Money To Burn (23 page)

I looked around. He was right. The impressive lobby had a ceiling about ten stories high and was heavy on gleaming marble, fresh flowers and two-ton chandeliers. Urns and pillars littered the place. Lydia’s decorations had catapulted Memorial Auditorium way past Greek Revival and into Greek Resuscitation. But there were too many people to make it safe for Lydia to mingle. I frantically scanned the crowd for sudden movements, all the while talking to Bobby out of the corner of my mouth.

“Can you believe this?” I mumbled, looking at the well- heeled crowd around us. The smell of money—and Giorgio—was overpowering.

“Wee doggies,” Bobby exclaimed. “There’s some tasty female pickin’s here.” He looked like he’d stumbled into the outlet store for Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. His tongue hung out and droplets of drool glistened on its tip. “I love gussied-up Ke gd intwomen and everyone here looks like they’re wearing a prom dress.”

“Yeah, with yard-wide inserts,” I said.

It was true. For every young, well-toned former deb lounging around in her slinky Prada gown looking sophisticated and starved, I counted at least five plump battleaxes clad in poufy white dresses junked up with all sorts of bustles, sashes and bows. I kept expecting Aunt Pittypat to scurry past, murmuring about Scarlett’s lack of decorum.

Damn. I’d lost Lydia. I abandoned Bobby to the hordes as I tracked the bobbing flower in her hair across the lobby and into the main ballroom. She was immediately swamped by a crowd of already tipsy partygoers. Unlike the real debutante ball, alcohol at this particular charity function seemed to be the beverage-of-choice. I checked out the crowd surrounding her and, while they were well lubricated, they also seemed friendly. I relaxed against one wall and kept a close eye on Lydia, occasionally searching for would-be assassins and, I admit it, some source of liquid comfort.

So much for having an escort. Bobby D. was already lost in the crush. After a couple of minutes, Haydon joined me against the wall, which I appreciated. Such gallantry in a young lad, I thought to myself, until I caught him staring at my chest. Mariela had gone overboard tightening the bodice. My breasts spilled out of the gown like two pink puppies trying to escape. Haydon was obviously in the big boobs stage of adolescence and fascinated by them.

“So what do you think?” I asked him—about the ball, not my boobs.

“It seems kind of crowded,” he said. “I wonder if it’s always like this?”

“I doubt it,” I assured him. “This is like fifty debutante balls squished into one.” And, indeed, it was. Excess seemed the theme of the night. There was enough white satin bunting to decorate a Confederate hospital camp and massive vases full of flowers perfumed the air. It made my nose itch. I prefer to smell like soap or, better yet, not smell at all.

“Oh, no.” Haydon’s voice grew small. He pressed against the side of my dress until he almost disappeared behind me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There’s my brother Jake. I don’t want him to see me.”

Too late. Jake Talbot was heading our way with a beautiful and very young debutante-type on his arm. He was flawless physically, with clear, tanned skin, a lean body and a head of glossy black hair. He was undeniably good-looking and only a couple of years younger than a lot of my ex-boyfriends. Yet I hated him on sight. Maybe it was the memory of the smirk plastered on his face as he’d watched his sister’s pai K sian>

“There’s the squirt,” Jake Talbot called out in an overly playful voice that did not disguise the hostility lurking in it. “Look at the little big man tonight.”

He grabbed his brother by the arm and dragged him out from behind me. Haydon shrank back, but his brother jerked him to a halt in front of the young girl. “What do you think, Alicia? Who’s better looking? Me or my brother?”

Haydon turned pink and Alicia looked confused. Not being a pedophile, she was slow on the uptake.

“Come on,” Jake demanded. “Who do you think is going to carry on the Talbot good looks? Me or him?” He grabbed his little brother’s chin and bent over, pressing their cheeks together, demanding an answer. That was when I decided Jake Talbot was a jerk. The event had officially started half an hour before and already the little shit was plowed.

“Need some more input?” he asked his date when she stood in befuddled silence. He grabbed the waistband of Haydon’s pants and pulled it out, peering downward before nodding toward the girl. “Come on. Take a look and then you can decide.”

“That’s enough,” I said. It was time to put a stop to it.

Jake Talbot actually jumped. I don’t think he even realized I was there. I guess I was just too old and haggard for his eyes. He froze, his hands on his brother’s pants, looking confused.

“I said that’s enough,” I repeated.

When he didn’t move fast enough, I pried his fingers from the fabric, doing my best to break a couple of them in the process.

The jerk took a jab at my breast bone, using the palm of one hand to shove me backwards.

I plastered a big smile on my face for the benefit of onlookers, stepped quickly behind him, pinned one arm to his side and twisted the other at a painful angle behind his back.

“Keep your nasty little hands to yourself, you piece of shit,” I warned him between clenched teeth. “And if you even look cross-eyed at your little brother while I’m around, I’ll shove those capped teeth of yours down your throat. Understand?”

He started to struggle and I tightened my grip. Sure, he was twenty-two years old and fairly strong. He probably played a lot of tennis, maybe some soccer or pickup basketball. But he was basically a lazy spoiled brat whose strength would fade as he continued to pack away the sauc Kawamaybe and eventually packed on the pounds. His slimy little high-society ass was no match for mine. I lifted weights four times a week and lived for moments like this. I twisted his elbow backwards another quarter turn for good measure.

“Ouch,” he said involuntarily, as Haydon and the girl watched in silence.

“Apologize to your brother,” I ordered him. People were starting to glance our way and I laughed gaily, hoping it would look like we were just horsing around. Instead, the laughter made me sound positively maniacal. Which, apparently, was just the touch I needed.

“I’m sorry,” Jake hissed at his brother.

I released him and shoved him against the wall. “Good. Now go ask the bartenders to break out the coffee early.”

“Who the fuck are you?” he challenged me, rubbing his sore elbow.

“Don’t use language like that in front of your little brother again,” I warned him. “Or I may be forced to kick your sorry ass from here to Tallahassee.”

I glared and he backed down immediately, stumbling off with his still-confused date while casting backward glances at us.

“Thanks,” Haydon said when we were alone again. “Where’d you learn to do that?” He stared at my shoulders in awe. God bless twelve-year-old boys. My muscles had instantly eclipsed my boobs in his hero-worshipping little brain. I was a goddess. Xena, Princess Warrior, had nothing on
moi.

“Oh, I picked up a few moves here and there,” I said. “What do you say we have some fun? Feel like dancing?” I grabbed his arm and led him toward the dance floor. Lydia sat at a table on the edge of the madness, greeting one person after the other with automatic grace, a parody of Grace Kelly in action.

“I don’t know how to dance,” Haydon protested. He balked at going further and dug his heels into the ground. “No way.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Then we’ll hang out here.”

We hovered on the edge of the dancing crowd, listening to the Peter Duchin Orchestra playing their version of funky tunes while we tried to stay awake.

“You don’t like my brother much, do you?” Haydon asked after a moment.

“Nope,” I confessed. “However could you tell?”

The night wore on and the crowd grew more raucous. Fortunately, Lydia did her best to stay in one place, obeying my strict orders. Her table was along one side of the enormous dance area and she sat at it for most of the evening, graciously greeting a steady stream of well-wishers. Meanwhile, her stepmother was frantically downing a steady stream of gin and tonics. The poor woman was in over her head and she knew it. Though impeccably dressed, her eyes were wide with fear and her mouth had settled into a drunken smirk. Randolph Talbot was nowhere to be seen. He was either too ashamed to confront Lydia or too embarrassed to be seen with his inebriated second wife.

I suspected he was holding court in the lobby, where a large group of men had gathered to smoke cigars and talk business. The way they chewed and licked and sucked on those cigars was telling. There’s a reason gay men rarely smoke them.

I was two seconds from abandoning my job in order to track down a stiff drink, when I felt a tap at my elbow. Harry Ingram, Esq., stood politely at my side, arm extended, the perfect picture of a successful personal injury lawyer all spiffed up for a night on the town. Uh, oh. I knew what was coming next.

“Might I have this dance?” he asked.

I looked around nervously. Haydon had disappeared. “What are you doing here? I imagine you and Talbot aren’t exactly friends.”

“Business is business,” he assured me. “And I can’t afford to be afraid of Randolph Talbot in my business. Please, I am escorting my mother and she is far too old to dance. May I?”

What choice did I have? He was determined. We waded into a sea of gyrating bodies. I knew, with sudden clarity, that I was at the epicenter of white America.

The dearth of grown men inside the auditorium had led to a curious phenomenon on the dance floor. Scores of grandmotherly types were boogying down with their grandsons, giving the whole scene a surreal air. I suspect the young men were hearing cash registers in their ears, not the flaccid music, but the women were having a good time. They looked a little ridiculous in their ruffled dresses bobbing to such rousing tunes as “Copacabana,” but they were having fun and more power to them. At any rate, Lydia was safe. Unless one of the old debs pulled out a hatpin and went for her jugular, she was likely to survive the party.

Turns out I was the one in trouble. The band launched into a stuttering Isley Brothers medley and my dance partner leapt into action with alarming enthusiasm. I watched, open-mouthed, as Harry Ingram popped into the air, clicked his heels together and swept both arms over his head as if he were a tree being buffeted about by the wind. It was as if his secret ambitions to be a jazz dancer exploded in one terrifying moment on the dance floor. The crowd cleared away as Ingram bowed, twirled, bent and pirouetted his way into our collective memories. I was astonished that such a plump, soft Ka ps, givi man could sustain the pace—and somewhat dismayed at having to stand there, lamely bouncing my knees and trying to look cool, as my lawyer companion performed an interpretive dance that belonged in a Jules Feiffer cartoon, not on a dance floor in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I was so busy pretending not to be with him and scheming about how I could slink away that I did not notice at first when an argument broke out near Lydia. A lull in the music gave way to angry voices and I immediately dumped my dancing partner and high-tailed it to her table in case my services were needed.

Two old ladies—we’re talking in their eighties—were arguing furiously across the table from Lydia. One wore a white feather concoction on the side of her head like a 1920’s babe. It bobbed up and down angrily as she spoke.

“I should be in the middle, Lydia. My debut was right here in North Carolina.” The look she gave her opponent made it clear that the second woman was from further south where, as everyone knew, white trash trickled like water from a leaky hose.

“Piddle,” the other old lady retorted. “I made my debut in Atlanta and that’s a much larger ball. I should be at the center.”

“Please, Mrs. Worthy, Mrs. Tate,” Lydia pleaded. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

“I’m not standing rear-end to rear-end with her, if that’s what you’re getting at,” the first old lady—Mrs. Worthy— announced. “Only one person should be in the middle of the spoke. And that should be me.”

I was vaguely aware of the source of their argument. They were jostling for top dog honors in the famous debutante wheel that was yet to form. For some unfathomable reason, every year at the debutante ball, one girl stands in the middle of the presentation area while the others circle around her. Everyone is connected with ribbons and flowers, like a giant wagon wheel.

In my opinion, this reduces the center deb to nothing more than a human Maypole, but people are mighty keen for the honor. These two old ladies, having anchored the center decades before, now wanted another shot at glory.

At first, their argument had the genteel overtones of well-bred southern ladies. I was not fooled in the least—and neither was anyone else in earshot.

“It’s quite a taxing responsibility,” Mrs. Worthy announced sweetly. “I believe it should go to someone capable of fulfilling its physical requirements with style and grace. If I’m not mistaken, May has back trouble, poor dear.”

Translation: “Mrs. Tate has grown fat and clumsy, while I have starved myself for decades in preparation for some unknown emergency Kwn just such as this. I ought to get something for all those pieces of peach pie I sacrificed.”

Mrs. Tate countered with her own reasoning. “The spoke of the wheel is a symbol of all we hold important to southern womanhood. I believe it should go to someone whose social background and breeding are unimpeachable.”