It’s how Serena’s file landed in my lap.
“So what do you do to pass the time?” Demi asks.
“I take on some side projects. Estate law. Family law. Nothing terribly exciting.” I take a seat across from Royal.
“Ready to get your ass kicked?” Royal pushes my half of the Battleship game across the coffee table.
“I can promise you that won’t be happening tonight.” I take a seat on the floor across from him.
Demi hops up, running to the kitchen, and returns with two Heinekens and her Us Weekly.
“You still read those things?” I tease.
She deposits our bottles on the table and curls up on the sofa again, flipping to the middle of her magazine because God forbid she starts from the beginning of something for once in her life.
“Only God can judge me.” She hides her face behind the splayed cover, and a photo in the corner catches my eye.
“Hey, let me see that,” I say.
Demi lowers the glossy rag and arches an eyebrow. “This?”
“Yeah.” I swipe it from her hand and examine the headline.
SERENA RANDALL’S DESPERATE TIMES
“Do you know her?” I point to the picture on the cover of a tearful Serena, quite possibly the saddest-looking woman I’ve ever seen.
“Do I know her? Um, no.” Demi razzes. “Do I know about her? Yeah. Who doesn’t?”
“I don’t,” Royal says. “Never heard of her.”
“What do you know about her?” I ask.
Demi sets the magazine aside and repositions herself, leaning in and grinning like we’re about to talk shop. By day, she teaches kindergarteners. By night, she’s a celebrity gossip aficionado. Nothing wrong with wide-ranging interests, I suppose.
“Well,” she begins. “She’s this beautiful heiress. I think her dad owns some big steel corporation? Or maybe it’s a tire manufacturer? I don’t know. Something industrial. Multi-multi-multi-millionaire. She’s an only child, and her mom died when she was little. Anyway, she was engaged to Keir Montgomery, as in the youngest son of the President of the United States. It was this whirlwind romance. Happened super fast. The gossip bloggers went nuts. The paparazzi ate it up. They were adorable together. Picture perfect. She’d never been so in love, and everyone thought she was going to be the one to change his womanizing ways. He softened for her, you know? Everyone thought she was going to be the one to make him settle down and change his ways. And in that same vein, he changed her too. She was notorious for never dating or settling down. And she was completely smitten with him. Head over heels. But then she caught him in bed with two of her best friends. I’m talking her best friends from childhood. That’s got to hurt, you know? At first, she handled it as best she could, but then, people started gossiping and writing about her and making the whole situation worse than it already was. She was publicly humiliated and she didn’t even do anything wrong. All she did was give her heart to the wrong guy.”
Demi places her hand across her heart, and I feel a twinge of sympathetic tightness in my chest. The articles online sensationalized everything, but Demi’s rendition humanizes it.
“Anyway, all she wanted to do was get out of town for a bit. Let the media frenzy cool down. Give people time to move on to the next hot story. But then I guess she showed up to the airport all intoxicated and forgot her wallet and they wouldn’t let her on the plane, and it all went downhill from there.” Her shoulders slump and her eyes scrunch. “But it doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“Serena Randall was never like that. She was never dramatic. She was the epitome of class. She was never one to cause a scene. I mean, she was trying to get away from all that. Why would she make things worse for herself?” Demi’s face is as twisted as a question mark.
“People make bad decisions all the time. Temporary lapse in judgement,” I say. “Maybe she was hurt and desperate.”
“I don’t know.” My sister slumps back and pulls her magazine into her lap, chewing on the inner corner of her lip. “It just doesn’t add up to me. But what do I know?”
Royal clears his throat. “Anyway. C4.”
“Miss,” I say. “A1.”
“Hit.” Royal groans, and I grin. Seven years later, and he still puts his ships in the corner spots. Some things never change.
I play the game, calling out an abundance of hits with some misses peppered in, but my mind is elsewhere.
By the time I’ve sunk three of Royal’s ships, I’m mostly going through the motions, my head busy assembling this Serena Randall puzzle.
“If you’re bored, we don’t have to keep playing,” Royal says.
I shake my head, yawning and dragging in a renewing breath. “You’re just saying that because you’re losing. Come on, let’s keep going.”
“D5,” he says.
“Hit.” I place a red peg in my battleship and watch my opponent gloat. “Yeah, yeah. E7.”
A few more moves, and I’ve won the game, as promised.
“I’m going to bed, you guys.” Demi stands, stretching, and tosses her magazine on the arm of the sofa.
“Yeah, I should get going. I’m seeing a client in the morning.” I rise.
“You’re working on a Saturday?” Royal asks.
“Yeah, it’s nothing. Not even charging them.”