So Pretty It Hurts

and Jane announcing sullenly that she was going to eat while she watched a movie in the media room downstairs. I wondered if she’d been chewed out about the tea.

Once lunch wound down, Scott said that he’d be leading a short hike himself before the snow got too deep. The others all volunteered to go, but since I’d had my hike earlier, I passed. Instead, I curled up on the couch once more with my book. I checked my BlackBerry again and found a text from Beau. He’d decided to return on Sunday, after all, and suggested we talk later. What did that mean? I wondered. Maybe he really had wanted to please me by coming back a day early, but since I wasn’t going to be home, he’d decided there was no point.

At around five I finally headed back through the passageway to the small barn. I was stunned to see how much snow had fallen. It was the heavy, wet kind that sparkled in a million places and turned the woods into a wonderland. At this rate of accumulation, it was hard to imagine we were going to end up with only six inches.

Despite the sluggish feeling the afternoon had produced in me, I told myself that the evening was bound to be more entertaining. We’d all be together at that big dining table, and there’d be less of a fragmented feeling. At about seven fifteen, showered and dressed in tight black jeans and a sleeveless silver sweater, I knocked on Jessie’s door. She was flashing major cleavage and had her brown hair half up in a totally fetching style.

“Let’s go the outside route,” she told me. “The area right outside is shoveled, and I want to see how pretty it is out tonight.”

“We haven’t got our coats on,” I said.

“We’ll run,” she said, laughing.

No sooner were we out the door than Jessie promptly slipped on her butt. We both burst out laughing as she dusted off the smattering of snow from the seat of her pants.

The barn looked spectacular as we pushed the door open. There were dozens of votive lights flickering on surfaces. Sandy and two young female helpers were bustling about quietly in the kitchen area, and Scott, Whitney, Cap, Richard, Christian, and Jane were already gathered on the couches around a huge platter of cheeses, talking animatedly. Everyone appeared to have dressed for dinner, particularly Whitney, who was decked out in a low-cut deep blue dress with sapphires to match on each ear. Snuggled in her deep cleavage was a tiny diamond-encrusted cross dangling from a chain. It seemed positively sacrilegious for it to be ensconced there.

Even Jane was gussied up—in a black spandex dress with her hair pulled back in a curly ponytail. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that her fishnet stockings had a run as wide as a two-lane highway.

“I was just about to send out a sleigh for you two,” Scott proclaimed.

“I insisted we come the outdoor route, and I fell flat on my ass,” Jessie said.

“Well, come right over here and rest it,” Scott said, scooting over to make room for us on the couch.

“You’re not really injured, are you?” Whitney asked, oozing concern.

“No, just my pride,” Jessie said, smiling.

“How about a glass of wine to take away the sting of humiliation?” Richard asked. His dark blue eyes seemed almost bright tonight and his skin even ruddier, suggesting he’d gotten an early start on the evening.

Jessie and I gave our drink orders and then settled into the group. The mood was relaxed, with Scott playing maestro.

Dinner wasn’t served until close to nine because Devon, Tommy, and Tory were so late to arrive—and when they did, both Tommy and Tory looked stoned. Sandy had set out place cards at the table, and I discovered that I had Richard on one side—with Whitney to his left—and Cap on the other, with Tory to his right. Tory immediately grabbed Cap’s attention, so I swiveled my head toward Whitney and Richard, who’d guzzled down two G and T’s just since we’d been at cocktails.

“Were you born in Texas?” I asked Whitney, since Richard was studying the contents of his soup bowl with a blurry-eyed expression.

“Yes, Fort Worth. Born and raised. My mother passed ten years ago, but my daddy’s still there—though he’s not in the best of health.”

“What made you decide to write a cookbook—do you have a food background?”

“I do, yes—but not in the restaurant business. I was in TV news in Dallas, and I specialized in health, nutrition, and food.”

“How did you end up in New York?”

“I came up for a foodie event, and I met Cap while I was here through mutual friends. We spent an amazing week together—and I moved to Manhattan a month later.”

“Do you miss Texas? I assume the answer is yes, since you’re writing a book about the food there.”

“I do—and the good news is that Cap and I are planning to buy a ranch near San Antonio so we can at least vacation there. He’s going to like it as much as I do. People just connect better with each other in that part of the world. It’s all about good, strong values.”

Richard had begun to devour the squash soup with boozy concentration, but at the sound of the word values, he stopped, his spoon poised mid-air. He turned toward Whitney and eyed her, feigning perplexity.

“Don’t you think values are highly overrated, though?” he asked. “I mean, where have they really gotten us?”

“Where have they gotten us?” Whitney exclaimed. “You just have to look around to see that what good there is in the world comes from the actions of people with values— fighting famine and poverty, eradicating disease. Protecting children.”

“In the name of the Lord, you mean?” he asked.

“Sometimes. And with the Lord’s guidance, too.”

“I’ll pose a question Christopher Hitchens asked. If Jesus could heal a blind person he happened to meet, then why not heal blindness?”

She smiled smugly.

“I don’t pretend to know how God works,” she said. “None of us can. We just have to vow to do the right thing.”

“Ah, I see,” he said. “But don’t you find that the ones who jabber on the most about doing the right thing so often don’t?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, her back rigid.

“The Christian right. Just take a look at all these right-wing preachers and politicians. They’re always pontificating about values, and yet half of them lie down with whores and the other half with young boys.”

Whitney caught her breath in surprise, as if he’d just called her a hooker, but then she let it out slowly, clearly willing herself not to get steamed.

“How did you get your start, Richard?” I asked, hoping to chase him off the topic. Though he was clearly in the mood to be provocative, the temptation to talk about himself overrode it. Through a main course of roast chicken, new potatoes, and haricots vert, we heard about the Fleet Street years, the magazine years, and then coming to America. With each anecdote, his tongue loosened even more, until his words were slurred. Whitney listened and even asked a perfunctory question or two, but she could barely disguise her disgust for the man. He seemed to sense that and actually relish it.

At one point in the middle of all this I caught Jessie’s eye, and she flashed me a mischievous look. It was obvious from Scott’s body language that he had the hots for Jessie, who was seated next to him, but he did a decent job of including Jane, on the other side, in the conversation. Speaking of hots, you could almost see the smoke rising from below the table where Devon and Tommy were sitting side by side. She was smirking sexily at everything he said, and he was lapping it up. So did this mean she wasn’t involved with Cap? Or was she flirting balls to the wall to make Cap jealous?

As Richard droned on, I tried to study Devon out of the corner of my eye. Though she often had a fork in her food, it became clear after a minute that she was just using it to rearrange things on her plate. I also realized after a moment that though Tory was pretending to listen to Cap, her eyes kept shooting over toward the pair of dirty flirters.

“I’ve got an idea,” Scott announced suddenly, just as Sandy and one of the young helpers, a redheaded girl in her twenties, were clearing the plates. “Sandy’s made us a fantastic apple pie, and I think we should indulge in it while listening to some awesome music by someone who’s on the brink of becoming a major recording star.”

“How could we argue with that?” Cap said.