The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

I looked back at the girls’ faces, huddled giddily in the window. I had no choice. I waved back like nothing was wrong.

“Just drive,” I said to the coachman through gritted teeth.

It was a too-sunny day on the golf course, and I couldn’t figure out how to get the blinds down inside the carriage. By the time we rounded the fourteenth hole, I’d bitten off all my fingernails and steam was coming out of my ears. In a dumb move that showed how out of it I was, I’d left my Juicy Fruit in my bag. I had nothing to help calm me down after being stood up by Mike. How could he? In front of the entire school and everyone’s families? I was going to absolutely killSomeone was knocking on the carriage door. I shoved myself up against the window. . and saw him. Mike was running alongside the carriage to keep up.

“Stop the coach!” I cried.

Before the horses had even slowed to a cantor, Mike swung open the door and climbed in. “I’m so sorry,” he said, leaning over to kiss me.

I was still too furious and too stunned to move.

“I tried to call. I knew you’d be freaking out. I just. . I needed some time to think about how to go through with this after. .” He took my hands.

I waved a hand to cut him off. “Groveling later, mental preparation now. We have exactly three minutes to get in the royal mindset.” I handed Mike a printout of the coronation speech. “Your paragraphs are in blue; mine are in pink, okay?”

“Um,” Mike said. “Actually—”

“We’re here!” I cried, looking out the window at the vine-coated trellis marking our entrance. Before we knew it, the coachman opened the door. He let out a low whistle as he helped me to the ground.

“I’ve been driving this rig to the coronation for a lot of years,” he said quietly. “The stunt your guy pulled today, Princess, was a first. Don’t let him off the hook too easy, okay?”

I looked at Mike. “Oh, I won’t.”

On the lawn, a yawning string quartet began to play but was soon overshadowed by the cheers of the crowd, calling out our names and waving loyally. Mike said nothing, just reached for my hand. We walked down the golden carpet to the stage.

The funny thing was, everything looked just like I had imagined, just like I’d planned out in my head all these years. There was my mother, in her tight Jessamine-print tube dress and high heels, tears in her eyes, hand in the Dick’s. There were the Kings on the other side of the stage, smiling closed-mouth smiles and wearing expensive silk suits in corresponding muted shades. There were the last few years of Palmetto Court alumni flanking either side of the stage, including Phillip Jr. and Isabelle. There were all our friends, dressed to impress, eyes wide in expectation of hearing our speeches — and our carriage ride sexploits at the reception.

The only part of the vision that wasn’t just as I imagined was us: the Prince and Princess of Palmetto. We were hand in hand, but I felt like Mike and I were worlds apart.

At the podium, he leaned in to kiss my cheek. His lips felt dry and rough. I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy the crowd’s polite applause.

“Thank you all,” Mike said when they’d died down. He cleared his throat and looked down at the speech I’d printed out for him. Then he slid it into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a napkin scribbled with notes. I reached forward to stop him, but he gripped my hand so tightly, I would have made a scene if I moved.

“You’ve all heard these acceptance speeches many times before,” Mike began. “Some of you,” he gestured behind us at the Courts of Palmetto’s past, “have even given them yourselves. So you know the drill, and you also know how grateful and excited Natalie and I are to accept this honor.” He scanned the crowd and squeezed my hand even tighter. “But today is about something else, and we would be wrong not to acknowledge the passing of a good friend and a great man.”

Don’t do this, Mike, don’t do this.

“The man who should have been Prince,” he said.

No he didn’t.

“So in lieu of our acceptance speeches—”

No he wouldn’t!

“Natalie and I would like to ask for a moment of silent prayer, and then we’ll move right to the reception. We’ll see you all tomorrow at the funeral.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but when I looked at Mike, I knew: Everything we’d spent so long preparing for Palmetto Court was gone.

CHAPTER Ten

BLACK AND DEEP DESIRES

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

On Thursday afternoon, still nursing the wound of my usurped speech at the coronation, I stood shoulder to Mike’s broad shoulder in the graveyard behind the church. We watched the pallbearers lower J.B.’s body into the ground.

“Whenever we are faced with such a tragic and unlucky loss,” the rarely somber Minister Clover droned from his stat icky, clip-on microphone, “the community is, quite literally, seized with grief.”

My head shot up at the choice of the word seize. The whole funeral had felt so dull and generic up until that point. Clover was notorious for his bad puns during sermons. Was he actually making a reference to J.B.’s medical condition?

Then I wondered: Did anyone besides Justin’s immediate family — and now me and Mike — even know about his medical condition? I looked around at the downward-gazing, hands-clasped congregants but saw no glimmer of recognition in their faces. I thought back to Steph Merritt, honking her nose in the handkerchief and mentioning something about his pills — but it was obvious that she hadn’t really known the truth. I didn’t get what it was about death that made all these people wail at the funeral of someone they’d never really known.

My eyes fell on J.B.’s older brother Tommy, whose arms encased his weeping mother. For a second, I thought it looked like he was glaring at the minister’s word choice, but then it started to rain again, and a sea of black umbrellas popped up around the funeral. The musty smell of wet vinyl wafted over everything, and it was hard to see much more besides the giant white steeple rising up like a landmark in front of us.

In the bathroom before the funeral, I’d been smoothing out my ponytail when I came across three Bambies huddled together, crying. These were girls who only yesterday had been trembling with vicarious titillation as they watched me get escorted into the horse-drawn carriage.

I’d always known girls from the South could get a bad rap for being kind of saccharine, but Palmetto should have taken out a patent on its own brand of artificiality. These girls could change their attitudes more quickly than their clothes and never look worse for the wear. Everything depended on the venue and on whom they needed to impress.

I’d rolled my eyes at them in the bathroom, but it was mostly because even though I wanted to, somehow I couldn’t bring myself to cry about J.B. In fact, I couldn’t bring myself to do much these days. I couldn’t answer that nagging text from my dad, still lurking in my mental inbox. I couldn’t even relish my coronation — though I did have Mike to blame for that. But most disturbingly, for some reason, I still couldn’t bring myself to get rid of that bottle of pills.

I wasn’t going to swallow them. They were just an important reminder that I’d gotten us into this, and I would get us out.

But as I watched the black-suited men dump the black earth over the black coffin, piling it higher and higher to cover the big black hole, I started to feel claustrophobic, almost like I was inside that coffin with J.B. My umbrella hovered like a cage over my head. The itchy neckline of my dress constricted my throat so much that I could barely swallow. I leaned my head out from under the umbrella, but the drizzle and fog were hanging so low to the ground that it felt like even the sky was caving in on me. My chest heaved as I choked on the rain. I couldn’t breathe.

Mike put his arm around my shoulder — more suffocation — and started to guide me back inside the church. It was over. I saw my mom waving from the doorway. I couldn’t bear to listen to her ask me whether I thought J.B.’s coloring had looked natural at the open casket.

“I can’t breathe,” I said to Mike. “I need air.”

He took my hand. “Okay, let’s take a walk.”