Page 19 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
She looked down at her speech, hesitating just long enough that the stretch of silence was punctuated by the clink of forks and a few smothered coughs. Kennedy blinked, seeming to collect herself, and set the paper down, squinting into the spotlight.
“This place means so much to me. It’s the place where I feel closest to my parents. They were married here, as you can see from your table arrangements. And even though they can’t be here today physically, being here in this ballroom, full of so many happy childhood memories, makes me feel like they’re here now, watching over us.”
Kate looked up at the lightning crackling across the dome, wondering how any child could have happy memories of such a place. Maybe there were fewer stuffed gazelles back then.
“It’s so important to me that this place—the Manor, the railroad Great-Grandpa Russell built to get around the island, the hunting lodge designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, all of it—is cared for by people who understand its history. Who love what it represents, and will cherish it as much as I have cherished it throughout my life.”
It sounded like Richie wasn’t the only one upset about Rebecca Hempstead’s little coup. Kate wondered how much of a lock on the board of trustees Rebecca really had, if even Kennedy couldn’t back her deal to hand over the island and the trust to the historical society. Kennedy had thwarted her once; Kate wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to do it again.
“Thank you everyone for making the trip, and here’s to a wonderful, magical, life-changing weekend!” Kennedy said, looking down with a frown. “Oh, where did my champagne glass go?”
“Ohshit,” Kate muttered, the forgotten glass still on the table. “I’ve got it here!”
Kate held it up and Cassidy hurried down off the dais to retrieve it. She looked startled, and borderline angry with Kate. Or maybe that was just the runny mascara effect. “What are you doing with Ken’s glass?”
“Long story,” Kate said, waving it off. “Here you go, ready to cheers!”
The woman took the glass and carried it back up to the dais with both hands, like she was afraid she was going to drop it. She handed it up to Kennedy, who smiled as she lifted it.
“Cheers!” she proclaimed, taking a healthy drink that the rest of the room followed.
Kennedy sat down and handed the microphone to Spencer, who adjusted his glasses and tugged at the ends of his jacket as he stood, holding a small stack of note cards. Spencer had always had an intense fear of public speaking, and the few times he’d spoken at her book events he’d had to write out his speeches word for word, including when to pause for breaths.
“Hello, everyone, and welcome,” he said in a formal voice. “I just wanted to say a few quick words about my blushing bride here.”
“Save it for tomorrow night!” someone hollered from one of the back tables, and Spencer winced. If Kate had to guess, she would assume it was one of his less-savory cousins. “Thanks, Hap, for that. No, I just… I wanted to say how lucky I am, to have found someone like Kennedy. Someone who saw more in me than I knew I had. Someone who lifts me up on my down days, and keeps me grounded when my head wants to float off into the clouds.”
He kept reading in that slow, mechanical public speaking voice of his, listing all the ways Kennedy was his polar opposite and therefore perfect for him. Except the longer he went on, the more the speech started to feel so… familiar to Kate. She wouldn’t put it past Spencer to lift his speech from somewhere else. Coming from such a repressed household, he hadn’t told Kate that he loved her until eight months into their relationship. The words stirred up a sick feeling in her stomach. She definitely,definitelyknew the speech he was giving.
“Anyway, I know I’m going on,” Spencer said, giving Kennedy a rueful smile. “I guess I just wanted to say, it’s you and me, Kennedy. Until the tides carry us back out.”
Kate let out a sound that was something like a scream wrapped up in a gasp. It was loud, and stark, and absolutely the only sound in the room. She clapped her hand over her mouth like that might shove the thing back in where no one could hear it, but she could feel it. All the eyes in the room, on her. Watching. Waiting for the inevitable meltdown. And hooo, boy was she about to give it to them, because she finally realized where she knew those words from. Everyone in the room knew those words—at least everyone who worked on the second Loretta book.
It was the big speech Loretta gave her bar owner boyfriend, Geoff, at the end ofA Dark and Stormy Murderwhen she tells him she loves him for the first time. It had been one of the hardest scenes Kate had ever written, because Loretta had just shared a steamy kiss with Blake when she thought the hurricane was going to rip the roof off the place. She’d been confused, pulled in two directions, torn between her on-again, off-again boyfriend and this backpacking rebel. Spencer had been furious about the kiss, demanding to know how Kate was going to justify Loretta as a cheater to her loyal readers. The conversation had shaken her up, and so she’d written Loretta’s profession of love to Geoff to placate him. But deep down, writing that scene, Kate had known irrefutably that she didn’t love Spencer anymore. The words had felt forced, hollow, imposed on her by someone else. More than anything else that happened, it signaled the beginning of the end of her relationship with Spencer.
Why would he read this now? In front of everyone? She could feel the heat of their gazes on her back, as if she had been the one to plant that speech on Spencer. Juliette Winters watched her like a hawk, waiting for her to crack.
“Kate, are you all right?” Jake asked, his touch light on her shoulder.
But it was enough to undo her entirely. She stood up so abruptly her chair tipped over, making the scene she’d been trying so desperately to avoid. Jake reached up to help but she waved him off, needing fresh air or a private corner to quietly curl up and die in. Somewhere that wasn’t this ballroom full of prying, accusing gazes. She hurried to the nearest exit, horrified faces passing in a blur as she half collided with a waiter carrying a fresh batch of drinks. She snatched a wine bottle off his tray and bolted, racing through hallway after hallway of rich old white people horrors until she couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of the rain.
Chapter Eleven
Why,whywould Spencer do this to her? Why embarrass her like this, so publicly, at his own wedding? She’d done her best to move on, to stuff the humiliation down deep where it could fester into a tumor. Did he want to punish her? Was this because she hadn’t brought the chapters like she’d promised? Hadn’t she been through enough already?
Kate got lost in less than two turns of the hallways, finding herself either in a dry sauna or a portal to the hellmouth. She stumbled back out, taking a slug from the bottle of wine with relish and wincing as it hit her tastebuds. Richie and Marla were right, this really was the bargain basement stuff. Still, it drank as good as any other wine, and she took a hearty swallow as she tried to find her way back to more familiar territory.
All she found were the darker, weirder depths of Hempstead Manor. There was the room that looked suspiciously like a medieval torture chamber, complete with a man-size iron coffin and a giant birdcage with spikes on the inside. Then there was the library that looked cozy at first glance, until she realized there was a gargoyle leering at her from his perch over the fireplace, and all the books seemed to be about witch trials and the science of black magic. By the time she made it to the room labeledDOLL SUITEwith hundreds of Victorian-era dolls piled onthe massive four-poster bed, their heads turned toward the door with unblinking black eyes, she gave up on finding a safe space to polish off her wine in peace.
Figures, she thought as she came upon a set of stained-glass double doors. The wind practically blew them open as she tried the handles, shoving her back as gusts of rain blanketed the carpet and soaked her dress. She’d almost forgotten about the storm outside, considering the one raging within her, and she was more than a little surprised to realize the balcony was all the way up on the third floor. She hadn’t even remembered climbing any stairs.
“This fucking house is cursed,” she muttered, fighting the wind to close the door. At least she hadn’t had to make the crossing in this weather; she couldn’t imagine any poor souls stuck out on the Bay now, fighting the elements to get to safe harbor.
She located a set of stairs, tromping down to the second floor for a refill since all the wine in her bottle had mysteriously disappeared. Must have spilled on the balcony. She hummed to herself, no clue of the time or location, the alcohol doing its job to make all her problems seem inconsequential. Somewhere in the distance, much like thunder, a hangover loomed. But that was a problem for later Kate. Now Kate was feeling much, much better.
Until she reached the second-floor landing and was greeted by the rather titillating image of Juliette Winters’s rear end pointed at her. Juliette herself hadn’t seemed to notice Kate hovering on the bottom step, as she was bent over a door with something in her hand. A key, maybe? Kate pressed her lips closed and worked her way up the stairs until she wasn’t in Juliette’s direct line of sight, but she could still see what the other woman was doing.
Which looked, the more Kate studied her, an awful lot like she was trying to pick the lock. Which meant, if Kate wasn’t too drunk to be mistaken, it wasn’t Juliette’s room she was trying to access. Curious. Someone came up the stairs from below, the dark brown shaved head of their marketing intern, Veeta, appearing beside Juliette.