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  Harper had been dating Rich Caldwell for nearly two years, ever since she’d spotted him on their high school campus and decided he was hers. His 90210 chops and tan biceps stopped Harper at her locker—he was cute, she thought—and she spun the lock’s wheel for good measure before saying hello.

  Even before they spoke, Harper could tell Rich hadn’t spent much time around other teenagers; he wasn’t interested in the popular patch of grass or the meatheads tossing footballs in the cafeteria. And even though it was the crowd she and Grace ran around with, she liked that he was different. He was complex. As Blue used to say, like a great glass of wine.

  Before high school, Rich had been homeschooled and had grown up without juvenile toxins. The other boys wanted to drive fast cars and drink beer at desert parties. Rich wanted to see the latest independent film and sail his parents’ thirty-six foot boat, Capricious.

  The jocks called him a fag, but Harper knew better, could tell by the way he kissed her that it wasn’t true. Not only was he hopelessly handsome with his chiseled features and dark hair, he had a personality and sense of humor to match. Harper was smarter, more attractive on his arm.

  Later that afternoon, after sharing a soft pretzel at the club’s snack bar, Grace dug a small embroidered purse out of her golf bag as they walked to her car.

  “Let’s have a ciggie before we go,” Grace said.

  Swiftly, Grace grabbed Harper’s hand and pulled her toward the thicket of oleanders encircling the country club grounds.

  Smoking in Grace’s new sports car was strictly forbidden. Cilla had the nose of a hound.

  Harper looked both ways as they stepped behind the bushes.

  It wasn’t the first time they’d smoked, but Harper was still nervous, afraid someone would see. “Did you bring gum?” she asked, still glancing around. The tight space in between the shrubs and the fence was littered with half-smoked butts.

  “Yes.” Grace slid one cigarette from the crushed pack. “Hold it like this,” she said, stylishly putting it to her lips. “And then blow it out”—she paused, puffing it alive—“like this.” Smoke rings curled near Harper’s face. She made it look so cool, Harper thought, like Rizzo in Grease. She felt like Sandy.

  As she tried to mimic Grace’s technique, Harper wondered if Brits were natural born smokers. Like Irish men were natural born drinkers.

  During those summer months leading up to their freshmen year in college, the girls were thrown into debutante training, a series of classes that began soon after they were selected.

  Quickly, it was clear Grace and Harper were the bad seeds in the crop of debs. It couldn’t have been a surprise to the women in charge, who’d known both girls through their teenage years.

  One morning, Harper and Grace had been abnormally raucous with one another. It had started the night before when they were making cupcakes and Grace smeared chocolate mix across Harper’s face. That alone had resulted in an all-out chocolate cake war in the Alessis’ gourmet kitchen. When they were done, mix was on the ceiling, all over the thick wood island and matted in both girls’ hair and clothes. Fortunately, no one was home at the time.

  In the end, Grace won the cake war, pinning Harper to the floor, her slippery, chocolate-covered knees restraining Harper’s arms until she conceded defeat. Grace pushed buttons inside Harper, buttons she enjoyed having pushed.

  The next day, The Bitch, standing at the front of the room talking about proper curtsies, was showing the eager debutantes how it was done when Harper loaded her spoon with a ball of butter.

  “Knees bent. Head up,” The Bitch commanded, a drill sergeant with a headset. “Knees bent. Head up.” Jazzy elevator music played in the background.

  Even before Harper pulled the spoon back, cocking it into position, she knew she might get caught, but it was worth the risk.It was slow going as it sailed over the table. Harper saw The Bitch catch its movement above the tulip centerpiece.

  There was nothing she could do at that point, even though she put the spoon down as quickly as possible. Harper missed Grace’s head, but hit her shoulder with some velocity—the butter, soft from being on the table for hours, spread out like a well-salivated spitball on her silk sleeve. The look on Grace’s face was priceless and well worth it, Harper thought, even though she’d been reprimanded in front of the whole room.

  Later that night, while Grace and Harper were watching young Jay Leno do his monologue—a University of Arizona pendant hanging above Grace’s dresser—Harper asked: “Do you think they’ll kick us out for what happened today?”

  “Us out?” Grace said, turning to her side, propping her head up. “You’re the one who got caught.”

  “Seriously.”

  Grace smiled. “I read the bylaws and there’s no way they can

  ‘legally’ kick you out for what happened,” Grace—the aspiring lawyer—explained.

  “Okay,” Harper said, somewhat relieved.

  “Don’t worry. Like The Bitch said, it was just a warning.”

  “Nonna would kill me.”

  As freshmen at the University of Arizona, Grace and Harper lived in dorms nearby one another on campus. On a full-ride tennis scholarship, Grace was forced to shack up with a fellow teammate. Her name was Chauncey and she was from Cape Town, South Africa.

  Even though Grace had her pick of universities around the country, she’d ended up in Tucson with Harper. She chose U

  of A because it was close to home, but not too close, and, so she said, because it was close to Harper.

  A month into school, they both went through rush and pledged the same sorority. Harper moved into the house almost immediately and their life quickly became all about Gamma Kappa. Sorority mixers, meetings, dinners, movie nights, weekend fraternity parties, their innumerable sisters.

  For both girls, that first college semester went quickly.

  Finals were a blur and so were the days, as they packed for winter break. With the chaos of moving back home for a month and getting settled again, there wasn’t much time to prepare for their debutante ball.

  The morning of the event, two days before Christmas, the streets were packed with enthusiastic shoppers and irritated procrastinators.

  Together, Harper and Ana were getting gussied up with Nonna at Tint, a trendy Scottsdale salon. Around them, women were getting waxed, foiled and primped for the biggest social event of the season: the Valley Debutante Ball. All the dryers, strung together with silver tinsel and blinking lights, were on high. Sitting in between Nonna and Ana, Harper was wearing a white shirt with her sorority letters embroidered across her chest.

  “I can’t believe it’s finally here,” Nonna said, watching the technician file her nails.

  “It came so fast,” Harper said, excited.

  “I’m sorry I’ve missed all the prep,” Ana said. “I know you’re going to be great tonight. Mrs. Weasle said you’re one of the stars in the group.”

  “She did?”

  “Yep. I ran into her at the mall yesterday.”

  “Did you and your father practice this morning?” Nonna asked.

  “Yes. I think we’re ready.”

  “He acts so nonchalant like he doesn’t care,” Ana said, inspecting her nails. “But he does. He’s nervous.”

  Nonna pursed her lips before she spoke. “Well, Anastasia”—

  she was the only one who called Harper’s mom by her real

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  name—“you should tell him that this is a big deal for Harper.

  And to be more…” Nonna thought about this before she finished her sentence. “Enthusiastic.”

  Ana rolled her eyes. “Don’t start, Mother. We’re lucky we got him to agree to this at all.”

  As two of the celebrated debs, the girls had to arrive early that afternoon, so Grace picked up Harper on her way to the resort. From the house, Rich carried Harper’s dress to the car while she lugged her bag of beauty tricks: duct tape, Vaseline, Band-Aids and a lint roller.

  �
��Hi Grace,” he said, carefully hanging Harper’s gown in the backseat.

  “Rich.”

  Harper took a double-take at Grace, who was staring straight ahead; something about her was off.

  Rich kissed Harper through the open window. “See you at six.”“What’s different about you?” Harper asked once they were alone in the car.

  “I’ve got an inch of makeup on. The stylist has been at our house since noon.” Grace looked dramatically at her watch.

  “But you always wear makeup.”

  “Not this much.”

  “Let me see you.”

  “I’m trying to drive.”

  “Look at me.”

  Harper studied Grace’s face. “It’s your eyes.”

  “My eyebrows. Mummy wanted me to have them shaped for tonight.”

  “They look great.”

  They were stopping at a light, so Harper grabbed Grace by the chin and pulled her face closer. She stared into Grace’s eyes for a while, not saying a word. A wave of indefinable feeling rolled through Harper, as Grace met her eyes with an intense gaze of her own.

  “They’re sexy. Sophisticated,” she finally said. “Speaking of sexy and sophisticated, look what Rich gave me.” Harper offered her arm.

  Grace glared at the new bracelet. “Wow. Very nice”—her white-knuckled hands firm on the steering wheel—“I saw those on clearance at Neiman’s.”

  Earlier that afternoon, when Harper and Ana arrived home from their pampering, Rich was waiting in the living room watching the History Channel with Blue. He’d brought a bouquet of calla lilies and a small box wrapped in pink paper.

  He and Harper had gotten into a fight the day before—one that Grace had played a hand in—but Harper thought they’d smoothed things over.

  “What’s all this?” she had asked Rich, leading him down the hall to her bedroom.

  He kissed her before she opened the box.

  Inside, a David Yurman cuff was tied with a velvet ribbon. It was one she’d pointed out in the store. Sapphires on each end.

  “Rich. My God! You can’t afford this.” She immediately regretted her reaction; it was boorish, un-debutante. She tried to recover. “I love it!”

  He reached for the curved bracelet. “It’s to serve as a reminder of how much I love you.”

  “Thank you,” Harper said, watching him gently slide it on her wrist. “It’s amazing.”

  Harper tried to focus on Rich and his generous gift, but it was difficult, for she couldn’t get the picture of Grace out of her mind.

  The night before, Grace had tried on her debutante dress for Harper in her parents’ walk-in closet. Barefoot, Grace stood on a small stool and twirled around several times in the octagonal room of full-length mirrors; a hundred Graces from different angles, each one more unreachable than the next.

  “I love you,” Rich said before kissing her.

  “I love you, too,” Harper said.

  She meant it.

  Sort of.

  “You Are My Lady”

  Freddie Jackson

  The resort where the ball would be held was lavish, five star.

  Backed up against Camelback Mountain, it was on the flipside of the mountain where both Harper and Grace had grown up less than a mile from each other. With nine cascading pools throughout the property and one of the best golf courses in Arizona, the Phoenician attracted the elite. Stars from Hollywood stayed there, so did dignitaries and international businessmen.

  The night of the Valley Debutante Ball, Harper, with a rehearsed smile and a freshly-waxed lip, walked out on the arm of her father to a crowd of people she’d known her entire life.

  They were all there. As the band played an aria from Madame Butterfly, Harper focused on her breathing and her poise—just as she’d been taught in debutante training—as she curtsied to Blue, whose white gloves matched his pale face.

  Unlike the other dads, all wearing jet-black, Blue was in a pinstriped tuxedo. Even though he thought the whole debutante tradition was “antiquated and far too patriarchal,” he seemed to enjoy the moment.

  “Harper Evangeline Alessi.”

  Her name had never felt so large, so important, as it came through the speakers.

  “Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Blue Alessi.”

  From the stage, the sea of tuxedos, designer dresses and tables—draped in stark linen—twinkled with a thousand tiny flames reflecting off the wine goblets.

  Staring at the light beam in her face, Harper smiled as big as she could. The Vaseline on her teeth really worked; it tasted like medicine, but it gave her a sparkling smile.

  She’d been on a stage before as a cheerleader, many in fact, and was used to performing in front of crowds, but this was different.

  This was her big debut and had to go off without a hitch. For so long, she’d imagined this moment, almost obsessively, seeing it all play out in the spotlight.

  And just like she’d visualized, she nailed it.

  Her curtsy was perfectly executed. Not a wobble.

  After her presentation, like a lady, just like she’d been trained, her arm through her dad’s, Harper waited on the dark dance floor for the others to be presented.

  Her hair in a tight, fussy bun, The Bitch stood at the podium in the corner of the packed ballroom, a brass lamp illuminating her notes. As the debs submissively bowed before their fathers and then to the crowd, she was the one reading snippets about each girl. Beyond announcing who their parents were, she also read what they did for a living, where each girl went to school and her plans after college.

  Aside from her anxious curtsy, Harper’s most vivid memory from that night was Grace, standing on the stage with her father, Benson, a tall, stately lawyer possibly headed to the mayor’s office.

  When they called her name, Grace Anne Dunlop, Harper’s face flushed; like a magnet, Grace’s beauty pulled all sorts of things out of Harper, things she didn’t understand.

  The whole room watched as Grace, practically floating, walked to her father at center stage. And it was there that she gave him her hand, covered in a long white glove to the soft bend at her elbow. She smiled as she went into her curtsy, she and her newly sculpted eyebrows.

  Standing with her knees locked, Harper studied Grace liked she’d never studied her before, totally in awe of the way the chiffon bunched around her breasts, the way the satin clung to

  her torso, seamlessly tailored to her voluptuous figure.

  Harper memorized every curve, every line, every stitch of her strapless gown.

  Grace was elegant.

  Confident.

  The highlight.

  After Grace joined the rest of the debs, she looked down the row of girls until she found Harper standing at the end. They winked at each other.

  As the debut continued, Harper searched the darkness around her as the last girls were presented. Faintly, zigzagging through the crowd, she followed her roots. Her grandparents tried to get her attention and Harper waved even though she wasn’t allowed. Shimmering in the light, Nonna was wearing more eye shadow than she’d dared before. Papa, his white hair gelled back, was wearing a slick Armani tuxedo and Harper’s favorite airplane cufflinks, the ones that matched the plane he bought when he made Chief of Staff at the hospital.

  “That’s my girl,” she could hear her Papa saying, his thumb up. Nonna held a tissue to the corner of her eye.

  Scattered around the ballroom sat everyone who’d shaped Harper’s childhood—Dominic, the club’s former tennis pro now married to one of the rich ladies he used to teach; Minnie, her piano teacher who lived around the corner and always smelled like Bengay; and Mariana, who’d morphed from a nanny to a glorified housekeeper to an extended family member.

  The last person Harper saw was Dean. As if they shared blood, he shook his head in disbelief when they caught eyes. Even from the stage, she could see tears welling as she read his lips.

  “I love you,” he said, tapping his heart.

  Dean had been
there for Harper through it all—especially during the tumultuous teenage years when her parents were gone all the time and she didn’t have a rock to hold on to.

  After all the girls were presented, they turned up the houselights so the crowd could applaud the newly-minted debutantes.

  When the ovation trailed off, Harper and Blue got in position. He acted cool, but his hands were clammy.

  This was it.

  They’d practiced their routine in class and in the living room the day before, but they were still nervous. Just like they’d rehearsed, they waltzed around as a cello and an acoustic guitar serenaded them. Keeping pace. Counting time.

  “My precious Popina,” Blue said as they finished, choking up. “Look at you.” He kissed her on the cheek before taking his seat.After the father-daughter waltz, Harper waited, watching Rich in his tuxedo, along with the other escorts, move into his choreographed position.

  As Rich and Harper danced, he told her that seeing her on stage was powerful, stirring his imagination—someday he hoped she’d walk down the aisle toward him in a similar white dress. It was a bold statement, one she wasn’t quite ready to hear.

  She listened as he continued on about their future, musing about how attractive their kids would be. She smiled, but didn’t add much, just concentrated on his lead and ignoring the blister on her toe.

  Even though the debutantes and their cronies were underage, the wait staff served them alcohol all night. When you pay enough money, laws don’t always apply. Sitting at their respective tables, Grace and Harper picked strategic chairs allowing only a slight drift in their gaze to make contact.

  When the waiter topped off Harper’s wine, she watched Grace and Dean as he talked wildly with his hands. Grace responded with building peals of laughter, something that always made Harper smile. Even though Grace was across the room, Harper could hear it like she was sitting beside her.

  Jamie-the-bastard-Simons sat on the other side of Grace and flashed a cocky smile at Harper when he caught her staring.