Page 21 of Eye Candy

My stomach dipped and I looked up and saw Sonya Barlow. She was the curator at the gallery I’d harangued Joe at and a central member of this social set. She’d gone to school with Teddy, and knew Chase well enough to give him my address when he’d asked.

Involuntarily, I patted my hair. Myrealhair. Emboldened by tonight’s costume party theme, I’d left the itchy wig at home. Frankly, I couldn’t act like a siren with a head that itched like it was home to a bunch of horny fire ants. I was regretting that now. I could have done with the added protection of a wig, horny ants or no.

“Sonya!” I greeted in my best Teddy voice. “Nice to see you. You look great.”

“Teddy motherfucking Bircher. In the flesh.” The elegant white woman folded her long limbs into the chair next to me. She looked like a fancy praying mantis. In a good way.

Sonya nodded at my minidress. “Nice dress.”

“Naeem Khan,” I replied, just like Lyssa had instructed.

The slinky black number I’d worn to debut as Teddy was a result of walking into Bergdorf’s and choosing the least-Caroline dress I saw, and charging it to Gerard. My usual aesthetic was pink-on-pink and lots of faux fur, so I thought I’d done well, but Lyssa screwed up her face and told me that un-styled black garment said imposter, not heiress. When she learned I needed another outfit for Greta’s murder mystery, she’d plucked Gerard’s charge card from my fingers and expressed this gold minidress, styling it with tan stay-ups and layered jewels. The dress clung to every inch of my body, with champagne beads that swished around my legs when I walked, making me look like a luxe Diana Dors.

“Oh, look!” Sonya exclaimed suddenly, making me jump. “These are paper.” She picked up a coaster from the small table in front of us and held it up to the light to inspect it. “Look, Teddy!”

I’d seen cardboard coasters before—who hadn’t? —but I leaned over.

Not for the first time, I thought there was a childlike quality to the superrich. They were delighted by boring, everyday things like cardboard coasters, keeping your coat with you, or placing your own napkin on your lap.

“How quaint,” Sonya said happily and set the coaster back on the table beside her glass.

“So quaint,” I agreed, wondering if I should take my drink off my coaster too. For assimilation. But I couldn’t.

Instead, I watched the condensation slide down Sonya’s glass onto the wood and tried not to think about my dad wiping at beverage rings on the tables in the café.

If this was a test, it was both banal and perfect.

“So, Teddy. Now that you’re back, I’ve been dying to ask. Did you really throw Joe’s grandmother’s ring into the Mediterranean the night you broke things off with him?”

Sonya should be running an intelligence agency, not hawking art.

Luckily, I’d read this story on a gossip blog.

With careful nonchalance I said, “Yes, off the side of a superyacht.”

Sonya laughed, delighted. “Where is Joe, anyway?” She looked around the lounge bar as if he might materialize. “Maybe he heard you were coming and decided to skip?”

“Maybe.”

Probably.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chase’s date show him something on her phone. Probably a terrarium. Earlier, I’d Googled it, and it turned out that a terrarium was a bowl of dirt. Who kept pictures of bowls of dirt on their phone? That was unhinged.

“Teddy, I couldn’t help but notice a certain rapport between you and your ex-fiancé’s half brother,” Sonya said. “Is this a revenge thing? Is that why you’re back?” She twirled her indexfinger at me and I thought she was going to bop me on the nose. “I remember how you think, you wily girl!”

This was the opening I needed, but I took no pleasure in seizing it.

“Well, you know what they say about getting over someone?—”

Sonya said, “Go to therapy.”

At the same time, I finished, “—fuck his brother.”

“No!” She looked aghast. “Come on!Chase?”

“What’s wrong with Chase?” I asked, more defensively than I meant to.

Sonya rolled her eyes. “Obviously you’ve never read his blog.”

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