And then the silence was broken when a woman who was too everything, too thin, too tan, too blond, just too too, stepped forward. “Richaaard,” she said musically, “I heard you were back in town, you bad boy. A whole week. Why haven’t you come around to see me? This must be your lovely new wife.” She extended an emaciated hand, talon-like and tipped in red, and wrapped it around her mom’s. “How do you do? Well, obviously you do very well. Better than very well. Richard’s quite the catch. I’m Muffie Buckley. Such a pleasure. You must let me introduce you around. I’d, of course, like to keep this strictly vous et nous, but I won’t be forgiven if I monopolize you. Come on. You too, Richard.”

And with that, her mom and Richard were whisked off, disappearing into the crowd, and the party started up again: conversations resuming, champagne reflowing, servers retracing invisible figure-eight-like paths around the room, trays of finger food balanced deftly on the fingertips of their upraised arms. Charlie took the opportunity to scope out the scene, the white tablecloths, the high arched ceilings, the French windows opening out onto a rose garden. If she were in a good mood, which she wasn’t particularly, she would call it charming, tasteful, elegant. If she were in a bad mood—which, ding ding ding ding ding—that face-off with Richard had upset her more than she’d let on—she would call it stuffy, pretentious, uptight. The guests were mostly her mom and Richard’s age. Not all, though. And she zeroed in on the under-twenty-ones. There was a cluster of them in the far corner of the room, and at the center of this cluster was a bombshell-looking blonde, perfect face, perfect body, slim-hipped and long-legged, flanked by two lesser bombshell-looking blondes (less blond, less bomb-y). She’d found her target.

Charlie turned to her sister. Alice was busy staring at some dumb photograph, doing her wallflower act, trying to blend into the scenery. The problem with Alice, Charlie thought and not for the first time, was that she didn’t know how pretty she was. Or rather, how pretty she’d become: a full moody mouth, fat-lipped with a sulk to it; clear white skin; a long willowy body. She’d developed a little behind schedule. Was flat-chested and gawky for all of middle school and the first couple years of high school, nose wrong for her face somehow, eyes too big for it, cheeks thin and kind of waxy. It’s like her looks came too late to do her any good, after her confidence had been formed, and her identity as a shy bookworm and weirdo artist girl had been established. Charlie was both sympathetic to her plight and impatient with it.

She took off her mom’s jacket, tossed it on the back of an empty chair. Then she said, “Come on” to Alice.