The Hate Vow by Nicole French

Twelve

“First will come cocktails,” Eric said for the fourth time since picking me up in the massive black Rolls-Royce that apparently carted him around now. The car was ridiculous. It made him (and me) looked like cartoon villains.

“Then hors d'oeuvres,” he continued. “Then dinner, followed by a light dessert course, and a nightcap afterward if she’s feeling all right. We’ll see.”

“Eric, I know. Stop fretting. I’m not a fucking barbarian, you know. I’ve been to enough of these kinds of things at Brandon and Skylar’s to handle myself.”

The car stopped, and we waited as the hulking driver named Tony lumbered around to let us out.

“Thanks, Smithers,” I said.

Behind me, Eric snorted.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Tony, I’ll call when we’re ready to go, all right?”

“Of course, Mr. de Vries.”

“Look at you,” I said as I followed Eric on a literal red carpet toward the entrance of a posh brick building lined with engraved stonework around the base.

“And don’t worry about the forks, you know?” he said. “Just eat with the ones I use, and you’ll be fine.”

I stopped. “Oh my God, can you stop? I’m not a total Neanderthal. Or are you forgetting those bullshit etiquette courses they made us all take during orientation at Harvard?”

“You know they got about half of that wrong, right?”

My eyes about bugged out of my head. “No, I did not!”

Eric resumed his mask. “Hey, it’s fine. Like I said, just use the ones I use.”

“Fucking forks,” I muttered as we turned back to the door.

“And try not to say ‘fuck’ so much.”

My glare shut him up. Instead, he greeted the doorman as we passed. “Hey, Gracie.”

“Evening, Mr. de Vries.” The portly gentleman in his dark blue uniform tipped his hat at me like a Frank Capra character. “Miss.”

“Gracie, this is Jane, my fiancée,” Eric said amiably. “She’s here to meet Grandmother.”

The doorman emitted a long low whistle. “Good luck to you, miss, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Eric nodded, then turned to me. “You’re also going to need this.”

I watched, incredulous, as Eric pulled a familiar velvet box from his jacket pocket.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “I told you I don’t want—”

“It’s not the same one,” he cut in. “Look.”

When he opened it, Gracie the doorman gave another whistle.

“Ve-ry nice,” he pronounced. “That’s some rock you got there, kid.”

“Thanks, Gracie,” Eric said before he turned back to me. “Come on, put it on so we can go up. She really hates it when people are late, and we should have been here ten minutes ago.”

The ring sparkled under the streetlamp. The sleek platinum contained rows of tiny diamonds around the finger and a sharp, marquis-cut, jet-black diamond that looked as much like it could take someone’s eye out as join them forever in holy matrimony. Brutal and beautiful all at once.

I stared at the ring, then at Eric. “It’s not even the kind of jewelry I like.”

That was a lie. It was exactly the kind of ring I would pick out for myself. I just wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

“Well, I tried to find a rubber and leather engagement ring, but Tiffany’s was all out.” Eric’s mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh, but instead, he glanced again up the side of the building, like he expected a camera to be pointed at us from above. He sobered, then stilled me with a glance. “Jane, we’re going in there, and I’m introducing you as my fiancée. It’s going to look strange if you don’t have a ring. Just wear it, all right?”

I opened my mouth to argue, but found I couldn’t, still remembering the look on that girl Caitlyn’s face when she zeroed in on my bare finger. Hadn’t I allowed Skylar to dress me up like a doll all afternoon so I wouldn’t feel out of place with these people? If he thought the ring would help, then why not? We both needed this to work.

Irritably, I held out my hand. “Thank God I got a manicure.”

Eric slid the ring on with satisfaction I wanted to smack away. His fingers, though, lingered over the shiny red polish that matched my lipstick. “It looks good.”

It did look good. Enough that I had to admire it for a solid minute.

Behind us, Gracie the doorman sniffled.

Eric turned around. “Really, Gracie?”

“You’re just so darned beautiful,” Gracie responded as he dabbed his eyes with a stained handkerchief. “I love that you let me share the moment with you fine kids.”

Eric rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s go before we need an umbrella to fight the waterworks.”

He guided me through the gilt lobby of the nicest apartment building I had ever been in. Marble floors, not one but two concierge desks, and a huge chandelier casting a million prisms of light dancing around the walls. It was hard not to stare.

“This way,” Eric murmured as he guided me, hand at my lower back, toward the bank of elevators at the far end. Yet another service representative stood there in a navy waistcoat and white gloves to match Gracie’s.

“Alex,” Eric greeted him.

“She’s expecting you, sir,” replied Alex as he escorted us into the farthest elevator, waited for the doors to close, and pressed the button for the penthouse.

“This really is a beautiful piece,” I said as we rode up, still admiring my ring.

My nerves were back. I had spent exactly three hours today getting ready for this dinner. Hot-rolling my hair into perfect waves that I clasped to one side. Steaming out the floaty, green chiffon wrap dress that gave me an illusion of curves. Trying on shoe after shoe before finally settling on the pair of white pumps that I was still trying to convince myself were more Gossip Girl than Working Girl.

Eric smirked. “Not the kind of jewelry you like, right?”

“Shut up.” I shoved him on the shoulder. “Where did you get it? It looks vintage.” This ring definitely wasn’t your average Tiffany’s purchase.

He shrugged. “A dealer helped me out.”

We rode a few more moments in silence, and it was then I realized just how much thought Eric had put into this evening. The ring. The escort. He even looked like he had dressed for the occasion—not just for his grandmother, but also for me. He was in another one of his suits, of course, but this one had a slightly more rock and roll vibe to it. Cut with slim notched lapels in a deep maroon gabardine combined with a starched white shirt and skinny tie that brought out the dark in his eyes. He had allowed his hair to muss a little more than usual and hadn’t shaved, making him look more like a rake than ever.

We actually sort of looked like we…belonged?

“Go ahead,” he whispered, noticing me noticing him. “Just say it.”

I bit my lip. “You look like a movie theater attendant in that jacket.”

His lips quirked as the elevator came to a stop. “You look nice too.”

But before I could reply, the doors opened, and Alex the operator tipped his head—not actually making eye contact with me—as Eric guided me onto the landing of a very, very posh apartment.

“Well,” Eric said. “Here we are.”

Nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for the grandeur of this place. It was like walking into a hatbox that also served as a preservation center for world-class colonialism. The foyer, lined with green flowered wallpaper, contained a massive circular table bearing the biggest array of lilies I had ever seen. The light naturally drew the eyes to the domed ceiling, which glowed with gilt molding around a giant chandelier. Gilt. As in gold. This family was so rich that they literally used gold as paint.

“Holy shit,” I murmured as I took it all in.

“Sir, may I take your coats?” A dry British accent interrupted my staring.

“Oh, she has a Smithers too,” I remarked under my breath before sticking out my hand. “Hi, I’m Jane.”

The butler—I assumed that’s what he was, though he was ninety if he was a day—stared at my hand as if I’d offered him a bag of old tissues.

“Garrett, this is my fiancée, Jane Lefferts,” Eric said.

Garrett stood up a little taller but did not take my hand. I took it back, wiping it slightly on my skirt. Eric removed his jacket and helped me with mine as well, then handed them both to Garrett, who very, very slowly stowed them in a coat closet before guiding us down a long, wainscoted hallway lined with several pieces of artwork I could have sworn belonged in the Louvre.

“Sheesh, what crawled up his ass?” I muttered as Eric guided me with a hand at my back.

“About forty sets of silver,” he whispered back.

I gulped. He was joking, but just the idea of forty sets of silver reminded me of a very simple fact: I was not in Kansas anymore.

We turned a corner—this freaking apartment was basically a labyrinth—and rounds of voices filtered down the hallway.

“How many people are supposed to be here tonight?” I asked, thinking of Caitlyn what’s-her-name.

Eric’s shoulders tensed. “It was only supposed to be her, my mother, my aunt Violet, and my cousin Nina. Maybe a friend or two. Not the whole damn family.”

“And you haven’t seen them in…”

“Almost ten years.” He spoke through clenched teeth, and before I could reply, his hand snatched mine so quickly I started.

“What are you—”

“We’re engaged, Jane,” he said with a sharp look. “Time to act like it.” And then he straightened and pulled me into a room full of pastels and gray summer suits.

They were shiny. Bright. Every person here gleamed with unnaturally bright teeth and jewelry that reflected in the mirrors mounted over the ceiling. For a moment, I was reminded of Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors. Was this how it had been with the wealthy of France too—light bouncing off every surface, sequin, glass, and ring? Was it possible that the rich made their own particular light, even in the dark of night?

The chatter quieted immediately when we entered.

“Oh my God…” someone murmured from the back.

There were at least forty people in attendance—four or five patrician gentlemen and their wives, a smorgasbord of younger folk whom I guessed included Eric’s cousins and possibly some friends. Everyone was immaculate, neutral-toned, and oozing entitlement. Eric and I were basically Starburst candies next to this crew.

“Who…is…this?”

Like Moses and the Red Sea, the crowd parted in half to reveal a very frail old woman making her way toward us on a walker while a housekeeper or some kind of assistant carried an oxygen tank with her. Despite her poor health, she was dressed to the nines in an exquisite pink Chanel suit, her gray hair immaculately set in an up-do—a wig, I thought, considering what Eric had told me about her condition. Well, if it was a wig, it was a damn nice one.

“Grandmother,” Eric said in an odd, stiff voice. “May I introduce Jane Lee Lefferts. My fiancée.”

Celeste looked me over with beady gray eyes that were the exact same shade as her grandson’s. She was withered and small, but I found it hard not to shrink in front of her.

“She has pink…hair,” she remarked. “Among a few other colors.”

From the back of the crowd, there was an audible giggle.

“Why, yes, I do,” I replied, trying to make light of it. “I can give you the number of my colorist if you like it.”

“It looks like a carnation. Eric, I loathe carnations.”

Eric sighed. “Jane, this is my grandmother, Celeste.”

“You may call me Mrs. de Vries,” she corrected him.

“Mrs. de Vries, then,” I said as friendly as I could manage.

In return, all I received was a stare like an ice statue’s. “And she’s Oriental.”

Ouch. Really? I didn’t even know people used the term Oriental anymore unless they were talking about a rug sale.

“Jane’s Korean, Grandmother,” Eric said, but not as gently as I would have expected.

“Well, half, that I know of,” I joked.

His hand squeezed mine harder. I squeezed back.

“Are you adopted, then?” Celeste asked sharply, sending another machete slash through my attempts at humor.

The room was now completely silent as forty pairs of eyes witnessed my interrogation. I glanced around nervously. None of them would meet my gaze.

“Ah, no. No, I’m not,” I said. “My, uh, mother is from Korea, and my father is originally from Ohio. They moved to Chicago after they got married.”

“But your name is Lefferts.” Her brow wrinkled even more as she considered the fact. “Bruce, dear, what kind of name is Lefferts?”

A man on the other side of the room shrugged. “German, maybe?”

“It’s Dutch, actually,” I supplied as helpfully as I could. “Just like yours, right?”

“North or South?”

I blinked. “I’m sorry? In Chicago? North. I was raised in Evanston, actually.”

But Celeste de Vries rolled her old, beady eyes and shook her head. “You said your mother was from Korea. I asked North or South Korea.”

“Ohhh,” I replied. “Right, right. Sorry, I’m just so used to my mother calling it Korea, so I do too, you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” Celeste replied. “Do you know this, Eric?”

Eric only looked blank.

“It’s two separate countries.” She turned back to me. “And she still hasn’t answered the question. South Koreans are allowed in this country. North Koreans are essentially enemies of the state, are they not? So which is it? North or South?”

“Ah, South, ma’am,” I said, feeling suddenly like I was on the stand myself. “My mother is originally from a small town outside of Seoul, I believe.”

“You believe? You mean you don’t know?” Her knife gaze traveled up my body, taking in my shoes, my dress, my clutch, my hair—everything that I had actually tried—well, relatively so—to normalize for the evening. Then, without saying another word, she turned back to Eric. “Is this really the best you can do?”

There was another smattering of laughter from the back of the crowd, but I was too shocked by the conversation to look for the culprits.

Maybe he wants her to say these things. Maybe he wants her to end this now. The neurotic voice popped into my head before I could stop it. For once, my father’s calm timbre was nowhere to be found.

Eric scowled. “Grandmother, Jane and I have known each other since law school. Almost eight years, all right? You wanted me to get married, and this is whom I’ve chosen. You can deal with it or not.”

“That hair,” she croaked. “We can’t have that in the style section. What would the Astors think?”

“Jane can wear her hair however she damn well wants, Grandmother,” Eric piped up. “And if you don’t like it, well, we can stop this game right now.”

By this point, the room had gone completely silent once more, and heads were turning left and right as if they were watching a tennis match.

“Eric, be nice.”

A droll female voice spoke up behind Celeste. It belonged to a woman with bobbed blonde hair and two rows of neatly strung pearls. She was a remarkably well-preserved woman, who, anywhere else, would probably pass for maybe a few years older than me, but in this crowd, that probably meant she was verging on sixty.

“I’m just trying to get to know her, that’s all,” Celeste answered smugly. She was getting under Eric’s skin, and what’s more, she liked it. “Let the poor girl get to know us. We have standards, of course, for being in this family. You of all people should know that.”

“Oh, I do,” he gritted out. “If you recall, that’s why I left in the first place.”

“Eric.”

The blonde woman who had just spoken detached herself from a few other similarly Botoxed ladies and joined the three of us. A murmur arose as the crowd of family began to chatter, though I noticed glances continued to dart back at our strange quartet.

Eric turned to the woman stiffly. “Mom.”

Mom? I jerked my gaze to the woman with new interest. Her gaze met mine but revealed nothing. No emotion. No gratitude to see her son. No response to me. Nothing.

Well. Now I knew where Eric had learned the art of the mask.

She kissed him awkwardly on each cheek, but Eric just squeezed my hand, making no move to reciprocate his mother’s greeting. She stepped back and smiled at me, not quite warmly, but several degrees above the glacial expression of her mother-in-law.

“You must be Jane,” she said as she air-kissed my cheeks.

“Jane, this is my mother, Heather,” Eric said.

“Dear Grandmama only looks out for us, you must understand,” Heather said as she stood back. Next to Eric, it was obvious that they were related. “Nina is around here somewhere with Violet, my sister-in-law. Ah, there she is.” She pointed to a girl in the far corner who looked like she could be Eric’s sister. The girl waved listlessly but made no move to greet Eric any more than he did her. It was strange, really, how none of this family seemed happy to welcome back its heir.

“Now, tell us, Jane, what do your parents do?” asked Heather.

I did my best to smile. “Well, um, my mother is a housewife, although she recently went back to working at a salon. She used to do nails, you see, after she was a flight attendant. And my father, he was a psychologist at the VA before he died last year.”

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.”

“So,” Celeste spoke again. “She has no family—”

“Well, that’s not entirely true—” I cut in.

“No manners—”

“What? Wait, what did I—”

“No class—”

“Well, my dad was a psychologist, so, we weren’t exactly destitu—”

“And no style.”

I opened my mouth with another smart retort, but this time, her sharp eyes zeroed in on me fully. And I was stunned. Because I had style. I dripped style, my friends. Sure, maybe it was different than the average Anne Klein-wearing, Barre-loving New Englander, but I had lived and breathed fashion since I was a kid. I literally couldn’t remember a day after Aunt Flo first visited that I hadn’t worn lipstick.

Instead, I focused on the here and now. And the here and now was awkward as fuck. Heather stared at her Manhattan like the ice was going to reveal the future. Celeste stared at me like I was going to pull my dress over my head and run around like a banshee. And Eric just stared at everything but us, looking desperately like he wanted to disappear.

And me? For once in my life, my bravado deserted me. I just stared at the carpet like Charlie fucking Brown, and the only other noises were hums of light conversation and the clinks of ice in people’s glasses.

“Jane?” A sweet female voice cut through the awkward silence. “Oh my gosh, Jane, it really is you!”

The entire room swiveled again. Celeste’s carefully painted eyebrows shot up an inch as Caitlyn, the woman I’d met on the street, emerged from the corner where Eric’s cousin stood, dressed tastefully in a blue sheath dress that I recognized from Calvin Klein, her tawny brown hair cascading over her shoulders in perfect, effortless waves.

“Caitlyn?” Celeste asked. “Do you know this young woman?”

“Um…what?” Eric looked like he wanted to know the same thing. “You know Caitlyn Calvert?”

“Oh, Celeste, yes,” Caitlyn said. “We’re friends. I mean, we only met today, but my goodness, she has the best street style. I couldn’t forget Jade if I tried.”

“It’s Jane,” I tried to say, but my words were swallowed quietly by Celeste’s glare.

Celeste looked like she could not possibly believe this, but did not say anything. As Caitlyn continued talking, the rest of the room seemed to relax and turn back to their conversations.

“Oh my gosh, is this from the new Alice + Olivia collection?” Caitlyn asked me. “I saw that, but I couldn’t believe anyone would be adventurous enough to wear it.”

I tugged self-consciously at my handkerchief skirt, with its layers of chiffons delicately embroidered with flowers. I had loved this dress when Skylar and I found it this afternoon, but even with her compliments, Caitlyn made me feel like a sideshow act.

“Um, yes,” was all I could say. “It is.”

Eric looked sharply at me, clearly as surprised by my lack of response as I was.

“I love it,” Caitlyn gushed. “Come on, you’ll have to tell me all about how you came up with such unique styling. I just go with what works, you know. Classics, so they say. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Eric’s cousin.” She turned to Eric with a sweet, yet sly expression. “That is, if Desi here will let me take you away.”

Eric blushed. He actually blushed. And immediately, I was pissed. Celeste and Heather watched him curiously. Clearly they noticed it too.

“Desi?” I asked. “Who is that?”

“It’s just a nickname,” Eric said before taking a long drink of a martini he accepted from Garrett, who carried none for me.

“When we were little, our nannies used to bring us to the park together. But sometimes, especially when Ana Lucia was sick, Rosa would let us watch TV instead. It was always I Love Lucy reruns, and so when we started to talk, Eric and I started calling each other Desi and Lucy. Everyone used to say we were just like an old married couple, didn’t they, Des?” Caitlyn shrugged. “It just stuck.”

Eric chuckled. “It’s true. How long did I call you that? Until what, high school?”

“Probably until you met Penny and broke my heart.” Caitlyn faux-elbowed me in the waist. “I was his first, you know. At the tender age of seven.”

My eyes popped open, and immediately Eric started shaking his head while Caitlyn giggled into her drink. “She means first kiss, Jane.”

“Oh, ha,” I said weakly. “I, um, thought that was kind of young.”

As Celeste and Heather looked at me with horror, I decided this was now really the most awkward conversation ever.

Caitlyn tittered. “Oh, lord, no. But we definitely had crushes on each other, didn’t we, Des? I guess when you’ve been friends for that long, it’s bound to happen.”

Eric just offered a tight smile. He didn’t hold my hand anymore—instead, he was more intent on holding his drink. I didn’t know why that bothered me so much.

“Gosh, that takes me back. I haven’t thought about those names in so long.” Caitlyn reached out to squeeze Eric’s arm, and like she was moving in slow motion, all four of us watched her smooth, French-tipped fingers toy with his sleeve. “It’s so good to have you back, E. We missed you.”

Suddenly, I was suppressing the urge to vomit. I was grateful to Caitlyn for saving me from Eric’s grandmother. And she had also managed to deflect the crowd of people surrounding us. Truly, I had no reason to be nursing a completely irrational hatred toward the girl. She was nice. Very nice. Too nice.

“Do you think you’ll be in New York for good, E?” she was asking.

Stop calling him E. He’s not a rave drug circa 1999.

“A good long time,” Celeste put in. “Eric is taking over the company.”

Eric shrugged. “I’ll only assume the chairmanship, provided the board votes me in. So, I’ll stay as long as it takes me to learn enough of the company to take over Grandmother’s position,” he said. “Then maybe Jane and I can return to Boston.”

“You can’t possibly be chairman and live in Boston,” Heather said, a little too sharply. “Come, Eric, that’s naive. Even for you.”

Eric’s expression was like cut glass. His mother looked away and took another drink of her cocktail.

“Well,” Caitlyn said as she continued to finger his sleeve. “I can only hope it’s a nice, complicated job. I’m dying to know what’s happened since you’ve been gone. I want to know all there is to know about you now, Desi. Oh, and you too, Jade.”

She gazed up at Eric like I wasn’t even there, and Eric, the bastard, looked right the fuck back. It took the two of them about five full seconds to stop, and only when I cleared my throat loud enough to sound like an advertisement for cough medicine. Celeste smiled for the first time, baring a set of pearly dentures.

“Oh, my!” Caitlyn jumped, pressing her hand to her heart as if I’d genuinely frightened her. “You sound like you need something for your throat. Come on, let’s get you a drink, all right? Then I can introduce you to the whole gang!”

And with that, her hand left Eric’s sleeve, and I was whisked away to find a much-needed cocktail while I mingled with my new family. But I couldn’t help noticing that every time Caitlyn thought I wasn’t looking, she would find wherever Eric was standing in the room. And then she would just watch. And wait.