“How big do you think her ring is?” Amy asked, her little sock-covered feet moving around my small bedroom.
Jo and I made eye contact in the mirror.
“Who is she even engaged to?” Jo asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and closed my eyes. Who knew? Not me, nor did I care. I felt bad for the poor man who asked her to marry him. I could have made up excuse after excuse on why I didn’t like her, but the main reason was Shia. They had dated briefly during the end of my junior year, their senior, and those two weeks felt like the longest of my life.
“Who knows. Probably some soldier,” Jo said, looking at Amy through the mirror.
Amy’s eyes lit up. “Can you imagine? Everyone is lucky but me.” She sighed.
“Lucky? To be engaged at twenty?” I responded to Amy.
Even though I had a catty response, I had grown up wishing I would find the love of my life at a young age and have the security of being someone’s wife. I knew I was jealous of Bell Gardiner, and though I would never say it to my sisters, I was secretly hoping John would propose to me when he came home for leave the following week.
Beth’s voice came from over by the door, where she was leaning against its frame. “I’m glad I don’t have to go and be with all those frightening people and try to think of things to say.”
She hated to be around crowds. I felt a slight guilt when I got the Facebook invite for only Jo and me, but Beth would much rather be home with Meredith and Amy than at a crowded party with me and Jo.
I gave Beth a sympathetic smile and looked back at Jo.
“Is that what you’re wearing tonight?” I asked her.
She nodded and looked down at her all-black outfit. Black jeans, black shirt. A thin line of pale skin showed just above her hip. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Jo in a dress. Probably that one Easter where Meredith made all of us wear matching dresses and carry matching baskets to get family pictures done. Gah, they were horrendous. They were probably on some BuzzFeed list of corniest family photos.
“What’s that smell?” Amy asked, and sniffed the air. It smelled like burnt . . .
“Oh my God, Jo!” I yanked my head away from her, and a chunk of my hair was smoking, still on the barrel of the iron.
Amy screamed louder than I did, and Jo dropped the hot curling iron onto the floor.
“Get it off the floor!” Beth yelled. “It’s going to burn the carpet!”
I stared at my hair and ran my fingers over the hole in it.
Jo began, “I’m sorry! I—”
“I can’t go anywhere like this!” My eyes welled up with tears, and as much as I didn’t want to yell at Jo, I was always going to be that girl who cared about what her hair looked like.
“I ruin everything,” Jo mumbled, barely loud enough for anyone to hear her.
Her words made such a sad sound that I wanted to comfort her. But I just kept staring at the chunk of my hair she’d burned off and I didn’t know what to say.
Amy clucked around me and pulled the bow from her white hair. “Here, put this on, you’ll barely notice.”
I took the bow from her hands and put it in my hair. I never wore bows, I was too old for them, but there was something edgy, a little baby-doll-like, about the way the black bow wrapped through the front of my hair.
I looked at myself in the mirror and straightened my back. I couldn’t let my burnt hair ruin my night. I still looked sexy. I liked the contrast between my dark makeup and my girlish bow.
“You’re so pretty, Meg. I hope I’m as pretty as you when I get older,” Amy said.
That made me smile. Leave it to little Amy to give me the extra confidence boost I needed. Bell Gardiner would look flawless. I knew she would. She always did, and her fiancé was probably some rich Southern gentleman, and she was going to spend her party showing off some beautiful diamond, and I was going to spend the party sulking and reminding myself that I had someone, too.
John would be home soon.
John would be home soon.
“John will be home soon,” Jo said, stealing the words from inside my head.
I smiled at her effort and pushed my feet into my heels.
8
The driveway to the Kings’ house was packed with black cars and people in their New Year’s best. My feet were already killing me, and every time I looked down at Jo’s sneaker-covered feet, I wished I didn’t care so much about what people thought of my appearance. If I was like Jo, I would have worn flats and jeans. We passed an SUV and I looked at myself, using the window as a mirror. My sparkly dress was tight and my hair was already falling out of its curls.
I looked at myself again, trying to be more like Jo. I looked hot, I knew that I did; I just had to remind myself a few more times.
“God, it’s so crowded,” Jo said, waiting for me to catch up to her.
The Kings’ estate was a massive, two-story, square, tan house with thick white pillars on the porch extending up to the second floor. The long shutters on the bottom-floor windows were painted black, and since I had last been here a week prior, someone had strung up strands of white twinkling lights on the black fence upstairs and down the front pillars. The house was always beautiful; it had been my dream home since before I even stepped inside, but that night it seemed even more magical. Flowers were everywhere. Purple bellflowers draped over iron trellises, and blue flowers that I didn’t know the name of overflowed from hanging baskets.
The real estate in southern Louisiana was my favorite of what I had ever seen. I loved the old, square houses with shutters and pillars, and the eeriness of it all just made it even more appealing to me.
When we finally stepped onto the porch, my heart was beating so fast and my toes were aching in my heels. I spotted Mr. Blackly, the doorman for the estate, and he smiled, waving for me to cut the line at the door. I couldn’t believe a line had formed at the door. It didn’t surprise me too much, though, since the Kings’ home was the biggest anywhere near the post. It was a large double-gallery house. I loved that style of home, especially when the houses were in the Quarter.
One day, I had asked Mrs. King why she didn’t move closer to the French Quarter, and she had looked at me with a smirk in her eyes and said, “Because, darling Meg, I love my diamonds.” She looked down at her wrist, and it sparkled under the lights in her bathroom. I nodded and swept blush over her dark cheeks.
I tugged Jo by the arm of her denim jacket and we pushed through the crowd of people waiting to get inside. I didn’t recognize a single face in the sea of them.
Mr. Blackly told me to have fun and drink some champagne for him. I was even more surprised when we got into the living room. All of the furniture was placed the same as always, but there were little tables full of appetizers, and tucked in the corner was a full bar. The man behind it was shaking a metal cup in one hand and pouring liquor into a glass with his other, and I felt like I was at a Gatsby party.
“This is freaking insane,” Jo said into my ear.
I agreed with her as we made our way into the parlor to look for someone I knew, anyone but Shia.
The first person I spotted was Bell Gardiner, standing over by the piano. She was wearing a long emerald-green dress, and I couldn’t help but look down at her left hand. Her ring sparkled from t
en feet away, and I could see that the color matched her dress. It was beautiful. My petty dislike for her grew instantly. She smiled at the man in front of her, and I wondered if he was her fiancé. Since he had a fairly large bald spot on the back of his head, I hoped he was. I was petty, but at least I could admit it.
“Has it been an hour yet?” Jo pulled her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and checked the screen. “How has it only been five minutes?” she asked, and shoved the phone back into her jeans.
Jo grabbed a little cucumber sandwich, and we continued to explore. A few minutes later, I saw Reeder and the Laurie boy standing by the bar. When I told Jo I wanted to talk to them, she shook her head and told me to go for it but she was staying put.
I didn’t want to leave my younger sister alone in such a crowded place, but I was bored out of my damn mind.
“Meg.” Reeder smiled when I approached him. He wrapped his arm around me and I leaned into his expansive chest. He was monstrously big.
I had known him since I moved to Fort Cyprus. It didn’t take long for the student body to hate me and he was always so nice to me. He used to drive me to school on the mornings that he had patrol, and he was one of the only guys I had ever known that I felt safe around.
One sloppy night my senior year when John had broken up with me, I went to a party and drank my weight in vanilla-flavored vodka. I was a stumbling mess and Reeder showed up with his friends. It was the first time I had seen him out of his uniform, and I hung all over him like a bee to pollen, and when he drove me home and walked me to my back door, I leaned up and tried to kiss him.
I had never been turned down by a boy, or man, before that night, and I haven’t been since Reeder gently declined my advances. He said I had had too much to drink. He was right.
“There are so many people here,” I said to the two of them. I wondered how Reeder, a military police officer, had become such fast friends with the greasy, leather jacket–wearing boy from Europe. I didn’t trust a boy with hair like that.