Page 115 of High Season
“And your mum’s party,” she said.
“What about it?”
“I want to go to it. If you’re serious about me, you’d want me there. As your date.”
“Hannah.” He reached out toward her again. Snatched hold of her hand. “Come on. We don’t need to show the people at my mum’s party that I’m serious about you. They’re not important.Thisis what’s important. Us.”
She pulled her hand away.
“I mean it, Blake. Either we’re doing this, or we’re not. If you want me, then show me that. Show everyone else that.”
There was a second—only a second—when she thought he would say no. When she thought he would turn. That he would leave. Then his hands were on her waist. Her back. His mouth close to her face.
“Alright,” he said. “Come to the party. Come, and I’ll show you. I’m serious about this, Hannah. I want this.”
Something in her relented then.
“Come on,” he was saying, his breath hot, his touch urgent. “Let’s go to your room.”
And so, they went. And so, she let him kiss her. Undress her. Let him fuck her on her childhood bed, with a force and an urgency that she was not expecting.
But Hannah was not thinking about how he pushed her hard into the mattress, facedown on the bed. The way that he abruptly flipped her over, pressing his hand against her throat as he came.
Instead, Hannah was thinking of silk dresses. Champagne. Evelyn Drayton looking at her as if she was a person for the very first time.
She was thinking of all the ways that tomorrow would be different. The way that her entire life would be different now.
THIRTY-EIGHT
2004
THE DAY OF THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
The day of Evelyn’s birthday is predicted to be the hottest of the year.
Tamara hears the weather warnings on the radio. The talk of sea temperatures and keeping children and animals indoors. Outside the Draytons’ house, the asphalt curls and buckles, and when Tamara drives into town with Harrison to pick up a wine delivery at her mother’s request they find the town empty and silent, the streets sliced through with heat, nobody wanting to venture away from their pools or their air-conditioned houses. Farther down the coast there are wildfires that give the air a strange, burnished tinge, the sky a shade of gold as if the whole world is burning.
After days of Evelyn throwing increasingly explosive tantrums about the weather ruining her birthday, Harrison hires air-conditioning units, enormous metal things that are wheeled in on sack barrows while Evelyn complains loudly about the expense; about how her father would beturning in his graveto see his hallway filled up withthose ugly contraptions.When they are switched on, groaning and clunking into life, the humidity immediately easing, she falls quiet. Within minutes, she is telling everyone how Harrison hassaved herbirthday,resting her head on his shoulder, looking at him as though he is explaining how he achieved world peace when he talks about how he tracked down a company who could deliver the units last minute.
Later, Tamara hears them having sex upstairs, her mother’s performative moans, and hates her for it. Hates how easily Evelyn forgives. How desperately she needs love, and how easily she accepts something far less.
She goes outside and sits on the terrace, leaning her elbows up on the balustrade, and texts Barnaby, asking if he can get hold of some coke for tonight. She needs more than alcohol to take the edge off. She needs something, if she is going to smile, and talk to people, and pretend that she is happy.
Last night, just before sunset, she had walked down to the small private beach at the back of the property, taking with her the diary where she had written down all her thoughts and feelings about Josie Jackson. Where she had recorded each time they had met up with a small, purple heart at the top of the entry. She had flicked through the pages, noticing how the sea of violet stamps had grown thinner over time until, this year and last, they were barely there at all. Just an occasional purple mark on an otherwise blank expanse of summer. She thought of how much those infrequent meetings had meant to her, how she had savored taking out her purple pen to ink each occasion into permanence.
Then she had thought of her life stretching out ahead. Without Josie, but perhaps also without the ability to be who she really was. To love the way that she wanted to. She had seen the shocked way that Josie had looked at her. She never wanted to feel like that again.
As the sun set, Tamara tore every page out of her diary with a purple mark, every single mention of Josie Jackson. She shredded them until the loop of her handwriting was barely visible, and then she released them into the air, let them drift and fall into the water. They looked, in the half-light of dusk, like ashes after a fire.
Tamara has a goal for the party, and that goal is to get exceptionally fucked up.
She has a bottle of Grey Goose, stolen from Harrison’s stash. She has coke, bought from Barnaby, hidden in the secret compartment of her bedside table. She mixes vodka with Coca-Cola, so strong that the liquid is a pale, insipid brown. She drinks two full glasses while she gets ready. A slick of kohl around each eye. A tight black dress.
Tamara looks at herself in the full-length mirror. She looks thin, as though she has lost weight in the last few days, her cheekbones concave, her eyes too big for her face. She can almost see the effect of the coke starting to take hold of her. The hum of energy. The chemical glow that flickers beneath her skin.
She drains the last of her drink.
“Just a few hours,” she says to her reflection. “You can get through this.”
