Page 38 of The Husband Hour
“He’s a great kid,” Lauren said.
“Thanks.”
“Look,” Lauren said. “I’m sorry I freaked on you the other night. I was just really upset about the idea of a film being made.”
“Apology accepted. I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to upset you. Besides, we really should be coming together to deal with Mom and Dad. Not fighting each other.”
For once, Stephanie was making a lot of sense.
“You mean, the whole selling-the-house thing?”
“Yes! Are they out of their minds?”
“Um, clearly they are out of money.”
“God, why does everything have to go to shit? Why can’t it be the way it was when we were kids? So simple. You know, I was at the Wawa this morning and these teenage girls were there. One was wearing an LM sweatshirt, and I realized it was prom weekend. I felt so old.”
“You’re not old,” Lauren said.
“Remember when I had the after-prom party here and the house got trashed?”
Lauren smiled. Of course she remembered, though it was just one of many memories that had been hidden away in her mental vault for so long. Stephanie remembered it as the weekend she almost got banned from the Green Gable. Lauren remembered it for another reason.
It was a long-standing Lower Merion High School tradition that everyone went to the shore following the senior prom. Once an informal, haphazard migration headed by whoever was willing to stay sober enough to drive on prom night—or who had parents willing to chauffeur—it became a school-sanctioned trip complete with buses leaving straight from the prom and making drop-offs at various Longport and Margate houses.
Typically, this epic party night was the exclusive domain of seniors and their dates. But every year, juniors with enough social clout and access to beach houses were included in the after-prom weekend. In the spring of Lauren’s sophomore year, Stephanie was one of those chosen few.
“And Mom’s okay with this?” Lauren had asked, perched on the edge of Stephanie’s bed, watching her paint her toenails deep burgundy.
“Yeah. Totally.”
“I just can’t believe Gran and Pops trust you with the house for a weekend.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Stephanie. You won’t even know half the kids that show up. It’s going to be like American Pie.”
“It’s not going to be like American Pie,” Stephanie said. “It’s going to be way more epic. And you have to come.”
Saturday night of the prom, just after midnight, the Green Gable filled up with drunken revelers. Lauren was pretty sure there were kids in the living room who didn’t even go to their school. Two girls in the pool were topless. There was a keg in the dining room and in the living room, and the kitchen counter was littered with bottles of Stoli, Ketel One, orange juice, and tequila. The soccer team did Jäger shots. Stephanie disappeared with her boyfriend du jour.
Something broke in the living room. Lauren heard it over the music only because it happened right behind her. Someone yelled, “Party foul!”
One of her grandmother’s glass zebras from the mantel.
“Oh my God, be careful!” Lauren said, shooing people away, bending down to see if the piece could be salvaged. It was shattered.
She realized she should lock her grandparents’ bedroom. There were more breakable things in there, and who knew how many people were milling around on the second floor. Why hadn’t she thought of this sooner? She rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The problem was that the only way to lock the door was from the inside, so she locked herself in and then walked outside to the deck so she could take the stairs back down.
Someone was on the deck. How could anyone be rude enough to go through the bedroom? Then she realized it was more likely the person had simply walked up the external stairs from the pool. That hardly made it better.
“Hey—this is off-limits,” she said in the darkness to someone’s back. The guy ignored her, looking up at the sky. “Do you hear me?”
Fine, so she was going to be that girl. Whatever. No one would remember in the morning except her.
He turned around. “Oh. Sorry.”
She gasped. Rory.
