The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

sense from the Sopranos. “Pouring drinks?” Freddie asked. “Uh, no, Dan, I’ve never poured a drink in my life.”

“These people like their drinks poured a certain way,” Dan whispered, even though Mrs. Wilding was definitely not listening. He lifted his left forearm, on which a neatly folded cloth napkin hung. He positioned the neck of a closed bottle of wine over it and demonstrated the pouring motion, his thumb jammed up the bottle’s indented bottom. “Do you think you can handle that?”

Freddie and I exchanged a look. There was no way I was pouring anyone’s drink like that.

“Mom, where’s my brown sweater?” Bram bounded through the swinging kitchen door in slacks and a crisp white shirt. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Freddie and me. “What are you two doing here?”

“Isn’t it great?” Mrs. Wilding said. She came up behind us and placed a hand on Freddie’s shoulder. “Freddie’s helping out Maria tonight. You kids grow up so fast. It feels like yesterday when you two were playing video games together.”

“Yeah, it does.” Bram fixed his gaze on me. “You work for Maria now, too?”

Mrs. Wilding turned her attention to me. Curiosity flitted over her face, but she never dropped the delighted lilt in her voice. “You know Bram?”

“I go to Manchester, too.”

“Oh wow. Bram, why didn’t you invite your friends to the party?”

“Freddie said he was busy,” Bram said smoothly.

“Mom really needed all the help she could get tonight,” Freddie said.

“Well, look, if you two get a chance to get away from the kitchen for a bit, we’d love to have you join us,” Mrs. Wilding said.

“Thank you,” I said. We both knew we were most definitely not to join.

Mrs. Wilding’s smile was bright and magnanimous, and just like that, the awkward blurring of friends and domestics was neatly dealt with. She let go of Freddie’s shoulder and turned back to her son. “No sweater tonight, sweetie. You’re wearing the tie I laid out for you.”

Bram gave us a cold look, then headed back upstairs with his orders as his mother swept out of the kitchen.

“Guests are starting to arrive!” Dan said. “You, go greet them and offer drinks.” He carefully placed a tray of tumblers on my upturned palms and pointed toward the door.

In the grand foyer Mrs. Wilding was greeting the guests. There was a handsome couple of about Mrs. Wilding’s age who obviously were not there for Bram. But they had brought their teenage son with them.

“New Girl?” Thayer asked.

Had I missed something? Were Bram and Thayer publicly friends now?

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

He slipped off his peacoat, revealing a fitted black suit, black shirt, and black tie underneath—a color I’d never seen Thayer embrace so fully before. He handed his coat to the waiting maid like it was something he did every day. The gesture was small, inconsequential, but it reminded me that for all the time he spent slumming it with me at the theater, Thayer still belonged to this gilded world.

“Haven’t you heard we’re the new Obamas?” Thayer said. “We’re invited to everything.” I watched his parents, still busy chatting with Mrs. Wilding. So here was the state attorney father on the senatorial track. Thayer plucked one of the tumblers off my tray and downed its contents. When his glass was empty, he grabbed another.

“I’m only supposed to be serving these to the adults.”

Thayer laughed, maybe for the first time since the night at the cabin. It sounded like an imitation of happiness. “You’ve never been to one of these parties before, have you? Just keep the drinks coming.”

Bram came down the steps with a smile affixed to his face like his tie was secured to his collar: all stiff and unwanted.

It looked like it wasn’t just Freddie and me wearing costumes tonight.

Bram stopped beside me and leaned in. “I don’t know what you’re doing here tonight, but if I could give you one suggestion: don’t.”

He picked up a drink and gulped it down before leaving the empty glass on my tray. If I hadn’t thought he was hiding something before, I knew he was now.

 44

THERE WERE WAY too many old people here for a seventeen-year-old’s birthday party.

The first floor of the Wilding townhouse was made up of high-ceilinged entertaining areas. In every corner, there were sparkly people holding out similarly sparkly tumblers, waiting for me to fill them. Dan had been wrong about the whole pouring thing—people didn’t care how you poured their drinks, they just wanted the booze. And I was there to provide a constant flow.

Though I’d interacted with nearly every person there, I had never felt so invisible in my entire life. The black-and-white drabness of the cater waiter uniform rendered me, essentially, part of the background. I was a moving piece of furniture. So, it was just like my regular MO at parties, only now I came with drinks.

It was a lot like a high school party where people got together to get loose and talk over each other, except here, I waded through murmurs of societal gossip, insane real estate talk, and even some business networking. All boring stuff because practically everyone at this party was an Old. I felt sort of bad for Bram. The party was extravagant, and I could only imagine what the presents would be, but there were only about twenty or so people here who were our age.

Thayer wasn’t hanging out with any of them, though.

Along with my mission to get into Bram’s room, I had a new side mission: to keep an eye on Thayer. I hadn’t served him any more drinks but someone else must have, because he was teetering. As the night wore on, his demeanor changed: limbs getting looser, laughs coming faster. It took guts to get drunk at the same party your parents were at, but this house was big enough to keep Mr. and Mrs. Turner blissfully oblivious.

Right as I was about to offer Thayer a glass