Page 112 of The Last Time I Lied

“I don’t know. She seems just as worried as the rest of us.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. I imagine she must be pretty devoted to Franny after working for her all these years.”

“You’d think,” Mindy says. “But I also get the sense that Lottie considers it just a job, you know? She gets to Franny’s penthouse in the morning and leaves in the evening like any employee would do. She gets sick days. She has vacation time. I don’t think she’s too happy about having to spend the summer here. Neither am I, but here I am, doing my best to impress Franny.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

Mindy pours herself some more wine, filling her cup as high as I did. After taking a hearty sip, she says, “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

“You’re keeping me here under house arrest. So that would be a definite no.”

“Even before this. When you first got to camp. It’s okay to admit it.”

I say nothing. Which, in its own way, is an answer.

“I knew it. I could tell,” Mindy says. “I knew girls like you in college. So artsy and open-minded but so quick to judge people like me. Let me guess: you probably took one look at me and thought Iwas some spoiled sorority girl who screwed her way into the Harris-White family.”

“Aren’t you?”

“A sorority girl? Yes. And proud of it. Just like I’m proud of the fact that I was pretty enough and charming enough to catch the attention of someone like Chet Harris-White.”

“I’ll agree that you’re pretty,” I say, shedding any pretense of civility. Maybe it’s the wine. Or the spirit of Vivian lingering in the cabin, encouraging bitchiness.

“For the record, Chet pursued me. And it took a lot of convincing. I had no interest in dating the spoiled rich kid.”

“But aren’t you spoiled and rich?”

“Far from it,” Mindy says. “I grew up on a farm. Bet you didn’t see that coming.”

I had assumed she was born privileged. The daughter of a Southern attorney, perhaps, or a prominent physician, like Natalie was.

“It was a dairy farm,” she tells me. “In middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania. Every morning from kindergarten to graduation I was up before dawn, feeding and milking the cows. I hated every minute of it. But I knew I was smart, and I knew I was pretty. Two things women need most to get ahead in this world. I studied hard and socialized and tried my best to pretend that my hands didn’t always stink of raw milk and cow manure. And it paid off. Class president. Homecoming queen. Valedictorian. When I got to Yale, the pretending continued, even after I started dating Chet.”

Mindy leans back on the bed, swirling the wine in her plastic cup. She crosses her legs, getting comfortable. I think she might already be drunk. I envy her.

“I was so nervous the first time Chet took me to meet Franny. I thought she’d see right through me. Especially when I got out of the car and saw their name on that building. And then the ride in the elevator, all the way up to the top floor. Franny was waiting for us in the greenhouse. Have you seen it?”

“I have. It’s impressive.”

“It’sinsane,” Mindy says. “But the nerves went away when I learned the truth.”

She takes a gulp of wine, leaving me hanging.

“About what?”

“That they’re not nearly as rich as they look. At least, not anymore. Franny sold the Harris years ago. All she owns now is the penthouse and Lake Midnight.

“That still sounds pretty rich to me.”

“Oh, it is,” Mindy says. “But now it’s only a few million and not, like, a billion.”

“How’d Franny lose so much money?”

“Because of this place.” Even though Mindy looks around Dogwood’s tight confines, I know she’s referring to what lies beyond it. The camp. The lake. The woods. The girls. “Restoring a bad reputation can get expensive. For Franny that meant settlements to the families of those missing girls. Chet told me it was at least ten million each. I guess Franny threw it at them like it was nothing. She did the same thing to a whole bunch of charities, trying to get back in people’s good graces. And don’t even get me started on Theo.”

“The accident,” I say. “Chet mentioned it.”

“That car he wrecked was chump change compared to what Franny had to spend to get Harvard to take him back. They weren’t too keen on inviting an accused killer onto campus. No offense.”

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