Page 61 of High Season
It’s always me, she thinks. Always ruining things. Always hurting anyone who comes close.
He’s already turned away from her. He starts to gather up the picnic blanket, packing the champagne back into the hamper.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
She isn’t sure that he hears her.
She turns and walks away.
She is almost certain that she will never see Nic again.
NINETEEN
2024
For the second day in a row, Nina has not slept.
All night, she lay awake. She relived the conversation with Josie, over and over. Tried to quantify what it meant to her, how it had felt, to see the woman who had killed her sister. Or at least, who Nina had long believed had killed her sister.
Sometime around 2A.M., Ryan clambered out of the bed, sleepy and stiff, complaining that Nina’s restlessness was keeping him awake. He shuffled out, carrying his pillows to one of the spare bedrooms. Nina hadn’t cared, hadn’t even apologized. Instead, she pulled open the curtains so that the room was lit by the soft, silver light of the moon. Not for the first time, she longed for the cacophony of pills that she used to take. Something to slow her heartbeat, and ease her into the release of sleep.
Instead, she was left with her own thoughts which, it felt, were slowly driving her mad.
She kept going over and over the meeting with Josie Jackson. When she thought about it, the thing that struck her the most was how Josie had stood: her body braced, her legs shoulder width apart, her hands firmly by her side.
It was the kind of position that Nina counseled clients to adopt inconfrontational situations, to show inner strength. The kind of pose that someone who was certain of themselves might naturally fall into.
Meanwhile, Nina’s own hands had been knotted in front of her. Her spine had been hunched and apologetic. It was not the stance of someone facing the woman who had killed her sister.
The body remembers what the mind does not. Nina really believes that. It’s what she always told her clients, when she was in her final year of training. And when she stood in front of Josie, her body was not afraid. It was not defiant. Her body did not tell Nina that she was standing in front of a murderer.
For the first time, Nina felt sure that she did not see Josie kill Tamara.
And now she can’t stop thinking about what she might have seen instead.
With the sun beginning to set on the evening of Evelyn’s birthday party—an entire day survived without sleep—Nina should feel exhausted. Instead, she feels invigorated. Full of fury and drive.
The house is already full of guests, and for once Nina doesn’t care about making a good impression. The thought of making small talk and eating a tiny, measured portion of cake and then worrying about how many steps she’ll have to take to burn it off later feels ridiculous.
Instead, she sits alone on the terrace, a bottle of wine on the ground beside her. The air has a heaviness that comes before rain, the sky clouded and yellow, the sea dark. Her mother’s party guests have crowded inside the house, afraid that they’ll get caught up in the storm. Abandoning the champagne station that her mother had set out in the garden, the crudités arranged on a long table on the front balcony.
Nina knows that Evelyn will be annoyed by the weather. That tomorrow she will be in a foul mood that will seep through the house. But for now, the pink house glows and teems with people. Through the window, Nina can just spot her mother, resplendent in a fuchsia dress as the room hums around her, a queen bee at the heart of a swarm. Nina drains her glass and pours another. There is a frisson of exhaustion that pulsates beneath her skin. Her body is in survival mode now,running on borrowed reserves of energy. Her mind is foggy from the wine, and the lack of sleep, and the same thoughts that skitter through her head like electrical currents.Josie Jackson. Tamara. The pool. The steps. The heat.
There’s an ashtray abandoned on the balustrade, an empty bottle of beer glinting amber. A fly teeters on its neck, dizzy from the lingering fumes, fat from the spoils of plates left out in the heat for too long, the sugary hit of buttercream and stagnating crumbs of cheese sweating from the humidity. Nina watches it climb inside the bottle, knowing that it will die in there, trapped in the dregs of someone’s forgotten drink. Its bloated body makes her feel slightly sick, the green flicker of wings against the glass sharpening her desire to be moving. Todosomething. To release some of the anxiety that simmers in her stomach, and in her limbs, and her chest.
She goes to stand, but the sudden movement sends a hot rush of pressure to her temples. She hasn’t eaten today. It gave her a terrible, beautiful high to skip breakfast. To slip the sandwich that Sandra had made her into the bin when nobody was looking. It made her feel powerful and untouchable, but now the wine has gone straight to her head. A livid flush of color that blooms from the back of her skull. A crash as the wine bottle topples to the floor.
She takes a second to stabilize, standing perfectly still as her vision darkens and then clears. When it does, she is looking at the exact spot where her sister drowned. She is almost surprised not to see the azure blue of the pool. To not smell chlorine on the air.
It’s only then that she notices her foot. A shard of glass. A jagged tear, the flesh white and parted. When it comes, the pain is swift and sharp. Nina swears under her breath and starts to hobble toward the house, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind her, dark marks on the blank stretch of ground where her sister died.
Nobody seems to notice as she limps into the garden room, where an enormous white cake has been set up on a teeteringly tall stand. Three tiers, more like a cake for a wedding than a birthday. As if her mother hasn’t had enough of those, Nina thinks. The cruelty of her own thought surprises her.
Groups are bunched between the yellowing palms and snakes of ivy that wind across the walls, champagne flutes in their hands. A waiter breezes toward Nina, smiling, holding out a glass toward her. She takes it and drinks it down almost in one.
Nina has been to so many of these parties. She has seen her mother bloom and glow as guests tell her how beautiful she looks, how she’s barely aged since last year, or the year before that. People that Evelyn hasn’t seen since her last birthday, kissing her on both cheeks like they’re best friends. One eye always turned toward the door, wondering who else has been invited this year, which recently divorced celebrity or socialite fresh from a scandal will grace them.
Nina does not usually enjoy herself at her mother’s parties. Usually, she’s careful not to drink too much, or eat too much. Usually, she’s busy ensuring that Evelyn has a nice time, too fearful of the black mood that will encircle the house at the smallest slight or guest-list snub.
