CHAPTER NINE

Behind the Blindfold

The New Year’s Eve party was at Felicity-Ann’s parents’ mansion. It was a monstrosity of brick that rose a whole story above every other building on the street. The first time I saw it, I mistook it for a church. Felicity-Ann’s mother was a professor at the university, and her father was some sort of eccentric millionaire who also happened to be Trinity’s uncle. Trinity’s parents were coming to the party and to say Trinity was shaken by their forthcoming arrival was an understatement.

Coming unglued was the order of the day everyday between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve. She was only calm when Brighton was around. The rest of the time she was like a lapsed lunatic. She went to the drug store to buy shampoo and came back with three different kinds of temporary hair dye, black fishnet stockings, and a spiked dog collar.

I picked up the dog collar and said, “I didn’t even know they sold these at Cousins Drug Mart.”

“Yeah. It’s amazing what they keep beside the till.”

“What are you gonna do with those boxes of dye? Do you plan to keep your reformation a secret from your parents? You said it before. They already know and they don’t care.”

Trinity straightened her back and looked at her reflection in the mirror. “You’re right. I don’t have to keep my brown hair a secret from them, but I do have to keep Brighton a secret.”

I scoffed. “You’re not going to tell them you’re getting married?”

“Felix doesn’t know… unless you told her.” Trinity eyed me suspiciously.

“No. I didn’t tell her. I try to avoid standing too close. Well, now you have to explain to upright Brighton why he can’t ask your father for your hand in marriage.”

Her face went so white she lost her nose. “I can’t let them meet. You think my father would go so far as to refuse our marriage? If he knew I was seeing a guy whose family isn’t in the top one percent, he would flip out. Actually, just knowing that Brighton worked at the Campus Food Bank would give my father a heart attack.”

“He wouldn’t even let you two date?”

“No. Brighton can’t come to the party,” she said, pacing frantically. “But I have to be there. How can I get him to not come? I already invited him!” Her voice was becoming higher and higher pitched. By the time she said ‘him’ I could only guess what she was saying.

“How are you going to do that?”

She flapped her hands like broken bird wings. “I don’t know. What if I fake sick?”

“What if you’re so sick you can’t go anywhere and neither can he because he has to nurse you better?” I suggested.

“He’d take me to the emergency room, and the doctors would know I was lying. I’ve done that sort of thing before.”

“And he can’t be convinced not to mention anything to your parents?” I persisted.

“No,” she fumed. “That man has never told a lie in his life. He can’t even pretend to be something different than he is. Do you remember his costume for Halloween?”

“No. Did he dress up?”

“He did. He dressed up as a food bank volunteer, which he isn't, because he's the director. He wore one of the volunteer T-shirts and that was his costume.”

I gawked at her. That was so lame. Christian would have dressed up as the Phantom of the Opera, complete with a horribly disfigured face under his mask, except he wouldn’t have gotten shot at the end of his performance. How could Trinity like a guy who was the opposite of that? “And you fell in love with this guy?”

The color came back to her face. “He’s the best. If he says he’s going to pick me up, then he picks me up. If he’s late, he texts. He says he’s going to be in class, I swing by, and he’s there. Not that I have been jerked around by very many boyfriends. It was my parents who were always standing me up.”

I did agree that those qualities were extraordinarily appealing in a man. For a moment, I was jealous. I shook it off and reminded her reasonably, “You’ve already told them off dozens of times. Why are you nervous about doing it one more time?”

“I don’t want to ruin Auntie’s party. I’ve already ruined so many things. I ruin everything. Brighton wouldn’t like me to ruin the party or cause a big scene. At his parents’ house, everything was so sweet. His parents love me so much. It’s such a bummer I can’t give him wonderful in-laws. You've met my parents. They hate everyone who doesn’t have as much money as them, but not quite as much as they hate people who have more money than them. I don’t know. My parents hate everything decent.”

“I don’t know what you should do,” I admitted when she looked to me for advice.

“Will you stay home from the party with me?” she asked.

“No.”

“What the heck? Why would you go to their party? I thought you hated Felix.”

I threw my hair over my shoulder. “I want to see if Rogan goes. I’m sure Felicity-Ann invited him.”

“Your interest in him is weird. He likes Felix. A guy who likes Felix could never like you.”

I shrugged.

“Well, you can be stupid if you want. You've given me the luxury enough times, I can reciprocate the favor. What are you going to wear? They’re millionaires and we’re poor relatives.”

“I’m going to buy a new dress and I’m going to get my hair done,” I said with a little hand flourish.

“If he likes Felix, you're not woman enough for him,” she said honestly, pinching both my thin cheeks at once. “That girl has curves that make Coke bottles jealous.”

She was trying to protect me and I appreciated it. I loved honesty even when it was too honest. “It’s cool,” I said positively, brushing her hands away. “I may not be the Bond girl Felicity-Ann is, but I get asked what ballet I'm in when I'm in the auditorium.”

“Go get him, tiger,” Trinity growled supportively. She still thought it was a bad idea.

***

On New Year’s Eve, I stopped in at my apartment to get dressed before Felicity-Ann’s party. Even if everyone called her Felix, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, not even in my head.

That night, I felt particularly stung by what I knew Felicity-Ann would be wearing. She sent Trinity a picture of her dress and dared Trinity to show up in something better. So I’d seen it. It was a short red dress with black flowers on it. When I went shopping, I tried to find something that would beat it. I fought the throngs at West Edmonton Mall for three days straight. Finding something incredible was easy. Finding something that made me look incredible was a different story. In the end, the dress I bought cost over six hundred dollars, but that was okay if Rogan would be at the party.

It was wine purple with a high neck and a bustle in the back. The bustle was the best part, which was made of black transparent fluff that looked like a ballerina’s tutu. My coloring was great for purple.

I went to a salon and got my hair done in loose ringlets and curious braids done up at the crown.

When Trinity saw me all dressed up, she almost fell on the floor. She had decided to bite the bullet and was taking Brighton to the party—rage or no rage. She was leaving everything in his hands. But she was stunned when she saw me.

“I should have gone shopping with you,” she said, glowing. “I have to take you with me when I buy my wedding dress. Beth, I never knew you had so much style. Where have you been hiding it?”

I frowned. “This is what Christian would have bought for me if I had taken him with me. He always has the best taste and buys the most expensive thing.”

“When do I get to meet this Christian?” Brighton asked.

I glanced at Trinity and got my coat. The awkward silence got deeper as I grabbed my purple scarf. She’d explain to him sometime when I wasn’t around.

***

At the party, the first person I saw was Felicity-Ann. She had discarded the dress she sent Trinity a picture of and was now wearing a violet low-cut gown with a tiny purple scarf knotted around her wrist. I knew we looked similar and even if my dress was better than hers, no one would ever say I looked better. I just didn’t have the face, the figure, or the hair for it.

Felicity-Ann’s parents were all smiles as they welcomed us to their party. Trinity immediately scanned the room for her parents. I stayed beside her for moral support.

“I don’t see them,” I whispered over the hum of the band.

“Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean I’m in the clear. They could be late or out of sight.”

I silently agreed with her and glanced around the room again.

“If I don’t see them in an hour, do you think it would be rude to slip out?” she asked.

I suddenly remembered a verse from the book of Christian and recited it for her. “If you leave a New Year's Eve party early, you have to tell everyone afterward, including the host, that you stayed until the end.”

She hissed back at me, “Brighton doesn’t lie.”

“Whatever. The person you need to please is him. I’ve been to a million of these things. He’s not going to want to stay, so you can leave whenever he wants to go.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Depends on whether or not Rogan shows up.”

“It might not make what Christian did to you hurt any less,” Trinity suggested tensely.

I smiled and showed my teeth, half smiling, half snarling. “I think it will.”

Then I saw him. He was leaning against a wall next to one of the escape routes. He was wearing a dark blue collared shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and a light blue tie. In his hand was a glass of something bubbly. He was talking to someone, but the second his friend’s attention was distracted, he dumped half his drink into a planter.

It was him.

It had to be him. Other men didn't do that. I ran back to the front entry, leaving Trinity in the middle of a sentence and asked the butler to give me my scarf. At my request, he gave me instructions on how I could enter the room by the door beside Rogan without passing through the party. He was a really useful fellow as he took me around the back way.

In the hallway, I peeked around the corner to make sure Rogan was still there. He was. I put my back against a wall and tried to calm down. What I was about to do was normal. Everyone did this sort of thing at parties. I’d seen something like it happen a dozen times before. I had just never been part of a prank like this. I needed to chill out. Beauty was all about confidence. All I had to do was act like I wasn’t scared.

I took my scarf and looped it around Rogan’s head so that it covered his eyes like a blindfold. I didn’t keep my face hidden from the man he had been talking to and gave him a little playful nose crinkle before gently pulling Rogan around the corner into the semi-darkness of the hall.

“What’s going on?” he asked clearly in the quiet corridor.

I didn’t answer him. I kissed him and it was like getting transported back to that moment in the conservatory before everything was spoiled. I opened my mouth and was so ecstatic when he opened his that I trembled. This was the man I loved. His taste, his breath, his charm, and the feeling I had spent years waiting for. I felt his hands on my upper arms, not to move them, but to feel them. His hands moved down to my elbows, then to my waist and back. I felt him crush the fabric of my dress between his fingers, pulling me against him so hard that it was no longer me pushing him up against a wall. I heard a seam break, and he immediately let go of my dress to hold my face gently in his hands.

Then he reached up with one hand to tug off the blindfold. I pinned his bicep to the wall and breathed out the last of our kisses.

When I finally had to come up for air, I leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Count to ten and come find me.”

I let go of him, leaving my scarf behind as the only clue to my identity and nearly tripped on my heels as I came down a few steps into the main room. I stumbled over to Trinity, my face on fire and my feet faltering.

“What did you just do?” she asked when I finally arrived behind her.

I didn’t answer her. “Is Rogan behind me?”

“No.”

“Can you see him?”

“No.”

I bit my lip in frustration. “There’s a hallway to your eleven o’clock. I was just in there with him. Has he come out?”

Trinity found the spot with her eyes. “No.”

“Keep looking. Tell me when you see him. This is really important to me.”

She kept staring and I kept waiting. It was a full two heart-pounding minutes before she said, “There he is.”

“Is he alone? What is he doing?”

“He’s holding your scarf. Yeah, he’s alone. He looks super puzzled. He’s fixing one of the lenses in his glasses.”

“Crap! I broke his glasses. I shouldn’t have tied it so tight.”

Trinity gasped. “What did you do?”

“What I came here to do. Is he coming over? I can’t look.”

“He’s smelling the scarf. Did you put something on it, like perfume?”

“No. Dang it. I should have. Is he coming over here?”

“Nope. I hate to break your spirit, but he’s standing beside Felix.”

“He’s what?” I spun around.

Trinity wasn’t joking. He had his hand on her wrist where her purple scarf sat and he was spinning her around like he was dancing with her. Even from across the room I thought I could read his lips when he pulled away from her and said, “Found you.”

I couldn't bear it. He was going to her? Didn't he know my kiss? Didn't he know my taste? Didn't he think I could do something like that? Why did he go to her?

“I have to go,” I said, panicking. “I have to go right now. I can’t stay and watch this.” I turned around and made for the front hall. I had to find that butler, get my coat and get away from the worst party I had ever been to.

“What’s going on?” Trinity said, following me. “I thought you were going to stay and help me weather the storm.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I wish I could, but I’m in no condition to stay. I thought he would find me. I thought he would know it was me. Instead, he thought it was Felicity-Ann with her little purple scarf wrapped around her wrist. He thought my scarf was a present from her. That it was a couples’ scarf and she was already wearing hers.”

“Honey, I don’t understand what’s happening. Didn’t he see you give it to him?”

“No. No, he didn’t. I was playing a game. I never thought it would backfire like this. I thought Felicity-Ann was going to wear red. I have to go.”

“Well, I’ll come with you. I don’t want to be here anyway. Just give me two seconds and I’ll grab Brighton.”

I stood in the arch between the hall and the party wishing she would hurry. My knees were shaking so badly, I thought I might fall on my face, and what if Trinity’s parents arrived at that very moment?

Across the room, I saw something very different from what I was expecting. Trinity had not gone to get Brighton. She had walked clear across the room to where Felicity-Ann and Rogan were dancing. My scarf was around his neck. It almost stopped my heart to see her tap on Rogan’s shoulder. He stopped and looked at Trinity. She unceremoniously snatched my scarf from around his neck.

“This is not her scarf,” she said loudly pointing at Felicity-Ann.

“Then who—”

Trinity strode away but turned around to spit at him, “And it’s not mine either, you idiot.”

I slipped around the corner, only to see the butler standing there with my coat stretched out between his hands. His face looked pained. Even he knew I wasn’t having a good night.

Trinity picked up Brighton before she made it back to the door. She stuffed my scarf into her bag and said briskly, “I’ll give it back to you after we’re home. No need to make this any more humiliating than it already was.”

“You always know what to do,” I said as I buttoned my coat and stepped out into the cold. She wouldn’t cause a scene for her own sake, but she had no problem causing one for mine. That must be why Brighton and I loved her so much.