The Rumor Page 19
Allegra put a hand on Brick’s shoulder and then bent over and kissed the top of his head like she was his mother. Hope felt a pang for Brick. Was it not totally obvious that Allegra’s reservoir of sexy, romantic feelings for him had run dry and that she was preoccupied by her phone, which they could all hear vibrating away in her jacket pocket?
“Who’s texting you?” Brick asked.
“Texting me?” Allegra said. She smiled innocently, as though she couldn’t feel the persistent vibration of Ian Coburn’s messages against her left breast. She plucked her phone from her pocket and checked the display. “Oh, it’s Hollis. She’s asking about math.”
She was a born liar, Hope thought. It was incredible. She should skip the modeling career and go straight to politics.
“I don’t believe you,” Brick said. “Show me the text!” He reached out to grab Allegra’s phone, but in the process, he hit Madeline’s glass of red wine—which shattered and sent a Malbecian spray all over Allegra’s Italian leather jacket.
Allegra shrieked.
Madeline said, “Oh, Brick, no!”
Trevor said, “Honey, it was an accident.”
Madeline set about picking up pieces of the wineglass while Allegra whipped off her leather jacket, taking her phone out of her pocket first and setting it on the dry part of the table, right where both Hope and Brick could see it, when Ian Coburn texted yet again.
“Ian Coburn?” Brick said. “Since when do you get texts from Ian Coburn?”
“Jesus, Brick!” Allegra said. “This jacket cost me a fortune!”
Eddie cleared his throat. “Me a fortune,” he said. “Is it ruined?”
Allegra wiped at it with napkins, but the wine had left a shower of dark stains that looked like splattered blood.
“It’s an Italian jacket, right?” Hope said. “You’d think they would make them wine resistant.”
“I can’t believe this!” Allegra said.
Grace got a sponge for the wine, and Madeline threw the shards of glass into the trash. Grace said, “Do you want the sponge for your coat, honey?”
“You can’t put water on it, Mother,” Allegra said.
“Tone,” Eddie warned.
Allegra’s phone continued to buzz.
Her family was so predictable, Hope thought. Possibly they believed that she, too, was predictable—but nobody knew that in a month, maybe two, she would be dating Brick.
Brick said, “Ian Coburn sure has a lot to say to you.”
Allegra snatched up her phone. “It’s none of your business who texts me.”
“Really?” he said.
“I’m putting the shrimp on,” Eddie said.
“I think maybe we should go home,” Madeline said.
Grace handed Eddie a large platter of shrimp and jalapeño skewers. When he laid the first one on the hot grill, there was an angry hiss.
Grace said, “You should not go home. It’s just a glass and a little spill. But, Eddie, you need to apologize to Madeline for giving her a hard time about Rachel McMann.”
Rachel McMann, Hope thought. Ew.
Rachel was the mother of Hope’s sworn enemy, Calgary McMann. Hope had dated Calgary for four weeks before she finally allowed him to get to third base, but he broke up with her right after, making Hope feel like there was something wrong with her. When Calgary and his friends saw Hope in the hallway, they made a strange hand motion that Hope didn’t understand, and there was no one she could ask, but she knew it wasn’t good. In response, she flipped them off, which made them laugh. Calgary had left Hope without a date for the Christmas formal; the red velvet cocktail dress that she and Grace had bought at Hepburn went unworn. Calgary had asked Kylie Eckers to the formal, but Kylie got so drunk at the preparty that the principal and superintendent stopped her at the door and called her parents to come pick her up. When Hope heard that news from Allegra the next morning, she felt somewhat vindicated, but now, five months later, her hatred of both Kylie and Calgary had become indelible, like a fossil in rock.
“Rachel McMann wasn’t worthy of your commission,” Eddie said. “That was my only point.”
“I don’t think she took a commission,” Madeline said.
“Oh, believe me, she took a commission,” Eddie said.
Just the name Rachel McMann made Hope feel sick. She couldn’t stand another second of this conversation.
“Mom?” she said. “I’m not hungry.”
“I’m not hungry either,” Brick said. He looked at Madeline. “Can we go home, Mom, please?”
“Yes,” Madeline said. “I think we should.”
That was the last thing Hope heard before she marched upstairs, except for the buzzing of Allegra’s phone.
MADELINE
You can’t go!” Grace said. “We haven’t eaten yet! I made fresh pineapple salsa. I made mango panna cotta.”
“I don’t feel well,” Brick said.
“Can you hang on a little while longer, buddy?” Trevor asked. “We’ll eat and then we’ll go.”
Madeline was all for trying to set things right. She felt awful that Brick had broken another one of the five-hundred-dollar wine goblets, but this led to annoyance that Grace insisted on using such expensive crystal for casual family dinners in the first place. Madeline felt like she should offer to pay for the glass, or for Allegra’s jacket, even though she didn’t have the money. Although clearly she did have the money, because she was blowing two grand a month on the rent for a room of her own!