormous swimming pool.
Chloe seemed to be having a good time, but then why wouldn’t she? Whenever she wandered into the same room as me, I noticed guys eyeing her, some of them bold enough to chat her up.
About an hour after we arrived, she snaked through the crowd in my direction, holding an empty beer bottle.
“You about ready?” she asked.
I lifted my own beer, half-empty at that point, and shook my head. “Thanks, but I’m only having one tonight. I’m driving, remember?”
“No, I mean ready to go.”
“Go?We practically just got here, Chloe.”
It would be rude to take off so soon, and though Carson hadn’t shown up yet, I was hopeful he still would.
“Well, when do you want to leave, then? The house is great, but most of these guys are nerds,” she said under her breath.
I rolled my eyes. “You have to give me at least another hour, okay?”
She shrugged, looking miffed, and moved off again. About twenty minutes later, I spotted her drinking from a red party cup, with what appeared to be a guy’s dark green sweater knotted around her waist. Okay, she’d apparently found someone to keep her amused.
Before another hour had passed, though, the allure of the party began to fade even for me. For one thing, it had become clear Carson wasn’t going to materialize, and I was disheartened by what it might imply about his lack of interest in me.
Beyond that, the still-ballooning crowd had started to feel off. At some point during the evening, a group of cocky-looking alpha-male types—at least five years older than most everyone else—had begun to infiltrate the scene. One of them was Jamie’s cousin, apparently, who worked in finance in Boston, and the rest were friends of hisand friends ofthosefriends. They all seemed to wear Ralph Lauren polos or cobalt-blue dress shirts with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, as if they’d come straight from the office.
Soon the rooms seemed to be pulsing with an edgy kind of energy, atensionreally, almost like this new group knew something that the rest of us were completely oblivious to. I kept wondering if someone was going to be shoved through a plate glass window or one of the younger nerdy-looking guys would end up thrown in the pool with all his clothes on.
Shortly after ten, I was formulating an exit plan when a guy I vaguely knew from my oil painting class wandered over to me.
