Page 10 of What August Heard
I looked up. “Thank you.”
“It’s very vintage.” She smiled. “Like a housewife from the 1950s. Very sweet.”
The heat started at the bottom of my neck and moved up.
“Actually the floral pattern on her dress is based on a textile print from 1800s,” Poppy announced from the end of the table, not looking up from arranging sugar cubes on her plate. “I read about it in my trivia book. It was very fashionable in Europe at the time. Women wore it to formal garden parties. So technically it’s more high society than housewife.”
Margaux looked taken aback by Poppy’s well of trivia knowledge. She kept sipping her mimosa and smiled at Poppy with a tight curve that did nothing to hide her annoyance.
Fletcher looked at me.
He smiled. A real one this time. Not the small tucked-away one from the market. This one was different. It reached somewhere close to his eyes and stayed there for a second.
I smiled back.
I looked down at my mimosa that Jennifer had just poured, and took a long sip.
I was going to need the whole glass.
***
Chapter 4
Fletcher
August had sand up to her knees and she didn’t care at all.
She was sitting cross-legged next to Poppy, both of them bent over a sandcastle that had already collapsed twice and been rebuilt with complete commitment each time. Poppy was directing. She had a stick she was using as a pointer and she was explaining something with great seriousness while August nodded along like she was in a very important meeting.
August’s hair kept falling in her face. She kept pushing it back. It kept falling again.
I looked away.
“That woman’s swimsuit,” Margaux said, from the chair next to me.
I looked at her. She had her sunglasses on and her chin tilted slightly toward a couple walking along the waterline. The woman was in a red one-piece. She was laughing at something the man next to her said, her head thrown back, completely at ease.
“What about it?” I said.
“It’s just—” Margaux pressed her lips together. “It’s not doing her any favors. Someone should have told her before she left the house.”
“She looks like she’s having a great time.”
“She looks like a curtain.”
“Someone should tell you before you leave the house when something isn’t doing you any favors?” I asked.
Margaux’s mouth opened.
“Because I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me,” I said. “I’d want to wear what I want and walk on a beach and not have someone in a chair thirty feet away have an opinion about my body.”
“I wasn’t talking about her body—”
“You were, actually.” I kept my voice even. “Try being a little more grounded, Margaux.”
She sat up straighter. “I am grounded. My parents’ foundation raises over two million dollars a year through their charity gala. I’d say that’s pretty grounded.”
“And what doyoudo at the gala?”
