Page 6 of The Engagement Party

“I told you we shouldn’t have come.”

Chapter Five

Book Notes: Who Was Emily?

Emily grew up in Darien, Connecticut, one of the richest towns in what was probably the most affluent county in America. Hers was an idyllic and pampered existence that she neither downplayed nor oversold. She took the ability to do or try whatever she pleased for granted as later generations of wealth tended to do. Buffered by comfort, privilege, and overindulgent parents who preened and praised while pushing and molding from behind the scenes.

Not many people told Emily no. Her family name gave her a reserved seat at the popular table. The expectation was that she’d act in a way that kept her there because rumors ran rampant in her town and memories of slights could produce years of infighting and survive generations.

The family lived in a sprawling waterfront estate, complete with every gadget and every big toy with an engine. Emily was the oldest with twin brothers almost four years younger, an overly enmeshed mother who ached to relive her homecoming queen days, and a supportive but emotionally unavailable father. They served cocktails with every meal except breakfast, which came with a side helping of medications to survive the day.

In her youth, Emily hosted bake sales and book drives to support communities in neighborhoods with fewer resources. Whatever act sent the right message and allowed for praise for her ingenuity while performing it, Emily did it. She loved to bike and to boss her brothers around. She shied away from sports until her father told her being on a team would look good for college admissions, then she tried out for soccer. She made the team because she usually accomplished whatever goal she set. Except one.

Her dream had been to attend Amherst like her best friend from high school. A goal her father already viewed as beneath her, as if settling for anything other than Ivy League or, specifically, his beloved Princeton, destroyed her chance for future success. In a rare but crushing blow Emily didn’t get into Amherst. That failure led to many family dinners filled with lectures about doing her best and talk of tutors and transferring to a more preferable collegiate choice sophomore year.

Emily picked an equally impressive alternate school, Bowdoin College, and surprised everyone by falling in love with it. Probably because at Bowdoin she maintained her top-of-the-heap status. She collected friends, enjoyed a good party, and made it her life’s mission not to disappoint her parents again.

Ignoring that academic blip, she was a dream daughter. She looked right—pretty and dressed as if a camera crew followed her nonstop. She said the right things. At home she obeyed curfew. She obtained birth control to avoid what her father viewed as the ultimate dream killer for any teenage hopeful—pregnancy. That sort of thing didn’t go over well at the country club or on company hiring committees.

Emily was also a dream friend . . . except when she wasn’t.Despite what the fawning magazine articles and true crime specials would later put forward, Emily was very human. Flawed and imperfect. At times, self-important and devious. At others, charming, caring, and considerate. After years of wading through privilege and money, getting what she wanted right when she wanted, she possessed an overblown sense of her abilities and a shallow understanding of her needs. It’s not that she lacked genuine emotion or genuine feeling. It was more that she’d been programmed every day of her life and no longer recognizedgenuine.

Rather than grapple with growing pains and the tangle of insecurities involved with figuring out who she was, she borrowed large pieces of her personality from the people around her. Their dreams became her dreams. She assumed their needs, their rage, their beliefs, and their desires. Her friend wanted to go to a specific school, so Emily had to go there. The friend picked journalism as a major, so Emily picked it. The friend had a boyfriend, then she wanted that boyfriend.

She never had to develop a sense of self or work for what she believed in because both were commodities she could pick and choose from others. She didn’t recognize how much of her life mirrored those around her, of course, or that she was always looking for shortcuts and the life equivalent of extra credit to avoid putting in the actual work. The idea of defying the odds and working to attain goals remained elusive concepts up to her premature end.

If asked to describe herself she would say she was a great friend who listened and tried to help. That assessment was both right and wrong. Under the perfect smile and the right words, the confident walk and enviable manners, lurked a differentEmily. Still friendly and funny but she liked to play games. The kind of games she insisted were harmless, generally victimless, even though they were born out of her need to push boundaries. The kind of games that might invite anger and disappointment. Might accidentally let an enemy get too close.

Games that likely led to her murder.

Chapter Six

Ruthie

The party was a mistake. Ruthie realized that truth the second after she’d dropped the invitations in the mail. Who mailed things these days? She only did because she couldn’t count on Will to remember to email his friends. But once the invites left her fingers dread swamped her. The idea of opening the locked door to the past set off a whirlwind of anxiety inside her. She hadn’t felt this nervous, this unsure, since she arranged toaccidentallymeet Will ten weeks ago.

They ran into each other at a wine and cheese party at the Garren Studio, an art gallery she helped manage in Beacon, New York. She showed and sold artwork. Held receptions. Met with buyers and artists.

Except, she really didn’t.

Her friend owned and managed the gallery and let Ruthie use the building as a staging area to meet Will. That night, Ruthie had cradled a glass of champagne, engaged in her best rounds of subtle flirting, and joked about how strange it was he’d received an invitation to the private reception when she hadno ideawho he was.

She’d played the game, thinking they’d go out on a few dates.She’d build trust and get him to talk. But he pushed their dating into hyperdrive before she had what she needed and now the possibility of explosion loomed. A fake job led to a fake meeting and a ridiculously rushed fake engagement. Fake on her part, not his.

When Will stunned her by proposing, she’d stumbled and said yes to keep the ruse going for a little bit longer. The party was her way of trying to push her agenda and set a deadline before she skipped out on the wedding planning and Will forever. Because what kind of guy proposed after six weeks ofokay but not life-changingdating?

In reality, she’d known everything about Will before they ever met. She’d studied him. Stalked him. Collected every scrap of information she could find about him.

His parents: an American businessman met the Japanese up-and-coming airline executive who would become his wife while living in Yokohama. Will’s parents had been married and divorced twice—to each other—and both also had been married to others, divorced, and remarried again. They’d produced a litter of step- and half-siblings for Will and burdened him with a profound need for stability that he spent the rest of his life chasing, all while they shipped him off to boarding school then college and forgot about him.

Ruthie used all of that stockpiled hurt and hidden pain, the years of confusion about unconditional love, and his string of failed relationships, against him. Tapped into every insecurity and need. Moved in and talked about forever love. Dazzled him by being brilliant and fiery, sexy and driven. Proud of who she was. Proud of her mixed French and Trinidadian ancestry. Proudof being a self-made successful Black woman who didn’t depend on Daddy’s money for clout. Someone accustomed to a certain lifestyle but determined to earn it on her own.

Will’s arms wrapped around her from behind and his hands settled on her stomach. “They’re finally here.”

She looked out the front window of the house’s great room. A golf cart came to a stop next to the house and people piled out. The punch of panic hit as she counted. “There are four of them.”

“Right.”

No, wrong. There should be three. Hetoldher three. She’d planned for three. The three she’d studied.

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