Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [54]
It took a minute to register the tableau, as still and composed as any Renaissance sculpture. Then Meg realized that the scream, more of a howl, really, had been Carrie’s and that the girl was limp but breathing, weeping extravagantly in her mother’s arms.
“The Bryn Mawr Pietà,” Meg whispered involuntarily, and guests behind her took up the phrase and repeated it in low tones. Bess pushed past Meg and crouched before her sister and her stricken niece.
Anise’s husband Thom shouldered his way into the room and scooped up Carrie, who hung on him, upright but limp, still weeping into his starched white shirt. He shot Anise a look and she returned it with a shrug. Bess was still crouching beside Anise, holding her hand.
Carrie started mumbling and slurring about how life was hell and she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear it, it was so difficult, so hard, she couldn’t, no, no, no, she just couldn’t. Thom, full of concern a moment ago, stiffened and held her out from him, her head still wobbling on her long neck, her expensively layered hair tousled, eyes red and rolling.
“Carrie, you’re drunk,” he announced sternly in a loud and serious baritone.
“Life is hell, just pure hell, and I can’t.” His daughter paused to hiccup. “I can’t, can’t, can’t bear it. I can’t.”
“Carrie.” Thom shook her slightly, this tall, gorgeous creature, limp and sodden but still beautiful in her lavish distress. “You are going to your room. Right now.”
Megan suppressed a smile. Would the drunken, nearly adult Amazon-like Carrie go to her room like a disobedient child? Poor Thom was clueless. He shook her again until she straightened up enough to walk and nudged her to the door to send her upstairs. She broke loose and turned back to her mother with another bone-chilling wail.
Anise opened her arms and Carrie flung herself back on her mother’s lap, burrowing her face in Anise’s shoulder and blubbering into her neck. Anise shrugged again at Thom and wrapped her arms protectively around her large, distraught daughter, rocking her in her arms. Bess reached up and tenderly rubbed Carrie’s back, exposed in the backless silk tunic. Michelle, the third Dagger sister, squeezed by Megan and rushed to help console her niece.
Poor Thom. He opened his mouth to protest again, but evidently realized he could never prevail against the massed determination of the Dagger sisters when they closed ranks. He stood for a moment, helpless, until Megan took his arm. He let her lead him from the room, the other guests scattering in front of them, muttering and giggling. Megan heard the phrase “Bryn Mawr Pietà” repeated a number of times. She wished she’d never said it.
Thom rallied then, and called out, “Let’s have more champagne, shall we? It’s almost midnight.” And that, Meg thought, was that.
The party rolled on inexorably. The ball dropped. Kisses were exchanged. Anise circulated again, her composure restored, laughing charmingly about young women and their angst. Even Carrie reappeared, her face freshly scrubbed, tossing her blond hair and looking only slightly embarrassed.
Henri and Paula were evidently having a rapprochement in the butler’s pantry, breathing heavily, startled like deer when Megan discovered them. They were kissing in a dark alcove beside the Sub-Zero, his hand inside her sweater, her pale face reddened where his stubbled chin had rubbed it, his leg between hers, her skirt hiked up around the tops of her thighs. Paula gasped and he laughed darkly when Meg, in search of some ice water, walked in.
Meg, who had herself spent some time in Henri’s arms an hour earlier, her own face still smarting from his fashionable stubble, her own thighs aching where his leg had thrust between them, smiled benignly and closed the refrigerator