You've Got Male (26 page)

Lifting a hand toward her sister’s door, she rapped hard four times. The door opened quickly enough to surprise Avery, but Carly looked even more surprised, as if she had been expecting someone else. But then, what reason would Avery have for being here?

“I need your help,” she told her sister without preamble. Then she added softly, “I’m sorry to bother you.”

Carly didn’t say anything at first, and for a moment Avery thought her sister might slam the door in her face. Instead she lifted her arm and braced it against the jamb in a way that suggested she was trying to decide whether or not she was in the mood for visitors.

Where Avery’s choice of dress for relaxing at home was sloppy and cut-rate—yellow-and-black-plaid pajama bottoms and a black sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo for her company—Carly looked as if she were ready to go out for a formal luncheon in a stark white scoop-neck cashmere sweater over a short, stark white cashmere skirt.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Strangely the question didn’t sound rude. She genuinely seemed to want to know what it was that Avery needed. Nevertheless, an image of Mrs. Pearson’s swollen face swam up in Avery’s memory, and she had to tamp it back down again.

“I was wondering if I could borrow a dress to wear tonight,” Avery said quietly. “I didn’t pack anything…fitting,” she deliberately said in echo of her father’s words, “for a party.”

Not that she even
owned
anything appropriate for a party, Avery thought. Why bother when even the idea of attending a party turned her into a stark raving loony?

“I’m not surprised you have nothing that fits,” her sister replied, deliberately misconstruing what Avery had said. “My God, you look like you’re twenty pounds lighter than you were when you lived here. Eat a cookie, for God’s sake.”

Avery closed her eyes and sighed hard. “Never mind,” she said, turning away. “Forget I even asked.”

She must have been crazy to think Carly would help her. Or help her without first making her beg. She’d just figure out something else to do for the party. Maybe her mother would have something. Of course, her mother chose the sort of clothing women had worn during the Eisenhower era. Still, it wasn’t like Avery was trying to impress anyone, was she? Who cared if she looked like Mamie Eisenhower? Dixon wouldn’t be looking at her anyway.

And damn her for even caring about that.

As she started to walk away from Carly’s door, she prepared herself for the slamming of it. Never do quietly what one could do extremely, that was Carly’s creed. For all the criticizing she’d done of Avery’s activities when she’d lived here before, Carly had never been one for demurring. But her outrageous acts had all been condoned by Hampton society—spreading gossip, assassinating character, partying till all hours, coming home drunk, sleeping with anything that wore pants, that kind of thing. So it was Avery who had been ostracized. Go figure.

But she had barely completed one step when she felt Carly’s hand on her shoulder, heard her sister say softly, “Avery, wait.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned. It was the first time Carly had called her by her name since she’d come home. Even more significant, she hadn’t sounded angry or repulsed when she did it. She sounded like…a sister. Or at least what Avery had always imagined a sister should sound like. She and Carly had never been close. Not just because of the age difference but because they’d had nothing in common. Nevertheless, as a child Avery had often fantasized how it would be to have a big sister who showed her how to apply mascara and told her how to talk to boys and took her shopping for her first bra. But Carly had been too busy with her own life to notice Avery. And Avery had felt too overshadowed by her beautiful, glamorous sister to ever think she might be open to an overture.

When she looked at her sister now, Carly was smiling at her. Maybe it wasn’t the doting-big-sister smile Avery had hoped for twenty years ago, but neither was it the harsh, sarcastic smile she had seen so often since her return.

“You really aren’t my size,” Carly said.

“You never buy your size,” Avery countered, recalling how Carly preferred to squeeze herself into her clothing in much the same way that a meat packer crammed pork into a paper-thin casing.

Carly studied her in silence for a moment, as if she were sizing Avery up. In one way or another. Finally, “I have an old green thing that might work on you,” she said.

And oh, didn’t
that
sound like just the dress for Avery?

Her sister punctuated the announcement with another one of those almost-sisterly-but-not-quite smiles, so Avery braved a small smile of her own in return. “Thanks, Carly,” she said. “I’d appreciate it.”

“It should fit you fairly well. I only wore it once. Come on in.”

Wow, Avery thought. Carly had almost sounded considerate when she spoke that time. Her sister said not another word, though, as she strode across the sitting room to the bedroom at the back, leaving Avery to decide for herself whether or not she wanted to follow.

This part of the guesthouse, like the big house, hadn’t changed much. The walls were a darker, richer, more twenty-first-century shade of cobalt instead of the robin’s-egg-blue Avery remembered, but the Empire furnishings were the same. Carly had added a few personal touches in the form of photographs and books and plants but little else. Avery wondered if the living quarters on the other side of the guesthouse had been updated, too. And she wondered how Tanner Gillespie was surviving, living so close to the virago that was her sister.

Avery couldn’t quite help smiling at the thought. Probably, she decided, Tanner Gillespie was doing just fine.

Taking the initiative, she followed her sister into the bedroom. Here, quite a bit had changed. Where before the room had been elegant and gender-neutral, Carly had turned it into an unquestionably feminine domain. The walls had been painted the color of cinnamon and the noble Aubusson had been replaced by an exuberant Oriental that mingled the fertile colors of a spice cabinet. The bed was covered in embroidered Moroccan silk reminiscent of a desert sunset, then piled high with a dozen pillows garnished with beads and tassels and brocade.

Funny, she thought, but Carly had never seemed the type to go for the sheikh fantasy. Then again, it was doubtless Carly who was the chieftain here.

“It’s back here somewhere,” her sister said as she rifled through the contents of her closet. “I got it to wear to the party after the Davenport christening. Their yacht, not their kid,” she clarified. “I don’t think they ever got around to christening him. Ah. Here we go.”

She withdrew an opaque, zippered garment bag, something that told Avery the dress wasn’t such an old green thing after all. Now that she thought about it, if Carly had even kept it, it must be a nice piece of couture. The fact that it was packed so carefully meant she intended to hang on to it for some time. Avery wasn’t sure what to make of that—that her sister would lend her something she actually liked. So she decided, for now, to make nothing of it at all.

She started to reach for the dress, not really caring what it looked like, just grateful to have something that would be in keeping with the rest of the crowd. But as her fingers were about to close over the hanger, Carly pulled it backward, out of Avery’s reach.

Oh, great. Keep-away. They hadn’t played that since Avery was a toddler. Back then, the pubescent Carly had delighted in making her little sister cry.

“You’re going to need shoes, too,” she said. And without a bit of rancor, too. “And jewelry. I remember you never cared about fashion or the proper accessories when you lived at home.” She drove her gaze over Avery’s sweatshirt and pajama bottoms. “Gee, just a shot in the dark, but I’m guessing you haven’t changed much there.” Again, though, there was no malice in her tone, only bland observation.

“No,” Avery said. “I still think it’s silly to spend thousands of dollars on clothing and jewelry when the same amount of money could go toward buying affordable housing for deserving people. I’m kinda wacky that way.”

Carly ignored the jab, something else that surprised Avery. “And you need to cut your hair,” she said. “That lovely-long-locks look went out with…Well. Actually that lovely-long-locks look was never in to begin with. I could get you into my salon this afternoon if you want.”

The offer was staggeringly surprising. Carly had never offered Avery anything. Period. There must be a hidden camera somewhere and a television audience laughing uproariously right now.

“I, um…”
Don’t know what to say,
Avery thought to herself. Except maybe,
Who are you and where’s the pea pod from outer space that’s holding my sister hostage?
Then again, did she really want to know? This alien Carly was kind of pleasant.

Just what had gotten into her? Avery wondered. Why was she being so nice? Yeah, there was still a little bit of an edge to it, but she wasn’t being mean. Not like before. Not like always. What was wrong with her that she wasn’t being nasty?

“No, that’s okay,” Avery finally said, declining the offer of Carly’s stylist. It had taken her over an hour—not to mention three scotches—just to work up the nerve to walk from the big house to the guesthouse. “I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, that’s right,” her sister said, sounding in no way concerned. “You can’t go out in public without feeling some kind of crippling paranoia or something, can you?”

“It isn’t paranoia,” Avery said. Well, not clinically anyway.

But Carly just waved a hand airily in front of herself. “Whatever. Okay, fine. I’ll make him come here.”

“No, Carly—”

“That’s all right. You can thank me later.”

“But—”

“And I think I have some shoes that will be fine. I know you’re not my size there, either,” she added before Avery had a chance to object, “but a little Kleenex in the toe, and you’ll be fine.”

Oh, sure,
Avery thought. Until she tried to dance or some—

She stopped herself before even completing the thought, astonished to have something like that even occur to her. Who was she kidding? As if she’d really be dancing with anyone tonight. No, she intended to just find a nice quiet corner of the room and plant herself there for an hour or so—long enough for her father to see her and content himself that she’d shown up and was behaving herself—then fade completely out of sight.

“And we’ll figure something out for the jewelry,” Carly was saying. “Don’t worry, Avery. By the time I finish with you, no one will ever suspect you were once the black sheep of the family. You’ll be as snow-white as the rest of us. Baa baa.”

And although Avery told herself that was exactly what she wanted—at least for tonight—she suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

S
HE WAS STILL FEELING THAT
way some hours later as she stood in the gallery overlooking the party below. Because she was inescapably reminded of another time she had found herself in a similar situation. The autumn of her coming out, thirteen years ago. Then, as now, Avery had hovered in the shadows, hugging the wall and peering through the slats in the gallery railing, where no one could see her. Then, as now, she had tried to gauge the mood of the crowd below with little success and had wondered what her reception would be when she finally made her appearance—with even less success. Then, as now, her stomach had been knotted with nerves, and her mouth had been dry as parchment. Then, as now, she had been shaking in her boots.

Except that she wasn’t wearing boots this time. Instead of rebelling against convention by dressing in the black combat gear she had worn for her debut, Avery was rebelling against expectation this time and wearing something perfectly appropriate. The old green thing Carly had offered her had turned out to be a simple emerald-green cocktail dress fashioned of exquisite watered silk that, although none too tight, still managed to hug her curves from the strapless bodice to the fitted hemline just above her knees. It was the most modest garment she’d ever known Carly to own, but where her sister had made it daring by what would have been a snug fit and too-short hemline on her, the dress fit a smaller Avery almost perfectly. And instead of the enormous, outrageous, sparkly crystal necklace and chandelier earrings that Carly said she usually wore with it, Avery had donned a simple pearl choker, earrings and bracelet.

Her newly shorn hair skimmed her shoulders, but Carly’s stylist had pulled the front part back and caught it in a pearly clasp. Avery had thought the style would be too childish, but the finished product actually looked surprisingly sophisticated. And once Carly had talked her into removing her glasses and leaving them behind for the night, Avery had realized that the green of the dress somehow made the blue of her eyes more vivid and she’d decided maybe Carly was right.

Avery really wasn’t bad-looking when she was cleaned up.

It was just too bad her new and improved exterior could only go so far to rectify what lay underneath. Inside Avery was no different. She still felt awkward, still felt unwelcome, still dreaded the evening ahead. Anxiety and panic danced at the very edges of her brain, just waiting for an opportunity to dart past her fragile barriers. In spite of her uneasy truce with Carly, Avery was filled with apprehension. A new appearance could only do so much. Inside she was still an ex-con, still a black sheep, still a social pariah, still an agoraphobe.