Cherry Money Baby (31 page)

“But it’s not your fault you can’t have a baby.”

“Just,
please,
” Ardelia said, her eyes full of worry, “try not to discuss anything . . .
controversial.
And don’t curse!
Please
don’t curse.”

Ardelia returned to the booze-warmed circle, and Cherry followed. She saw how Ardelia transformed around these people. The lightness went out of her laughter; her tone was at once more clipped and more slippery. She was playing a part, Cherry realized. Auditioning for the role of Stuffy Person. The transformation was total — and unsettling.

Cherry settled onto the couch beside Ms. Ski Tan, who was finishing up a story about her latest trip to Tuscany.

“And it was fine, you know, but I’m so
done
with Tuscany. Isn’t everyone just
done
with Tuscany?”

Her fiancé nodded. “Quite done.”

“Now it’s Croatia, you know,” Ski Tan went on. “But soon everyone will be done with Croatia, too.”

“I guess you’ll have to go to the moon,” Cherry said.

“I’m sorry?” Ski Tan tilted her head, earrings jingling.

“Eventually you’ll be done with the whole planet,” Cherry said. “And the only place to go will be the moon.”

Lord Cardigan laughed. “Quite right! And then perhaps Mars!”

“Oh, Mars is lovely this time of year,” Cherry said, trying to match his inflection. “And the Martians? Lovely people.”

They were laughing, all but Ski Tan, who still looked confused, and Ardelia, whose smile was sharp enough to cut glass.

“Have you met the Martians?” Cherry said to Lord Cardigan, eyeing Ardelia as she did. “Lovely little green persons. Though am I allowed to say that? Green persons? I suppose it’s Persons of Greenness now.”

“Oh, yes! Ha, precisely!”

She had them all laughing now, dry laughter in odd rhythms, as if none of them quite remembered how it was done. These were the sorts of people who farted once a year and had to leave the country to do it.

“Cherry is quite the comedienne,” Ardelia said through her teeth. “We just love her sense of humor.”

“Oh, you’ll have to watch out for this one, Spanner,” Mr. Silk Shirt said.

Spanner gestured for Eve to bring another drink. “And why is that?”

“Another sharp mind in the family?” Silk Shirt chuckled. He winked at their host. “You’d best hope Ardelia isn’t secretly in the market for a new talent manager.”

Spanner lowered her untouched drink and cleared her throat.

“Oh, you are too much,” Ardelia said with a laugh, placing her hand on Silk Shirt’s knee.

“Oh, Spanner’s gone all red!” Ski Tan said.

“Ah, so we’ve found your Achilles’ heel at last, Spanner,” Silk Shirt added.

They laughed, and it wasn’t quite cruel laughter, but then again, no one seemed to see how upset Spanner was, least of all Ardelia, who laughed along with them,
her
friends. “Oh, look,” Ardelia said. “She
has
gone red!”

“Ardelia, hey —” Cherry started in a low voice.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Spanner said, rising. “I’m not feeling well.”

She left the room, leaving an uneven silence behind her. Cherry stared at Ardelia, dumbfounded. “What was that?”

“Hmm?” Ardelia said, appropriating Spanner’s abandoned drink. “What was what?”

They’d just laughed a girl out of the room, and no one seemed to notice or care. And Ardelia should. That was
her girl.

Something turned sour in Cherry’s mouth. She met Ardelia’s eyes. “You’re a bitch.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the room erupted in laughter, the poshos turning red and wiping their eyes, in absolute hysterics. The only ones not laughing were Cherry and Ardelia. Ardelia was shocked, stung.

“Oh, you
must
keep this one, Ardy,” Ski Tan said. “She’s
precious.
”

“Excuse me,” said Cherry, rising.

She needed a moment.

There was a half-bath off the main foyer. She checked the medicine cabinet for aspirin but found only skin cream and a box of tissues. The space under the sink was immaculate. No cleaning supplies, no wadded-up plastic bags. There was, however, a blue-and-yellow box, and Cherry wondered who in the house might need it. She recognized the label:
90 SECONDS OR LESS
!

The first portion of the night’s festivities was winding down. Lord Cardigan stretched and checked his watch. “Well, we should probably be shuffling off, then. It’s after Luella’s bedtime.”

“Oh, don’t go,” Ardelia said without much enthusiasm. She seemed relieved. “We’ll do brunch later this week.”

Ardelia waved from the veranda as the last car disappeared down the orchard road. She let out a long, unsteady sigh. “Well, that was frightful.”

“You were mean to Spanner,” said Cherry. “I can’t believe I’m actually defending her.”

Ardelia scowled at her. “
You
were rude to my friends. Thank God they didn’t realize you were making fun of them.”

Cherry had to admit this was true. “Well, sorry about that.”

Ardelia sighed and slipped her arm around Cherry’s waist. “Apology accepted. No one’s at their best with that crew.” She kissed Cherry’s cheek. Her breath smelled like wine. “And don’t fret about Spanner. She’s a big girl. She needs to loosen up, anyhow. Speaking of, where did she run off to? I need her for the second part of the evening.”

Panic jumped into Cherry’s throat. She might be with Lucas. She pictured her dripping poison in his ear.

“I’ve got to find Lucas,” she said.

“In a moment,” said Ardelia. “The other guests are arriving.”

The wind had begun to kick up, and the evening’s second contingent appeared over the tree line: a thundering, bright helicopter swooped low over the house and into the rear garden.

“And now the late-night crew,” said Ardelia. She checked her reflection in the brass vase and arranged her hair. “Ready for round two?”

Cherry was ushered, dragged, toward the French doors. The garden was a maelstrom of light and noise, with the trees and trimmed bushes trembling and turning away from the helicopter descending onto the terrace landing pad. A mini-monsoon washed over the rim of the fountain, and twigs and leaves scattered into the shadows.

“They’re making a mess already.” Ardelia sighed.

The helicopter blades slowed as the cabin door slid open, and younger, flashier guests climbed down onto the terrace, some of them already holding drinks, the women’s sheer dresses clinging in the stiff wind, the men’s ties whipping over their shoulders. As a clique, they were loud and abrasive like the helicopter, a laughing, jangling hurricane of color and noise. Cherry wondered why Ardelia had invited them at all. She didn’t seem happy to see them.

“You’ve got to please everyone all the time,” Ardelia said, as if reading her thoughts. “Besides that one in the white suit is a record producer, and I’d like to do an album someday.” She said this with a laugh, but it wasn’t a joke, really.

“You’ve got to kiss a lot of asses when you’re famous, don’t you?” Cherry said.

Ardelia’s smile faltered. She slipped an arm around Cherry’s waist. “Yes. Which is why I need you to keep me sane.”

A few of Ardelia’s snooty neighbors lingered, even as the helicopter contingent blundered in through the French doors, the women carrying their high heels, the men carrying some of the women. The man in the white suit, the record producer, was pulling Maxwell into a bear hug.

“Welcome back, Maxwell. The empire’s been lost without you.”

Maxwell grinned. “Eddie, how’s tricks?”

Eddie shrugged and removed his sunglasses. His eyes looked exhausted, even as the rest of him twitched with energy. “Shambolic, sweetie. Cynthia’s up a tree with Charlie Chang and won’t come down again until the album’s finished.”

“Poor dear,” said Ardelia. The two exchanged air kisses. “Eddie, have you met Cherry?”

Eddie squinted, puffed out his cheeks like a massive albino frog. “Cherry? Charmed. Ed Oruther. I’m in music. What are you in?”

Cherry looked to Ardelia for help here. “Cowboy boots?”

Eddie computed, then burst into a wet guffaw. He leaned on Ardelia, slightly unsteady, though Cherry couldn’t tell if this was due to drinks or the platform shoes he wore. “Absolutely brilliant. And where’s Spanner? Did she finally have that massive aneurysm?”

“I thought she could only be killed by a stake to the heart,” Cherry added. Again Eddie’s face went limp, then contorted into a horrible mask of glee.
A dead albino frog,
Cherry thought,
that someone keeps electrocuting to life.

“Well done,” Maxwell said in her ear. “You’re a natural.”

Cherry excused herself and went to the bar. Eve was gathering glasses onto a tray.

“Have to hide the good snifters from the rabble.” She gave Cherry the once-over. “You’re looking like misery on a monument. What’s with you?”

“Is this what it’s always like here?”

“Like what?”

“Phony?”

Eve laughed, but Cherry could only sigh, watching Ardelia and Maxwell. They were dancing with the new guests now, Eddie twirling Ardelia under his arm awkwardly. Cherry placed her glass on Eve’s tray. “Busing’s the worst.”

“Beats washing dishes.”

“I hear that.”

Cherry left the party. It was easy to get away from the noise in such a big house. While the living room and parlor were bright and clamorous with music, the foyer, the library, and everything beyond were dark and sleepy. An old house in an old country, just biding its time until quieter, more sensible tenants moved in.

She let herself wander toward the master bedrooms, all the way to the end of the hall, before she realized what she was doing — looking for Spanner. She found the other girl’s room opposite Ardelia’s. She hesitated at the cracked door, imagining a grand, spotless chamber of black curtains, candles, and stone floors.

“The lair of the beast,” Cherry whispered to herself as she pushed in.

It was a plain, small room, very untidy. The desk was covered in paperwork, unopened mail, a humming laptop, its shelves and cubbyholes stuffed with folders, files — Ardelia’s personal finances, maybe. The bedside supported a neat stack of scripts. One lay open on the comforter, red scribbles in the margins, and on the far side of the bed a heap of rejects piled nearly to the lip of the mattress. Everywhere was
work.
But this wasn’t the buttoned-down, pencil-skirted Spanner she’d seen. It was as if all the girl’s loose threads and frayed edges were stashed here, in this private space, where she kept her life’s clutter.

There was a beautiful view of the rear garden, but what drew Cherry’s attention was a frame on the wall, the only decoration in the dark paneled room, visible from both the bed and the desk, like a little altar. In the photograph, two girls, ten years old or so, sit in bright sunlight, the grinning brunette with her arms around a laughing blonde. The little blonde is laughing so hard, her eyes are shut, mouth open in spontaneous joy. They look like sisters.

Below the photograph, etched into the wall in wild, childish lettering, was
Ardy and Gracie. Best Friends 4 Always, 1999

Spanner Grace. Gracie Spanner.

Suddenly she thought of Vi and that afternoon in 7-Eleven while Vi was taking the pregnancy test. She remembered her fantasy: she and Vi raising the baby together, the little life tying them together forever. Of course Spanner didn’t want Cherry to have the baby. Who wanted to be replaced?

On her way back downstairs, she ran into Spanner coming up from the pantry. She carried a bottle of wine and a single glass. She really
was
red in the face, and her eyes were puffy. Spanner Grace was not having a great night.

“Drinking alone?” Cherry said.

“Where are you coming from?” She glanced over Cherry’s shoulder toward the bedrooms. “You weren’t in my room, were you?”

“Um, no,” said Cherry.

Voices from the party below resounded nearby. Spanner nodded over her shoulder and led Cherry down the corridor, wobbling a little more than usual in her high heels. They came to a secluded alcove under the stairs.

“Tell Ardelia you’re out,” said Spanner. “
Now.
Or I tell Lucas everything.”

“Everything what? I still don’t think you —”

“I’ll tell him you got high out of your mind and hooked up with Maxwell Silver in his hotel room.”

“Oh.” Cherry swallowed. “How did you know?”

“I quizzed the Kendras.”

Smug, menacing Spanner was gone. This was drunk, desperate Spanner. This was a hurt little girl.

“Okay,” said Cherry. “Just give me a second —”

“No. Find her and do it now. No excuses. Get it done.”

She left, tripping a little as she made her way to her room and locked herself inside, a frayed edge.

On the ground floor, Oliver was opening all the French doors, and the party was spilling out into the rear garden. The guests had begun to disperse over the lawn. Eve was arranging drinks on a mobile bar and preparing to push it out onto the patio. Ardelia was overseeing this operation.

“The rain seems to have stopped, so let’s make it a garden party, right?” Ardelia said when she saw Cherry. “I’ve got a hundred quid that Bethany Monk falls in the fountain.”