How would she ever get over his death, when she was reminded of him constantly? When every song, every movie, every novel was about love: finding it, having it, losing it?
“Hey-” Thad poked her. “You’re totally zoning out. Phoebe’s coming over here.” Thad had graciously taken Lauren’s coat and given it to the attendant.
Phoebe had just arrived at the party, separately from Nick, it seemed.
“I need to talk to you,” she whispered after she and Lauren had embraced.
“Sure,” Lauren said. “Let’s find somewhere quiet.” She left Thad at the bar and took Phoebe to a far corner of the living room. She surveyed the living room and noted that her mother would have her work cut out for her. The current arrangement was twenty years of chintz sofas and reproduction nineteenth-century furniture against faded yellow-and-white-striped wallpaper.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Phoebe said as they sat down on a couch near the window. “Nick and I had this terrible fight. I guess that should be the least of it. The important thing is that I think we had a chance to get out, and he totally blew it.”
Lauren felt her spirits drop. “Oh my God. What do you mean?”
“I can’t talk about it here. We might still have a chance. But the thing is, I completely screwed up, and now I feel like I can’t take it back. I said some really terrible things to him, about how he only cares about his family, and how he loves the adventure of all this more than he loves me.”
Lauren shook her head. “Love makes you do crazy things, right?”
“I guess so,” Phoebe said. “I was so frustrated with him. I just want us to break free from-” She motioned out at the room, at the Society members who had started to trickle into the living room, clustering around the fireplace. “From all this.”
“But how do we do that?” Lauren looked nervously out at the crowds that were gathering, at Anastasia and Jeremy and Bradley, all chatting excitably. Aside from the five of them-the “Infidels,” as they were called-the older class had merged with the younger one perfectly, as if they had always been friends.
“I think we just do it, consequences be damned.”
“Phoebe, I don’t think we can do that. What about the message my sister got? What if they do something to our families?”
“We don’t know that they would do anything,” Phoebe said. “But I suppose there’s no way of being certain.”
“Lauren!” They heard a voice from across the room.
The two girls looked up. It was Emily van Piper, headed their way. She was wearing a pair of high heels that must have been impossible to walk in outside.
“Lauren, I heard about your Paris trip!” She gave Lauren a hug and kissed her on both cheeks. “Are you so thrilled?”
Lauren had told Phoebe otherwise, but thankfully, Phoebe was smart enough not to say anything in front of Emily.
“Um, sure,” Lauren said. “It’s going to be gorgeous. I love Paris.” She hoped she was enthusiastic enough to sound convincing. With Thad, though, it would be fun. Still, something didn’t feel quite right about it.
“I need to go talk to Charles about something,” Emily said, looking over the girls’ shoulders. “But let me know if you need any tips about the city-I was just there a few weeks ago. I found the most darling little tea shop in the Marais.”
Lauren nodded as Emily flitted off. At the entrance to the living room, Claire Chilton was greeting everyone. Lauren saw that she was wearing another outfit from Giroux, a black cocktail dress Sebastian had designed.
“Look at her, she thinks she’s this grand hostess or something,” Lauren said bitterly.
“Just ignore her,” Phoebe said. “She’s not worth our time. Okay, so you’ve got to tell me: What do I do about Nick? Do I talk to him?”
Lauren sighed. “I don’t know, Phoebe, maybe you need to spend some time apart.”
Phoebe looked surprised at this statement, and Lauren was even startled that she had said it. Was she jealous of Phoebe? She didn’t want to date Nick herself, as they had known each other since they were in elementary school. But maybe she was jealous that Phoebe had someone at all. Was it better to have someone you were fighting with than to be completely alone? She immediately regretted being so underhanded. Phoebe had become her best friend over the past several months, and she should have been supportive.
“Maybe you’re right,” Phoebe said. “We do spend an incredible amount of time together. Maybe I should get out of town or something.”
“No, Phoebe, I didn’t mean-I don’t think you should do that.”
“Why not? You just said-”
Lauren sank back on the couch in resignation. “I don’t know, Phoebe. I don’t really know what you should do.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
As Patch and Lia rode up together in the Chiltons’ elevator, Patch examined himself in one of its panels of antiqued mirror. He was glad he had dressed up a little bit for the cocktail party, even if that had only meant trading his sneakers for loafers and jeans for wool slacks. Even after all these years, he still never felt like he knew what to wear to functions like this one.
“Stop primping,” Lia said. “You look great.”
“So do you,” Patch said, drawing her close and giving her a kiss on her cold nose. He hoped it would be okay that he was bringing a non-Society member to the event, but he figured it probably was-and after all they had been through, a big part of him didn’t care anymore about the Society’s petty rules.
Lia had been running late, so they had decided to meet in the Chiltons’ lobby; he hadn’t had a chance yet to tell her about everything that had happened. The previous day, when Patch had found out the news about his relationship to the Bell family, he had felt like he needed to process the information alone before sharing it with anyone else. Now he wanted to tell Lia about it, but he didn’t know when he would be able to find the right time.
“Do you really want to go to this thing?” she asked.
“What do you think?” Patch grinned.
“So we can bust out early and grab burgers?”
“Absolutely,” he said as the doors opened to the Chilton apartment.
Once inside, Patch made the necessary introductions before he and Lia grabbed drinks and retreated to a corner of the Chiltons’ dining room.
“I have some good news for you,” she said.
“What’s that?”
She lowered her voice. “Remember that producer friend of my parents? He saw your DVD and he really liked it. He wants to meet with you.”
“Cool.” Patch smiled. “I appreciate it. But you know I can’t officially start working on anything until June.”
“I know. I just think it’s a good sign. And who knows, maybe he’s interested in working on something else with you. I mean, it’s not like a show about Chadwick kids is the only thing that you can do, right?”
“No, of course not.” He had tons of ideas for different shows and documentary projects. Besides, it would be good for him to get away from the whole Chadwick scene for a little bit. If he did a show about something that wasn’t related to the school, then the Society couldn’t claim that they had control of it.
Maybe he had never really needed the Society at all, not to provide an angle for the show, nor to help him get it produced.
“You look like something’s bothering you,” Lia said.
“It’s just-” A few of the party guests were starting to walk by the dining room. “It’s been an incredible two days.” It all came spilling out: He told Lia about what he had learned yesterday morning, about Parker Bell being his real father, Nick being his half brother, and about his inheritance from Palmer. It felt strange to talk about money so openly with Lia, but he felt like he needed to give her the whole picture. “And then today, we found-well, we found something that we think might be able to get us out of the Society. Except that Nick might have messed it up. It’s not really clear.” Some of the other Society members had entered the dining room and were nibbling at the buffet that had been set up. “We probably shouldn’t be talking about this here.”