CHAPTER TWO.
FOR TWO HOURS Piper, in Willa's black dress and white Chuck-Taylors, sorted hors d'oeuvres on platters in one of the cabins next to a small kitchenette the size of a closet with a boy a couple of years older than her. His name was Arturo but everyone called him Art, and besides the fact that they went to school together for a number of years and they lived a few blocks away from each other on the Cut, Art always volunteered to work catering for Abernathy events. It was a known fact that the Abernathys paid and tipped the best. No matter the circumstance.
So Piper closed Willa's bedroom door softly when she left the two sisters and padded down the steps, less reluctant and aggrieved than she had been going up them. She found Harry in the large, expansive kitchen complete with a marble-topped island, two ovens, and a stove. Harry was certainly a sight, one that almost came out of a film. He looked, in a sense, like Tony Stark. Trimmed beard, pristine suit no matter the weather—it was like he was immune to sweat—, and that silent philanthropist-benefactor glow. Like he knew he was financially above everyone in a room, but morally, he wanted everyone to know he was sound. He had glasses perched on his nose bridge as he pointed around and spoke kindly to the people helping his wife throw this time-crunched yacht party together. Piper gathered it was for a leg up in the competition for Grand Knight of the Knights of the Rhododendron—this committee that, Piper guesses, has to do with the Midsummer's Party and the Island Club. Pope had to go to the party every year to help his father with the oysters, but it was never something Piper paid much attention to. She wasn't even sure if Harry did all of this for himself or because Inez liked the flutter and busyness of having something to organize.
"Hey, sir," Piper greeted as she fell into place next to Art who was holding a box of finger sandwich toothpicks with colored cellophane flags on them awaiting instruction.
"'Afternoon, Piper," Harry said distractedly, craning his neck to check the time on the microwave behind him. He turned back slowly, looking at Piper like Inez did outside, appraisingly, "Ya' look different, kid." Piper opened her mouth to reply, but he started rapid-fire instructing Piper and Art while handing Piper a clipboard, "Y'know, I have no idea what Inez wants or means by these abbreviations" —he pointed to the bullet points on the top paper clipped to the clipboard— "but you're smart kids, so I hope you figure it out. If you don't, I'll cover for you."
Piper said something of acknowledgment and held open the back door for Art and another worker from the caterers that was wheeling out something on a cart—probably booze. Piper had the most experience on the yacht itself, from days where Willa insisted on Piper attending family yacht rides—which is a ridiculous tradition to have, what's wrong with family game night? The Pogues do that—or days like these. When Piper is working a yacht party so she can pay her father's electrical bill or cook her brother and John B a meal with actual food. So, her understanding of the yacht's blueprints meant she was leading everyone back and forth through the house, down the dock, and around the inside of the yacht. Like a tour guide on a cruise.
Then, she spent two hours poking finger sandwiches with toothpicks and arranging them on platters. Harry always assigned her a job for these parties, but he never made her serve the guests. Piper was grateful—she wasn't cut out to be a waitress—, but she still didn't really understand why she had to be there in Willa's dress that was probably worth more than Piper spent on groceries in a week if she wasn't going to be serving old, sleazy men beer.
It was dark now, only solar-powered lights and lights shining through the Palace's windows lit up the dock and backyard; Piper had ventured out of the cabin with Art, where he and some of the other catering workers started packing up their truck to leave. Willa had appeared on the deck and was sitting at the very tip of the bow, her arms thrown over the railing, and her legs hanging off the edge of the yacht. Edith, however, was nowhere to be found and Inez was freaking out on the lawn. Like, cardiac arrest- level freaking out.
"Oh, dear," Inez said out of breath when Piper put a light hand on her shoulder to see if she could do anything to help. "You look lovely—Have you seen Edith?"
"Yes," Piper's eyebrows were furrowed in concern. She was honestly sympathetic now. "I spoke with her. Told her you'd love it if she came."
"Right, can you check on her?" Piper stared, wide-eyed at the request. Piper would probably send Edith running. "Maybe your antagonizing will be more effective than a mother's nagging."
"Uh... sure," Piper smiled tightly and went back inside the Palace. Since she was in it a few hours ago, the hubbub had died down and the cacophony had stilled to a quiet buzz of party attendees in their gingham and seersucker wafting around the parlor and living rooms like a breeze.
Piper walked back up the stairs, her hand gripping the railing unnecessarily tightly, her knuckles that were tanned from prolonged and repeated sun exposure turned white. Willa's bedroom door was swung wide open, but the lights were off, Matt Healy was no longer singing, and the clothes that were on the floor had been folded and sorted on the bed by item of clothing. There was music, however, from the next door down the hall. So Piper ended up in the same position she had been when the sun was still shining. Sidled up against a mahogany door frame, observing. Edith was laying on her stomach on her bed which was made. The fact that her bed was made infuriated Piper. Why, was a reason absolutely beyond her. Edith had, in fact, changed into a dress appropriate for a yacht party, but she was listening to Bon Iver. Many mixed signals. She's in a party dress, so one point for 'Going.' But she's listening to crying music, so one point for 'Not Going.'
Piper understood why Inez got so frazzled over Edith. Edith was exhausting. Piper knocked on the doorframe.
"Who is it?" Edith's voice was muffled from where she was drowning herself in her comforter.
"Not Justin Vernon," Piper replied, stepping forward, but before she allowed herself to actually enter the room, she drew her foot back. She'd never been in Edith's room before, and for good reason. Edith hated her, she hated Edith. It would probably end up a crime scene.
Edith heaved the most impressive groan Piper had ever heard and rolled over, glaring at her.
"Your mother is downstairs on the lawn having a heart attack because you're not down there flouncing in your party dress," Piper said. Edith grumbled something that sounded like an 'I can't wait to go to college.' Piper clapped her hands, "Well, that makes two of us, now, c'mon."
"Look," Edith took a deep breath, inhaling so sharply she fully channeled her mother, "can you just leave me alone?"
"Letting my employer have a heart attack is a bad look." Edith stared blankly at Piper in her doorway. She seemed to grow tenser the more she stabbed Piper with her mind. Usually, that worked inversely. Piper exhaled heavily, "You're already dressed, I don't see the issue."
"The issue is that Mom and Dad are having you attend the party."
Piper sorted that new piece of information in her mental file cabinet between 'Potential Blackmail,' and 'Interesting.' Piper wasn't sure how to proceed, "Sorry?"
Edith groaned. Again. "You know, if they had a son, they'd probably try to push you two together."
"If they had a hypothetical son?"
Edith nodded, and Piper tentatively stepped into the room. Edith didn't bite her head off immediately. It's good to know she's not a literal demon, Piper thought. "They like you a lot, and Willa adores you. Which infinitely sucks for me."
"Willa only tolerates me because I'm her bridge to Pope."
"No," Edith shook her head like she couldn't believe Piper didn't think about herself as likable. Weird. "And not 'cause you've helped her get her practice scores up either."
"Okay, so why don't you like me then? If I'm so great."
"Not enough time or alcohol in the world to unpack that," Edith stood up promptly. Anything to get out of this conversation, even a yacht party.
Piper dropped it. Thankfully.
She imitated Inez instead, "Ready for midnight, under the stars, then?" Edith playfully drove her shoulder into Piper's when she passed Piper to slide into her flats that were laid out by the door. "Oh, my God, princess!"
"What?"
"That was the friendliest you've ever been to me!" Piper squealed sarcastically, pitching her voice up higher than normal.
Edith wanted to personally pluck the antagonizing sparkles out of Piper's eyes. "Shut up."
They walked down the steps of the Palace together silently, a foot of space between them. They resumed their normal behavior. Undisguised acute annoyance. It was familiar. Therefore, it was good.
The Palace was one of those olden mansions with sweeping, sculpted verandas on the outside. But, on the inside, the ceilings mimicked the petticoats worn by women when the mansion was built—swooping and dome-like, with enough chandeliers they could be confused for coat racks.
The chandelier in the foyer, as Edith and Piper stiffly walked down the steps, caught on the glimmering paisley patterns on Edith's dress. Piper noticed. She wanted to die. Edith, in glancing around to keep her eyes occupied from trailing back to Piper, ended up looking at Piper anyway, and noticed Piper had noticed her. She wanted to die. They were oblivious to each other's emotions, as most people often are, but they were on the same page.
Once the two of them were out on the lawn, Edith let her mother hug her tightly which would've been fine for the most part if Inez hadn't, in her glee, of course, pulled Piper by the elbow into the hug as well. Edith and Piper stood there, trapped in Inez's thin, wiry arms, their cheeks scrunched against each other, their knees knocking. Piper was decently uncomfortable and a bit peeved, but she didn't think Edith was even breathing. Piper didn't think she was that bad, that close proximity to her required breath holding. Whatever.
Inez let them go, but clung to her eldest daughter, her arms wrapped around Edith's elbow as the three of them walked down the wooden dock behind the Palace. In all fairness, the dock was rather long because the water was shallow for quite a ways out, but Piper felt like the walk was infinitely longer than normal.
On the yacht, all the gingham and seersucker wearers had gathered around tables on the deck which Art had probably set up and had tiered trays of macarons and the finger sandwich platters Piper arranged with him sitting on them.
Piper appreciated Inez and Harry wanting her to attend the party like she was family—or something—but she didn't want to converse with Tom and Daisy Buchanans all night. (When, let's be honest, she was Nick—she wasn't even Nick, she was Myrtle, but without the whole cheating on her husband thing. Piper didn't want to get run over by a jealous wife—or, rather, husband in her case.) And she didn't want to shadow Willa who was chatting animatedly with two prep school chihuahua-looking girls with sperm-shaped eyebrows and pinched noses. She didn't want to trail Inez and Harry around like a lost dog, and she certainly didn't want to spend the night with Edith. That would be, like, Piper's personal Hell. And not even like First Circle stuff. It'd be Fifth or Seventh Circle, easy. So, Piper sat at the very tip of the bow, her arms slung over the railing and her knees bent at the edge, how Willa was sitting earlier.
The chatter of people and the lights were behind her, and when Harry, captain of the excessively fancy yacht, steered the party away from the dock and towards the Pacific, the waves and ocean spray were Piper's company.
Piper, as it turned out, was not a yacht party person. She did keggers on beaches and house parties in deserted fishing shacks along the marsh, but yacht parties weren't her thing. She twiddled her thumbs as she sat at the bow of the boat, sometimes she laid down and watched the stars, looked across the water for landmarks she could scope out in the dark, she even texted JJ and John B to make sure they had eaten, like, actual food for dinner and didn't just have beer drinking contest. (They did, they just didn't tell her.)
Halfway through the most dull party Piper had ever attended, she stood up, tucked a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear, and maneuvered through rich people. People who, if she were wearing the shorts and shirt she left in Willa and Edith's bathroom, would make a snide comment about her father or ask if she was lost. Lost on this big, luxurious yacht. People with sticks so far up their asses they—
Whatever. Piper didn't care.
She found the cabin tucked in the very back, past the bathroom, and shut the door. There was a small cot-like bed, made with hospital corners, in the room and that was it. The bed took up the whole space except for a strip of carpeted floor from the door to the bed, which Piper walked down and flopped on the bed. She knew money wasn't, like, everything, but for her it kind of had to be, so she laid there, wondering if Harry and Inez would pay her for being there.
She wasn't sure how long she had been staring blankly at the white wall of the room, curled on her side, her back to the door, when it creaked open just an inch. Someone was poised there, either having the same idea as Piper, or looking for the most soundproof room to have sex in.
"Piper?" a voice, slick from alcohol, whispered.
Piper knew who it was, but she lifted herself up by her elbows and twisted around so she could look Edith in the eye.
Edith inched inside. "What'cha doin'?"
Tipsy Edith is so weird. Like, sober, Edith's all wannabe mysterious with her LaCroix and zoodles and phrases with hidden meanings, but Tipsy Edith forgets what it means to be someone's official archnemesis. Unless she was planning to sneak into this cabin and kill Piper now that her guard's down, she's acting less like an enemy and more like a—a friend?
"Sleeping," Piper said flatly. She hadn't been sleeping, but maybe it would make Edith leave.
It didn't. Edith stepped over to the bed and muttered, "Scooch," before sitting on the bed next to Piper. It was a small bed. With both of them on their backs and touching opposite edges of the bed, their elbows touched if they didn't cross them. "Tired from all that petty crime you committed today?"
"I recall you saying you were the civil one."
Edith turned her head on the pillow to look at Piper. She didn't deny committing petty crime. "Did you engage in petty crime today?"
Piper shrugged, "Maybe."
"What did you do?"
"Trespassed?" Piper said, glancing at Edith who was looking at her intensely with an emotion she couldn't parse. It wasn't the usual loathing or indifference.
"What? Why?"
The corners of Piper's lips quirked up into a smirk, "'Cause it's fun. You gotta live a little, princess. Have you ever even been on the Cut?"
Edith's eyebrows furrowed like an indignant child. It was endearing. "So what if I haven't?"
Piper turned onto her side, one arm tucked under her head, the other wrapped around her waist protectively. Her eyes were wide. Edith hadn't been on the Cut. Ever. "Half of it is literally going to be signed away to you in your father's will."
Edith crossed her arms over her chest, stubbornly. "I'll go then."
Piper's eyes averted to where Edith's phone was hanging from her loose grip, one corner of it nearly touching the mattress. "Give me your phone."
"Why?"
"Just—hand it—thank you," Piper had to wrestle it free from Edith only to have to hold it out for Edith to open it for her. She opened Edith's contacts and rapidly typed in a phone number. She dropped the phone back on the mattress between them. "Facetime me if you're ever on my side of the island. I want proof."
Edith typed something out, deleted it, typed something else out, and hit send. There was a small table on Edith's side of the bed at the end of the strip of floor, and on it, Piper's phone buzzed. Edith grabbed it and gave it to Piper who opened her messages.
Maybe: edith: hiiiiii this is edith
Lots of 'i's. Too many 'i's. How much did Edith have to drink under her parents' nose? Piper wasn't against alcohol at all, she drank recreationally with her friends, but Piper knew what it looked like to drink to forget or to numb, and sometimes she thought Edith fit the description. Not that she was, like, concerned for Edith in a friendly way.
Nonetheless, Piper smiled devilishly and added Edith's contact, changed her name, and replied to Edith's text.
piper maybank 🖕: no booty calls, princess
hrh bourgeoisie princess: hilarious
piper maybank 🖕: i thought so
The two of them paused. They were silent for a beat of time. Piper turned onto her back again, and Edith resumed her cyclical glancing at Piper. At Piper's nose bridge and her eyelashes and her jawline and her hair that was like this ironic golden halo around the head of the most devilish person Edith knew.
But, then, just as Edith started to grow confident in her stolen looks, Piper turned her head and abruptly said, "Willa would probably join me for some petty crime."
Edith rolled her eyes, "Only because Pope joins you for petty crime."
"I know she's your sister and everything, but Pope and Willa are on two different wavelengths, y'know?"
"I mean, she certainly likes him, but yeah. I kinda understand how she feels, though." Edith smiled, a small, rueful thing, and she hoped Piper didn't notice. "You should bring her along to a party or something."
Piper nodded, "I want to, actually. She's, like, fallen in love with the Pope she thinks she knows, and if I help her get to know the real Pope, and she falls in love with him again—well, Pope deserves to be loved two times over. Everyone does."
"Wow."
"What?"
"You're not, like, a complete shithead. Just a partial one."
Piper rolled her eyes, and in trying to bite down a laugh, she turned her head to the other side, so she was looking at the wall again. If she kept looking at Edith's face, their faces inches apart, she wouldn't be able to control her laughter, and letting your archnemesis know you think she's funny is not a good idea.
Edith didn't really bother trying to steal looks after that. The silence they were accustomed to when they weren't trying to verbally bite each other's heads off was impenetrable and, oddly enough, comfortable. Piper also kind of fell asleep in the silence after a while. Petty crime must really be exhausting.
━━━━━━━
EVENTUALLY, EDITH FELL asleep, too. Which would have been fine, had Edith not been, like, the most rambunctious sleeper Piper had ever met and she used to share a bed with JJ, she still shares a bed with JJ every now and again. (Thunderstorms are rough, okay?) But, God, was Edith absolutely impressible. Piper woke up in the middle of the night twice—too delirious to process a number of things, but mostly why she was sleeping on a yacht, why Edith was there, and why Edith looked less infuriating when she was asleep—to Edith kicking her legs, and once at six in the morning, not that she knew it was six, because there was a deadweight slung over her waist. Normally when Piper ended up sleeping next to JJ because of nightmares or thunderstorms or whatever, really, she woke up with him—and sometimes John B—in a dog pile on top of her, but this was like a singular thing, a singular, warm weight carelessly wrapped around her.
She rubbed her hands across her face and pushed her hair out of her eyes. It was Edith's arm. Edith was cuddling Piper like a koala. Jesus Christ. The door of the cabin was open, so someone—either Inez or Harry, probably—had looked for Edith and Piper when they docked at the Palace well past midnight. Piper wanted to get up, crawl over Edith, run up to the house, change into her clothes, and leave. But she didn't really want to deal with the possibility of Edith waking up while she was making her escape and having to deal with that conversation.
Everyone except the adults around pretty much knew Piper was queer, and while Willa and Edith had never been weird about it, she really didn't want to broach a possible sexuality-charged conversation about whatever this circumstance was so early in the morning. So, Piper settled for waiting until Edith hopefully rolled over the other way and released Piper. During which, she found her phone which was halfway underneath a limb, so she pulled it out like a Jenga piece and messed with it until its battery ran out completely.
Edith never fully rolled over, but she did loosen her grip around Piper eventually, so Piper took the first escape route she could and stepped over Edith lightly so she wouldn't wake her, and left.
✧.*ೃ༄ [ 𝘅. author note ]
the one bed trope is something
that can be so personal