The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

  "So what?" I asked Mike huffily. "You and J.B. were swapping beads in the locker room?" Mike and I had already agreed to keep our costume concept this year a surprise until we showed up at the party.

  "Course not," Mike shrugged. "Just his. Dude's gonna wear a feather boa. It's hilarious."

  "I doubt it," I said. The mental image of J.B. stumbling around drunk in a hot-pink feather boa did nothing for me--unless that feather boa could be used to publicly humiliate/ annihilate him.

  Then Mike put his thumb on my lip. "Hey," he said softly. "If I promise to get you the Jessamine to shame all other Jessamines, will you kiss me already?"

  I leaned into him and tried to gauge the look in his eyes. He looked totally earnest. I wondered if that would change if I clued him in on a few unsavory details about J.B. That would involve divulging some information about my past that I'd banished to the recesses of my mind, but you know what they say about desperate times.

  "Come on," he coaxed again. "Kiss me."

  I pulled Mike to me so that our lips just barely brushed when I spoke. "If I kiss you, will you promise to keep your costume plans a secret from J.B. until Saturday night?"

  Mike's brow furrowed the way it did when he couldn't quite keep up with my logic but trusted me enough not to question it. His strong hands folded around me, and he pressed his lips to mine. His tongue parted my mouth, and when I opened up to him, I could feel a new kind of power moving in.

  CHAPTER Three

  THE BEST OF THE CUTTHROATS

  When you're dating southern royalty, always pack a change of clothes.

  There's the daytime getup (string bikini and gauzy black cover-up) that you bring to your boyfriend's bayside villa for the after-dinner jaunt on his state-of-the-art cigarette boat . . . and then there's the lavender-jersey tennis dress and impeccably white cardigan that you threw in your bag in case his blue-blood parents pop by the house unexpectedly for dinner . . . again.

  "Look who's in the neighborhood!" Diana King trilled as she stepped into the foyer of the King family's weekend house. I listened for the thwunk of her alligator-skin duffel landing on the Persian rug in the middle of the massive foyer. Then I heard the rapid-fire clicking of her stilettos on the opalescent marble as she beelined up the stairs toward her youngest son's boudoir door, on which she patently refused to knock.

  "That's my cue," I groaned, rolling off of Mike on the navy quilted bedspread. It was a sure bet that she'd be up here sniffing around before Mike could even collect himself after all the hard work I'd been doing.

  "To be continued," Mike said, pulling on my earlobe with his lips. "Hi, Mom," he called loudly, crossing the room to rifle through his nautical mahogany trunk for some clothes.

  I managed to shut my scantily clad self inside Mike's Jacuzzi-equipped bathroom exactly one nanosecond before Diana took over the bedroom. I could smell her signature Shalimar perfume as she stood in the doorway. And from the hurried rummaging in the next room, it sounded like Mike was still scrambling into his shirt. Perfect. As if Diana needed more ammunition to play Ice Queen with me.

  "I didn't realize you were coming out today," Mike said smoothly, probably standing to give her the double-cheeked kiss she always insisted on. "What's the occasion?"

  "Tsk tsk," I heard Diana say, recalling my own mother's favorite zinger about that annoying blue-blood habit of speaking in onomatopoeias: like they're not rich enough to buy a vowel?

  "Darling, don't act so surprised," Mike's mother was saying. "You can't think Natalie's the only one who likes to make use of our villa. She's here with you, no doubt?"

  Sniff sniff. I envisioned her rhinoplastied--excuse me--deviated-septum-altered nostrils flaring with thinly veiled suspicion.

  "She's, uh, in the shower," Mike covered for me, and I promptly turned on the faucet. I hadn't been planning on showering until after we finished what we'd started in the bedroom and squeezed in a couple hours of sunset tubing on the boat. But then again, whenever Mike's mother made a cameo, it wasn't unusual for our plans to go to hell in one of her designer handbags.

  Huffily, I resigned myself to shampooing my hair. Minutes later, when I felt the waft of cold air from the shower curtain being pulled back, I jumped.

  "Jesus," I gasped. "I thought you were--"

  "My mother, coming in to soap your back?" He raised an eyebrow.

  "Get in here." I grabbed his arm to pull him in. Finally, things were getting back to the way they belonged: steamy.

  But Mike looked around, as if his family could see us alone in the bathroom.

  "I can't," he said. "I have to help my parents unload the car. Mom was hoping we could all have dinner."

  "Dinner?" I said. Dinner chez Diana's was so not part of the plan. I needed alone time with Mike to gear up for our big week. "What about the lake?"

  Mike took the loofah out of my hand, turned my body around with one deft movement of his wrist, and started lathering my shoulder.

  "Don't change the subject," I moaned.

  "We can't exactly get out of it," Mike said. "I'll take you out in the boat after dinner."

  I whipped my head around. "Just the two of us?"

  "On a school night," he winked.

  "Ooh," I smiled. "What will Mother think?"

  Clean enough and appropriately attired in the tennis dress Mike had even laid out for me on the bed--what, did he think I was going to wear the teddy to dinner?--I tromped down the hardwood stairs.

  Through the French windows, I could see Mr. and Mrs. King relaxing on the terrace facing the glittering water at the west end of the Cove. Diana was cross-legged in her navy-blue skirt suit, reading the paper and sipping her token glass of Viognier. Her frosted hair was gathered in a low bun at her neck and, as ever, her foundation was flawless. Mike's father, Phillip, who carried visible stress in every part of his body--and who Mike took after in looks alone--had his brow furrowed and was shouting into his cell phone. The toe of his polished leather dress shoe was making rushed circles in the air.

  Nothing indicated the imminent parental dinner party. But when I heard the telltale clamoring of pots behind the closed doors of the kitchen, I got it. Just because no King had set foot in that kitchen since they approved the architect's floor plan, it didn't mean someone else wasn't whipping up a feast in their honor. Of course, they couldn't travel the thirty miles to the shore without "help." Of course, they would have brought their housekeeper Binky in tow.

  Binky and I had a complicated relationship--there were times, like right now, when I almost related more to her than to the rest of Mike's family. I knew that when she wasn't boarding with the Kings, she lived in my old neck of the woods, in Cawdor across the bridge. In fact, the first time I met Binky, we bonded over a shared love for the huevos rancheros at Dos Hermanos, a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint near her house. It wasn't until Mrs. King cocked her head at me and asked when on earth I would ever have been on that side of town that I remembered my new position over here. I had to resort to stammering something I'm not proud of about getting really lost one time during my driver's ed test. After that, I learned to be cautious about what I let slip in front of Binky. By now, I knew this was easier to do if I just didn't blur the line between servant and the served.

  "There you are," Mike said, coming in from the library. He kissed my forehead, all PG and appropriate. "I hope you don't mind, when Mom saw your dress, she asked Binky to iron it."

  "Your mother went through my things?" I asked. So Diana, not Mike, had laid out my dress. I didn't think I had anything suspicious in my bag, but giving Diana free rein over my things was definitely not a precedent I wanted to set.

  "We were just trying to help you do a quick costume change," Mike said, always the mitigator. "Speaking of costumes, are you going to give me a late-night preview of your costume for tomorrow?"

  The Mardi Gras party. I'd finally settled on a costume, and after a tiny battle with Mike--why did guys always want to wear makeup and stockings?--I'd convinced h
im that this year, we were going to shock everyone by taking the classy route. It was a given that every one of my friends would still be rocking that tired brothel-employee look, and I loved the idea of being the only lady in the house. Mike's debonair get up this year was of equal importance. He was really going to stand out--especially next to Justin Balmer in a minidress.

  "Our costumes for tomorrow are still a surprise, right?" I said to Mike. "You haven't told J.B. or anyone? This is our moment to outshine them--show we're really royalty material."

  "Trust me," Mike said, taking my hand to go greet his royal family outside. "We'll blow the whole party away."

  "Hello, Natalie." Mr. King stood up to give me a very charged squeeze on the shoulder. "Aren't you tan?" he asked, taking me in head to toe.

  "Goodness," Diana said, peering at me over her paper. "She certainly is brown, isn't she?"

  "Golf lessons," I piped up, lest either of them assume I'd been working in the field. "At the club."

  Diana looked down at her own arms. "I'm so pale, like Scarlett O'Hara. You know that used to be the fashion." She looked around and gave us all a tight-lipped smile. "Who wants to take dinner on the terrace tonight?"

  With a shrug, Mike deferred to me.

  "Of course," I said, taking a seat on the patio between his parents. Like Mom always said: It doesn't matter where you are; if you act at home, you will be. Then again, I wasn't sure Mom's limited Emily Post library book repertoire would have gotten her far with this crowd.

  Especially with someone like Diana, who picked up a silver bell from the glass tabletop and jangled her thin, Scarlett O'Hara-pale wrist. The high, tinny sound rang out across the yard, and I thought about what this unspoken summons might sound like to anyone out on the bay. Then again, the houses in the Cove (a.k.a. the Coveted) were so spread out, the Kings and I might be the only ones around for miles.

  Seconds later, Binky arrived to answer her summons. She wore a starched black uniform that smelled of lavender, and the laces on her sensible black shoes were double-knotted. Her short dark hair had the telltale bluish tint of drugstore dye. Her smile looked slack when she stood expectantly before the Kings.

  "Our guest would like to dine outside," Diana said. "I hope that's not too much trouble for you."

  "Of course not," Binky nodded. She looked at me. "Hello, Miss Natalie."

  I smiled and nodded back at Binky but decided to keep my mouth shut. It was only the hundredth time I'd had dinner with Mike's parents, but I was still forever designated as the "guest."

  It was getting to be that time of year in Charleston when it was still warm enough to swim, and the advancing sunsets always came as a surprise. The canopy of pine trees above us cast an acid-green tint on the Kings and me as each of us waited for someone else to pick up the conversation. Cicadas buzzed in the dusk. A pinecone thumped to the ground.

  At the sound of voices near the dock, Diana beamed and rose from her chair. She gave her staid, ex-beauty-queen wrist twist to Mike's brother Phillip Jr. and his new fiancee, Isabelle, as they came up the path.

  I noticed a sailboat docked in the King marina, but from the freshly pressed look of Phillip and Isabelle's matching white dinner clothes, I was guessing that they, too, had a couple of hired hands on deck.

  "You made it," Diana called.

  Isabelle doled out a slew of squeaky air kisses while Phillip Jr. moved in at the bar. "We heard your little dinner bell and just came running," he said dryly, dropping bitters into a bourbon.

  Despite his namesake, Phillip Jr. had opted out of the family radiology business when he graduated from med school last year. Instead, he'd started his own practice and had since become one of Charleston's hottest young plastic surgeons. It was all very hush-hush--plastics being borderline unacceptable in a family of "real" doctors--but from the seamless skin around Diana's eyes when she smiled at her future daughter-in-law, it was obvious that someone had discovered the perks of having a son with an endless supply of botox.

  "Isabelle, darling, I was just telling Natalie about the refur bishments you and Phillip are making to the boat," Diana lied, smoothing her future daughter-in-law's blonde tresses, which looked remarkably like her own.

  She turned to me. "I'd ask you to join us after dinner for a cruise, but," she hesitated, searching for just the right words, "you seem to prefer a faster ride."

  The daggers were out early tonight; we were barely into aperitifs. How to quip back that I'd sooner send myself down with the anchor before I spent another three hours droning on some sailboat with the Kings?

  Mike had promised me a private moonlit ride on the cigarette boat. But when I looked at him, miming his golf stroke across the lawn at his father's command, I knew our little boat cruise would dissolve instantly if he caught wind of a ride in Phillip Jr.'s boat. Mike hated being left out of family plans. Classic younger-child complex.

  "We'd love to join you," I said. "It's just, I haven't been able to bring myself aboard a sailboat in years--not since what happened to Daddy." I held Diana's gaze. "I'm sure Mike told you about the accident?"

  "Of course," Diana said evenly. She tilted her head slightly before turning to Isabelle. "Well, I'm sure the rest of us will still have an enchanting ride," she said, patting her protege's acrylic-manicured hand. "Oh, there's Binky to refresh the drinks, thank God."

  When the rest of the family descended on the silver cocktail platter, I found Mike and tugged on his sleeve.

  "She still speaks to me like I'm disposable," I said through gritted teeth.

  Mike looped his arm around my waist and squeezed my side. For one too-short second, the rest of them disappeared.

  "It's not personal, Nat; it's tradition." His tone indicated that this was something I already knew. "Mom barely acknowledged Isabelle until Phillip put a ring on her finger. And our families have been friends for generations."

  There it was. Even when Mike was trying to console me, it was impossible not to address the ever-present hierarchy of Charleston breeding. What was it going to take to get the Kings to think I was worth a spot in their court?

  "Just so you know," I said quickly as Binky wheeled out a tray of salads, "I declined your mother's offer to take a ride on P.J.'s sailboat after dinner." Before Mike could register a complaint, I added, "You know they make me nervous."

  "I do?" Mike looked confused.

  The ringing sound of the bell interrupted us.

  "Dinner is served," Binky announced, and the whole happy family took a seat. I smirked when I noted that my place card had Mike seated directly across from me. I highly doubted Diana would have ordained this arrangement if she had any idea what my foot was reaching for surreptitiously under the table. Who likes a fast ride now, Mrs. King?

  "So, Mikie," Phillip Jr. said, using the nickname I hated as he buttered a sweet potato biscuit. "Justin Balmer's old lady came in for a consultation today."

  Have I mentioned what an infamous bore Phillip Jr. usually was? But suddenly he had my undivided attention.

  "From the way she was talking," he continued, "the bags under her eyes aren't the only things sinking around Palmetto. How are your numbers in the projections for Prince? Is Mrs. Balmer full of hot air, or is J.B. actually going to give you a run?"

  Diana dropped her fork to her plate in alarm. Her eyes shot up at Mike.

  "Phillip's joking, Mother," Mike said, shrugging it off.

  "Not really," Phillip quipped. He looked at his parents. "Remind me how many generations of Kings have been crowned at Palmetto? Four, or is it five?"

  "It's every generation since the school has been in operation," Phillip Sr. said, motioning Binky to clear his plate. He raised his steak knife in Mike's direction so that it looked like an extension of his body. "This is not some little beauty pageant to be made light of, Michael. You know our family has a perfect record."

  I'd always imagined that Mike was so nonchalant about Prince because it was the kind of thing his family might dismiss. But now I finally un
derstood one of the many silent power struggles I waged with Diana: Every day after school, when I moved Mike's framed National Merit Scholars certificate to the front of his desk, someone replaced it with his football trophy after I went home.

  So success was formulaic to the Kings. If adulthood was for serious, professional accomplishments . . . was it possible that high school, in their eyes, meant sports and popularity, to the point where they even trumped academics? So the Kings cared as much about Palmetto Court as I did. Suddenly, this little dinner party went from buzz kill to extremely beneficial.

  "Of course, who can forget Phillip Jr.'s flawless coronation speech?" Diana recalled, dotting her mouth with a napkin. "What was it again, dear? 'As gratitude for this bestowed honor--'"

  " 'I will earn your absolute trust,' " Phillip Jr. finished, smugly nodding his head. I rolled my eyes at Mike to indicate that he would not be bringing that gem back to life at our coronation.

  Phillip Jr. lowered his voice and cocked his head away from his mother. "Of course, if you ask Isabelle, it wasn't my verbal prowess she remembers about that day," he muttered, giving Mike a nudge. "Don't come a knockin' when you see a carriage rockin'--know what I mean?"

  He and Mike shared a rare brotherly snicker at the reference to what went on behind closed carriage doors during the Prince and Princess's famously racy ride to the coronation. It was one of Palmetto's oldest traditions and also one of its most taboo. A half hour before the coronation ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage made two stops at the Scot's Glen country club. First to pick up the Prince in the Club Room, then to pick up the Princess outside the Ladies Lounge. The nearly crowned then took a ride around all eighteen holes of the golf course and were delivered for their grand entrance to the ceremony, just in time to make their speeches.

  Depending on the relationship between the future royalties, the carriage could either be a vaguely awkward or a totally hot ride. And, of course, it was always choice pickings for the rumor mill at school. If there was any chemistry at all between the Prince and Princess, sending a Princess into the carriage was much like sending a bride off to her marital bed. Hence Phillip Jr.'s bawdy boast, and hence Isabelle's icy not-in-front-of-your-folks glare.