Mira walked to the nearby chaise. Like a lot of the furnishings in the bedroom suite, the chaise appeared new, barely touched. She marveled at how much money had been spent, at the gratuitous display of it, both in its attempt to erase and preserve the past. “You’re getting married,” she said, as she sat down on the chaise’s stiff upholstery.

“Do you like Phillip? What do you think of him?”

“He seems nice enough.”

“‘Nice enough.’ Tell me what you really think.”

Celine forced a laugh, but Mira knew her enough to recognize her attempts at playing off an underlying insecurity. Celine didn’t need her approval but she wanted it anyway. “He dotes on you,” Mira offered.

“Yes, that’s true. It can get little obsessive though.”

“Do you love him?”

Celine appeared taken aback by her directness, as if she’d never considered another possibility, or that anyone would dare to ask her otherwise.

“Why would you ask that?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Mira hoped to relieve any possible tension, but Celine was clearly still bothered by the question. She shifted on the bed until her back was against the headboard and placed the brush in her lap. Mira was about to apologize again and leave, but before she mustered the nerve Celine spoke.

“Like you said, Phillip dotes on me,” Celine asserted. “We’ve already started on plans for a house. Three floors. A wraparound porch. Inside, it’s going to have hardwood throughout, not that tacky laminate some of the other girls have where you need to be careful about what shoes you wear. Custom cabinetry and marble countertops in the kitchen. It’s going to be perfect. Everything I could ever ask for and more than what anyone else here has ever had.”

Celine had always desired the life she believed the Kipsen rich lived, whereas Jesse and Mira used to mock them for their money. The year they all turned thirteen, one of their classmates held her birthday party on a luxury charter yacht where she’d invited the entire year. Students had to carpool to Beaufort, and this might have been the reason Jesse hadn’t wanted to go. They would have had to find someone to drive all three of them, and none of them knew who would. Jesse was too proud to ask and Mira too shy, so they agreed not to go, convincing Celine to do the same. “It’s obscene anyway,” Jesse had said, “the way they flaunt their money at us.”

Celine had played along at first. “Do you think they know what they have?” she’d asked after they’d quieted down.

“Oh, I bet they do. That’s why they try so hard to make sure people like us don’t ever get it,” Jesse had joked, not recognizing in Celine what Mira had started to see.