climbed slowly. As they stepped through the entrance, their hostess met them with the high-pitched, drawn-out greeting of a certain segment of Southern women.
“Heeeyyy! We’re so glad y’all could cooome,” Bitsy Wannamaker sang. She was squeezed into a green-and-pink Lilly Pulitzer dress too small for her size fourteen frame. Sun-spotted bosoms blossomed from the bodice. A drink tinkled in her hand. “My goodness, Lauren, you’re just skin and bones. You look just great! Come on in. Get a drink.”
She steered them toward a tanned, skinny college kid standing behind a makeshift bar along one wall of the great room. Behind him, above the fireplace, loomed an oil painting, a family portrait on a windswept beach. Elsewhere, typical Lowcountry watercolors and Audubon bird prints favored by faux Southern aristocracy climbed the walls.
“This is Robert. He’s a fraternity brother of our oldest, Calhoun. They’ve formed a little bartending enterprise to earn money. They’re doing all the parties around here this summer. He’ll fix you right up.”
The tip jar overflowed with dollar bills.
“Calhoun’s got the bar downstairs by the pool. Go introduce yourselves.” Bitsy patted Emmett on the arm. “I’m so glad y’all could come. I’ve got to run off and see to things. We’ll talk later.” And she was gone.
Emmett noticed how the boy met his gaze and smiled casually, a most self-assured young man.
“Gin and tonic,” Lauren said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Robert said. “And you, sir?”
“Bourbon, rocks.”
“Guess I’m driving home,” Lauren said.
“Do you mind?”
“Zoloft, remember? One drink will be my limit.”
Robert handed them their drinks.
“Well,” Emmett said as he stuffed a five into the tip jar. “Let’s go mingle with the beautiful people.”
“You should probably keep your wit to yourself tonight.”
“Who do we know here?”
“Well, there will be lots of people from Kathwood. If you’d ever go to church with me you’d know some of them.”
“I’d rather not. On both accounts.”
“Don’t be smart.”
Glass doors opened to an expansive ocean view that faded into the night. They squeezed through the party, Lauren making little finger waves to people she knew, Emmett with his hand at the small of her back, propelling her outside. Another twenty-six steps down and they were at the pool that flickered blue light around the backyard. Beach music played softly under the conversation. Black waiters in white shirts and bow ties milled between partygoers with silver trays of miniature crab cakes and smoked tuna.
“Lauren!” a woman called from the shadows of a table umbrella. “Over here.”
“Marguerite!” Lauren was drawn to the table of women like a moth to flame.
The woman patted a patio chair beside her. “Come sit and tell me how is that darling little girl of yours? How’s she doing?”
Lauren slid into the chair as if under a spell. Emmett knew she believed others truly wanted to hear how their family was making out, but he could see people mentally back away when the answers got honest. Nobody wanted to know what a family goes through when their child has cancer—the fear, the worry, the piles of paperwork, the struggle to balance doctors’ appointments and chemotherapy with work and school. People didn’t want to hear that Emmett had switched insurance providers only months before the diagnosis so the company had yet to pay a dime for their daughter’s treatment. Nobody wanted to hear about preexisting conditions. They only wanted you to tell them everything is fine, just fine.
Emmett threw back his bourbon. He wasn’t going to be a part of this. He headed toward the cabana strung with hot-pepper lights. On his more cynical days, he thought people were only interested in his family for the drama, the information they could gather and pass along; but Lauren seemed to draw strength from places where Emmett found only insincerity. She’d started going to church more frequently. He’d caught her praying in the bathroom only yesterday. She was on her knees, right there on the cold tile floor, her head down on the lip on the tub as if a sudden need for solace had overwhelmed her.
He’d left her to her introspection. Instead, he’d gone for a run on the beach—seven miles to the end of Pawleys and back, a 10K. His legs still held that pleasure–pain ache of exertion.
He slid up onto a stool and rattled his glass. “Fill her up. Bourbon. The good stuff. Rocks. Use the same ice.”
“Yes, sir.” The young man took the glass, tossed in a couple of cubes and filled it to the rim.
“You Calhoun?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where you go to school?”
“College of Charleston.”
“Like it?”
The boy grinned, and a shock of hair fell across one eye. He flipped it back with a toss of his head, but it fell forward again. He could have stepped off the pages of one of Sloan’s J. Crew catalogs, all white teeth and smooth skin.
“It’s okay.”
“What’s your major?”
“Biology.”
“Med school?”
“If my parents have their way.”
“What if you have your way?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Marine biology, maybe.”
“Sophomore?”
“I will be. Yes, sir.”
“You sling drinks during the summer?”
“Among other things. My dad makes me earn my own money. He says it builds character.”
“Well, I’d have to agree with him on that.”
“Whatever.”
“Top me off, would you?”
“Yes, sir.”
The boy tossed a few extra cubes into the glass and filled it again. Emmett raised his drink to the underage bartender. “Good luck to you, young man,” he said and walked away. He glanced back over his shoulder to find Lauren still involved in conversation. All the women there were washed in stray light from the pool, like ghouls gathered around a cauldron. Emmett smiled at his thought.
“What’s so funny?”
He was startled and glad to see someone he knew. Particularly Caroline, the hottest bureaucrat he’d ever met. Her cascade of sun-streaked hair was enough to make him sweat on sight.
“Hey, Caroline. How’s things at the city?”
“Same old. You know. Trying to push through that referendum so we can get a new road built. That’s the only way to keep up with development.”
“County and city council needs to get control of this unchecked growth or we’ll end up Myrtle Beach South.”
“We’re working on it. It’s a constant battle.”
“I hear you.”
“Is Lauren here?”
“Over there in that gaggle of women.”
When she turned toward the table, Emmett let his eyes roam down to where her gauzy sundress draped away from the swell of her breasts. There had always been something between them, an itch Emmett knew he’d never scratch.
“You look nice tonight.” The liquor was working on