The Paradise Problem (65)

Anna goes quiet, and then I feel her coming closer. “We have to be friends again,” she says quietly. “We have a show to put on.”

“We never stopped being friends.”

She laughs a little at this, exhaling a puff of air that fans warm and minty across my neck.

“You look nice.” She reaches forward to adjust my lapel and our eyes meet. Her smile has a tiny bit of the real Anna in it. A tiny bit of knowing. Does she see straight through me? Does she know that every time I look at her, I want to run? My nostrils flare and the urge to bail on this party and tell her to go ahead without me sends a chill across my skin. But Anna just stares up at me and then laughs. “You’re such a weirdo.”

She tucks her arm through mine, and we make our way across the bridge in silence. On the beach, she finally breaks. “Am I correct in believing that someone had these costumes sent here from the United States?”

I nod. “I think the McKellans organized it all.”

“Imagine shipping trunks of old glam outfits here just for a party!” She pauses and snickers. “What if they sent the wrong ones? Like, imagine Janet opening it to find a bunch of furry outfits.” She laughs. “Or, like, Lord of the Rings cosplay.”

“Random.”

“I’d have made you go as Gollum tonight.”

I fight a smile. My unidentified frustration is momentarily silenced by a rush of satisfaction that I knew she would make a joke out of this party.

“I dated a guy in a Lord of the Rings tribute band,” she says, and then amends, “or slept with him, I guess.”

Heat returns, spreading like wildfire under my skin, and I clamp my mouth shut.

“Aren’t you curious which character he was?” she asks.

I slide my gaze to her. “Gimli?”

She laughs. “Legolas. It was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. Trust me, Legolas would never be the drummer. Way too sweaty in that wig.”

“What would he play?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. Keytar?”

“I can see that.”

Anna looks up at me, bumping my shoulder. “Careful. You might use up your word quota, and you’re committed to being monosyllabic tonight.”

At this, my mouth seals shut again.

The party comes into view in the distance, a huge white tent set up on the beach, strung lights glimmering in delicate, parallel strands that stretch down the length of the interior. Bright, jazzy trumpet notes drift across the air.

“I mean, come on,” she says, gesturing to what’s in front of us. “We could all just drink Pacificos and lime on the beach and be completely happy. Is all of this necessary?”

“It’s probably the McKellans showing off to my parents.”

“Who knew grocers were so powerful?” she asks, and I try to resist the urge to explain it to her, but the words rise up out of me anyway.

“Dad’s power isn’t just about Weston Foods,” I tell her.

“What does that mean?”

“His hands are in everything,” I explain. “Every huge industry, he’s there. Here’s an example: He gave seed money to a few friends of Alex’s when they wanted to start a little website called Twitter—I refuse to call it X.” Anna snickers. “He invested early in Apple, Uber, even Amazon. He serves on the board of five different Fortune 500s. He knows everyone. Has dirt on everyone, too.” That one hits close to home, and I kick a stray branch out of her path so she doesn’t trip on it. “At some big dinner recognizing charitable CEOs, this one guy, a college friend of Dad’s from Penn, joked that he saw my father with his arm around a woman at a hotel bar. Maybe it was true—I suspect it was—but I think my dad would have destroyed him for starting a baseless rumor, too. He was an executive at a hedge fund and Dad leaked his personal financials to the board; this guy had to empty his retirement savings to pay off his wife’s credit card debt and the board found him unfit to advise clients. He couldn’t get another job and they had to leave New York and move back in with her parents. Last I heard, they’d divorced, and he was working as a bank manager in Tulsa.”

Anna lets out a shocked breath. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“Do you honestly care that much about the money?”

I open my mouth and then close it again. I may not have the words yet for what’s going on between the two of us, but talking about the family trust opens up the trapdoor to feelings I can identify, feelings like guilt and obligation, panic and loyalty and dread. “I can’t just walk away. It’s not that simple,” I say, hoping she’ll leave it.

But this is Anna. She never leaves anything. “Then explain it like I’m a toddler.”

“It’s—” I cut off, shaking my head. “I’m not only here because of my inheritance. It’s much bigger than that.”

Her eyes go wide in disbelief. “Bigger than a hundred million dollars?”

I look over at her and nod, but that’s all I can do for now because we’re here, out in front of the party tent.

Anna threads her arm through mine and we step in together, taking it all in. It’s not technically a costume party, but I spot an attempt at Audrey Hepburn in the crowd, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz look-alikes, a Sammy Davis Jr., and a handful of Marilyns. A band plays in the corner, a backdrop behind them built to look like the Southern California skyline, complete with towering palm trees, art deco buildings, twinkling windows, and of course, the HOLLYWOOD sign. Long tables are dressed in glittering fabric and topped with vases of arching white ostrich plumes.