Sour Grapes (The Blue Plate Series) (2 page)

Staffers escort the guests to the Chilton Galleries for an authentic Moroccan feast served family style, save for dining on the floor and eating with their hands. Little bowls of olives, hummus, smoked eggplant, and harissa are scattered around the table to accompany flatbread. Red wine is poured into colorful tumblers, while platters arranged with roasted vegetables in flavorful marinades are passed around. I watch as faces transform with delight at the first bite of carrot and chickpea salad, and grin. Keeping the menu consistent with the theme was a risk, but it seems to have paid off. Soon the museum is filled with sounds of people sharing good food and conversation.

As the second course is served, a waiter taps my shoulder. “Excuse me, miss,” he says, shifting on his feet. “There’s a problem at table fifteen.”

Of course there is.

I follow him into an adjacent gallery, where Mr. Dugan—Dallas’s most successful car dealership owner—has wedged himself between two women, one on the verge of throwing a clay pot of basmati rice, the other gripping a fork, armed for combat. My earlier excitement fizzles.
Shit.
How did I put his wife of thirty years in the same vicinity as his thirty-year-old mistress? The tension in the room is thick, everyone transfixed by the scene.

“Let’s move this outside,” I say, approaching with caution. The women don’t hear me, each focused solely on the other.

“He bid on the trip for me, you saggy old hag. Do you really think he’d spend ten days in the Caribbean staring at
you
in a bikini?” the mistress hisses at Mrs. Dugan, slashing the fork in the air. Mr. Dugan grabs her wrists and pins them against him.

Mrs. Dugan’s mouth opens and closes like a fish, but no words come out. She looks at her husband, but he won’t meet her gaze.

“Ladies, please. This is neither the time nor the place.” I keep my voice calm but don’t dare intervene for fear of getting stabbed.

The mistress flings out a graphic comment about her favorite sexual position with Mr. Dugan, and the cord snaps. Mrs. Dugan hurls the clay pot at the mistress’s chest, nearly knocking her off her feet. The pot crashes to the ground and shatters. Basmati rice flies everywhere. Then, as if she were doing nothing more than brushing away a speck of lint, Mrs. Dugan adjusts the shawl on her shoulders and strolls away.

The air feels thin in the sudden silence. The mistress clutches her chest, rage burning hot in her eyes. Mr. Dugan stands frozen like an ice sculpture. A staffer rushes around me to wipe up the mess. Someone giggles and hiccups, and the fog around Mr. Dugan evaporates. He glares at me with a coldness that causes a prickle to run down my spine, then whispers to his mistress and guides her to the exit with his back straight and head held high, as if determined to ignore the awkward hush around him and the people gawking.

I don’t manage to be so collected—my heart is lodged in my throat and my stomach is tangled into knots—especially under the weight of my mother’s deprecating stare. I know she’ll say this entire scene is my fault, that I’m in charge so it’s my responsibility to have my finger on the pulse of our social circle’s ever-evolving spats.

Desperate to get the evening back on track, I instruct the waiters to immediately start serving the main course. Still, even as the guests enjoy steaming tagines of lamb chops with pomegranate molasses, roasted chicken with preserved lemons and olives, and couscous with raisins, almonds, and saffron, they continue to discuss and dissect what transpired. No doubt it’ll make the rounds in the next few days, ensuring this event will be the talk of the town, though not in the way I’d hoped. Still, if this is the worst thing to happen tonight, I’ll consider it a success. After all, when money, alcohol, and society mix, something is bound to go wrong. And the only thing worse than a scandalous event is one no one talks about.

The lights dim and the music rises, signaling it’s time for the real party to begin. After the last person leaves the galleries in search of the hookah tents and dance floor and I’m alone with only the servers and cleaning crew, my heart returns to my chest and the knots in my stomach loosen. The hard part is over. I survived.

I allow myself one more moment of solitude before I rejoin the guests back in the main atrium. My mother intercepts me as I enter, pulling me off to the side by the fleshy part of my arm. Pain shoots into my fingers and tears sting my eyes. I remember during my sixth-grade cotillion dance when I removed my white gloves because my hands broke out in a rash, my mother dragged me out of the ballroom away from the other attendees, squeezing the skin so hard the bruise took weeks to fade, and scolded me until my eyes were bloodshot and snot ran down my nose. Since then I’ve learned it’s better to swallow the pain and the scolding.

“You sat Mrs. Dugan at the same table as her husband’s mistress?” she hisses. “How could you be so incompetent? These are our family’s friends and your father’s colleagues!”

I don’t respond. Answering will only prolong the torture.

A belly dancer takes position in the center of the floor, and a hush falls over the room. The music changes, and the dancer’s hips begin to sway. My mother
tsk
s in disapproval even as guests create a large circle around her, clapping in rhythm with her movements.

“The whole gala has been a disaster. First the theme. Then your inability to handle something as
basic
as a seating chart. Now this?” she continues, gesturing to the performance. “And the menu! Did you even consider people’s food sensitivities? The foundation committee trusted you to plan an elegant affair, but all you’ve managed to do is embarrass yourself and this family.” She glances over her shoulder, scanning for nosy eavesdroppers. “You’ve been slow to understand this, so let me spell it out for you, Margaret. You’re only as meaningful and valuable as others perceive you to be. And tonight no one envies me my daughter. An experience I expect not to repeat in the future—” She breaks off, ordering me through clenched teeth to smile as the newly appointed Junior League president approaches us. I rub the tender spot on my arm where I know a bruise is already blossoming.

The League president greets my mother and faces me, kissing my cheeks. The scent of caramel-fig martinis is heavy on her breath. “Margaret, you outdid yourself! What a memorable event. Truly spectacular.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Nancy, you and Roger must be so proud,” she says to my mother. “This night is going to be all anyone talks about.”

My mother loops an arm around mine, the megawatt smile ever present, and pinches the soft skin above my elbow. I bite my tongue to prevent myself from wincing. “Of course. We’re proud of everything Margaret does.”

A coldness rushes through me, as if I’ve been doused with ice water. At thirty-two and a professional businesswoman, I shouldn’t feel such crushing disappointment at her words. After all, my mother hasn’t been proud of me since I was a little girl, before I could form my own opinions and dreams. Still, I’d hoped this time would be different, that she would recognize how important this night is to me, how hard I’ve worked even if it isn’t the event she would’ve planned. How idealistic and foolish of me to assume I could ever be good enough.

The League president starts to speak as my earpiece crackles. “Margaret, we’ve got a man out here trying to reach one of the guests inside. He’s insisting on entering the gala, but he’s not on the list. Can you come talk to him?”

I sigh. It never ends. Why security can’t turn away some party crasher is beyond me. I click on the mouthpiece. “I’ll be right there.” Wiggling out of my mother’s grip, I walk away without a good-bye or second glance. Later she’ll reprimand me for my rude behavior, but I don’t care.

Weaving through the crowd, I step outside and come face-to-face with Nick.

2

T
here are oil splatters on your shirt.”

After ten months of no communication, this is the first thing I say to him?
Honestly, Margaret.

His hair is shorter, his eyes are a darker shade of blue than I remember, and there seems to be a glow around him. My memory hasn’t done him justice.

“Hello, Margaret,” Nick says with a pleasant smile, as if I’m nothing more than an acquaintance. “I’m sorry they had to pull you away like this. From what I can glimpse, the gala looks like a huge success. Congratulations.”

I’m sure his words are meant as a compliment or some kind of olive branch, but a fresh wave of anger and bitterness washes over me—for being cheated out of a love I earned, for the future Lillie took from me, for how things can never return to what’s supposed to be. The feelings weld on to my armor, now an indestructible layer, so nothing can touch me.

“What are you doing here, Nick, since it’s obvious you’re not dressed for the occasion?” I ask, referring to his casual jeans and plaid button-down.

He opens his mouth to answer, but the head of security approaches us and cuts him off. “Excuse me, Ms. Stokes, this is the man—”

“I’m handling it,” I snap, then turn to the other tuxedoed guards and valets milling around. “Quit standing there and do something.”

I wait for them to scurry away and refocus my attention on Nick. “Did Lillie bail on you and now you’re expecting me to salvage the pieces
again
? Is that why you’re here?”

“Margaret, stop,” he says, shaking his head, as if I’m the one who’s in the wrong, which only fuels my anger. After I devoted myself to his recovery, his happiness, the least he can do is pretend he ever needed me in the first place.

“So how are things between you two?” I’m baiting him, watching for a spark of irritation to cross his face, but his expression remains impassive.

“Come on. Don’t act like this.” He stares at me with pity in his eyes, and I stare back, unflinching. I refuse to show him that he holds any power over me.

“Like what? I’m simply asking about your life, which includes Lillie.”

“I’m not discussing her with you,” he says in a tired voice.

“How typical,” I say. Not once, even after four years of friendship and five months of dating, did Nick ever confide in me any personal details about his former life with Lillie, the reasons she ran off to Chicago without him, or what happened between them to ruin him so completely. “Yet when it came to me, you had no problem using my friendship and support for your benefit.”

My stomach twists as I remember dragging Nick, drunk with the bourbon bottle on his lap, off the kitchen floor and into the shower, clothes and all; cleaning his shredded knuckles after his fight with Wes, his best friend of twenty years, because inflicting pain on someone else was easier than confronting his demons; acting as an anchor when his mother disowned him for abandoning medicine to pursue his dream of songwriting; believing if I
saved
him, I’d earn his love. Except I did save him and look how well that worked out.

Nick rakes a hand through his hair and exhales a deep breath. “Margaret, I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that. Truly. But can we please not do this?”

I snort.
Sorry
. The most useless word in the world, void of all honesty, as insincere as falling in love.

“You didn’t hurt me, Nick,” I say, as I silently repeat the mantra that it’s be hurt or be hardened. “Though you did show me your real character when you didn’t have the decency to break things off between us before
you slept with her—”

“Lillie and I didn’t sleep together before you and I talked. I wouldn’t do something like that to you, Margaret.”

“So you claim, though you can understand how I have trouble believing you.”

He nods, granting me that point. I want him to say more, convince me that I wasn’t a placeholder for Lillie, but he remains quiet.

Finally, I clear my throat and say, “What do you want, Nick? I need to return to my duties inside.”

“I’ve been trying to reach my father on his cell, but he’s not answering,” he says. “Can you tell him I’m here? I’m headed out of town and need to drop something off with him before I leave.”

I sigh, long and drawn out, as if this is a huge imposition, and click on my headset. It takes three tries before I reach my assistant to instruct her to retrieve Dr. Preston and bring him out front—I suspect she was in the hookah lounge again by the snippets of conversations and Moroccan music that crackled through my earpiece. I hope she enjoyed the experience, since she’s about to be unemployed.

“Your father should be outside shortly,” I say to Nick.

“Thank you,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

The sounds of Dallas traffic fill the awkward silence between us. I should walk back into the gala, forget Nick the way he’s forgotten me, but my feet won’t move. There’s something unfair about still wanting someone who once belonged to you—or at least who you
thought
belonged to you. And standing in front of Nick, it’s all too easy to remember everything that’s been taken from me, to feel the reminder that, in his eyes, I just wasn’t what he wanted.

I start to break the silence before it stretches on too long when the museum doors burst open and Paulette Bunny and Sullivan Grace Hasell spill onto the red carpet. Both women are friends of my mother and reside over me on several Junior League planning committees. They’re normally the epitome of poise and grace in their St. John knit suits and sheath dresses, but right now they’re behaving like two drunken sorority girls stumbling out of a frat house, holding on to each other and talking in overloud voices as they stagger toward the valets lined at the curb. If I could remember how, I’d laugh, witnessing them in this state.

Paulette Bunny doesn’t seem to notice us—she’s too busy slurring her request for someone to fetch their limo driver—but Sullivan Grace spots us immediately. “Margaret, dear, the fundraiser was fabulous,” she says, her South Carolina accent thicker than usual. “The most fun I’ve had in ages.”

If only my mother could offer such praise.

Sullivan Grace attempts to kiss my cheeks but ends up landing on the corners of my mouth. Her hands are decorated with henna tattoos and the smell of incense surrounds her. She turns to Nick, swaying a bit, and embraces him in a hug, something I’ve never seen her do with him.

“Hello, Ms. Hasell,” Nick says, grinning, clearly amused at her level of intoxication.

“Sweetheart, how many times do I have to tell you to call me by my first name? I’m practically your mother-in-law,” she says. “Jackson will be thrilled to hear we bumped into each other.” She’s referring to Jack Turner, her “gentleman friend” who happens to be Lillie’s father. He owns Turner’s Greasy Spoons, a diner across town, which for some reason people think is delicious, though Lillie’s the one managing it now.

“He didn’t join you this evening?” Nick asks.

Sullivan Grace laughs. “Don’t be foolish. You know Jackson wouldn’t attend one of these events if it were free and the entire Texas Rangers roster was invited. But enough about that,” she continues. “Shouldn’t you be on your way to the airport? Paris in late summertime. Absolutely spectacular! I can’t imagine a more romantic honeymoon.”

At first I’m certain I misheard her, but then I glance at Nick’s ring finger. There, shining under the jewel-toned lights illuminating the entrance, is a simple platinum band. Icy talons grip my chest. I finally understand why he appears so content and utterly unaffected by my presence. I look at Nick, and once again his eyes are full of pity and a tenderness that makes me want to throttle him.

The resentment of the past several months bubbles up inside me and I blurt out, “You married her,” interrupting Sullivan Grace, who’s been droning on about the Louvre and the view from the Eiffel Tower. My voice sounds strange, mechanical, like the rotor spinning in my Rolex watch.

Sullivan Grace stands there with her mouth hanging open, as if my history with Nick has escaped her memory, while Nick says softly but with conviction, “I did.”

In that moment I hate him.

Before Nick can say anything more, I abruptly turn around and rush back into the gala. It’s only as I’m stepping inside the atrium that I realize a small part of me has been clinging to one last ounce of hope that he’d change his mind, recognize that we could be something special. I guess that’s the difference between logically knowing something and deep down believing it, because while I
know
Nick’s fully, irrecoverably committed to Lillie, in my heart of hearts, I still can’t
believe
he picked her over me.

I need a change.

That’s the only thought I have the next morning as I enter the restaurant Villa-O. A blast of air-conditioning envelops me. Its cerulean blue walls and Mediterranean nautical decor remind me of the semester I studied abroad in Greece before my junior year at Southern Methodist University. The place is buzzing with the typical brunch crowd of Dallas urbanites—well-groomed men who hide their hangovers behind aviators and bottomless Bloody Marys and former sorority girls turned stay-at-home wives with perfect volumized hair and decked out in designer clothes or overpriced spandex disguised as luxury sportswear that’s never absorbed an ounce of perspiration.

All around me people play on their smartphones, texting, posting on social media sites, snapping pictures of themselves and their food. I imagine half of these idiots don’t even remember what it’s like to have real-life relationships anymore.

Yet here I am, right alongside them, week in and week out. Perhaps this is the first habit I’ll change.

Or maybe I need a break from the Dallas social scene altogether, some room to breathe, where my entire life isn’t being examined and dissected under a microscope.

Winding my way through the dining room, I spot the girls—Piper, Samma, and Faye—laughing and chatting on the patio. Bellinis, antipasti plates, and a basket of focaccia are scattered around the table. Of course they wouldn’t wait for me to arrive to start the festivities.

I walk outside through the open floor-to-ceiling windows, the humidity sticking to my body like a second skin.

When the girls notice me, they abruptly stop talking and plaster on smiles loaded with more fake sugar than the artificial sweeteners they dumped into their coffees. I tense, knowing what’s coming. Rumors fly faster than Highland Park real estate among our social scene, so I shouldn’t be surprised they know about my encounter with Nick last night, but right now that’s the last thing I want to talk about.

Forcing a smile of my own, I greet each of them with a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry I’m late,” I say, draping my purse on the back of a chair and sitting. “I had to deal with a situation at the office.”

“Taking out the trash again?” Piper asks, popping an olive into her mouth. She’s constantly eating despite not weighing more than a hundred pounds. Piper claims she stays so thin because she works out with a trainer, but everyone knows she uses laxatives and cocaine to maintain her figure. She also happens to be one of the worst offenders of wearing lululemon apparel as everyday attire.

“I swear you shuffle through assistants as often as I shuffle through shoes,” Faye says. Her lips are puffy and slightly bruised—I’m betting she’s three days postinjections. She has the looks of a supermodel that rivals the greatest ’90s divas, but by fashion standards she’s last year’s sloppy seconds.

A waitress extends a menu to me. Waving it away, I order a glass of prosecco and my usual egg-white omelet. “This one was worse than the others,” I say to the girls. “I had to do her job for her. It was like dealing with a toddler.”

“I think you’re incapable of relinquishing control,” Samma says. She flips her hair, mainly comprised of extensions dyed to match her natural deep brown color, over her shoulder. Her five-carat diamond solitaire sparkles in the sun. She’s been married less than a year and has already upgraded the stone twice and taken numerous solo trips to the spa to deal with “stress.” If I were married to her husband, Alan, with his comb-over, potbelly, and onion-smelling breath, I’d self-medicate with retail therapy and beauty treatments, too.

“Don’t forget asking for help,” Faye adds.

“And apologizing,” Piper mumbles around a mouthful of bruschetta.

“You’re confusing capability with willingness,” I say. “I’m quite able to do those things. I just don’t believe in them.”

Before they can argue, the waitress delivers their entrées and my much-needed glass of prosecco. I take a sip, the taste bright, crisp, and lively with a subtle amount of sweetness. While this sparkling wine is great for Dallas patio weather, my favorite way to enjoy it is straight from the source at a vineyard nestled in the verdant rolling hills of northeastern Italy.

As they eat, Piper gushes about attending New York Fashion Week this fall, Samma rants about the general contractor in charge of renovating her Florida beach house, and Faye complains about the service department at the Mercedes-Benz dealership. None of the girls mentions the gala or offers me her congratulations, even though they were there. Not that this is unexpected. Instead of celebrating the good things that happen in our lives, we treat them like dirty secrets and pretend they don’t exist. It’s been this way since we met in sixth grade.