In this way she existed in the party without being of it, gathering information instead of giving it away.
Which was how she discovered that these were clients. She wasn’t sure what they all thought they were here to purchase, but they were decidedly here with wallets at the ready. What could this spangled company all have in common with each other? What could they possibly have in common with her?
“Jordan Hennessy!”
An older woman had drawn alongside her. She was far more dowdy than the other partygoers, dressed in a houndstooth dress with a hedgehog pin over her right breast. She had a glass of wine in her hand and she was a little messy in the way people sometimes are when they’re drunk, but Jordan could tell she was not drunk. She was just like that. “Jordan Hennessy, it’s been a GD long time.”
Jordan peered at her, trying unsuccessfully to place her. She must have met Hennessy or one of the other girls.
The woman’s face turned cartoonishly worried. “Oh, you don’t remember me! Don’t worry, I know some people around here get a little S-H-I-T-T-Y about these things, if you know what I mean, but not me. I’m Barbara Shutt.”
She held out her hand to shake and Jordan was running, running, running the scenarios, testing out replies that would work to make her seem reliable, like the real Jordan Hennessy, replies that didn’t promise knowledge she didn’t have, replies that didn’t have trapdoors with crocodiles underneath them.
They shook—Barbara did that shake with just her fingers—and Jordan said, “Oh, right, DC, yes?”
Barbara wagged her finger at her. “That’s the one. I’m so glad, just so glad, you could make it here when I’m sure you haven’t even settled in. I’m sure Jo’s already touched base with you to talk about apartment options. Jo? Jo Fisher?”
“Oh, no, I’d remember a Jo,” Jordan said.
“Of course you would,” Barbara replied. “Jo is that way. I’ll make a note in the little old brain-a-dex”—she tapped the rim of her glass against her temple—“to have her add you to the schedule. Don’t think we haven’t been keeping a good eyeball out for you, though. That little adventure on the Potomac certainly made a lot of people sit up and take notice, didn’t it! And we just have been doing our best to make sure none of that notice gives you the time of day here.”
Now Jordan felt truly uncomfortable. Had Boudicca been keeping menace from her doorstep? Or were they just saying it to pull her into the fold? She needed to say something. Something that kept Barbara from completely having the upper hand. Something Boudicca couldn’t know about. Think, Jordan.
Jordan smiled broadly and took a risk. “It’s nice to have Bryde on our side, too, after all this time.”
Barbara’s smile was fixed in concrete.
Bingo. They didn’t know a damn thing about Bryde, either, except for his power.
“If you’ll ex-kwoooooooooooze me,” Barbara said, tapping a dainty silver watch on her wrist with the bottom of her wineglass, “I should get this rolling. I know you’re looking forward to it. So glad. So glad you could make it. Don’t forget about Jo. She’ll be around.”
The first time Jordan had been approached by Boudicca it had been a bit of a joke, a bit of a compliment. She and Hennessy and June had sniggered about it over a few drinks and a few tubes of paint in the way they might have snickered over bumbling, unwanted flirtation at a bar. Nice to be wanted, I reckon. As if. Dream on. But it was a different feeling now that she was alone in Boston. She’d forgotten that there was a disadvantage to being not one of many Jordan Hennessys, but rather one of one: vulnerability.
Jordan stood there with her orange drink and her orange top, feeling misgiving pile upon misgiving, and then she discovered the music had stopped and all the partygoers were moving generally toward the back of the building. They murmured and checked watches and eyed each other, and Jordan realized they must all be headed to the real reason for this party.
Eventually, after they had all pressed into a large room in the back, Barbara’s voice came over the speaker. Jordan could hear her unamplified voice as well, so she had to be close, but she couldn’t see her over the crowd.
“Thanks for coming,” said Barbara. “We have a really splendid group here today. You’re all really spiffy women. I know we’re excited about the events coming up and we’re all excited about, uh, where are my notes, Fisher? Fisher, you do this.”
A petite woman with very good posture and aggressively straightened brunette hair pressed past Jordan and through the crowd toward the front. She was dressed in a cocktail dress that said, Look at me, and also said, Now that you’re looking, did you notice I think you’re stupid? It was a good dress. She did not say excuse me.
Jordan just had a glimpse of her accepting a wired microphone; then a voice that matched the cocktail dress came over the speakers. “Everyone here has a dependent in their lives. Some of you know one, some of you are thinking of introducing one into your lives, others have inherited one, and some of you are one.”
Partygoers glanced around at each other.
Jo Fisher continued. “Boudicca is proud to be able to offer a variety of sweetmetals in different formats this year. As always, these are available by private arrangement. Demand is high, as sweetmetals have been losing their efficacy faster than usual and many of you are
