Beth wasn’t following. “Mariana is going to give you money?”
“Of course she is,” Beth said. “She has to. She feels bad about me, remember? I’ll have to figure out how much I’ll need. She has plenty.”
“Mariana doesn’t have money,” Beth said.
“Sure, she does. She goes shopping all the time and her wallet is always full of cash.”
That was true. They’d seen the money come out of the wallet plenty of times. “That’s my father’s money,” Beth said. “He gives her an allowance.”
For the first time in a long time, Lily actually looked surprised, and the surprise wasn’t pleasant. “Beth, what are you talking about? Mariana’s family is just as rich as Julian’s.”
Beth took another drink of wine. “That’s true, but Mariana is the only one left. And her mother left all of her money to Julian.”
“To Julian?”
Beth nodded. “I heard them talking about it. Our grandmother thought it was best that her husband look after all of it because our mother doesn’t know how to handle money. So he got all the money, and he gives Mariana an allowance.” She had never really thought about this before; her parents had never argued about it, both of them accepting it as the natural order of things. But she could tell by Lily’s face that something was wrong. “What is it?”
Lily looked off into the darkness, her breath pluming, her skin pale against the night. “Damn it,” she said softly to herself. “I’d laugh if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.”
Beth felt her jaw drop at the word. Lily had no problem swearing, but even she rarely used the f-word. “Lily?”
“God damn it,” Lily said.
Beth was starting to get scared—drunk and scared—so she said, “Can we talk about something else now?”
Lily’s eyes had that cold look that made Beth want to get back on her bike and flee. “Of course you don’t want to talk about money,” she said. “You have all the money. From Julian, from Mariana. I bet you have a trust fund, don’t you?”
“Not until I’m twenty-one,” Beth said. “And it isn’t a lot. I still have to get an allowance from my father.”
“An allowance,” Lily said. She took a step toward Beth, pulled a glove off. “You’re going to get an allowance and marry a rich man, and someday when Julian is dead you’ll get that, too. And me? I’ll just disappear.”
Beth watched Lily’s bare hand. Something about it disturbed her. She was so drunk, and she knew now that she shouldn’t have talked about this, shouldn’t have told Lily those things, but she couldn’t say why. “You won’t disappear,” Beth argued. “You’ll stay here. You’ll have Mariana and me.”
“Will you let me visit at Christmas?” Lily asked. Her hand touched Beth’s hair where it came out from beneath her wool hat, stroked down the silky red strands. “Will I be allowed to sit on a chair in the living room if I stay quiet and wear my best dress?”
“What are you talking about?” She didn’t like Lily touching her hair. Lily wasn’t a toucher; she didn’t like to be hugged, held, or even to hold hands. She found the touch of other people repugnant, but now she was running her fingertips down Beth’s hair.
“Do you know what I think?” Lily said. “I think you’ll marry some rich, boring man and decide you feel guilty about me. And you’ll invite me over for Christmas, and when I get there you won’t be able to think of a single thing to say.”
Tears stung Beth’s eyes, because that hurt. “You know that isn’t true. I don’t want to marry anyone.”