Page 8 of The Debutantes
“Hi, peanut,” he says wearily as I approach, kissing me on the forehead.
“Hey, Dad.” I pull him in for a small hug. “Have you seen Mom?”
He squeezes me back for a moment before letting go. “I think she’s engaged in damage control.”
Like mother, like daughter.
“You didn’t go with her?” I ask.
“You think she asked?”
“Touché.”
“Gesundheit.”
I roll my eyes at the classic Dad joke. I’m glad he doesn’t seem angry right now, but also, I’m surprised he isn’t. He’s in Deus, so this disaster of a night reflects badly on him, too.
But Dad just sighs. “You look beautiful, peanut. I’m sorry this all went to hell in a handbasket.”
His eyes are glossy, almost like he’s on the verge of tears, and I realize what must be going through his head. Margot Landry. Of course. I kick myself for not seeing it before, how he might react to all those videos of her. In all his years as a psychiatrist, I’m pretty sure Margot’s the only client he’s ever lost.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, putting on a smile. “I’m having fun.”
It’s always my first instinct when his mood turns cloudy, like if I perform the role of perfect daughter more convincingly, it’ll make everything better.
“I’ll go make sure Mom’s okay,” I add.
Dad gives me another side-hug. “I’d bring reinforcements, if I were you.”
“Already on it.”
We both mean alcohol, of course. And I know how that sounds, but my parents are hardly alcoholics. They drink in theway every adult in New Orleans does: socially, which, in a city that’s all about socializing, means pretty much always. Personally, I’m not a fan of alcohol, but I can’t blame them. We have drive-through daiquiri stores, for god’s sake. We’re practically raised to be debaucherous.
Smoothing my gown, I march up to the bar and ask for a vodka tonic.
“That bad, huh?”
I turn to find Aiden Ortiz leaning against the bar, looking annoyingly tall in his suit.
“It’s for my mom,” I say snippily, both to him and the bartender, who’s giving me a wary look. The bartender relents, making the drink, and I have to wonder if it’s because he’s met my mom already. Like I said, hell hath no fury like a Johnson woman pissed.
I turn back to Aiden, nodding at his own glass. “You’re one to talk. Was being my Dukethatdifficult?”
“Shirley Temple,” he says, swishing the drink. “But also, would you blame me? Escorting your royal highness around a ballroom was pretty taxing.”
Aiden’s eyes flash the exact color and stickiness of honey. They’re another one of his irritatingly perfect qualities, along with his 4.7 weighted GPA and the Google internship he’s got lined up for the summer before he starts at Stanford. He got in early action, because of course he did. I’m in early at Vanderbilt, which is just as good a school, but try telling that to everyone at Beaumont. They’re all obsessed with the idea of their best and brightest leaving the South for four years at a flashy school, so long as they bring their diplomas back home to settle down, pop out some kids, send them to Beaumont, and start the cycle all over again.
I frown at his Shirley Temple. “Girly drink.”
“Archaic gendering of beverages,” he fires back.
My frown intensifies as I take Mom’s drink from the bartender. For once, sneaking a sip doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. But then I get a better one.
“You were up there with the Jesters. Did you see who did this?”
Aiden looks away. He knows something. Doesn’t he?
But what he says is “I don’t know. I was mostly trying not to die of embarrassment, and then everything happened so fast. All that Margot stuff…”
