A twinge of hurt mingled with the terror that made her heart beat painfully hard. Thoughts of Lee would only make everything worse. She forced the name to the back of her overcrowded mind.
She had insisted on coming to this year’s reunion despite her surgeon’s protests, not only because she wanted to please her family, but because she thought she might find tranquility in this place.
But she couldn’t calm down. Nothing could soothe her unreasoning panic. That’s what her doctors had called this “unfortunate side effect.” Panic attacks. Quite understandable in the circumstances, they informed her. The episodes would fade eventually, they assured her.
But it had been a year now, and they hadn’t faded. She hadn’t had an attack in weeks, had dared hope she might finally be past them—but the fear that had become her shadow that violent night last December seemed to follow her everywhere. Even here.
Celine kept a carefree smile pasted in place as she glanced down at her watch, at the tiny gold hands moving inexorably along diamond-flecked numerals. Eleven-fifteen. In forty-five minutes it would be midnight. Thank God. She would clink a few glasses, kiss a few relatives, find Uncle Edouard and Aunt Patrice, make her apologies. Make her escape.
Calm down, calm down, calm down.
Her doctors had prescribed tranquilizers, but she refused to take them. She didn’t want to trade one problem for another. Didn’t want to become one of those desperate, high-strung, Valium-popping society women she met too often.
She had always hated pills, and seven weeks in the hospital had left her with a strong distaste for anything medical: sedatives, needles, nurses, IVs, EKGs, and the most dreaded initials of all, PT. Physical Therapy.
She lifted the champagne flute to her lips, took a sip, and tried to swallow past the knot of terror in her throat. She had to make it through this. Slowly, forcefully, she returned her attention to the conversation around her.
The room hummed with French, Italian, upper-class British, and the American accent of her father’s branch of the family. The popular topic among her intellectual relatives seemed to be some astronomical event that was supposed to happen tonight. A lunar eclipse or something. But, seated beside her, two of her cousins were nattering in low tones about their latest romantic liaisons on the Côte d’Azur.
Celine felt grateful that everyone was acting absolutely normal toward her. She had even dressed carefully tonight, choosing a low-cut, form-fitting black Donna Karan dress that practically screamed I am perfectly fine. She wanted everyone to believe that. She wanted to believe that.
She had promised herself she would tell her family the truth before they all flew home.
To top off the dress, she had chosen a favorite hat from her collection: a sixties pillbox in a particularly florid shade of pink, accented with a pair of antique brooches. She wore her blunt-cut red hair in a tight chignon, purposely revealing flawless makeup and her most cheerful smile. No one should be able to tell that anything was wrong.
Celine glanced at her watch again. Forty-three minutes until she could escape to her room.
Aunt Patrice and Uncle Edouard had laid out a lavish New Year’s Eve buffet on lace-draped tables. Party guests chatted between nibbles of escargots bathed in butter and garlic, savory bricelet crackers topped with caviar—beluga, of course—and tiny sea-urchin soufflés d’oursins served in the shells. Celine hadn’t eaten a bite.
Forty-two minutes.
Brilliant light from chandeliers and candelabra glowed along the dark Renaissance paneling. The festive room overflowed with thousands of tiny white rosebuds fashioned into swags and arches. Aunt Patrice had placed the decorations with typical Fontaine humor: one wreath hung over the marble fireplace, on the portrait of a dour ancestor who had been guillotined during the French Revolution. He did not look amused by his new hat of flowers.
Forty-one minutes.
“Marie, Dominique, I’m sorry,” Celine said suddenly, sitting forward and interrupting one cousin’s description of her polo-loving playboy. “I’m absolutely starved. Got to get something to eat. Please excuse me.” She set her glass on the low table beside her. The slender crystal clattered and wobbled dangerously between a nineteenth-century urn and a bronze statuette.
Celine pretended not to notice. She stood up. She had to move. The heart-pounding urge to run was overpowering. With a few quickly muttered pardonez-mois, she made her way through the crush of guests toward the buffet table.
She could feel concerned glances turning her way as she picked up a plate and tried desperately to keep from shaking.
She knew what everyone was thinking. That she was young. Rich. Pretty. That she had her whole life ahead of her. That it was time for her to put last year’s “unfortunate incident” behind her and get on with her future.