Page 100 of The Debutantes
She sounded like she was joking. She always had that bold sense of humor, a fuck-you sort of confidence that I’d always been jealous of, even when it bordered on vulgar. Maybe that’s why I was jealous—because shecouldbe vulgar. Because, despite growing up with the same suffocating pressure and expectations that I did, Margot had a unique power: she didn’t give a shit what people thought.
But even then, on the boat that day, I think I had a sense ofwhat was about to happen—something tipping toward a cliff’s edge, momentum unstoppable.
“I found them one night,” I say. “I’d gone down to the dock to look for Margot, because she’d disappeared, and there they were on his boat together. Alone. Drinking wine, Marty’s hand on her thigh. And then…”
When he kissed her, I wanted to turn and run, or say something so they knew I was there, but I couldn’t do anything except watch, frozen, from the dock. Some part of me needed to see it happen. Needed to know how much of a mess they were about to make.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” I say. “I just went back to the house and tried to pretend I didn’t see anything. For the rest of the trip, it mostly worked. But then, when we got home, they started texting. Margot never said anything, but she was always on her phone, all secretive, smiling. It was so obvious.”
Disgusting, too, though I still can’t admit it out loud. Not only because of the age gap, the wrongness of it, but because of howstupidshe was being. That summer, I’d gotten to know her as this strong badass girl, everything I wished I could be, but here she was, doing something completely reckless—and not in a fun way anymore. It was bad enough that I had to fight April Whitman for Margot’s attention when we got home, but now…
“I kept thinking she’d get over it, get bored, but it went on for months. By Thanksgiving, I couldn’t take it anymore. I confronted her about it, told her I’d seen them in Mississippi, and she admitted it. Said he was going to leave his wife for her.” I laugh, bitterness burning in my throat. “The thing is, I don’t think she even liked him that much. I think she just wanted to see if he’d really do it. Blow up his whole life.”
I can still see it so clearly, that gleam in her eyes as she told me. It wasn’t love. It waspower,and she was drunk on it. And I was so angry at her because I understood it, somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of me. Not that I’d ever fantasized about screwing an old guy—ew—but I knew what it was like to daydream about all of the men who thought they owned me bowing down at my feet. Not just some fake debutante-ball version, butreal.
That’s what we were both starving for, I think. Control. Only we dealt with it in different ways: I focused on me, sharpening my self-control like a weapon, and Margot threw hers into the fire, watching it burn.
It’s why, I thought, we needed each other. But I guess I was wrong.
“Anyway,” I say, forcing down the memories, “Margot basically told me I wasn’t her friend if I was going to judge her.”
“What did you do?” Vivian asks, her voice hollow.
“What was I supposed to do?” I shoot back. “Tattle to her parents? Mine? They wouldn’t have believed me, and Marty would have denied it. He texted her from a burner, like a creep, so there wasn’t even real evidence that it was him.”
“I know,” Vivian says. “We found the burner. It was in an envelope on my car.”
Her car? No, that’s not right.
“I left the burner for y’all in the darkroom,” I say.
“Coach and Marty got to it first.” Vivian looks down, guilty. “We told Marty about the email you sent us. That’s how he knew where the phone was, I’m guessing.”
I grit my teeth. The email—myonebackup plan in case anything went wrong—and they failed me.
“I have no idea why he would have left the burner on my car,though,” Vivian adds. “And I never would have told him about the email if I’d known. I swear, we thought he could help us.”
Another bitter laugh works through me.
“Yeah, well. Rookie mistake.”
For a moment, Vivian is quiet.
“He killed her, didn’t he?” she asks. “Marty?”
A sad smile twitches on my lips. She really doesn’t know. I watch her for a moment, waiting to see if she’ll put together the last twist in this Southern Gothic fairy tale.
And she should. Because we both know by now that none of my stories have tidy endings.
38PIPER
JANUARY 3, 12:15A.M.
I pull harder, but the zip ties won’t break. They just bite into my skin, stinging where it’s already red and raw from Marty’s grip as he forced me up onto the float. The King’s Float, specifically, which feels ironic. It’s the one that leads the Deus parade every Mardi Gras, and I can picture it perfectly as it rolls down the street: King Deus waving at his loyal subjects from his golden throne, sitting beneath a canopy of yellow and purple papier-mâché designed to look like billowing fabric, the gold leaf glinting in the sun.
It’s kind of funny, in a sick and twisted way.
“Something amusing you, Piper?” Marty asks.
