He rolled his eyes.

“Look around,” he said.

Jamie, at least, was always honest with himself. Most Yeatman boys—many who lived in similarly opulent surroundings—maintained the delusion that they had earned their places through their intrinsic merits. Jamie knew exactly what he brought to the table. He was neither proud nor ashamed; it was just a fact.

“So what do you do?” he said.

I thought about it. Did I have a gift? I’d considered myself a promising student, but after only a week at Yeatman, I had discovered myself to be decidedly mediocre. What else was I good at?

“I’m pretty good at drawing,” I said.

“So you’re an artist,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

We sat together playing Punch-Out!! for what seemed like a very long time, Jamie draining beer after beer. By the time Arch returned with the takeout, the evening had grown cool and fragrant with the scent of the magnolia trees surrounding the pool. No one asked what had become of Vanessa; I assumed she was having dinner with her mother.

Arch flipped on the pool lights, turning everything cornflower blue. On the other side, across the lawn, the house was lit up like the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. Indeed, the whole effect of the evening was quite magical, save for Jamie’s crack about my cheap shoes and the collection of spent beer cans he was accumulating on the pool deck.

At some point, Jamie wandered off toward the trees behind the pool, returning with three beers in his hands.

Arch stood. “No, thanks,” he said. “Gotta drive Charlie home. Come to think of it, we probably ought to get going.”

I said goodbye to Jamie with a timid wave and followed Arch back across the lawn. Just inside the kitchen door, he came to an abrupt stop. Standing before the refrigerator, the door open, was a slim blond woman who looked to be about fifty, holding an open bottle of white wine by the neck in one hand and a half-full glass in the other. Her long white bathrobe had fallen open, revealing a silk nightgown beneath. She gazed at us with a benumbed expression.

“Oh,” Arch said. “Hi, Aunt Cici. We were just leaving.”

Aunt Cici, Mrs. Haltom. She teetered a bit. I worried that she might drop the bottle or the glass and step into the shards with her bare, tender feet.

“Where’s Vanessa?” Arch asked.

Mrs. Haltom muttered something as she tipped the bottle and splashed wine into her glass.

“Vanessa!” Arch called back into the house.

Mrs. Haltom shuffled forward toward the island countertop. Without thinking, I took the bottle and placed it on the marble surface and grasped her hand. She turned toward me and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“This is Charlie, Aunt Cici,” Arch said.

Vanessa appeared in the doorway. “I thought you’d gone to bed,” she said.