Page 11 of Deadly Little Scandals
Campbell ignored it as she herded me into a nearby bathroom to stand in front of the mirror. “Luckily for you, I can work around those unfortunate in-lieu-of-therapy bangs,” she said. “Far be it from me to point out that there are far more pleasant ways of working out tension and personal issues, so long as you can find a willing and attractive partner.” She pulled back the shower curtain. “Here ends the relationship-advice portion of our Betterment of Sawyer lecture series. Hop in the shower. Wash the lake out of your hair. Once you’re done, work a quarter-sized dollop of conditioner through that mess and leave it in. I’ll get you something to wear.”
Campbell Ames was the last person I would have gone to for relationship advice, especially given the identity of her lastwillingandattractivepartner.
Nick.
“You’re really going to blackmail me into a makeover?” I asked, refusing to give life to any of my other thoughts.
“You really let me go on for weeks thinking we were sisters?” Campbell retorted, then she flashed me a sharp-edged smile. “The conditioner will minimize frizz when you’re out on the water, which in this humidity withthathair is a must. And you’ll need clothes for tonight. I’m assuming you and Lily received one of these as well?”
She reached into a nearby cabinet and brandished a matte black box, long and thin and flat, with a card affixed to the front and Campbell’s name embossed on the card.
The White Gloves.
“We can hardly rely on Lily to get you ready for yourrealdebut in society,” Campbell said. I opened my mouth to reply, but she put a finger to my lips to hush me. “Things work differently at the lake. Lake formal basically translates to ‘you cannot wear a bathing suit.’ Semiformal means that you have to wear some kind of sundressoveryour suit. In either case, your makeup has to pass the boat test: if you can’t wear it on the water, you don’t wear it at all.”
“So you’re going to this White Glove shindig?” I asked when she finally stopped talking.
She shrugged. “Who am I to turn down a pity invite?” It was unlike Cam to admit to even the slightest bit of weakness. She was the kind of person who could come in last in a race and convince every person there that she’d won. “At this point in my exile, I will gladly let people gawk at the pitiable, scandalous Ames family to their hearts’ content, so long as they offer me some form of diversion as they gawk.”
“What kind of diversion are you expecting tonight?” I asked.
Campbell smirked and gestured to the shower. “You strip,” she said, “and I’ll talk.”
I made the executive decision to undress in the shower. I’d shed my swimsuit and started in on washing my hair when Campbell deigned to hold up her end of the bargain.
“Think of the White Gloves like the Junior League—by way of Skull and Bones. They tend to recruit from the debutante sets in a three-state area, but the initiation process is notoriously risky and risqué. A total adrenaline rush, from what I’ve heard.” Campbell paused for a few seconds. “Anyone can be born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but not every country-club girl is White Glove material.”
Lily had been excited to receive an invitation. As I stepped under the spray and rinsed the shampoo—and the lake—from my hair, I had the distinct sense that Campbell was relieved.
She needed this.
“Done yet?” Campbell demanded. I barely had time to wrap a towel around myself before she pulled the curtain. “Try this luminizer.” She slapped a container into my hand.
“What the hell is luminizer?”
Without answering, Campbell left the room and returned with a dress she’d selected for me: white cotton, with a gathered neckline and spaghetti straps. “I’ll send the dress home with you in a watertight bag. I’d recommend a bright-colored bathing suit to go underneath. You’re not trying to hide the fact that you’re wearing one, so you might as well go big or go home.”
I reached for the suit I’d worn here.
Campbell blocked my arm. “Not that one.” Having issued that edict, she disappeared back across the hall.
With a roll of my eyes, I studied the “luminizer” she’d handed me, determined it to be some kind of glittery lotion, and mentally filed it underhell no.
“What isshedoing here?”
I turned to see Charlotte Ames standing in the doorway. Campbell’s mama wasn’t wearing makeup, and I could smell the alcohol on her breath from four feet away. Her question was clearly directed toward Campbell, but she stood facing me.
I could not help feeling that wearing nothing but a towel didn’t put me in the best position for a standoff.
“Isn’t it enough that your father’s in prison, Campbell? Do you really hate me so much that you would invitethis…” Even inebriated, Charlotte Ames was not the type to fling about vulgarities or slurs, so she settled on simply referring to me asthis. “…into my home?”
Maybe I should have felt attacked or degraded or, at the very least, condescended to, but the only thing I could bring myself to actually feel in that moment was pity.
This woman’s husbandhadcheated on her. Repeatedly. Hehadknocked up a teenager years ago. And even though that baby wasn’t me, Iwasone of the people responsible for her husband’s arrest. Campbell, Lily, Sadie-Grace, and I had planned his disgrace down to the last detail, and as a result, Charlotte Ames had spent much of the past month splattered on front pages right alongside her husband.
“I’ll go,” I said.
“No.” Campbell stepped into the hallway and blocked my exit. “Stay, Sawyer. After all, you’re my sister.” Given that she knew now that I wasn’t, I could only assume that Campbell and her mother were not currently on the best terms. “Blood is thicker than water—isn’t that what you always say, Mama?”
