Page 1 of Love and Other Champagne Problems

CHAPTER ONE

It’d been a long time since I’d had to attend a fundraiser at the Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club, and I’d forgotten how hellish they were.

The corner I stood in was a comfortable distance from the hors d’oeuvres table while not being too close to the rest of the partygoers. The strict black-tie dress code ensured that everyone surrounding me dressed to impress, showcasing their expensive jewelry for the evening. Diamonds glittered on necks and wrists as each country club attendee attempted to make another jealous with their various karat sizes.

My, what a beautiful bracelet!

That necklace is to die for!

Let me get a closer look at those earrings!

Perhaps I should’ve made a drinking game of it all—with each empty, false compliment, I’d take a sip of my champagne. Not that I’d stopped sipping it anyway.

While I attended college in New York, it’d been easy to forget the suffocation that was the Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club. It had been easy to let the posh high society of Addison disappear like morning dew in theback of my mind. Now, I felt sticky with it, covered in the inescapable condensation of condescension.

I’d forgotten how small these walls made me feel, like they could swallow me whole without flinching. And they would.

The corner I stood in was a vacant one. Tucked near the windows that overlooked the now dark golf course, it held nothing but shadows and a young woman dressed in a navy blue, custom-made Gilfman suit. No one wandered close, aside from the revolving waiter that kept me well-stocked with champagne flutes, but even he was faceless. Everyone was. They all flitted about like little butterflies, tittering on about meaningless drivel. I wanted nothing more than to clip their wings.

I tipped my head back and gazed at the chandelier, dozens of bulbs and crystals throwing light around the room in a haphazardly beautiful manner. It was a lovely thing, yet hardly anyone looked up. Its grandness seemed small from where I stood, but I knew it must truly be massive up close, blinding—I found myself wondering how much it weighed.

I pictured it breaking free from the ceiling and plummeting to the ground.

I pictured it crushing me.

Better yet, crushing every other damned soul in the ballroom. That also would’ve been acceptable.

I drained the last bit of the champagne, and my empty flute was swiftly taken by a shadow that stepped in front of me. The worst butterfly of them all: my mother.

“Margot Massey,” she hissed in a voice that had not even a drop of patience, though you’d never guess fromhow perfect her expression was. Charlotte Massey was a refined woman, not looking a day over forty-five, though she was pushing sixty. She’d nearly mastered the art of hiding her frustrations with me. “How many of these have you had?”

I tried to remember how many times the waiter had walked over. “Four? Five? It started blurring after three.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I’d like to think I’m the only sane one within a five-hundred-foot radius,” I returned evenly, straightening my cuff where it fell against my wrist. I hadn’t worn this suit in months, if not years; I’d left it here while I was away at college. It felt snugger than I remembered, almost hard to breathe. I debated on unfastening the single button closure on the jacket, but refused to fidget before the eyes of the masses.

My mother’s watery blue eyes flashed as she shook the empty champagne flute. “I know you haven’t been to one of these in a while, but let me provide the refresher—you aren’t to have more than one glass here.”

“Who made that rule? A twenty-two-year-old can’t have a bit of champagne?”

“Which waiter did you get your drinks from?”

I cast a glance about the room, searching the faces that all blended together in a shade of gray. Amid the glitz and glamor and gold, everything felt gray. “Why does it matter?”

The champagne had done practically nothing to dull my surroundings. I suspected it was non-alcoholic. Either that or my tolerance had built at an alarming rate.

“You two hiding in the corner?” A woman in alowcut black dress sauntered up to us, her auburn hair in loose ringlets around her face. Ms. Allyson Jennings—mid-fifties, never married, but had a ball “mingling” with the men of the club who were. Her mauve shade of lipstick smeared onto the skin above her mouth. She brought two women at her heel, but I didn’t look closely enough at them to place their faces. “I know Margot’s an antisocial fly on the wall, but it isn’t like you to be hiding, Charlotte. Did her tendencies rub off on you in New York?”

When I’d left for college, instead of letting me go on my own to spread my wings, my mother had followed me. Granted, the trip was only an hour flight from Addison, so it was easy on her to keep her leash on me tight. If it’d been any further, surely she would’ve hired someone to follow me around like a shadow. But in her absence, the country clubgoers had seemingly allowed people to forget her level on the propriety tier. She’d been at the top before New York, but ever since we returned a week ago, it was like she struggled to find her footing.

It was a little satisfying, watching someone other than me struggle.

“I was only catching my breath,” my mother replied. She laughed a little, a tittering sound that was far too similar to the rest of the room. It was as if everyone had one laugh soundtrack, and they each took turns playing it. “Just as you were doing when you stepped out into the hall, Allyson.”

Ms. Jennings flashed my mother a shark-like smile.

“This event is so lovely, as usual,” one of the women gushed to my mother. She had achampagne flute of her own in her hand, gesturing a little too carelessly with it. “It’s such a good cause, fundraising for missing children.”

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