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Back The Social Climber Save as PDF
Chapters (34)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. Quote
  6. Part One
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. FOUR
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. Part Two
  19. TWELVE
  20. THIRTEEN
  21. FOURTEEN
  22. FIFTEEN
  23. SIXTEEN
  24. SEVENTEEN
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. Part Three
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  34. Booklist

THIRTEEN

We were summoned for dinner exactly as Lorraine planned at a prompt 7:15 p.m. when a buzzer went off inside our bedroom and Lorraine’s voice materialized over the intercom. “Dinner is ready,” was all she said, like a fork in fucking Beauty and the Beast.

Fucking Lorraine.

I had spent the last hour and a half unpacking and thinking about her. I hung up my dress and Graham’s suit and wondered why she had looked at me for so long in the driveway. I laid out my makeup and toiletries in our bathroom while replaying her greeting—it’s nice to see you—and studying my memory of her face.

Then I started self-soothing. She was looking at me normally. I was imagining it all. There was no weird pause or unwanted lingering. She greeted me the same way I greeted Lady Gaga when I met her at a fundraiser. It doesn’t mean I’d ever met Lady Gaga before.

I imagined the moment. I imagined all those moments. I didn’t know this woman. And this woman does not know me. She’s simply come out of what is surely a luscious retirement to be there for her little boy Graham on his big day. It was nothing more than meeting her favorite kid’s fiancée for the first time. The woman he was about to promise to spend the rest of his life with. It was as simple as that. I couldn’t think about the other possibility, because that would mean Lorraine could ruin everything.

“You ready?” Graham asks at the door.

I roll out of bed and slip into the white minidress and heels waiting for me and take Graham’s hand.

We walk slowly down the hallway from the north wing of the house—consisting of our suite and Reed and Veronica’s suite—to the south wing, where the common spaces, offices, and Oskar’s lodging are spread out over eleven thousand pristine square feet. Getting anywhere in this house involves at least five minutes and several walks down dimly lit hallways. At home, Graham leaves all the lights on all the time. It is by far his most annoying domestic trait, and I’m talking about a guy who buys his underwear from a boutique in London. But here, it’s like his parents hide the light switches to force you to walk around in the dark, feeling for walls, desperate for a way out, trying to sense if someone is there watching you.

I tug on Graham’s hand a little tighter and push that claustrophobic feeling away. The one I always get in the dark that always gets worse when I’m here. The feeling like I’m going to be swallowed whole into the night.