Page 49 of The Debutantes
“Yeah,” she says. “Thanks.”
Piper’s door swings open. “Y’all, get in. Now.”
At first I think she’s just being typical impatient Piper, but then I catch the fear in her voice.
And then I see the envelope tucked against the windshield.
“Shit,” I breathe, scrambling to get in as April climbs into the back seat.
Piper snatches the envelope and slides back into her seat, shutting the door behind her. She hits the lock button, and the click feels louder than it should.
“It must have been here this whole time,” she says, tearing it open. “I don’t know when he got here. I don’t knowhowhe—”
“What does it say?” I ask.
Even before Piper slides out the invitation, I know exactly what it will look like: the same fancy paper as the one in the darkroom, the sad clown logo. The same looping script.
“My Dearest Maids,” Piper reads. “I thought we could be civilized, but it looks like you just can’t help getting your hands dirty. So let me make myself clear: stop digging, or I’ll show everyone just what you’ve been hiding behind those pretty masks of yours.”
Dread rushes up in me as Piper reads the sign-off.
“Yours, the Jester.”
17PIPER
JANUARY 1, 2:00A.M.
The drive home is quiet. I half-heartedly offer the aux, and Vivian puts on a Taylor Swift playlist that doesn’t help—just makes it feel like we’re in the world’s most tonally confusing music video, underscored by the Jester’s threat playing in my head on loop.
Stop digging, or I’ll show everyone just what you’ve been hiding behind those pretty masks of yours.
What does he think we’ve been hiding?
And then the other question, an awful little whisper underneath: Why am I afraid I already know?
“It’s right here,” Vivian says, nodding at the house on the corner and snapping me out of my spiral. It’s small, compared to a lot of houses Uptown, but pretty, with a bright periwinkle front door and an old porch swing. I pull over to the curb.
“Meet up tomorrow morning?” I ask. “We could go to the levee. It shouldn’t be too crowded.”
Maybe I’m being paranoid, but after tonight, it can’t hurt. If April’s right about Margot—which I’m still not convinced she is—then the stakes just got a whole lot higher than they already were.
Vivian nods. As she reaches for the door handle, her eyes catch on the Jester’s envelope, shoved into the glove compartment, and I wonder if she has a guess about what it means, too. Or April, who’s been steadily winding her camera strap around her wrist like a boa constrictor.
Maybe we all have secrets we’d rather not dig up.
“Yeah,” Vivian says. “See y’all tomorrow.”
I drop April off next, and it’s not until I get home that the exhaustion fully catches up with me, settling deep in my bones.
I do my best quick-change in the back seat, heart pounding as every second feels like another chance for the Jester to appear in the shadows. I stash the ball gown in the trunk like a body to deal with later, lock the car, and creep into the house.
There’s a brief fifteen seconds where I think everyone’s asleep and I’ve really gotten away with sneaking out. And then I see them.
Mom and Dad on the living-room couch. Waiting.
My blood rushes down to my toes, rooting me to the spot. They don’t say anything yet. Mom just puts her phone down and looks at me. Dad closes his book, the same biography he was reading at the party, and it’s not enough information for me to tell what kind of moods they’re in, how bad this is going to be. They’re waiting, I realize, for me to speak first.
“Hi.” I try for sheepish, a daughter who snuck out of the house for perfectly benign teenager-on-New-Year’s-Eve reasons. “I’m sorry. I was out with friends. I should have—”
