Past the threshold they stood in a hallway that ran to their left and right, heading deeper into the mansion’s wings. But there were guards posted, one on their left, one on their right, standing in black suits. The woman had said they were allowed in the main room, so she imagined getting past the guards would require an escort. Whatever that might mean.
Straight ahead and down three steps was a cavernous main room, maybe once a ballroom or a family room. It was wide open, and the ceiling extended high above balconies that looked down from the second floor. Around the balconies, partygoers strolled, some arm in arm, some in groups, all of them in some style of costume. And looking across the main room, the ballroom, it was clear now this was a costume party, or perhaps the more accurate term: masquerade. People wore masks, headdresses, outfits in leather, elaborate ball gowns. Some men wore tuxedos. Other wore leather strap outfits like one of those old Matrix movies but with exposed skin. Angel’s stomach dropped and her hands went to ice.
“We should go,” she whispered.
But when she looked India and Abby’s way the amusement on their pretty faces showed there was no way they would be leaving just yet.
“Guys, like seriously,” she said, voice so quiet no one heard her.
India hooked Abby’s arm tight to herself, lips peeled in a wide and beautiful smile that showed off her perfect teeth. She walked ahead, helping Abby down the stairs, and Angel had to trot to keep up.
Maybe this kind of party wasn’t unusual to a girl who grew up in Beverly Hills, but it was definitely another planet for Angel. This was a historical mansion in the middle of the woods, in the Green Mountains of Vermont, but it was what she’d feared the frat party might look like, then amplified more than double in scariness. No one was their age. Some were middle-aged, some in their late twenties, but there definitely wasn’t anyone from Morrison here.
Two good-looking older women in hunter green cloaks laughed as the person they were talking to, a heavily made-up woman who had to be six-two in heels, maybe a drag performer, pulled back the bodice of her elaborate costume with a Velcro tear and revealed to them her bare breasts. Angel looked away, but it registered they might not be real, the way the nipples were colored and the lack of jiggle or sway.
Abby doubled over as she walked, laughing so she couldn’t breathe, and India shushed her, laughing to herself as well, not at the spectacle of the party it seemed, but at Abby.
India said, “Abby, baby, let’s get you to the couch.”
The party moved around them like movies she’d seen about extravagant pre-Revolution France; there was even a string quartet in the corner, their instrument-playing mostly drowned out by the solid beat coming from beyond the main room, looking like there might be a dance floor with electronic music playing outside in a garden. Bodies jumped up and down outside the windows, arms raised, lights flashing in rainbow colors. There was a serving bar in the corner, done up like a carnival carousel without the mannequin horses; there were couches and chaises everywhere, arranged in circles and semi-circles and most of them were fully occupied. But India led them to a couch now with no one else on it, getting Abby to sit down. Angel got up close to India, saying, “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Like this?” She laughed, blew a brief raspberry. “No way, not even close—can you believe this?”
“No,” she said, scanning the room, disbelieving.
Morrison was in the middle of nowhere. What were all these people doing here, all together, all with the same proclivity? . . . This wasn’t like Vermont at all.
And she’d been worried about the frat party.
India was saying, “Abs, baby, what do you want to do?—should we go outside to the music?”
“Yeah, sure,” Abby said, rubbing her hands on her thighs and taking it all in, head moving from left to right.
Across the room, a man in a black cloak watched them, face without expression, hands together at his front like the security guards, but he didn’t have that blunt force trauma look to him. There was sharp watchful knowledge in his black eyes. Angel was sure now this would be the man who asked them to leave.
Abby asked India, “Do you think we could get a drink from the bar? I don’t have I.D. . . .” When Abby’d looked to India, her eyes wandered to Angel, then over Angel’s shoulder. Her expression stiffened, and she smirked. Angel looked over her shoulder to see what had provoked Abby’s smirk.
A man had his eyes on Abby. A man, not a college guy. Had to be in his thirties, good-looking, tanned bronze, gleaming black hair, but a seamed face. He wore a suit, not a costume; black wool, white shirt, black tie. His watch gleamed at them.
“Well, hello,” Abby muttered slyly.
The sight of one of her compatriots, her own age, remarking that way about a grown man got Angel’s stomach dropping. Would Abby really consider someone like that? When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw the man approaching now. Oh God . . .
In front of their couch was a low wooden table shining with gloss, a bouquet of real flowers in the center with pastel blossoms almost as big as cut cabbages. The man came around the far side of the table, all the girls tracking him. He sat next to Abby, who looked at him, saying, “Hi-i,” and doing it in a breathy sing-song.
He touched her hair, lounging comfortably in the corner of their couch and eyeing this nineteen-year-old seductively. India patted Angel’s knee, like she wanted her attention, like she was afraid Angel was missing this show.
The man said to Abby: “You’re a voyeur?” His voice was deep, the tone of his remark tilted slightly upward at the end so it served as a question.
“I sure am,” Abby said, impish, cocking her head. The man smiled at her.
“What’s your name?”
“What’s yours?”
“Maybe we don’t need names,” the man said.
“I’ve got by without one before,” Abby said, and India’s back shook with laughter, watching her friend work with this older man.
The man chuckled softly. Angel looked down at the medallion resting between her breasts. It was unremarkable, just a gold coin, a large one, not possibly real gold, though it was heavy. Across the center was a raised chevron. A V. V for voyeur. Is that what the man meant saying to Abby she was a voyeur? . . .
“You’re very beautiful,” the man said.
“I know.”
He smiled, touched her shoulder. “I’d love for you to come back to my chamber, see what I’m doing there.”
India interjected over Abby’s shoulder. “Some sort of project?”
The man frowned at her, the smirk still there. “A project. Yes.”
This was suddenly more than Angel could bear. It was like they were in a den of serial killers and this man was trying to lure their friend to his back room to torture her and everyone here at this party would be okay with that. “We should go,” she whispered near India’s ear.
Without turning around India held up a finger indicating to wait. But there was too much they didn’t know; they wore medallions that signified something they weren’t aware of—
The man in black she’d seen watching them from across the room was there now with them and she hadn’t even seen him coming. He kneeled next to the handsome man Abby’d been talking to, all confident smiles and addressing the man. “Good evening, Mr. Fairbanks, I hope you’re enjoying your stay.”
The man smiled, nodded once almost imperceptibly, polite but not enjoying the interruption.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to move on from these young voyeurs so I may deal with them.”
Oh no. This was where they got taken to a room in the back and made to wait while the police he’d called showed up to return them to to the dorm, the dean waiting for them.
The man named Mr. Fairbanks didn’t like being refused, but he regarded Abby, then back to the man with the cloak and the black eyes, and nodded once again. He said to Abby, “I’ll be around later, if you see me, come to me.”
“Maybe,” Abby said, making him sneer. He rose and left.
Angel said, “Did we do something wrong?”
The man said to Abby, “How are you, young lady?”
“I’m doing fine.” She had a smile that went off to one side of her face. A defiant sort of expression, like a young woman who might be used to fighting back or at least complaining to the manager.
“You’ve had some drinks tonight, haven’t you?” He tapped her knee with an index finger, big wide smile, encouraging her to be honest.
“No, I—”
He stopped her. “It doesn’t matter. Maybe you’re of age, maybe not, but you won’t be served here. And I will not allow you to go to a room with a man. For your sake. Not when you’ve been drinking. Not even to watch.”
“I’m of age,” she lied.
While she came at the man with a measure of indignation, he was still all smiles and charm and confidence.
“I’m sure you are, love,” he said, “just the same, I’m the master of this room, and I command you to the dance floor where you may cut the rug all night long or whatever Morrison girls are saying these days. May I get you a cup of coffee, a soft drink perhaps?”
Whatever magic worked in the guy’s black eyes, it got Abby laughing and she said, “I’ll just dance, thank you very much.”
India thanked the man, and he winked at her. The guy had a weird dominant paternal sort of energy, like he really looked out for Abby, not just lip service. He’d seen that man called Mr. Fairbanks would prey on her and he intervened for her safety. A warmer feeling came over her, and while the man left them, she called out a thank you. He waved over his shoulder like he was saying think nothing of it, and he returned to the far wall where it seemed he monitored the party.
“From weird to weirder,” India sighed, watching the man, Abby slumping to lean against her shoulder.
Abby said, “Take me to the dance floor, please.”
India laughed and patted Abby’s cheek like she was a child, then took her hand. She offered the other one to Angel saying, “You coming?”
Angel put out her hand, but paused, looking over her shoulder and the partygoers, seeing the people dancing outside in the flashing lights. That wasn’t her out there. She didn’t want to go to the dance floor.
“Maybe I’ll stay here,” she said.
India’s face showed she didn’t like that idea. “You sure about that?”
“I think I’ll people watch,” she said, then nodded her chin across the room to the man with the black magic eyes. “He’s looking out.”
Abby said, “I don’t think Angel’s a dancer.” The tone was hard to decipher as friendly or disparaging.
“I’m not,” she said, staying seated in the corner of the couch.
“Suit yourself,” India said, “are you going to run off with Abby’s boyfriend Mr. Fairbanks?” Abby cackled.
“I’m happy here, I think,” she said.
Abby said, “Go check out his project. His big, long, hard project.”
India laughed and nudged Abby.
“You better be here when we come back,” India said.
Angel knew she was a burden to them now, not wanting to go to the dance floor when the three of them should be sticking together in a strange place like this. “Please don’t worry about me,” she said, almost regretting the words as soon as she’d said them. If they took them to heart and Mr. Fairbanks took her down one of the mansion’s wings she could be dismembered while Abby and India were heading back to Morrison.
“Poke around, Angel,” Abby said, “you might find what you’re looking for—guy like Mr. Fairbanks’s a legit Sugar Daddy, I can feel it. My sister goes to Penn, says she knows a girl there with a sugar daddy bought her like a whole wardrobe, a car even. I mean, who knows what she had to suck to get it, but, hey, right? . . .”
Angel gave a nervous laugh, trying to be polite but also parsing Abby’s suggestion for insult. Was it because Angel’s wardrobe was so obviously needing to be replaced? Was it because she thought Angel couldn’t get a real boyfriend? Did she so badly look like she needed money she’d benefit from a rich, old, sugar daddy?
Even India made an uncomfortable face hearing Abby’s suggestion. She said, “Angel, baby, I want you to be careful. Abs and I are just outside. Don’t . . . Don’t fall for anything. You know what I’m saying?”
“I’ll be all right here,” she said and smiled.
India cocked her head, sighed, hugged her arm around Abby tighter. “Let’s cut a rug like good Morrison girls.”
Abby laughed, said, “Lead the way, lead the way . . .”