Page 58 of Everyone Is Lying to You
There are at least ten vehicles, each carrying four women. Perhaps this isn’t as exclusive as Veronica had made it seem. The entire expanse is lit by tiki torches and fairy lights that must be plugged into some electric generator. Two long tables with ten seats on either side are waiting for us. As I step out of the cart a handsome man in too-tight black pants and a white button-down shirt that hugs his intensely toned physique holds out a black bag.
“Your phone, please.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your phone. We’ll be keeping them for the duration of the dinner.”
I feel naked the second my device is gone. Naked and slightly anxious. There should be a German word for that, I think, for the anxiety you feel when your phone is out of reach.
Music plays. A soothing but slightly ominous symphony and I’m reminded of Olivia’s ringtone. Will she be here tonight? I received a single text from her after I published my latest piece and all it contained was a thumbs-up emoji.
Another handsome young man who looks barely out of college approaches with a tray of canapes.
“The waiters are very good-looking,” I say to Katie.
“So handsome,” she agrees. “Veronica’s family is a big donor to the university here. They’re probably undergrads.”
“I feel slightly filthy ogling them like this.”
“Maybe that’s the point of them being so good-looking,” Katiesays. “To remind us to be good. That seems like Veronica. Dangling temptation right in front of you.” I wonder how well Katie knows Veronica, but then, as if we’ve conjured her, our host for the evening appears from behind a massive boulder. No dress on tonight. Instead she’s clad in all black. Still slightly retro, but more of an early sixties vibe than the fifties. She’s got on snug black pedal pushers and a black turtleneck. Her hair is pulled into a high and tight ponytail and she’s wearing large tortoise-framed reading glasses. She could be going to a beat poetry reading, about to slam some Ginsberg. I see her approach her sisters’ clique of ladies with hugs and kisses on the cheek.
“Will there be booze here?” I ask Katie.
“Doubtful. Veronica definitely doesn’t drink and her house, her rules, but someone here probably has some of that chocolate with magic mushrooms in it. They all started on psilocybin last year for depression and anxiety. Trying to be perfect all the time probably breaks them. But I think the drugs just make them even weirder.”
“Drugs are allowed?”
Katie shrugs. “As long as their doctors prescribe it. I also think it keeps them docile. Like sheep.”
“So Veronica’s father is the owner of the hotel?”
“Was. Died last year. Now the board is figuring out what to do with it. God forbid they give it to his three successful, competent daughters. Did you just find all this out? I thought everyone knew. The Smith family is probably the richest in the state. But her dad had three girls. Imagine his disappointment that he had no one to leave this empire to.”
“I suppose he was delighted then when Veronica married Marsden.”
“That’s an understatement.” Katie scoffs as she flags down a waiter for another appetizer. “It was practically an arranged marriage. Probably planned from the womb. She was pretty much a child bride from what I know. Veronica definitely didn’t have much of a say in it. They’re super conservative. It was one of those stay-at-home-daughter situations where the girls are groomed for nothing but marriage.”
“Stay-at-home daughter?”
“Like they’re wedded to their fathers and trained to do all the wifely things until they can be passed on to a man. Veronica has been married to Marsden since she was seventeen. Never even went to college.”
“Wow. So you’re from here. You know all the gossip.”
“I’m not from here at all. I grew up in Southern California. I work here. It’s been about ten years now. And I live here.”
“So the app isn’t a full-time job?”
“Oh god, no. It’s a hobby. For now. A very expensive hobby. But I hope…we always hope, right?”
“What do you do? For work?”
“I’m a nanny,” she says.
“Is there even a market for that out here?” I think about what Bex told me about her own childcare situation, how she had help but never talked about it.
“Huge market. You just need to be discreet. But I’ve been with the same employer this whole time. We have an understanding.” I think I see her grimace, but the tiki torches arecasting all kinds of strange shadows over everything so I can’t be sure.
“Do you like the family?”
