The house was most impressive – a two- or three-story affair, from the windows, with deliberately industrially ugly modern architecture and finishing and a proper yard. It would have screamed less about money if it had had an actual dollar sign on the face. David Wilkes rubbed the back of his neck, wondering if Richie had aimed above their stars this time and it was going to be difficult to pretend they were temporary renters long enough for someone to draw a wand without getting shot if one of the neighbors called the cops. Sure, they were both very white, as was David’s girlfriend and Rich’s wife, but there could only be so much help that provided in richfolksville….
Of course, the longer he stood here, the more likely that call was to occur in the first place. Right. Quick and smooth – he was walking down the street, then he turned and – yes, there, he was halfway up the drive. Walking as though he had every right to be there. And then he was at the door, ringing the bell, and Michelle was opening the door as though she were the rightful mistress of this domicile.
“Hey, hey,” drawled Richie in the kitchen. “Did I pick a good one this year or what?”
“You did,” said David, accepting a proffered cracker topped in cold chicken salad with cranberries. “A little high-profile, though, don’t you think?”
“Didn’t have any trouble getting in, did you?”
“Well, no.”
* * * * * * * *
Industry, Kentucky
The edge of Morgan’s hat brushed against the sunvisor in the passenger seat of her mother’s car and Amanda Garrett made a noise of impatience as she buckled her seatbelt. “Morgan, take that thing off,” she ordered.
“I can’t,” protested her daughter. “Today’s the day to wear it!”
“But right now isn’t the time,” said Amanda. “You ain’t watching anything in this car, are you?”
A pause, then a small, “No.”
“So you don’t need no hat in the car. Take it off before I bust your rear.”
Morgan removed the hat, carefully placing it in her lap.
Amanda looked down at the thing balefully before starting the car, privately revolted by the number and obvious cheapness of the artificial flowers Morgan had glued all over an already cheap straw sunhat. Damn Annabeth Wilkes for putting these notions in the girl’s head; it was true the woman was good for convincing Morgan to try to keep her – Particular Talents – suppressed, but overall, Amanda thought Annabeth was more trouble than she was worth, always putting notions in the girl’s head, seemingly deliberately trying to make her as abnormal as possible in her preferences and behaviors on top of everything else, always telling her about her father….
At least, Amanda thought, nothing would come of that. If David was still alive and at liberty, he’d have wandered back here years ago – what else exactly was he supposed to do, aside from things that would logically end with him dead or in prison? He was almost certainly dead or doing hard time, and either way would never have anything to do with Morgan. The sooner Morgan understood this and stopped wanting to spend so much time with his family, then the sooner Amanda could hopefully make something of what was left of both her and Morgan’s lives.
* * * * * * * *
Seattle, Washington
David was something of an anomaly among his male friends in that he rarely drank. He’d go out with people from work, of course, or dinners for the same or with Sage’s parents or brother if they were in town, but he usually stuck to water or the occasional soda. He had made a good number of his friends, actually, being The Designated after folks had a few beers or a couple of glasses of wine, getting them from Point A to Point B without a citation.
He had one exception to this rule, and it was the first Saturday in May. It was not Derby Day without mint juleps, and he made better ones that Richie or Michelle did, and assumed he made better ones than Sage did – he didn’t know for sure, admittedly, as he’d never invited Sage to the Derby Day get-together with his fellow transplanted Kentuckians before, but it seemed a safe assumption. On Derby Day, David made mint juleps for everyone and drank some of them himself.
Ten mint leaves – exactly ten, not nine, not eleven – went in the bottom of each glass, topped with a teaspoon and a half of just-out-of-the-blender superfine sugar. When he muddled these, stirring and pressing them with a blunt-ended miniature baseball bat, the abrasive sugar particles quickly began to cut the tender mint leaves, reducing them fairly quickly to a sort of – but not too much of a – paste in the bottom of the glass. When they were just right, in went the ice, three quarters of the way up the glass. He had brought his own ice along with everything else needed for juleps, not trusting anyone else – particularly not the people whose house he was illegally mixing drinks in just now – to get it just perfect. Bad ice would make a bad julep, the same as lackluster muddling or wilted mint or cheap whiskey. The whiskey, he measured with a special tool he only used this one day a year, adding a careful jigger and a pony – in layman’s terms, three and a half ounces, two and a half of which were the jigger – of bourbon to the glass before topping it off with another spritz of seltzer and another bit of mint for garnish.
One drink made, he looked proudly at his creation, then tasted it for quality control. Finding it good, he set to making three more, even though he was not entirely sure Sage was really going to be interested – she seemed enthusiastic about the idea of getting together in a house he’d carefully given her the impression was rented, rather than broken into magically while the owners were out of town, to watch the Derby on a television, but she could have just been humoring him. He couldn’t remember seeing her ever drink anything stronger than dessert wines, after all….
He was halfway through making the second drink when the bell rang again, and he heard Michelle and Sage and Richie exchanging pleasantries in the hall.
* * * * * * * *
Industry, Kentucky
The kitchen smelled strongly of mint, enough so that Amanda covered her nose for a moment upon entering. On the stove, she saw the source of the smell – a boiler sat on one rusty eye, and in its bottom lurked the remains of about six tea bags and a quantity of mint leaves, presumably the overflow from Annabeth or her mother Annie over-estimating how much tea would fit in a pitcher. On the table there was already a tray – strong plastic with a silvery surface, the very best, Amanda thought contemptuously, that the Dollar Tree had to offer – with empty glasses on it and a two-tiered cousin of same with various imitation hors oeuvres on it. At least someone had had the sense to cover this with the plastic lid off a cake plate, to keep flies out of the chicken salad….
There was a creaking noise, and then Annabeth Wilkes entered the kitchen. Like Morgan, she had her face partially concealed by a massive, tackily-decorated hat. Unlike Morgan, it was hard to tell for sure that she had brushed her hair today – it looked slightly wild as it hung down her back, though this was admittedly its natural state. She wore a loose, flowing white blouse which was elasticized to fit in ruffles at the wrists and collar and waist; both it and the navy blue palazzo pants were ever so slightly sheer. The designer had no doubt meant this feature to reveal the slightest hint of a silhouette, intriguing to men without revealing too much; the designer had not accounted for Annabeth, whose awkwardly-shaped form, swollen in all the wrong places, was not a pleasant sight to not-quite-see. Patches of flaking skin on her face and lips were only emphasized by her make-up and lipstick. Around her neck, she wore five rows of glass pearls in a tangled mess.
“Anna!” shrieked Morgan, throwing herself at the woman, and Annabeth’s face revealed the slightest glimpse of the charm and prettiness she’d been known for in high school, before she went completely crazy and let herself go, as she smiled and caught the child into a firm hug.
“Babydoll! You look so pretty.”
Morgan, in her lace-infested Easter dress – another gift from Annabeth - and stupid hat and own, smaller set of faux pearls, beamed up at her aunt. “So do you, Anna.”
* * * * * * * *
Seattle, Washington
David’s friends seemed very nice, Sage thought as she opened the kitchen door, biting her lip and hoping against hope he would be pleased with the surprise she had come up with. After that little build-up of tension, it was almost a disappointment to find him intent on mixing drinks, studying it as though it were molecular chemistry that could explode at any moment, not really seeming to register her entrance.
“You never told me your friends were so funny,” she said, and David looked up, seemed to start to reply – and then stopped, seemingly dumbfounded.
“You should close your mouth if you aren’t going to say anything,” chided Sage. “They tell me that flies will get in.”
David did so, looking over the construct on top of her head. It had begun its life as a beach hat, as she recalled – a navy and white striped one, on sale for about two dollars. As of last night, however, it was reborn – nearly unrecognizable. She had, she supposed, gotten a bit carried away with the flouncy ribbon bows, and gluing and pinning on the plastic fruits and flowers and bird-shaped foam-and-woodchip thingies, thinking at the time it was funny….
“You made a Derby hat,” said David finally.
“Yep. Do you like it?”
David started to nod, but what he said wasn’t ‘yes.’ Instead, it was “marry me.”
Sage considered this offer for a moment. “Okay,” she said agreeably.
* * * * * * * *
Industry, Kentucky
The living room was, of course, fully furnished, but there were certain formalities that had to be observed if they were really going to feel as though they were at the Run for the Roses. The plastic toy benches Morgan knew from previous years, along with the green rug spread beneath them to imitate grass and – unbeknownst to her – conceal the somewhat greyish, once-beige carpet beneath from her aunt’s sight, but she squealed with delight when she saw the canopy which her aunt had somehow both convinced Nana to let her put up in the living room and to wind paper roses around the poles of. More hung in festoons from the edges, one almost brushing the top of the television.
“It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed.
“I’m glad you like it, sweet pea,” said Anna fondly, putting the trays of iced tea juleps – sweet black tea with mint poured over ice in pretty glasses, with a sprig of mint on top of each as a garnish and a spritz of seltzer water added at the top to humor Morgan – and snacks on the cloth-covered table, its decrepit, decaying-cork-and-processed-wood nature largely concealed for the moment in only moderately worn lace. “So, who you betting on today?” she asked, handing Morgan a drink and settling down beside her to watch the opening ceremonies.