The Season (21 page)

Julia's phone beeped. She looked at it, rolled her eyes, and then showed it to me. It was a Facebook post on Julia's feed—
Orange Is the New Black!
Not funny, I thought, but realized this was just the beginning of the tea and scorn.

Ann returned, her call ended. Whatever hope I had felt vanished now.

“Julia, that was the president of the Bluebonnet Club. I'm sorry . . .” she started, and Julia choked back a sob. “I have sympathy for your situation. There truly are times when
people are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I believe this is one of those instances—but there are very clear rules.”

“I understand.” Julia was calm. I was fuming.

“He wanted to bar you immediately, but I argued that implies you are guilty without a trial, and he relented. However, the best I can do is allow you to withdraw voluntarily.”

“No!” I nearly screamed it.

“Megan,” Julia said, “let her finish.”

“If you withdraw this does not preclude you from coming back another year, or from future events, when this is resolved. But realistically you must focus on your legal situation now, and that must take precedent.”

“But it's so unfair! She didn't do anything!”

“Megan, stop!” Julia cried. “I put myself in that car, and she's right, I need to focus on this now.”

“If she goes, I go!”

Ann stayed silent.

“You can't do that, Megan,” Julia insisted. “You have to stay in—for Mom, and Dad.”

“But I can't do this without you!”

“Yes you can.” She turned back to Ann.

“Thank you, Ann—I appreciate what you've done.”

“You're welcome,” Ann replied.

“Now what do I have to do to withdraw?”

Ann showed her to her desk, and gave her a pen and paper. We watched as Julia wrote a brief note to the Bluebonnet
Club, requesting that she be allowed to withdraw for “personal reasons” from the current debutante season. She signed it stoically.

Ann gave us each a hug at the door. Outside, alone on the front steps, Julia looked at me.

“You think Uncle Dan has told Mom and Dad by now?” Julia asked.

“If he hasn't, she's dead in front of the TV.”

I put my arm around her as we walked toward the car. She stopped after she had opened the door, looked across the roof at me.

“I need to call Zach.”

Twenty-One

In Which Megan Steps Through the Looking Glass

ZACH DIDN'T ANSWER JULIA'S CALL AND SHE LEFT A
brief message for him to call her. Her phone pinged as she hung up. Then again. And again and again and again and again. Instagram and Facebook were exploding with the news and pictures taken at the scene. Some of it was concern from friends, but most was cruel, personal stuff, and Julia was in tears for the third time that day when I grabbed her phone, shut it off, and tossed it in the backseat.

But that was just the start. A few minutes later we turned onto our block and saw two satellite news trucks stationed in the parking lot of our apartment building. Reporters armed with cameras and microphones lay in wait. It looked like a hostage situation.

“What the hell?” Julia asked, incredulous. Things were decidedly bigger than either of us had realized, and desperate measures were required.

“Duck,” I told her, and she bent her head under the
dashboard. I cruised by the horde, glanced over innocently, and breathed a sigh of relief as we passed by without anyone recognizing me or seeing Julia. Three blocks later I pulled over to have a think.

Julia's empire of brains and beauty was smoldering rubble now, torched by Tyler's 'roid-fueled break with reality. Unfortunately, Mom often made situations like this about her—how she felt, the impact it had on her
. Not what's needed at the moment.

The Aberdeen offered the only shelter from a media storm. I hoped we got through the gates before some intrepid reporter thought of it.

“We're going to the ranch,” I said, and Julia, in shock, just nodded.

It was blissfully quiet, bucolic really, when we arrived. Just the usual grass bent by the wind and a few hundred cattle grazing.

Mom ran out crying and hugged Julia as hard as she could.

“Thank God you're safe,” she said. “It could have been so much worse.”

She bundled her inside, made chamomile tea, and quickly tucked her into bed upstairs. In a short time Julia, exhausted, was asleep. I wondered if Mom had crushed half a Xanax into the tea to make sure she slept soon and long.

Downstairs Dad told me Uncle Dan had called, and he and Mom had watched the news.

“I'll kill that sumbitch,” he said. It was probably best for
Tyler he remained in jail—he was safer with the inmates than with Dad.

When Mom came down, the three of us sat in the den in silence. It felt like a tornado's aftermath, when the contents of lives lie strewn about for scavengers to sift through and TV cameras to document.

“Well, I'll call the florist and the country club in the morning,” Mom said finally, her tone and manner all resignation. “And, you know, I haven't put down the deposit with the caterers—I was going to do that tomorrow—so that's good. And your idea about the Texas State Historical Society has not panned out—we've barely sold half the tables.”

I looked over.

“What are we talking about?” I asked.

Mom offered me a look equal parts pity and compassion, as if I were the slow child.

“We have to cancel our party.”

“But I'm still in this thing,” I said.

“Megan—no. This is a huge scandal. You can't go on alone. Not without Julia.”

“Mom, I am not a quitter.”

“It's not
quitting
,” she said. “It's reality. You have to know when to throw in the towel. And if I remember correctly, you didn't want to make your debut in the first place. I would think you'd be relieved to be let off.”

She was offering me the exit door—
just step through it, Megan, for God's sake!
But for some bizarre reason, I didn't want that door anymore.

“If we quit, if we fold up our tent,” I said, “it says we're ashamed of Julia, that she's guilty. And she is not guilty—she did nothing wrong. She's the victim here. Tyler split her head open, threatened her, and nearly killed her.” I took a breath. “We need to cowboy up here. Would Old Angus quit? Not a chance. And Dad, you've always told me that challenges define us. I think there's a way we can turn this into a positive.”

“I don't see how,” Mom said.

“We change our charity.” Mom and Dad looked at me, waiting for me to explain. I was making this up as I went along, but I had the germ of a big idea. “We need to find a charity that addresses violence against women. What we do now shows people who we are and shapes how they are going to think about this.”

I wasn't precisely sure who was saying this, or where exactly she lived in my body, but I liked this new me. From the look on his face, Dad liked her too.

“She's right,” Dad said, looking first at Mom, then me. Mom remained unconvinced.

“Megan, this has only just started. People will dine out on this for months . . .”

“Let 'em,” I said. “I want to talk about it! People should know the truth and not just the rumors, and if we're not out there talking about it, then rumors are all there will be.” I remembered Ann's words to me the night of Abby's party. “We can't control what other people say, but we can absolutely control what we do.”

“What do you think?” Dad asked Mom. In the end it
would be her decision. There were still parties to attend, and a huge party to pull off. Even if I was game, I couldn't do it alone, and Dad wasn't going to choose a menu or keep track of a guest list. Mom looked like she'd swallowed a bad oyster—but she choked it down, then looked at me.

“Are you
sure
?” she asked.

“I am more sure about this than I've been about anything since I started this whole ordeal.”

“Okay, then,” Mom said. “Let's cowboy up.”

Blind loyalty is my best quality, so standing up for Julia when she had been wronged came naturally, and I accepted the job with relish.

The first event post-arrest was Ashley in Wonderland, Ashley One's party three days later.

“Megan,” Margot said in her familiar accent, “please—just try it on.” We were in my bedroom at the ranch, and she held the gown out for me to see, the sleeveless sheath bodice the color of Himalayan salt. The bodice dropped all the way to midthigh before flowing out in Chantilly lace a half shade lighter. The lace had been embroidered with tiny delicate bows.

“When we started this I told you I had two absolutes: no bows and nothing pink. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that is a pink gown with hundreds of bows.”

“Trust me,” she cooed, holding the gown a few inches higher and shaking it lightly, as if I were a bull she hoped
to entice. This dress contravened my entire style maxim, but I figured the quicker I humored her, the quicker I'd be into whatever backup dress she had waiting in the wings. I stepped into the gown, and she zipped the back and arranged the shoulders, smoothing the lace while I huffed and rolled my eyes.

“Now look,” she said, and she turned me to the Martha Washington mirror.

“Margot, this dress is—
awesome
!” She beamed. My bare shoulders and arms looked fantastic and the portrait neckline reinforced with a push-up bra did yeoman work for my cleavage. The long, tight silhouette gave the appearance of length and added a sexy heart-shape to my butt. I thought of pink as drab, but under the light, when the bodice material stretched, it shimmered in a thousand directions like broken glass. The lace was dreamy, and the endless bows made it wonderfully romantic and playful.

She fixed my hair in a single side braid, and though I could have worn sneakers and nobody would have been the wiser, she produced teeny white satin pumps that lifted and tilted me slightly forward. When I walked, the front of the dress skimmed the ground and it looked like I was ice-skating. I walked around and around my bedroom faster and faster while we both shrieked.
I will own Ashley in Wonderland in this thing!

The party was held at Ashley's parents' gargantuan mansion on Armstrong Boulevard in the heart of Highland Park. At Christmastime these few blocks attracted thou
sands of gawking tourists every night. They drove along at a crawl to moon over the lights and decorations, all on an amusement-park scale. As it was not yet Thanksgiving, the other houses were not lit, but when Hank and I turned the corner we caught the glow up ahead.

“Thank you so much for being here with me tonight—it means a lot,” I said as we neared the curb.

“You're welcome,” he said simply, and squeezed my hand.

We stepped out and looked up the walkway but couldn't see the front door. Fog rolled across the lawn and right up to a mega-stadium Jumbotron-sized mirror that obscured the entire front of the house. Two guards, dressed as playing cards, stood in front of this thing, staring straight ahead. We approached and they stepped aside ceremoniously and stamped the ends of their spears on the ground.

We looked at the mirror in front of us. We could see our reflections in it, but it couldn't be glass—could it? Hank and I smiled nervously at each other. We looked to the guards for instructions, but they remained stoic. Our image shimmied ever so slightly, and finally Hank reached out and put his hand
through
the mirror. It wobbled and his hand disappeared. He drew it back and we realized it was an illusion, projected somehow. He held my hand as, still nervous, I stepped right through it, and sure enough found myself at the steps leading to the front door. Hank stepped through and we smiled in wonder.

“Cool,” Hank said, genuinely impressed.

“Very,” I agreed.

We climbed the steps and instead of the front door entered an oversized rabbit hole. The curved entrance glowed in crimson neon, and we walked down the wooden path inside a tunnel decorated with overgrown wisteria, boxwood, and moss. At the end we pushed through a screen of tall wispy grass and found ourselves in the house proper—in the main entrance, but blocked now by the Queen of Hearts, a fierce woman twelve feet tall in a scarlet heart-shaped dress. We barely reached the midpoint of her dress, and I realized that she must've been standing on stilts under the huge skirt. The bodice of her dress and head were normal size, but so far above us we craned our necks to see her garishly made-up face framed in bright red curly hair. She eyed us suspiciously.

“Good evening,” she said in a booming voice.

“Good evening, Your, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing slightly.

“Who are you, then?” she asked menacingly.

“Megan McKnight, ma'am.”

“What about him?”

“Hank Waterhouse, ma'am.”

She considered us for a moment.

“Off with her head!” she replied in that same booming voice, pointing at me. Then she exploded in a shriek of laughter.

We moved on as Sydney and her date arrived behind us. We heard the Queen of Hearts query them and shout “Off with her head!” as we entered the living room, passing by two more playing card guards. Soaring columns and brick
castle walls framed this room, which was filled with giant mushrooms and paper flowers. We joined the receiving line and chatted with the older couple in front of us about the unexpected and fun entrance. While we worked our way toward Ashley, set on an enormous throne in a blue ball gown, everyone jabbered away, amazed at the scope and sheer inventiveness. Once again I dreaded my own party. All the parties except Ashley Two's had been pretty spectacular, and I sighed, knowing mine would rival Arabian Nights for the lamest.

“Oh, Megan, how great to see you.” Our turn arrived and we stepped forward.

“Thanks so much, Ashley, and congratulations—this is truly magical.”

“Thank you.”

She introduced us to her parents, and I introduced myself and Hank.

“I apologize for my mother's absence,” I said, turning back to Ashley. “As well as Julia's. They would have loved to have been here, and asked me to pass on their regrets.”

“I completely understand,” Ashley said. “I just want you to know how much I feel for her and for your whole family. I just can't stop thinking about Julia and what she must be going through. If there's anything I can do—anything at all to help her or your family—please don't hesitate to ask.”