Page 14 of The Show

Last summer, the new generation of family kids had been making s’mores, and Penn’s niece, Lennon, was crying because the older boys had taken all the marshmallows, so Penn had gone on the hunt for more. I was wearing my mom’s big sunhat and he thought he was calling to her as he followed her up the beach path back to the house, except it was me, and when I turned around, he stopped in his tracks with an expression similar to one a person might wear if they’d seen a ghost, then walked back the way he’d come without saying another word.

I wish I could say that was my only experience of him behaving in that manner toward me, but it wasn’t. Even today when I went to collect my phone… and when someone behaves like that consistently over an extended period of time, at some point, the paranoia becomes a little more cemented.

Penn Shepherd didn’t like me. I was certain.

“He grunts at everyone except the boys. God knows how he ever manages to get a girl. He probably throws them over his shoulder, cave-man style, and carries them off.” She gave a dramatic shudder. “Ugh, gross. I need to scrub that image from my brain. If I never find out about my brother’s sex life, I’ll be happy. I’m still scarred from that weekend I went to see him at Harvard.”

I chuckled hard. I’d heard this story many times. Lauren and Dylan had gone to surprise Penn one weekend at college, only to find a parade of half-naked girls strolling around the house he shared with the boys after a party the night before. They’d stepped over several revelers in various states of unconsciousness and made their way to Penn’s bedroom on the top floor. I say they should have taken their surroundings as warning for what they might find, and it was their own fault they discovered Penn in bed with three girls, so they should be thankful they were all asleep. However, Dylan likes to tell people her retinas were permanently damaged by the bright white glow of Penn’s naked ass.

While Penn rarely spoke to me, I don’t think much had changed, and I had no difficulty seeing how he managed to get girls. Even during the limited times I was in his company – at Lauren’s birthdays or Shepherd events - they flocked round him like vultures on prey.

In fact, I’d never seen him with the same girl twice. And while I might not have ever been the recipient of his winning smile – the one which hadn’t changed from when he was a preppy sixteen-year-old – I knew he only had to flash it in any direction he chose to get whatever he wanted.

The buzz of Lauren’s intercom alerted us to her car waiting outside to whisk us from her house in Greenwich Village off to the Shepherd estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, a short ride out of the city.

Seraphine clapped her hands together before running a final expert eye over both mine and Lauren’s hair.

“Done!” she announced, pushing an errant whisp out of Lauren’s face. “You girls look so beautiful tonight!”

“Thank you both,” Lauren replied, kissing her lightly on the cheek before she turned and did the same to Mario.

“You’ve both done an amazing job, as usual,” I smiled, picking up my clutch purse from the table as we made our way downstairs to the front door, where Martha, Lauren’s housekeeper, was waiting.

“Thank you, Martha. I’ll stay at the estate tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow,” Lauren called behind her as we walked down the front steps and slipped - carefully - into the cool, airconditioned interior of the blacked-out Range Rover. Even in the brief minute it took for us to get from the front door to the car, the early September afternoon air was stifling.

“Ready?” Lauren’s driver and security guard, Jacob, turned around to ask us.

We nodded.

“Yes, thanks, Jake. Let’s get this over with.”

I looked over at Lauren as he pulled out into the traffic. “Who’s going to be there tonight?”

She moved around in her seat, trying to straighten out the stiff fabric of her dress. “Just the usual crowd. Nancy’s been leading the charge with this, so it’ll be more a networking event than a birthday party, but we have the family thing tomorrow.”

“How many people tonight?”

“It was four hundred at last count, but that was two weeks ago. Who knows where the numbers will have reached now.”

Shepherd family events were legendary. Like walking into the most elite of A-list parties, the collective net worth of attendees was usually greater than the GDP of most European countries. Yet for such an exclusive gathering of businessmen, the crème de la crème of Hollywood, media, and fashion, the parties were always surprisingly intimate and a lot of fun.

“Hopefully there’s some decent entertainment, but apart from that and drinking a lot of champagne, I don’t really care about anything else.”

“What time is everyone arriving?”

“The invite said seven thirty, but we’ll get there for six and have some quiet drinks with everyone.” She looked at her phone as it buzzed. “Dylan and Decker have just left, so they’ll be at the house the same time as us. Nancy and Saffron will already be there. No idea what time Penn will deign to show up,” she said sarcastically and rolled her eyes.

“Do you think he’s okay?”

She sighed deeply, and slipping her arm under the seatbelt turned to me, “I dunno. He hasn’t spoken to any of us in three months, but he can’t continue to behave like this. He has obligations now. Grandpa bought him a fucking baseball team for fucks sake! I get that he’s pissed, but ever since dad died he’s been allowed to get away with behaving like a brat, and now it’s gone too far. It’s our own fault for treating him like a baby, but we all lost dad; it wasn’t just Penny.” She sniffed before she actually started crying and ruined her makeup. “I miss him too…”

I put my hand over hers. I remember when Brick Shepherd died. Lauren and I had been at a swimming gala against Montague Prep, our rival school in all sports. Both of us had won our races, and our school had won the gala for the fifth year in a row. My mom and dad were waiting for us outside the pool building, both of them with weirdly cheery faces and red eyes. They announced Lauren was coming for a sleepover, then promptly took us to the diner on Greenwich high street for burgers and sundaes.

The next day, while my brothers went off to school as usual, my mom said we could skip because Lauren’s mom, Robyn, was coming over. It wasn’t until I saw my mom hugging her as she got out of the car, both of them red eyed and blotchy, that I knew something wasn’t right. While Lauren went off with her mom, my parents sat me down and explained what had happened to Brick.

I’d liked Brick a lot; he was always making stupid jokes, just like my dad. He was kind and funny, and would leave out snacks for our midnight feasts whenever we were having a sleepover. But while I used to hang out with my mom to get away from my two brothers, Brick used to hang out with Penn, so I didn’t see him a whole lot.

As the little brother of my best friend, Penn had never really spoken to me, but after Brick died and I spent my time comforting Lauren, Penn practically became mute.

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