After We Fall(7)

 

A second later, I hurled the first scone, which missed its target—his smug face—and hit him in the chest.

 

Startled, he looked up just about the time the second scone pinged off the chandelier and landed at his feet. “What the hell?”

 

People started looking around, some getting out of the way. Good thing, because the third scone knocked a vase off the table, and it crashed to the floor at Tripp’s feet.

 

He finally made eye contact with me. “Margot, what the hell are you doing?”

 

I wound up and launched another. “Three years!” I exploded as it beaned him on the forehead. Finally! I tried again, but that one curved toward Amber, who ducked out of the way. “Three years I put up with your boring golf stories and your pants with the little whales on them and your tiny clueless dick!”

 

A titter went through the crowd. Tripp was stunned motionless, and I took the opportunity to pelt his chest with another scone.

 

“Ouch!” he said, which I found hilarious. “Stop throwing things! And my dick isn’t tiny! Or clueless!”

 

“Yes, it is!” I flung another one at him, but he was moving now, so I missed him completely and it bounced off the wall. “You don’t know the first thing about a woman’s orgasm! I used to have to get myself off after you took me home, asshole!”

 

I heard muffled laughter as I threw the next scone, which tipped over a skinny pillar candle that, unfortunately, happened to be lit. It burned a hole in the white tablecloth before someone nearby blew it out.

 

“Margot, have you lost your fucking mind?” Tripp yelled from across the table, hands in front of his face like I was throwing grenades, not scones.

 

“Maybe,” I seethed, reaching for another one but feeling nothing but an empty tray. “Maybe I have, because I was going to tell you tonight that I’d decided to think about your shitty proposal.”

 

Tripp’s face went white.

 

“What proposal?” Amber asked, looking from him to me.

 

I opened my mouth. Watched him squirm. It felt fantastic.

 

“Margot, please. Don’t do this.” His eyes begged me for mercy. “You’ll embarrass us both. Let’s talk in private. I have a good reason for everything.”

 

I had no desire to talk to him in private ever again, and I already knew about his fucked-up “good reason”. But he was right—if I told the truth about last night, I’d be embarrassed too. I’d just announced that I’d come here willing to consider his proposal, which had been a sham anyway.

 

Glancing down, I spied the cherry pie, slipped my palm beneath it, and briefly considered one final, humiliating heave. Someone in the crowd gasped.

 

But I looked at Tripp again and felt a surge of power, which prompted a return of my self-control. My dignity. My manners.

 

I was Margot fucking Thurber Lewiston, and I had class. No one could take that away from me.

 

Gathering my tipsy wits, I assumed a cool expression and stood tall. “Actually, I never want to talk to you again. Enjoy your evening, everyone. Lewiston for Senate.”

 

As I walked out, I heard him say. “Jesus. Crazy bitch.”

 

I know what you’re thinking.

 

I should have fucking thrown the pie.

 

 

 

 

 

Three

 

 

 

 

 

Jack

 

 

 

I couldn’t sleep.

 

Not like it was a surprise. I didn’t sleep well in general, but August was always the worst. I was lucky to get a couple hours a night.

 

“It’s the heat,” my sister-in-law Georgia had said last week. “Why don’t you come sleep at our place for a few nights?”

 

“Better yet, put air conditioning in that old cabin,” my younger brother Pete had put in. “Wouldn’t cost much to get a window unit.”

 

It wasn’t the heat.

 

“Maybe it’s the light,” Georgia had said last year. “Maybe if you tried going to sleep with the light off, you’d relax more.”

 

But I needed the light. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t even breathe until the sun came up.

 

I tried not to get mad when my family members told me what to do or tried to solve my problems with simple solutions when the real issue was something so complicated, they’d never understand. But I wasn’t always good at thinking before speaking or controlling my temper.

 

Just yesterday I’d let loose on Pete for sneaking up on me from behind while I was repairing a fence along the property line in the woods. In hindsight, throwing him to the ground while screaming at him for being a “cocksucking motherfucking asshole with shit for brains” was probably a little out of line, but damn it—he knows better than to tap me on the shoulder when I don’t know he’s there. The whole reason I don’t listen to music while I work is so that I can stay aware of my surroundings. I don’t like to be taken by surprise.