Southampton Spectacular (31 page)

“About… Pauline,” Nina said finally.

“I don’t know,” Devon said. “I have an idea, but it’s not finished yet. Back on the beach I started to think I had it. At the party, too.”

“We do well together,” Nina said. “We make each other brave.”

Devon nodded, and she adjusted her path so that she was walking a step closer to her friend. Nina was right: as a group, they seemed invincible. Except that Pauline was somehow able to break that invincible shell whenever she appeared. “I’ve been out of the picture a lot lately,” Devon said, as if answering an unspoken accusation.

“Unavoidable,” Nina said. “Injured dad, new gorgeous guy on the scene.” She put an arm around Devon’s shoulders, and now they were walking like two friends in grade school. “Busy couple of weeks.”

They fell silent again and walked close together for several more minutes. They were nearing Devon’s house, and she was again lost in thought. She reminded herself – tried to convince herself – that she really
had
figured things out on the beach. Now she tried to regain some of that confidence. To remember how she had planned to work it all out. All of her strategies seemed suspect now.

“What’s going to happen with you and Austin?” Nina asked suddenly.

There was a strange look on Nina’s face as she asked this, but of course Devon couldn’t see it in the dark. “I
thought
I knew,” Devon replied. “I think he might be perfect, but I don’t want to jump ahead. The problem is, it’s too early, and – ”

“Because I could sleep over,” Nina said quickly. Softly.

Her voice was trembling.

She began to say more, much more, but Devon held up a hand.

2

Devon sent her home. As kindly as she could. And with a hug, and a kiss on the forehead. Because Nina was one of her closest, oldest, best friends, and because she loved her.

Devon watched, standing motionless on the shoulder of the road, as Nina walked slowly away. After only thirty seconds she couldn’t see her at all anymore in the dark, but she could still hear her. A few seconds later she heard the footsteps stop and wait. Devon called out to her, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

The steps resumed.

Devon stood and waited for several minutes more. Waited until she was sure Nina was far, far away. Then, when there was nothing more to hear, when the only sound was the past-midnight breeze moving through the hedges, she let herself go.

Just for a minute.

What? What? What?

She crouched down in the grass and whisper-screamed into her hands several times, and then she pressed her hands into the cool earth as though they had absorbed the heat of her distress and confusion, as if they might burst into flames if left out in the open air. She had a momentary urge to start digging through the grass and dirt the way James had on the tennis court, but instead she simply pressed down, harder and harder into the grass, until she could feel the muscles in the back of her upper arms start to shake.

She stood up slowly and began to replay it in her head. In the pure, silent darkness. Had she missed something? Had Nina been giving out signs for years and years, and Devon had simply been blind?

Even more troublesome: had she, Devon, ever given Nina the wrong impression?

She felt like a witness at a sexual harassment case. Second-guessing herself. Except that most harassment cases involved idiot men or boys, and with a boy it was different. Boys didn’t wait for signs or invitations. You could tell a boy that he was disgusting and rude and piggish, and he would find a way to spin it in his favor. All he needed was a few minutes alone inside his warped, boy-stupid mind. You turned around, and there he was a moment later, asking you out again. Or winking at you. Or stroking your arm.

They were programmed that way.

But Devon knew it wasn’t supposed to be that way with girls. A girl didn’t want to be pushed away. She wanted to be asked, to be
pursued
. If a girl thought there was a chance of being rejected, she wouldn’t get near you.

So why had Nina tried it? Something so blatantly risky, and right when they were talking about Austin, too.

Devon was walking now, though she couldn’t remember having started up again. From the little she could see in the dark, she could tell she had walked straight past her house; she was almost all the way to the Meadow Club. She considered turning around, but the feel of the outdoor air in her lungs was soothing. It felt like hours since they had left the club, and now she began to wonder how many drinks they had all actually had.

Too many, clearly.

She decided to keep going until her heart had slowed to a comfortable, non-panic-attack rhythm; then she would head home. Which would be enough time to avoid a hangover. She hoped.

She went over the Nina event once more in her head. Now, on the third time through, she began to wonder if she had misinterpreted Nina’s intensions. If she had somehow made a mistake.

No way. No Mistake.

Not when she tells you she wants to sleep over, and that she loves you. Not when she tells you that she had to ask, even though the timing is so wrong, so terribly wrong, because she’s worried that if she waits any longer you’ll be gone, and then she’ll always wonder.

“That’s pretty conclusive,” Devon said out loud, to the dark. The sound of her own voice was strange and flat in the night air. “I guess it was a brave thing to do,” she added.

“That’s what
I’ve
been saying,” replied a voice just ahead of her. An animated, enthusiastic voice. A voice with amusement tucked into the artificially high register of a man speaking above his natural range. “But no one listens to me. No one except the irresistible Devon Hall, of course. And isn’t that always the way?”

Devon looked up, and she smiled in spite of herself. In spite of everything.

For here was Theo Mahlmann, standing at the entrance to the Meadow Club in a full tuxedo, looking as if he were waiting to direct cars arriving for a club party. Except that it was now 2 AM on a Sunday morning, and the Meadow Club had long ago fallen silent. Even the groundskeepers were asleep.

“Morning Mr. Mahlmann,” Devon said, as if his being here weren’t strange at all. As if
her
being here weren’t strange, either. Just two people enjoying the Southampton out-of-doors.

“And to you, my dear,” Theo responded brightly. He raised his hand to her, as though toasting with an invisible Champaign flute. “Out for a stroll?”

“Yes.”

“Thinking hard? Solving problems?”

“Trying to. Not with any success.”

Theo Mahlmann nodded soberly, and he lowered his invisible glass. “I’ve recently declared my lifestyle rather openly to the public, as you may have heard.”

“I did hear that, as a matter of fact.”
And since we’re on the subject, I know someone who’d probably like to have a conversation with you. A sort of support-group conversation, if you will.

“Yes, well.” Theo rocked back on his heels, and he took a deep breath. “Helen’s been an absolute brick, I assure you, but the children are having a bit of a time. They seem confused, to put it mildly. Not that they ever expected me to teach them how to box or throw horseshoes, you understand, but now they’re being forced to address the issue quite directly. Perhaps more directly than I had intended, to be honest.” He bent his head forward for a moment, then popped it back up again. Took another breath. “Been standing here on the corner in my Sunday Best since about ten this evening, and nothing’s quite come to mind. Solution-wise, I mean. Considered taking it all back, but I don’t think they’d buy that particular parcel. Or maybe I could just go flying off to Australia for a while. To give everyone some time to digest? But that seems needlessly grand, doesn’t it? And people would think I’d rushed off to join my lover, some oiled-up Aussie named Doug with a Chihuahua in tow, when actually I would never cheat on Helen. Never have, never will. Because being a queen – a gifted, genius of a queen, mind you – has nothing to do with fidelity. You understand.”

He made a little bow after this speech, and then he smiled thinly at her. “So. That’s me in a nut-shaped velvet bag and sequins, as it were,” he said. “Because we’re here in the dark. And you won’t tell.”

Devon shook her head to reassure him that she would not.

“And so?” he said, inclining his head at her. “Your turn.”

Devon hesitated, but Mr. Mahlmann didn’t give her much time to think. “Come now, little Devon Hall. You were seven only yesterday, and I taught you how to dive off the high board. Shock me, if you dare.”

She smiled at the memory: Theo Mahlmann holding her by her ankles as she laughed with delight, him hoisting her up and dangling her over the edge of the diving board, promising not to let go until asked. And he had not let go. Devon had taken forever to get up the nerve, but good Mr. Mahlmann had not complained. Had not coerced or badgered her to move it along. He had waited, and then she had given him the okay, and it had been effortless. She could dive off the high board, and there was nothing to fear.

So somehow it was the perfect thing to say. Here was a man who knew her well, a man who knew virtually every part of her world, and yet he was not too close. Her problems were remote to him, trifling and irrelevant. And he was a man accustomed to keeping confidences, obviously.

Of his own, and of others.

So she told him almost everything. Because it was 2 AM, and they were both drunk, and it was too much for one person to hold. She left out the business about her parents, about the note her mother had read in the hospital, simply because she didn’t even know what the note had said. But Theo Mahlmann got an earful of everything else, starting with Pauline. Devon didn’t give any details about James and Ned, but he didn’t seem to need any.

“She’s a grade-A dangerous lady, all right,” Theo said, shaking his head. “Everybody knows it, too. You can
see
it in her. But that’s a tricky play. Daddy’s all involved, from what I can see. And he’s not giving up his fun on the side without a fight.”

Devon agreed, privately impressed with the man’s quick summation of the situation. She moved onto what had just happened with Nina, and at first she felt strange telling him about it. Because it was about her close friend, but also because the subject seemed like something that might be too personal for Mr. Mahlmann. Too close to home. But again, he was way ahead of her.

“Wondered about that one for a while now,” he said, and he smiled sadly. “Oh, yes,” he added, as Devon gave him a strange look. “Trust me, my dear. Young Ms. Westcott has been showing her cards for quite some time, though not in any way that you or your friends would notice. She’ll find plenty of companionship once she gets to college, but that’s not the point. She’s in
love
with you, and likely has been since you were twelve or thirteen. Which is a different story. And that’s just hard, no way around it.”

True again.

Finally she told him about Austin, and Theo stayed strangely silent as she laid it all out for him. When she was done, she waited for a moment in the silence.

And then, suddenly, Theo Mahlmann was laughing. It was not a mean laugh, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Oh, to be Devon Hall,” he said gleefully. He threw his head back and spread his arms out wide, as if complaining to The Almighty that he had not been born in Devon’s skin. “That’s not a problem, my dear,” he said, as soon as he had calmed himself. “The other two I’ll give you, but that’s not even
close
to a problem.”

Devon tried again, feeling that she hadn’t really been understood. That she hadn’t been given her due. Austin was wonderful, yes. But he was still causing her stress. “The thing is – ”

“That you’ve got a gorgeous boy in love with you, and that he’s begging you to come on vacation with him next month, to come jetting across the globe to far-off lands of wonder and romance?” Theo tilted his head at her, and he gave her a skeptical look. “What was the problem again, please?”

Devon was silent. She was suddenly feeling very spoiled.

Never mind.

“Right,” Theo said, taking on a businesslike tone. “Let’s get back to the first two, shall we? The Nina situation is going to be difficult forever, I’m afraid.
Forever
. But just be sure to remind her on occasion that you
do
love her, and you’ll both be fine.”

Devon nodded. That had been her plan anyway. But it was still good to get confirmation.

“As for that fearsome nanny, I’m at a loss. But I will say this: extreme measures are probably justified at this point. You’ll have to handle Jerry Dunn somehow, but one thing at a time, yes?” Here he paused, and he gave Devon a gentle, understanding smile. “I wish I could offer more help. But those Dunn folks don’t seem to embarrass easily. And you can’t scare a monster. Not without becoming a monster yourself.” He waited again and tapped his lips as though he had forgotten something. “Oh,” he said suddenly. “For God’s sake, don’t
kill
her.” He tittered to himself, and Devon found herself wondering if the man were slightly off his rocker, or just very drunk.