“Tanner Hartson?” Marianne said. I thought he was something big in technology.”
“Well he was. But he sold and now he’s deliciously wealthy.” Sarah raised an eyebrow.
“Is he single?” Marianne asked, and they all laughed.
Van wished Tanner was here. He’d be making faces surreptitiously as they all talked about him. She thought she was beyond this feeling of complete inadequacy by now. What did it matter that she wasn’t as educated as them, or that her mom didn’t have a perfectly beautiful house in which she loved to play hostess? She was twenty-eight years old, that stuff shouldn’t matter.
Yet she still found herself shifting on her seat, her chest tight, every time one of them looked at her.
“I’m Ellie,” the girl on the other side of the fireplace said, leaning forward and holding out a hand. “Regan’s cousin. And I don’t know a single soul here.”
Van smiled and slid her palm into Ellie’s. “I’m Van. I went to school with Regan about a hundred years ago, and I haven’t spoken to anybody in here for about ten years.”
Ellie lifted an eyebrow. “Thank god you’re here.”
Van almost managed to escape without anybody noticing, if it wasn’t for her damn adherence to Southern manners making her walk into Mrs. Fairfax’s kitchen to thank her for hosting.
Nora was standing in the corner, a glass of something that looked suspiciously like wine in her hand, leaning forward to talk quietly to Chrissie who wa
s scrolling through her phone.
“I’m heading out. I just wanted to say thank you for hosting,” Van said, hovering in the doorway. “It was a lovely afternoon.”
“Come in.” Nora turned her hand and beckoned her.
Van took a deep breath and stepped inside.
“I was just talking to Chrissie about you. We were wondering if you had a boyfriend.”
“No. I’m happily single.” Van kept smiling, no matter how much her cheek muscles fought it.
Chrissie looked up from her phone, her eyes flickering over Van. “You never got married?”
“No.”
“Hmmm.” Chrissie lifted her phone to show her mom something. “How about this one.”
“That’s pretty,” Nora said, leaning over the screen. “But too short.” She gave Van a smile. “It’d make you look cheap, sweetie.” She glanced at Van from the corner of her eye. Standing completely still, Van smiled back, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing her pull at the hem of her dress. Yeah, it fell at mid thigh, but it was pretty.
She felt pretty, and she wasn’t going to let the Fairfaxes ruin that.
“Speaking of short skirts, I heard Doctor Tamlyn came out to see your mom yesterday.” Nora’s lips curled up, but it couldn’t be described as a smile. “I guess all that hard living has finally caught up with her.”
“It was nothing important.” Van’s hands curled into fists, her arms hanging by her side. “But I’ll be sure to pass on your kind wishes.”
Nora said nothing. Just looked at Van the way she always had.
“I’ll see you out,” Chrissie said, flipping her glossy dark hair over her shoulder. Slowly, she rose from the high stool she’d been sitting on, and walked around the oversized kitchen island. “I’ll be right back, Mom.”
“Okay, sweetie.”
When Chrissie held the kitchen door open, Van stole a glance at her face. It was beautiful, the same way it always was. At school, Chrissie had been the first to get a figure – okay, the first to grow breasts. And boy did they all know it. In gym, she and her friends would giggle in the corner at the ‘pancakes’ who hadn’t developed yet. Van had been one of them, and it had aggravated her to no end.
To be fair, Chrissie had always made Van feel small. It wasn’t the fact that she had more than Van, nor that she had two parents who were sober and loved her. It was that it wasn’t enough. She had to rub it in Van’s face, make fun of her. Her happiness depended on others’ misery.
And that made Van dislike her. The day her fist connected with Chrissie’s face had been a culmination of years of frustration. Yes, she’d said some awful things about Van’s mom that day, but Van was used to that. It had only been the excuse to do the one thing she’d always dreamed of.
To hit back at those people who thought they were better than her.