Sara Brant lived for two things: parties and revenge. Bethany’s revelation provided an opportunity for Sara to sate her desire for both.
“I overheard Demetri last night,” Bethany said. “Grant’s cheating on Emiko.”
She lifted her dainty chin in the air as she spoke. The other women who assembled in Sara’s kitchen for the weekly Wardroom Wives Wine Night huddled more closely around her. Bethany possessed a bird-like frame and a high-pitched voice that made Sara’s ears ache.
“He was talking to someone on the phone, don’t know who, and went outside to take the call. Anyway, when I ran out to tell him to say goodnight to the kids, I heard him say how he walked in on Grant messing around with the new officer onboard. Then he says, ‘Shitty thing to do because he’s married, but whatever man, I’m staying out of it.’ I tried to ask him about it later, but he just said it was nothing.”
“Poor Emiko,” Celia said. “Such a meek little thing. I heard Grant married her when he was stationed in Japan. These men who go and marry the local girls without even speaking their language. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
“Doesn’t Grant speak Japanese, though?” asked Monica, the Chief Engineer’s wife. “We talked about it once. You know, I studied in Japan when I was getting my master’s degree.” The other women ignored Monica. She mentioned she had her master’s degree in every conversation, a habit they all found highly annoying. As if they all didn’t abandon some portion of themselves when they got married.
“I heard the girl involved is a real slut,” Bethany said. “Nicola’s her name. One of Demetri’s friends from ROTC knew a guy who used to date her college roommate.”
“Nicola Mattingly,” Celia chimed in. “Bruce said she’s one of the three new officers onboard. The only woman, I think, so she must be the one.”
“I saw her a few days ago when I brought Ed his dinner on the ship. She’s cute in the way all girls are when they’re, what, twenty-three?” said another woman.
“Ugh, I don’t think so. Those girls look so mannish,” said another.
“Poor Emiko. Bad enough your husband’s messing around. Worse when she’s ugly,” another chimed in.
Sara’s stomach churned as she listened to her guests bray about their Nicola-sightings and Grant’s infidelities. She recalled the time she discovered her own mother, puffy-eyed and ragged, sitting in the corner of her bedroom closet, half hidden behind a row of long evening gowns dangling from their hangars.
Sara set down the horseshoe-shaped cheese tray she had been carrying. Her hands shook too furiously to carry the object any further.
“Ladies! Let’s not lose sight of the main issue here,” Sara said. All eyes in the room darted from Bethany to Sara. Bethany pouted. “Grant may be a dog, but there’s a deployment on the horizon and a precedent to be set. Our husbands are already under enough pressure without tossing a bunch of shameless young girls into the mix.” Sara paused for effect, continuing only when she heard her guests’ soft murmurs of concern.
“You hear things, sure, and think that this could never happen to us. I remember the stories my mother would tell. Believe me, it can happen to any one of us.”
The women looked down, swirling the wine in their glasses. They cherished the lives they lived, for the most part—steady employment for their husbands, the chance to travel around the world, frequent parties and annual balls, the prestige the profession attracted. Yet they also felt throbbing reminders of what they gave up. Monica thought of her classmates from Emory, who all seemed to have flashy corporate titles and carried expensive handbags from designers whose name she didn’t know how to pronounce; last week, Monica was turned down for a temp position due to the gaps on her resume. Bethany tried to count the number of moves her children endured in their short lives and lost track. Cecilia thought of the five separate flights she took from Guam, where her husband, Bruce, had been stationed, to be with her mother in the hospital—only to discover her mother passed away an hour before she arrived. Others recalled the months they spent sleeping alone in rented houses in unfamiliar neighborhoods. They could defend these decisions for love or duty; to have infidelity as your reward seemed unfathomably cruel.
“I’ll talk to Bruce about it,” Celia said, raising her chin into the air. “He’ll put a stop to this behavior.”
As the Commanding Officer’s wife, she was supposed to be their leader. Her husband outranked Sara’s in the Navy’s unambiguous hierarchy. Though with Celia’s anxious demeanor and doughy build, the other women tolerated her presence more than they respected it. She possessed a round, innocent face, which Sara always wanted to slap.
Rank is not pedigree, Sara’s mother used to say. No one comes close to us in that department. Don’t you forget it.
“Good idea, Celia,” Sara said, forcing a smile. “Perhaps—this is only an idea—we should send a message of our own? Bruce has enough to worry about. And Emiko will suffer if her husband’s career does.”
“Like what?” Bethany asked with a note of annoyance in her voice. Sara smiled.
“Celia will be hosting all of us at her house for a Hail and Farewell next week for all the new wardroom members and those that are departing,” Sara said. “This Nicola girl is new, no? Then we must celebrate her arrival at the next Hail and Farewell.”
Whenever Sara thought of her mother, she envisioned her with a place card in her hand. Like a tarot card reader who attended finishing school, Renee Carlson divined her family’s destiny with these 3×2 inch pieces of stationary.
“Parties are hard work,” she explained to Sara when she was ten years old and asked if she could attend soccer tryouts at her new elementary school instead of helping her mother prepare for an upcoming party.
“These are events designed to promote your father’s career. He supports us in all we do, so it is our job to support him. Besides,” Renee paused to rearrange silverware on their dining room table. “Besides, soccer doesn’t sound very ladylike.”
Instead of after school activities, Sara assisted her mother with party planning. When she didn’t help her mother at their house, Sara’s mother lent her out to other wardroom wives for their parties and events. Of course, Renee expected a full report when Sara returned home: What did the inside of Admiral Bannon’s house look like? Did Captain Vicars behave himself? I heard he has a wandering eye.
Sara, for her part, didn’t mind it, especially when it meant she could create floral arrangements while her brother toiled over math homework upstairs. She moved with her family far too often to become a curious student and never adjusted to the different curricula offered in each new state. Besides, parties thrilled her. She loved to watch guests surge through a house, bringing it to life with their peals of laughter, the din of ice rattling in glasses and overlapping conversations, and the abstract images created by wine stains on cocktail napkins.
Sara’s love of parties seemed inevitable, as she assumed all of Renee’s interests and aligned her aspirations wherever her mother directed them. Who else could she emulate? Her father, defined more by his prolonged absences than any other attribute? Her brother, who spent his time being shuffled off to water polo and SAT tutorials? It seemed as if nature itself ordained Sara to become an extension of her mother. They shared the same honey-blond hair and piercing blue eyes, identical round faces with undefined cheekbones, and similar (if somewhat unfortunate) short, squat builds.
“An inheritance from our ancestors,” Renee would say whenever Sara bemoaned her figure. “We can thank the Cavaliers for gravitas and a lack of height. Good breeding has its occasional downfalls.”
When she hosted parties at the Carlson residence, Renee would mention her esteemed lineage when giving guests a tour of their house. A prominent feature of her parents’ house, wherever they moved, included an oil painting of a flamboyantly dressed man with old-fashioned britches and puffy sleeves, sandy colored hair, and a broad hat topped with a feather.
“That’s one of my forefathers, a renown English Cavalier and former equerry to King Charles,” Renee would tell guests as she took them from room to room. “He came to the states to found the Jamestown colony. Jamestown families are older than those boastful Mayflower folks, you know. Our family heirlooms are older than this country.”
Renee neglected to mention how said family heirlooms resided with her older brother. Renee’s mother believed heirlooms belonged to those who would continue the family name and left Renee with replicas, like the portrait she showcased.
Sara was fifteen when she found her mother hiding in her closet, sobbing over her father’s latest infidelity. She had long suspected her parents weren’t happy. They rarely spoke to each other, and when they did, their voices sounded clipped and business-like. She couldn’t remember her parents kissing or hugging aside from ship homecomings, when returning officers were expected to greet their wives on the pier with an embrace. Seeing her mother entirely devoid of composure terrified Sara. This had to be some imposter—she’d find the real Renee downstairs in the kitchen, with precise make-up and shiny hair, planning her menu for a party later this week.
“He’s embarrassed me again,” Renee said in a ragged voice. A line of mascara bled down her cheek. Renee made no attempt to wipe it away.
“Dad would never,” Sara said. “You said he does everything for us.”
“Oh, grow up,” Renee responded. “All of this is for his own ego.”
“Then why do you help him so much?” Sara asked.
Renee ignored her daughter’s question. “The bastard left letters lying around, Sara. He doesn’t even care if I know. And with Commander Rinna’s wife, no less! Word gets out about this and his career is over. Then what will we do? Where would we live then?”
Sara offered to get her mother something, an offer extended less from sympathy and more as a way to escape. Renee must have noticed her daughter’s discomfort and told Sara to head over to Mrs. Blake’s house now to avoid being late.
Sara returned several hours later to find her mother sprawled out and snoring in a pile of her shoes, her wedding band tinkling at the bottom of an empty vodka bottle. The letters Renee mentioned earlier were spread across the floor. Sara collected them and covered her mother with a coat dangling from its hangar.
She knew she shouldn’t have read the letters. Still, she couldn’t help herself, even though she knew the prurient details pertained to her own father, a man who wore tube socks with deck shoes and chewed with his mouth open and picked dried boogers with his pinkie when he thought no one was looking. How anyone could see him as an object of desire baffled Sara as much as it disgusted her. Mrs. Rinna spared no details, either. In addition to writing dirty notes to Sara’s father, she included her opinions of other Navy wives, belittled her husband, and even confessed the times she’d cheated on him in the past. Sara felt a burning sensation in her stomach and chest as she read each letter. She lay in bed contemplating ways to make this woman pay. By dawn, she had a solution.
Maribelle Osborne, wife of the Commodore of Destroyer Squadron Twenty-two, had asked Sara to assist at a dinner she hosted for Squadron Commanding Officers and their families. Commander Rinna would attend—he commanded the highest performing ship on the Mayport waterfront—and, from Sara’s review of the guest list, Mrs. Rinna would join him. Sara’s parents weren’t invited, since her father commanded a cruiser and, in his words, didn’t have to answer to a Commodore.
Sara arrived at the party a few minutes late and made her apologies to Mrs. Osborne. She needed to make up some work at school, which is why she brought her backpack with her. Maribelle didn’t mind. She felt reassured having such a nice girl like Sara available to lend a hand. Everyone knew Sara provided the magic touch when it came to the tiny details that made a party memorable. Could she start setting the table? She heard Sara made beautiful napkin origami. Sara agreed, and once Maribelle left the room, she removed several slips of paper from her backpack and folded each into the napkin fabric.
Renee always cautioned Sara against causing a scene: public hysteria is the surest indicator of poor breeding. Sara thought of her mother’s maxim as she watched Mrs. Rinna read the note folded into her napkin. The woman stood so abruptly she knocked over a water glass and demanded to know where this note came from. At the same time, the rest of the guests read their own notes, and the party erupted with similar outbursts.
“I did not have my nose done!” Mrs. Blake shrieked.
“You slept with her?” Mrs. Harris asked, turning to her husband with wild eyes.
“This is your handwriting!” Commander Rinna said. “Christine, what did you do?”
The party devolved into chaos. Mrs. Harris dove toward Mrs. Rinna, but Mrs. Blake restrained her. Unable to reach Mrs. Rinna, Mrs. Harris grabbed a plate of shrimp and hurled it at Mrs. Rinna, hitting Commander Scott instead. Commander Rinna then tackled Commander Harris and the two men collapsed onto the floor, striking at one another on the way down. Captain Osborne bellowed for everyone to stop. The guests were too busy hollering and thrashing and shrimp-tossing to care.
Sara observed the initial outbreak of hostilities from the far end of the dining room, then snuck out of the house through the back door. She skipped on her way home, fighting the urge to break out into a full-blown sprint (Only thieves and children run, Renee would say), but leaping into the air at different intervals, letting out cackles of glee. The nervousness plaguing her prior to the party deliquesced into pure, delicious elation. She’d done it. She made Mrs. Rinna pay. No one would make a fool of her or her family again, she swore.
This must be what power feels like, Sara thought. She always equated power with domineering men who wore large class rings and gave orders to move ships or men or families. She possessed a different kind of power. The unseen hand that shaped fate, just like her mother did with her place cards.
The next morning, as she got ready for school, Sara heard her mother chatting on the phone downstairs.
“She did what? Maribelle, I don’t know what to say. Dare I ask…? Oh. Oh my. He threw Christine out? I have no idea. Yes, I’ll speak with her now. Thank you.” Renee hung up the phone and shouted for Sara to get downstairs. Immediately.
“What happened at Maribelle’s last night?” Renee asked sharply. “Her guests found notes tucked into their napkins at dinner? It caused quite an uproar.”
Sara looked down and didn’t answer, so she did not see Renee approach and wrap her in the tightest embrace Sara had ever received. Renee kissed the top of Sara’s head repeatedly, then pulled her into her chest again. Sara felt too confused to move.
“I’m so proud of you,” Renee whispered.
Three years later, when her father received an appointment to serve as the President of the Naval War College in Newport, Sara enrolled at a small college nearby so she could help her mother on weekends. Regardless, she and her mother had increasingly less to discuss. Sara studied business and talked about starting her own party-planning business when she graduated, a plan that Renee vehemently opposed.
“Most entrepreneurs fail. What makes you think you can succeed?” Renee would ask, which made Sara increasingly agitated. Renee’s insistence that Sara return home for the summer instead of heading to Boston for an internship (“Aren’t my parties important enough for you?”) only heightened the tension between them.
Sara knew the source of her mother’s fear. Her father expressed his intent to retire once his tour at the War College concluded, and Renee dreaded the precipitous loss of status that would inevitably ensue. To appease her mother, Sara remained in Newport the summer before her junior year of college, assisting Renee with yet another party instead of orchestrating gala events in Boston. One evening, as they worked on seating arrangements, they were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“I almost forgot,” Renee said. She rose to answer the door. A place card remained in her hand. “Admiral Brant’s son is on base for the summer. I invited him over for a drink. You should go up and change.”
“I’m fine like this,” Sara replied. Admiral Brant’s kid would be the third son of an acquaintance who Renee invited over that summer. She already resented the forfeiture of her internship. Having to deal with the intolerably boring men her mother paraded in front of her made Sara want to scream. That is, until Paxton walked into the room.
He wore fitted jeans, a dark blue blazer, and a Tag Heuer, which peeked out from underneath the cuff of his collared shirt. He looked dignified without trying too hard and possessed an impish look despite his pronounced brow line and angular cheekbones. They chatted politely for about an hour, with Renee finding several excuses to run into the kitchen to fetch another unnecessary beer or glass of water or snack.
“I don’t suppose you have any plans for the evening?” Paxton asked during one of Renee’s retreats from the family room. “You can give me the local’s tour.”
“Anything to get out of here,” Sara said, motioning to her mother in the next room. “I’m really sorry about that.”
“Don’t be,” Paxton replied. “You are a pleasant surprise.”
They’d been walking down Thames Street when Sara caught their reflection in a darkened storefront window and abruptly stopped.
“We look so attractive together,” she murmured.
“What’s that?” Paxton asked. She’d spoken too softly for him to hear.
“Nothing,” she said. “Well, no. Not nothing. It’s forward of me, but this feels right.” She sighed and pressed her body into his, jumping up onto her toes to reach his parted lips. When he kissed her back, Sara thought she’d shatter into a million pieces.
“I entirely agree,” Paxton said afterward, pinching her chin with his finger and thumb, a spontaneous gesture which would thereafter become their own unique expression of affection.
Paxton felt both solid and exciting. He loved the way Sara listened to him, he said, instead of trying to interject. The other girls he’d dated were too competitive, too focused on themselves to fully appreciate his ambitions. Both his father and grandfather were admirals, and he well understood the legacy he protected. For Sara’s part, Paxton’s maturity thrilled her. He wasn’t like the other guys she dated who aimlessly drifted through life without direction. She thought of her party planning business less and less as the summer progressed, and all but abandoned it when she returned to school in the fall. Paxton occupied her every thought. On Christmas Eve, he proposed with his grandmother’s Ascher cut ring, and they made plans to get married as soon as Sara graduated.
“Just promise me you won’t be like the rest of them,” Sara told Paxton as he wrapped her in his arms. “Not like my father was, or any of the other men he worked with. That’s the only thing I won’t stand.”
“What else could I possibly want but you?” Paxton said in reply. Sara allowed herself to sink into his solid frame, feeling as if she could melt into him entirely and make him an extension of herself.
Shortly after their engagement, though, Paxton learned that his ship’s deployment schedule changed, making a wedding the summer after Sara’s graduation impossible. They would have to get married in the fall or postpone for another year.
“Long engagements raise suspicions,” Renee cautioned, so by April, they decided on a fall wedding. She could always go back to school, Sara told herself. Except she didn’t expect Paxton V, Caroline, and Bryce to arrive in such quick succession, nor did she expect the utter chaos the kids brought with them. With Paxton gone so often, she relished the distraction. She made friends quickly, as she always had, and threw herself into organizing social gatherings and playdates. Renee visited whenever she could. She now helped Sara throw her own parties and always reminded Sara to keep her eyes fixed on the future.
“It’s hard at first,” Renee reassured her. “You’re low on the ladder for now. But don’t forget who you are—with your lineage and skills, you’ll be at the top in no time.” Then, she’d add in a half-begrudging tone, “With Paxton, you’ll even go farther than I did.”
Yet her relationship with Paxton gradually became more transactional. The kids wailed and acted out for months whenever Paxton went out to sea, then rebelled against his every request once he returned. He never seemed to take to his children. In fact, Sara couldn’t recall a moment when he voluntarily hugged any of them. Exhausted by the late hours he worked, he’d wave Sara or the kids away, asking whether it was too much to get ten minutes to himself. Most nights, he remained at work or went out with friends, returning long after Sara and the kids were in bed.
Whenever these moments struck, Sara planned another party. It didn’t have to be elaborate, a simple barbeque or drinks with friends would suffice. She would sit arm-in-arm with Paxton, the sly grin returning to his face, his arm draped around her shoulders. Together, they would dazzle their guests, make them yearn for everything Sara and Paxton had. They could see themselves as others saw them. They’d desire each other once again. It seemed to Sara that she and Paxton were never more in love than when they were in front of other people.
In the past year, though, it didn’t seem like enough. Paxton abandoned her at parties and would return distant, unbuttoned, and clouded with bourbon.
“I don’t need you reminding me what’s at stake,” Paxton would say when Sara cautioned him about his behavior. Sara cultivated a thousand excuses in her own mind—the stress of his job, the tedium of fourteen years of marriage, anxiety over his impending selection for commanding officer. She feared he wanted something else, something Sara couldn’t offer. He always said he’d never leave her or the kids, and Sara believed him, if only for the sake of his career. This reassurance didn’t prevent Sara from dreaming of the afternoon she found her mother on the closet floor. She felt vulnerable for the first time in her life and needed to regain control the only way she knew how.
Grant’s affair really couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
When Sara arrived, Emiko sat on Celia’s couch underneath a landscape oil painting of horses grazing in a pasture. The other women from the wardroom hovered around poor Emiko, making her shift uncomfortably on the stiff brocade sofa. She looked perplexed by this flurry of attention.
“Emiko,” Sara said. “It’s so good to see you.” Emiko tilted her head like a confused puppy. A natural response, considering Sara and Emiko barely exchanged three words during the eight-month period their husbands had been stationed together. In fact, none of the wardroom wives ever exchanged any words with Emiko. When they invited her to wardroom events, they sent text messages containing pictures rather than words:
Had they bothered to ask, Emiko would have told them she was born in Berkeley and met Grant while she worked as an analyst for the State Department in Tokyo. As these women had not inquired about her background, Emiko did not feel compelled to provide it. She awaited an opportune moment to reveal their ignorance instead, preferably in a public setting where she could revel in their embarrassment.
“Would you like a drink?” Bethany asked, ignoring the full glass of chardonnay Emiko held in her hand. “Something to eat?” She mimed an eating motion, which made Emiko break into a fit of laughter.
“My dear, you may want to start drinking, because we have some bad news for you,” Celia said, kneeling in front of Emiko and taking her hand.
“Um, what’s going on?” Emiko asked, suddenly realizing how the herd of women surrounded her and stared at her intensely.
“Look, Emiko, there’s a rumor going around that Grant, well, how are the two of you?” Celia asked, her voice wavering as she spoke. Sara sighed.
“Ce, may I?” Sara asked, kneeling and taking Emiko’s hand from Celia’s grasp. “Emiko, there’s no easy way to say this. Bethany overheard something disturbing the other day that we thought you should know. One of the new officers onboard, a young woman, made advances on Grant. We think she acted on them, too. Do you understand what we’re saying?”
“Excuse me?” Emiko pulled her hand away from Sara’s.
“We know this must be hard,” Celia chimed in. “But we’re here for you.”
“We consider you part of our family,” Bethany added.
“We’ll make sure the girl who’s involved pays,” Sara said.
Emiko’s chest rose in quick succession. She wanted to tell them how ridiculous they all were, how she and Grant spent hours after each wardroom party chuckling as they recounted the ridiculous comments they received from the other officers and their wives.
We just need to wait it out a bit longer, Grant would tell Emiko. My commitment will be up shortly, then I’m off to business school. We can leave all this behind.
Slacker, Emiko would respond. I’ll be done with law school by the time you’re free.
Don’t remind me, Grant would sigh, then apologize profusely for all the pettiness Emiko endured. Emiko didn’t mind. She really didn’t. As long as she had Grant, nothing these women could say would get under her skin. She didn’t expect them to attack the very thread which strung together her sanity. Their meddling made Emiko want to scream. Grant wasn’t cheating on her. He never would. Besides, she knew his schedule; he could never find the time to cheat on her. But how dare they make her question it? Dear god, when wouldn’t she be the shy kid other people thought they could pick on?
Anger choked her. Words flooded her brain far too quickly to pronounce. After two minutes of painful stuttering, Emiko stood and let her wine glass drop to the floor.
“You’ve got to be kidding me with this shit,” she stammered, then darted out of the room.
“Oopsy,” Celia said. “The poor thing spilled. I’ll get a towel.”
“Her English is improving,” Monica said. “No trace of an accent.”
“We should go after her,” Bethany said.
“No time for that!” another woman squealed as she ran into the room. “Nicola’s here!”
“Oh, I’m so nervous,” Celia exclaimed, rushing back into the room. “I need to welcome her. Bruce can’t know about this! And my rug! Can someone blot that?”
Sara moved to the edge of the room to get a better look at the girl. Nicola moved with coltish strides from the front door, past the entrance to the den, and into the Farbishes’ kitchen, cordially shook Commander Farbish’s hand, then proceeded to the back patio. She joined a huddle of other younger officers Sara had never met, including a heinously unattractive girl with a comically long face and linebacker’s build. Paxton joined the circle as well, nudging the homely girl to the side with his shoulder. She playfully nudged him back.
Paxton must be tipsy, Sara thought. Behaving that way with that awful-looking girl.
Nicola’s auburn hair fell to the middle of her back and frizzed slightly in the humid Virginia air. She wore a white shirt dress—rather, the dress wore her. Even tied at the waist, it consumed her slender frame and hit her legs mid-calf. The girl had high cheekbones, a slender nose, and wore little makeup, which Sara thought made her look unfinished. A pink tone emerged just underneath her skin, the type of radiance only possessed by the young. Though she moved with a distinct lack of elegance, she was beautiful. You couldn’t deny it.
She’s practically a child, Sara thought. Suddenly aware of her prolonged musing, Sara tossed back her shoulders and moved back to the center of the room.
“Relax, Ce,” Sara said. “We have it completely under control. Wait a few minutes before you bring her in here. And Bethany, grab us a few bottles of wine, please. Red will do nicely.”
By the time Celia reentered the den, escorting the girl into the room by the arm, the women formed a phalanx behind Sara, their glasses full to the brim.
“Here are our wardroom wives,” Celia said. “I’ll let you introduce yourself.” She chuckled idiotically as she walked away.
“Nice to meet you all,” the girl said firmly, oblivious to the poisonous looks she received.
“We’ve heard so much about you, Nicola,” Sara replied. Her heart pounded so furiously, she felt lightheaded. “Like how you enjoy sleeping with other women’s husbands.”
The other women, stirred by Sara’s boldness, edged around the girl in a circle, their glasses held high.
“Sorry, what?” The girl laughed as she replied.
“Don’t play dumb! We’re onto you,” Bethany said.
“Whoa, you have the wrong idea,” the girl said, suddenly serious.
“Why, because you think we’re stupid?” Bethany shot back. “We’ve seen your kind before. Little whores who think they can get away with anything.”
“You don’t get to mess with what is ours,” another woman called out.
“Bitch,” cried another.
“Ladies!” Sara said, quelling their rising voices, trying to steady her own. Renee’s face involuntarily appeared in her mind. Every muscle in her body shook. “This is for Emiko.”
“Who?” asked the girl as Sara tossed the contents of her wine glass into the girl’s face. Dark red ran down her neck and chest. The girl screamed and raised her hands in a belated motion of defense. She tried to move forward, but Bethany tossed the contents of her glass directly onto the front of the girl’s white dress. Another woman poured her glass into the girl’s hair. Monica spilled hers down the girl’s back. The room erupted in shouts and flying liquid and flailing limbs.
“Whore!”
“Slut!”
“This is what you get!”
“Let me go!” The girl wailed as she pushed her way forward, attempting to force her way out of the stampede.
“Enough,” Sara yelled. Though she still shook, she felt elated and giddy, as if she were hovering over the room, observing this messy, glorious scene from above. “Maybe now you’ll know your place.”
With a triumphant flourish, she spat directly into the girl’s face.
“You’re all crazy!” the girl screamed before sprinting out of the room and leaving trickles of wine in her wake.
“Oh my god!” Bethany exclaimed. “I can’t believe we just did that. Her face!”
The other women chimed in, neighing with glee.
“Did you do it?” Celia asked eagerly, popping her head into the den. “Oh, my carpet!”
“We’re going to need a lot of towels, Ce,” Sara said, allowing herself to smile while maintaining the calm in her voice. “And some carpet cleaner.”
Sara followed Celia into the kitchen and refilled her wine glass with a still-shaking hand. She took a celebratory sip while surveying the officers gathered on the patio.
How neatly they liked to divide themselves up at parties like this, she thought: men outside, wives inside. None of that would matter anymore. She’d disrupted their order. The entire wardroom would know that the power she wielded behind the scenes was as important—more important, even—than the type the officers brandished. And maybe Paxton will respect me for it, she thought. She watched him outside, deep in conversation with the homely girl.
Commander Farbish clapped his hands and waved for the guests lingering on the patio to enter the house. The group followed him in.
“Ah, Celia, Sara,” Commander Farbish said as he entered the kitchen. “We’re going to start our presentations to welcome the new officers in the foyer. Have you seen Ensign Bradford? She’s the only one we’re missing.”
“Who?” Celia asked. Then, with a stupid grin added, “We saw Ensign Mattingly come through a few minutes ago, though. She left in a huff. It was very rude, Bruce.”
“Nicola Mattingly? No, she’s still outside.”
“Celia’s right,” Sara added. “The new girl was just in the den. Honestly, to leave the party your Commanding Officer throws for you? Such audacity.”
“No, no. We have two new female officers onboard. That’s Nicola Mattingly,” Commander Farbish said. He pointed out the kitchen window to the homely girl. She and Paxton still remained outside and stood next to one another, their shoulders touching. The girl contorted her hideous face into a gummy smile. “I’m talking about Laura Bradford, the other Ensign. Bright girl.” He lowered his voice and, somewhat conspiratorially, said, “Senator Bradford is her mother, you know, so we’d better be good to her!”
Sara tensed and walked away from Bruce without responding. As she approached the window overlooking the back deck, she watched Paxton chat with the real Nicola. They stared into each other’s eyes in a way that made Sara shake uncontrollably.
“Congratulations on your victory,” Bethany said as she joined Sara at the window.
“Bethany,” Sara asked, her mouth and throat suddenly dry. “Exactly what did Demetri say the other night? Word for word, what did he say?”
“Demetri was saying that Grant was sleeping with the new girl.”
“And you’re sure he said Grant?” Sara asked. Since when do they refer to each other by their first names? Their husbands always referred to each other by their last names or job title or uncouth nicknames. “Are you really sure? There was no other noise in the background?”
“Oh, our house is always loud. But what else would I have heard? She’s the only new girl on the ship, right?”
Sara listened to Bethany without removing her gaze from Paxton and Nicola. She stopped breathing altogether once Paxton lifted his hand to Nicola’s face, and, with his forefinger and thumb, lightly pinched her shapeless chin.
Sara let the wine glass slip from her hand. The solid crystal goblet splintered into shards upon impact, drawing the attention of everyone at the party.
A smile slowly crept across Bethany’s face as she watched Sara, frozen in place, surveying the remnants of her glass. Not so perfect after all, she thought, then winced at the idea of Sara’s defeat. Sara lived the life they all wanted—what did that mean for the rest of them if it were so fragile?
Celia scurried in, a dish towel draped over her arm, seething over the loss of her crystal goblet. They take advantage of me, she thought. They ruin my floors, take over my party. I really need to stand up for myself. This possibility frightened her. Bruce’s career left her with so little of her own; the loss of the other wives’ favor would leave her with even less. All she managed to say as she proceeded toward the mess, was a gleeful, “Oopsie, lots of spills today!”
Monica merely looked away. She had followed Sara’s instructions with reflexive obeyance. To what end? How did I end up this way, she thought. Living a life so different from what I once wanted?
Paxton scowled when he entered the house and found Sara standing dumbly in the middle of the kitchen, unable to interpret the scene before him. Though the homely girl at his side, the real Nicola, recognized Sara’s look immediately. Her face flamed bright red and she slunk off unnoticed.
Sara Brant should have been mortified by such a faux pas; at the very least, she should have appeared contrite and offered to help Celia with the clean-up. Accidents only happen to the careless, Renee would say. But Sara didn’t care what Renee would say. Nor did she care about the other partygoers’ stares or how they would whisper about her in the days to come.
She could only think how unrecognizable the remnants of the glass seemed now, an object that felt so firm within her grasp a mere breath beforehand, scattered in a bouquet pattern upon the cold, hard floor.
