The Hurricane Sisters (12 page)

“Thanks,” he said, smiling and switched to Paul Simon classics. “So what ever happened with you and that asshole?”

“Do you mean Senator Galloway?”

“That’s the one.”

“He’s unworthy.” I said this so seriously, as though I’d made an important life decision.

“You’re telling me?” Tommy said and grinned.

As much as I hated to admit it, Tommy was pretty sweet when he wanted to be. And I did not speak of Porter Galloway again.

“By the way, y’all can’t use this as a buffet table. I have to open her up. Otherwise, we aren’t going to get the maximum sound out of this baby.”

“Fine! Do what you have to do. Something tells me you know what’s best.”

I was so nervous my stomach was in knots and I wasn’t sleeping. I mean, what if my mother just showed up with more donuts? She would totally lose her mind and kill me dead.

When the mutually agreed-upon date arrived, we sent a tweet to the list of people we had from Mary Beth’s company and Tommy’s contacts too. I had a few people I’d known since we were kids but I didn’t really expect them to show. In any case, we all tweeted the following:
Mango Sunset Party tonight at 7:30! Ash and Mary Beth’s on Sullivans Island. First fifty with fifty. Cash. Vintage cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with piano music and a view!

We had decided not to use Mary Beth’s caterer, thinking we’d make a little more money if we did the work ourselves. One of the older women she worked with said she’d help us for a nominal fee. It seemed like we had a plan. I was a wreck.

Mary Beth orchestrated the menu and I helped her fix all the food—millions of tiny meatballs in some Hawaiian pineapple–tomato sauce, pigs in blankets from Costco, giant wedges of cheese, also from Costco, and tons of crackers and strawberries. Basically we were serving what Lucy and Ethel cooked up for Fred and Ricky. And we made pitchers of mai tais to garnish with pineapple wedges and cherries on a toothpick. We got white wine too. And liquor. Everything on Ivy’s list was found and bought. One of Tommy’s friends, Ed something, was there to tend bar, which was all set up and looking very professional. The votive candles cast just the right amount of warm light as day faded before our eyes. Everything seemed to conspire in harmony, creating the perfect atmosphere. Even the ferns were lightly swaying in the breeze. We were as ready for a party as we could be. Maybe we wouldn’t get caught.

At six thirty the first car arrived. Four people got out. They looked normal enough to me. Young professionals. Mary Beth and I were watching through the windows. That was when I noticed her new watch, probably bought with the money from Samir.

“Nice watch,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said and blushed deeply, running her hand around it, almost hiding it. “My mom sent it to me.”

“Really?” She was lying like a cheap rug. No way she bought a Michael Kors watch in the backwoods of Tennessee. “Do you believe we’re really doing this?” I said to change the subject.

“Yes. It’s okay. I know them,” Mary Beth said. “Should I go to the door?”

“No, you get the food going. I’ll take care of the money.”

She shot me a look but didn’t say anything. She knew right then I didn’t trust her because she had lied to me. She didn’t try to defend herself.

Without missing more than a half beat she said, “Right!” She started toward the kitchen and called out, “Tommy? Start playing!”

“What should I play?” he yelled back.

“What? Now we have to tell him what to play?” I yelled to both of them.

“I got this! I got this!” he yelled, laughing.

The next thing we knew, old Billy Joel songs filled the air, two more cars pulled into the yard, then three more, and soon my pockets were absolutely bulging with money. Every so often, I’d slip into my bedroom and throw handfuls of cash into a shoebox. Eventually cars stopped arriving and I felt like it was finally okay to mingle a little. The sun had fallen into the horizon and the edge of the earth was painted red as deep as a string of rubies. It was a gorgeous sunset. Just gorgeous.

People seemed to be having a wonderful time. I picked up empty glasses and balled up paper napkins. Almost every guest seemed to be around thirty, and Mary Beth and Tommy seemed to know lots of them. Must be nice to have fifty dollars to spend, I thought.

Tommy’s tip jar, which was actually a vase, was jammed with one-dollar bills and even a few fives! He seemed pleased. Mary Beth was flitting all over the place with trays, smiling and seemingly having a blast. Our guests were watching container ships go by and taking selfies like mad. It was a very dramatic night.

I hardly knew anyone. Tommy and Mary Beth must have been passing the word in the last few weeks. I counted heads and we had a few more than fifty. And most people were well behaved, marveling at the sunset. I thought, Whew! What a relief! Well, there was that one unfortunate couple who locked themselves in the powder room.

I noticed that three women were lined up in the hall, waiting.

“How long has somebody been in there?” I asked.

“Like twenty minutes?”

“There’s another bathroom down that hall,” I said, pointing. “Not as nice but it works.”

“Thanks,” they said and wandered off.

I knocked on the door.

“Y’all all right in there?”

There was the distinct sound of muffled voices, giggles, clothes being zipped, and the toilet flushing and the water running all at once.

“Yeah,” a male voice called back. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

I waited and I waited and I waited. Then I knocked on the door again.

“Do you need a doctor?” I called through the door.

The door slowly opened and a guy with tousled hair and a very snide expression just looked at me and passed by. Behind him, a pretty younger woman appeared, looking discombobulated as all hell. I grabbed her arm.

“Oh!” she squealed.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“Amy.”

“Amy what?”

“Smith. Let go of my arm!”

“And who’s the guy you’re with?”

“Joe Blow.”

Joe Blow indeed. She didn’t even know his name. Or maybe he was a coke dealer.

“Yeah, well, don’t you think it’s pretty tacky to screw in somebody’s house who you don’t even know?”

She just stared at me as though she had every right to have sex in the middle of Highway 61 if the opportunity presented itself. How dare she?

“Get out, okay?” I said. I was blistering mad then.

“Really? Then I want my money back,” she said.

“Sue me,” I said. “It’s going to cost me a hundred dollars to fumigate!”

“You’re a bitch,” she said.

“That’s okay. You’re . . . you’re a
skank slut
! Now go get your skank friend and get out of my house!”

She gasped and stomped off. My heart was pounding so hard I thought my eardrums might explode.

“Hey, Ash?”

It was Tommy. He had stopped playing and was standing at my side.

“What?” I said, still thinking I might faint.

“Nicely done,” he said and patted me on the back.

“Thanks,” I said and went out to the portico to make sure I could still breathe. I inhaled and thought, Well, that was nice of Tommy to step up to my side, wasn’t it?

I spotted Joe Blow at the bar and took a bold stride right up to his side.

“Joe Blow?”

“Pritchard,” he said. “What’s your problem?”

“This is my house and you’re too much of a badass for me. I want you to get Amy and leave. Okay?”

He looked at me in disbelief. Then he pretended to be cringing in fear. What was the matter with people?

“Ooooooh! Amy? Is that her name?”

The music had stopped again. Tommy was watching and Ed the bartender was on point too. Joe realized that Tommy and his buddy Ed could totally kick his butt so he headed back inside. I watched as he grabbed Amy and made way to the door. She gave the one-finger salute as they left and I breathed a major sigh of relief.

“Another asshole,” Tommy said.

“Boy, you can say that again,” I said. “I think I’m gonna have a glass of wine now.”

I went back to the portico. Some people had walked out to the beach to get an even closer look at a passing cruise ship against the fading light. I thought then that I would never get used to how spectacular the sky was at sunset. Just because the sun was below the horizon didn’t mean it was dark. The remaining clouds in the sky changed colors every few minutes, from jagged streaks of deep-hued rose quartz to wisps of amethysts and under lights of transparent shimmering gold. All these colors were laid on top of one another, changing in their depth and shape every few minutes. No two sunsets were ever the same but they were almost always mesmerizing. I helped myself to a glass of wine and spotted Mary Beth passing hors d’oeuvres through the thinning crowd.

“What happened in there?” she said.

“Two jerks screwing in the powder room,” I said.

“Well, at least someone’s having sex,” she said and giggled.

I rolled my eyes, passing up another opportunity to nail her.

“Puh-leese! There’s a time and place issue here?” I smiled then. Poor Mary Beth. “Some people are so stupid!”

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Hey! Aren’t you Ashley?”

I turned around to see a really nice-looking woman dressed very professionally, like a doctor or something. You know, she was wearing clothes that inspire trust. And not too much makeup, except for concealer that was failing to mask some dark places around her eyes. But she looked good. I mean, there’s that fine line between looking like that bleached-blond red-lipped stripper/ho in the shoe ad on television and the kind of girl who’s contemplating a cloistered convent. What I’m saying is she was hitting all the right notes.

“Yes, I’m Ashley.”

“This is your house, is that right?”

“Well, it’s my family’s home.”

“What a view!” she said, adding, “Oh! Where are my manners? I’m Cindy Elder! Cindy Lue Elder. But my friends call me Cindy. Ever since I got out of law school, I dropped the Lue.”

“I know what you mean. I used to be called Ashley Ann but now I’m just Ashley or Ash. So how’d you hear about tonight?”

“I work on Senator Galloway’s staff and one of his aides picked it up on Twitter. I was at the Turner Gallery for his fund-raiser but you probably don’t remember me.”

“Oh! No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“It’s okay, I mean, uh, there was an ocean of humanity there. But what a coincidence!”

“Yeah, small world.”

She stared at me for a moment. It flashed across my mind that she might have had a personal interest in Porter and it was quickly apparent that she did because she seemed so nervous. And in that same moment of knowing that I knew, she recognized me as competition. She was at least thirty. Ticktock.

“Politics are impossible,” she said with a sigh of resignation.

“Come on, Cindy,” I said, “let’s get you a big old mai tai and a pile of meatballs.”

“I like you, Ashley. And I’m not even sure why.”

Later on when everyone had gone home we counted up the money. We gave a hundred dollars to Ed the bartender for two hours of work and seventy-five to the lady who cleaned up the kitchen. Tommy’s tip jar was his take and it had almost two hundred dollars.

“I think my waiter days just ended. Well, if I can get gigs like this anyway. Are y’all gonna do this again?”

I slid another hundred dollars across the table to him.

“Um, yeah,” I said. “You didn’t make enough for all you did. You didn’t know bouncer was in your job description.”

Mary Beth didn’t say a word and I had thought she might object.

“Wow, thanks!” Tommy said.

After expenses, we netted almost sixteen hundred dollars. And, best of all, we didn’t get caught.

I called Ivy first thing Saturday morning.

“How did it go? Are you calling me from the hoosegow?”

“No! You big crazy! Ivy? It was a screaming success! And we made some serious bucks.”

“Fabulous! But speaking of the bank, you’d better open a new account.”

“Why?”

“Don’t the parental ones have access to yours?”

“Right! Jeez! But don’t worry, I have it hidden. You know what, Ivy?”

“What?”

“I’d make a terrible secret agent. I hate lying.”

“Me too. I think we’re not wired for social espionage.”

CHAPTER 8

Liz—Working It

It was Sunday afternoon. I had a case of the blues and I hated myself for giving in to them. It felt like weakness to succumb. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like Clayton couldn’t wait to finish repacking his briefcase for New York and get out of here. Sadly, I knew it was not my imagination. His body language told me everything. He was consumed with a heightened level of enthusiasm I rarely saw at home. God, his excitement completely depressed the hell out of me. I felt like a bloodless hologram, fading into the woodwork, the paneling imprinted on my skin. But because there’s a side of me that’s like a puppy, I decided to be nice anyway.

“Would you like me to take you to the airport?”

He was organizing a stack of manila folders and looked up at me as though he hadn’t seen me in ten years.

“What? The airport?”

“Yes. The airport.”

“Oh, right, right. Uh, no, actually Walter is picking me up in a few minutes.” Walter Whaley, who owned Chauffeurs Unlimited, was Clayton’s favorite driver. He managed a weak smile. “What does your week look like? Busy?”

All it took was the slightest inquiry and I felt my blood begin to flow again. Just throw the old girl a bone.

“Well, I’m giving a dinner tomorrow night to try and find some new funding. I’ve been trying to get these two couples to the table for nearly a year. Now I have them both in one night. Pretty stressful. It’s not easy raising money these days.”

“Was it ever?”

He pulled the tab through the handle of his briefcase and it clicked into place in its lock. I had given Clayton that briefcase for Father’s Day a few years ago. It was Italian and had cost a small fortune. Clayton loved beautiful leather goods and I had wanted to make him happy. There was a time when his happiness was all that mattered. I wondered then for a moment or two which came first? Him not caring or me being sad?