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“What the hell is white rum and Sprite?”
“Something I think you’ll love.”
Thalia returned with a drink garnished with lemon. As Vanessa sat down with her ginger ale, Mitch sat in her Mistress’s lap, drink clutched tightly to her chest. She played with the loop in her collar the moment Candace walked by, barely acknowledging her.
“How lovely to be joined by so many friends during this festive season.” Either Candace had told Thalia what to wear, or Thalia knew her boss so well now that she knew exactly how to pair herself with the great white queen overseeing her holiday soiree. Because when Candace wore a snowy off-the-shoulder dress, her dark hair perfectly framing her clavicle, everyone took notice. Including Vanessa, who wondered what brand constructed such a lovely winter’s dress. “Most of you know that I don’t have much family to spend the Christmas season with, and that’s how I like it.” Her smile allowed her to pause for some light applause. In that moment, Vanessa felt sorry for a lot of the women in attendance.Outcasts and orphans.That made up a lot of the people here, didn’t it? She knew for a fact that Freida had no family besides a distant grandmother in Helsinki who wanted nothing to do with “American nonsense.” Violet had her parents and siblings, but she was closer to this woman who embroiled her in sin and crime.
As for Irene Feist and the others? Vanessa could only imagine.
“Is it any wonder that I choose to share the Saturday before Christmas with some of my closest friends? My fellow female confidants?” Candace’s drink, a simple dry martini, wavered before her face as she spoke. “Come, let us make some merry tonight. Drinks are, as always, on the house, but don’t get too soused.” Her mock pout as she singled out a woman who hooted in amusement almost made Candace look human. “We have plenty of conversation and entertainment to carry us through the night. Do be sure to let me know when you need to retire back to your homes and hotels… I have averyprecious gift to offer all of you!”
She even looked at Vanessa when she said that.
Candace lifted her drink into the air. “Let us have a toast for another year in the books. I hope you all are as satisfied tonight as I am sure to be as well.”
Does it count as a toast if you have ginger ale?Vanessa barely moved while Mitch lifted her whole arm and grinned as if she were someone else entirely. Only then did Vanessa worry that her partner might lose herself. Again.
The hardest part wasn’t anticipating the festivities. It was forcing herself into small talk with strangers that she had no desire to get to know and people who wanted something. Like Irene, who glommed right onto them as if they were the oldest of friends by now.
“I do love San Francisco,” Irene said. “If I could, I’d move my family here, but Josh’s work keeps him firmly in Boston for now. Not thatshe’scomplaining.” She acknowledged the girl sitting on the other side of her, big eyes as catlike as they were observant. Helena drank in every word spoken around her as if it made her more mature than anyone else she knew back home.What a tragedy. Get ‘em young, I suppose.“She follows me everywhere like the sweetest puppy you’ve ever met. Where’s your favorite place we’ve traveled this year, sweetie?”
Helena didn’t have to think for long. “I loved Tahiti. I never thought I’d ever get to go to a place like that in my life.”
“All three of us went,” Irene explained. “It was mine and Josh’s anniversary this August, but I couldn’t leave poor Helena here at home. What if someone else snatched her up while we were out celebrating a marriage that is already older than dirt? So, we brought her along. She’s always with one of us now.”
“Where are you from?” Vanessa curiously asked the girl with hair like hers.
Helena immediately shrunk behind Irene. “Nowhere.”
“I always tell her it’s not about where you’re from. It’s about where you are and where you’re going. Now, where she’s going to be a year from now might be what breaks my heart.”
“Oh?”
“She’s on her gap year from college, aren’t you, sweetie?” Irene drank her cocktail while Helena remained shy – or unnerved, it was difficult to tell. “So while she’s all mine until next August, she might have other plans afterward. Educationisimportant, I also tell her.”
“Take online classes from Tahiti,” Mitch suggested. “Have the best of both worlds.”
“Did you go to college, Michelle?”
Mitch shook her head. “Straight into the Marines.”
“The Marines! I heard you had been in the military, but I would never imagine someone as soft and sultry as you as a…”
“Jarhead?”
Irene threw back her head to process the laughter erupting throughout her body. “I haven’t heard that term since I trolled the bars outside of bases, all the way back in the late 2000s. You and Helena make me feel delightfully young, Michelle.”
“Surely, you can’t be that old. You barely look older than thirty.”
“Oh, thank you. I admit, I’m not forty yet, but a woman does not care for the reminders.”
Even if this were a different situation, Vanessa would hardly tolerate such banal conversation. Everything about Irene was fake. Helena was concerning. Yet not as concerning as Thalia, who was bubblier than usual when she approached Vanessa and Mitch twenty minutes later.
“Ms. Lister would like to speak with you about the entertainment portion of the show,” she whispered into Vanessa’s ear. “She suggests that Michelle make sure she’s ready as well. The bathroom should suffice, since… well, she doesn’t want anyone in the back rooms right now.”
Mitch hopped off Vanessa’s lap. “Guess I’ll freshen up while you talk to Ms. Lister.”
Vanessa was not wont to get up. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”
