snow boots instead of her strappy high heels or she would certainly have fallen. And why she should apologize she didn’t know, since the woman, old and dirty, had no business lounging on Megan’s well-kept steps. She shrugged to settle the Michael Kors cashmere coat on her shoulders, pulling it together against the cold.
“That dress is too young for you. You’re not that young,” snarled the old woman malevolently, rubbing her injured hand, having caught a glimpse beneath the coat of the bronze metallic sheath that Megan had bought for an extravagant price the week before.
“Excuse me,” Meg muttered, losing all sympathy with the old crone. “I’m in a hurry.” She went down the rest of the steps, giving the woman a wide berth.
“You won’t be the prettiest one there. Or the youngest,” the old woman called after her.
“Jesus,” Meg breathed. “What a bitch.” But she shook off her irritation. Nothing was going to spoil her mood. Today was the high point of her year.
The Daggers’ New Year’s Eve extravaganza was, for Megan, the party to end all parties. First, it was a truly great, well-planned gathering. Drinks at seven, buffet dinner at nine, desserts and coffee at eleven for a little jolt of caffeine and sugar, watch the ball drop at midnight, karaoke and drunken dancing after that. The party ended with a hot breakfast the next morning, where bedraggled women avoided meeting the eyes of the friends whose husbands they had made out with in dark corners of the enormous suburban house. Second, it was a social coup to be invited to the best New Year’s eve party on the Main Line. Most important, for Megan, it was a taste of the life she wanted, the life she was working toward, the life she was destined for.
Megan had prepared like an athlete, sleeping in this morning, eating a big lunch, laying down a base. When she jumped on the subway at Girard Avenue and Front Street bound for 30th Street Station and then the Paoli local to Bryn Mawr, she was ready. It was only a one-hour trip but it was a journey to another world.
Megan had inherited her family’s home in Fishtown, a former blue-collar ghetto that was being steadily gentrified. She was renovating it, bit by bit, to improve its value, watching the real-estate market for the right time to sell. Many young professionals would love to live in increasingly fashionable Fishtown, but Megan dreamed only of an address on the Main Line.
Megan was one of Bess Dagger’s best friends. Bess, having spent the day in Bryn Mawr helping her sister Anise prepare, picked Megan up at the Bryn Mawr train station. As they drove through the lovely town to Anise’s large, comfortable house, Bess chattered away about the guest list. Both Anise’s daughters were home. Glamourous Carrie had brought home a girl, a classmate from Yale, while her slightly mousy sister Celia had brought home a boyfriend from law school. Anise wasn’t sure which of her girls she was more worried about. Celia’s boyfriend from Georgetown Law was tall and good looking. Her sister Carrie had already wondered aloud why Celia could get such a prize and she couldn’t. Of course, Celia wasn’t unattractive. She was a Dagger, after all. Beauty was an acknowledged family trait among the Daggers. Beauty and loyalty, Meg mused, really defined them.
Among the older set, Anise’s neighbor and best friend Paula and her faithless husband, the cute French bond trader Henri, had split up. Again. Paula was coming, naturally, but everyone wondered if Henri might just turn up too, since he had always been invited before. They were trying to decide what to do about it if he did. The ugly next-door neighbors were already there, of course. They didn’t have a life of their own, with their ramshackle house and ghastly, troubled children-they virtually lived through Anise and Thom.
As they drove from the station, Bess went on and on, pausing only to admire Megan’s low-cut gleaming dress and her newly botoxed forehead that matched Bess’s own. Megan listened, looking out the car window, drinking in the snowy town. Bess, who had grown up in nearby Ardmore, was nonchalant, but it still took Megan’s breath away. Philly’s best address. One of the East Coast’s most exclusive moneyed enclaves. The fabled Main Line.
Bess and Megan were both a little over forty, although each admitted only to thirty. Bess was lovely, blond like all the Daggers, smooth-skinned, perfectly made up, dressed in vintage Versace. Megan herself was still quite attractive, no matter what the old hag had said, with her gym-toned body, her chic auburn shag, her bronze sheath, her Judith Lieber lioness minaudiere.
Bess worked in corporate marketing, Megan in Philadelphia’s top ad agency. They both made good money, lived well, took care of themselves. They didn’t really date anymore-there were no straight, single, solvent men between forty and sixty-five left in Philly, as everyone very well knew-but they went out with each other or various friends and colleagues several nights a week, and frequently drank a bit too much.
At New Year’s, though, Megan knew how to pace herself. She had a system. You start slow, have plenty of hors d’oeuvres, enough dinner to count, and only drink champagne. Her first flute was handed to her by Anise, who greeted them at the door. “My other sister,” she declared as she always did, hugging Meg warmly. “You look gorgeous, darling.”
It was a greeting that never failed to delight Megan, herself an only child of cold, judgmental parents, sparing in their love and praise. As Meg was trading her boots for high-heeled sling-backs, Michelle, the third blond Dagger sister, swept her up in yet another bear hug. Laughing, Meg held her champagne aloft with difficulty to avoid a spill. She fairly purred with pleasure.
“Sisters,” Meg murmured. “The divine Dagger sisters.”
Thom also hugged her and took her overnight bag up to a guest room he called “your room,” which made her laugh even more. If only it were true.
As the party kicked in, she got buzzed enough to enjoy herself. She remained gracious in the presence of the unendurable ugly neighbors, listening to the sad story of their surly daughter’s latest drug-fueled escapade.
Meg exchanged air kisses with Paula and tolerated her whining about her faithless French husband, the delicious Henri. And then there he was. Henri. He did indeed show up-how dare he?
There was a breathless pause as every conversation stopped. Then Anise strolled over and, after the briefest moment, standing before him-would she kiss him or slap him-kissed him on both cheeks. “Henri.”
“
Megan gave a warm hug to Anise’s lackluster daughter Celia and shook hands with her tall, damp-palmed boyfriend. Then she made a point of bonding with the more beautiful daughter Carrie and her college friend Lulu, a blond look-alike from Boston. Meg prided herself on remaining hip-dropping pop culture references and pertinent song lyrics from the latest Grammy winners and catchphrases from hip TV shows like
Carrie, tall and glamourous, was particularly striking tonight in a low-cut, short, creamy silk Grecian tunic, which showed off her considerable cleavage and long, tan legs. With her father’s lanky grace and the Dagger blond beauty, Carrie was a remarkable girl and she had always loved Megan. Her friend Lulu, every bit her match, wore a white angora minidress, which had to have been planned to coordinate with her friend.
The college kids were amused by Megan and stayed with her for some time, laughing and making sly comments about the other guests before trailing down to the large family room to warm up the karaoke machine for later. Megan smiled with satisfaction. The Daggers were a large, close-knit WASP clan so unlike Meg’s own small, disaffected, heathen brood. She adored them all and would do anything for them, anything at all.
Meg got some more champagne from the jeroboam of Moet that Michelle Dagger’s brash alcoholic husband insisted on bringing every year. He never tired of hearing the women coo and squeal about how big it was. Meg never tired of drinking good champagne so she endured his usual size-really-matters jokes with aplomb.
Then came the scream. Because Meg observed her stringent party regimen, she was sober, or sober enough, to respond quickly when she heard it. She was the first to arrive in the doorway of the darkened den off the living room, lit only by Christmas lights and candles and typically functioning as a sin bin for guests’ brief, illicit, champagne-fueled encounters.
Meg stopped abruptly in the doorway, causing other party guests to pile up behind her. Anise Dagger was sitting in the center of a velvet-upholstered sofa, her tall, gorgeous daughter Carrie sprawled, on her back, over Anise’s lap, head dangling like a broken doll. Carrie’s long bare arms and legs hung on either side of her mother. Anise held her and looked up at Meg with an expression of pure anguish.
It took a minute to register the tableau, as still and composed as any Renaissance sculpture. Then Meg
