Does he go to Windsor? Yes.
What happened? I don’t remember.
And that was all I got. Either she really didn’t remember—or she was just telling me she didn’t remember. Regardless, I was left to fill in the blanks with less than pleasant imagery. Every so often, she’d crawl back to the toilet and puke while I held her tangled hair out of the way. When I felt sure nothing was left in her stomach, I fed her sips of water with a couple Tylenol, helped her brush her teeth and wash her face, then got her into bed, still wearing that dress.
As I sat in the armchair in her room and watched her sleep, I felt waves of all the predictable anger, worry, and disappointment that come with being the father of a teenage girl who has just fucked up. But there was something else nagging at me, too. And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of Beatriz, the only other person I’d ever taken care of like this.
Of all people, it had to be Kathie Parker to tell me what Finch had done.
In my younger years, I had the occasional frenemy—a girl who found a way to ruffle my feathers and bring out the worst in me. But in my adult life, Kathie was the closest—really the only thing—I’d ever had to a nemesis. On the surface, we were friendly, sharing a social circle, frequenting the same country club, and attending the same parties and girls’ trips. But secretly, I couldn’t stand her, and I got more than occasional clues that she felt the same way about me.
Kathie, who came from old Nashville money like Kirk, always seemed to be looking for ways to take me down a notch. One tactic she enjoyed was to subtly reference my background, asking random questions about Bristol or my family, particularly in front of other people. This was, I believe, her way of insinuating that notwithstanding my in-laws, I, personally, would always be “new Nashville.” (I’d actually heard her use the ridiculous term before.) She was also the master of the backhanded compliment in the “bless your heart” vein. She would say things to me such as “I love your dress—I have a wonderful seamstress who could raise that hem a touch for you.” Or, after peering into the backseat of my car in the parking lot following a spin class, “Goodness, I wish I were as laid-back as you when it comes to clutter!” which could be directly followed by “You’re so lucky you sweat the way you do. It gets out all the toxins!”
Melanie told me to take it as a compliment. Her theory was that with the sale of Kirk’s company, I had usurped Kathie’s status as Queen Bee of Nashville’s social elite.
“I have no desire to be Queen Bee of anything. Besides, you can’t be the Queen Bee if you’re from Bristol,” I said.
“You can if you marry Kirk Browning,” Melanie said. “He’s got it all. Compared to Hunter, for sure.”
I shrugged, thinking of Kathie’s husband. Like Kirk, Hunter was from the landed gentry of Nashville, but he was rumored to have burned through a lot of their family money on bad deals.
“She also resents your looks,” Melanie said in her usual blunt way. “You’re richer and prettier. Younger, too.”
I laughed her comment off but couldn’t help thinking that the “richer” part really did correlate with an increase in Kathie’s jabs. More than that, though, I think Kathie knew that I saw through her two-faced Bible-beating bullshit. To be clear, I have no problem with religion or people who are religious, even those who are outspoken about their faith. What I can’t stand are the judgmental hypocrites—people who talk a big Christian game yet don’t even make a cursory attempt to follow the Golden Rule, let alone some of those pesky commandments. In a Schadenfreude nutshell, Kathie not only thrived on the misfortune of others but used tragedies as opportunities to showcase her devoutness. Something bad would happen, and she’d be first on the scene, offering prayers on Facebook, dropping off a casserole, or calling a special session of her Bible study group (which was as exclusive an invite as one to a garden party at Buckingham Palace—perhaps that’s part of why she viewed it as an affront that I always declined to join). To be fair, I’m sure that some of Kathie’s prayers were sincere, certainly in matters of life or death. But I truly believed she relished the smaller emotional setbacks of others and even occasionally rooted for someone’s marriage to fail or kid to screw up.
So she really hit the jackpot the night of the Hope Gala when she found me in the ladies’ room. “Oh, hello there, Nina,” she said in her high, fake voice, joining me sink-side. We made eye contact in the mirror and smiled at each other as I continued to touch up my makeup. “You look so lovely tonight.”
Lovely was her favorite word, and one I had actually excised from my vocabulary as a result. “You, too! Congrats on the Italy trip,” I said—because she had just outbid Melanie during the live auction to win two first-class airline tickets to Rome and a week’s stay at a Tuscan villa.
“Thank you, hon! Melanie wasn’t too upset, was she?” she asked, her voice revealing her insincerity.
“Oh, no, not at all,” I lied out of loyalty to Melanie, who had been infuriated by Kathie’s smug paddle-raising. “I think she was secretly relieved not to win it. Todd hates when she bids on trips.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I’ve heard he’s rather…tight….”
“Oh. It’s not that. It’s just those annoying blackout dates,” I said, walking the line between being an outright bitch and simply raining on her parade. Feeling transparent and maybe a little guilty for stooping to her level, I added a chipper footnote. “Of course, Tuscany’s lovely any time of year.”
“Yes, it is,” she said breezily. “Besides, I was bidding more for charity than the trip itself.”
“Certainly,” I said, noticing, not for the first time, how seldom she blinked. It made her big, wide-spaced eyes even more irritating.
Meanwhile she gave me a look so grave that I had no real choice but to ask what was wrong.
She inhaled deeply, pressing her palms together while she glanced up at the ceiling, as if gathering strength. “Oh, dear. Do you not know?…” Her voice trailed off.
I knew her pretense to compassion well—and that the charade was simply a precursor to gossip. Perhaps someone had passed out at the dinner table. Or was dancing inappropriately with someone else’s spouse. Or had debuted a bad boob job. There was plenty of fodder to work with at any gala.
“Don’t know what?” I asked, against my better judgment.
She winced, pursed her lips, then drew another amazingly slow breath. “Finch’s Snapchat,” she whispered on the exhale with a fleeting but unmistakable expression of glee.
My heart sank, but I told myself to remain strong, resist her entrapment, say nothing. So that’s what I did, simply staring at my own reflection, brushing an additional layer of gloss over my lipstick.