Promises We Meant To Keep (A Lancaster Prep Novel)

PRESENT DAY

I didn’t mean to get drunk before my brother’s wedding. Not really.

But when my new best friend Clifford Von Worth showed up at my Park Avenue apartment with a very large bottle of Clix vodka clutched in his hand, I knew immediately I was in trouble. Cliff held up the bottle as he entered the apartment, and I squinted at the label, my lips forming a shocked little O.

“Does that say clit vodka?” I ask.

Cliff chuckles, shutting the door behind him. “Please, Sylvie. As if I would purchase clit vodka. I don’t even know what to do with one.”

Cliff lives in the same building I moved into with my husband after we were first married. We became immediate best friends, especially with Earl always away, traveling for business. Oh, my husband wanted me to accompany him so he could show off his perfect little wife who’s barely in her twenties. Arm candy personified, right? But I feigned illness—so easy, a role I was used to since I’ve been truly sick for years—and he allowed me to stay home.

With my sweet friend Cliff.

“Tell me the truth, Cliffy. You’ve never touched a woman’s clit? Ever?” I ask as he follows me over to the bar that sits in the corner of the massive living room.

“I’ve never touched any woman in a sexual manner.” I turn to face him once I’m behind the bar, just in time to see him mock shiver at the mere idea.

“You act as if it would be the most disgusting thing ever.” I grab a couple of shot glasses while Cliff opens the bottle, then pours a drink for each of us.

“It would be. Vaginas are so messy.” He holds up his shot glass, clinking it against mine before we both tip our heads back and finish it in one swallow. “Women aren’t my thing. You know this.”

“Penises are messy too. They drip everywhere. Shoot off at the most unexpected times.” I lick the vodka from my lips and pour myself another glass. This is why I like spending so much time with Cliff. He’s safe. He has zero expectations beyond friendship, and he doesn’t want to be with a woman, so no sexual advances occur. Plus, we’re never in competition with each other for anything. “I just figured you might’ve…I don’t know…fingered a girl in high school during a heavy make-out session?”

The grimace on his face is almost comical. “Disgusting. I would never.”

Laughing, I pour another shot for myself, ignoring the concerned look on Cliff’s face when I tip my head back, the liquor smooth going down. “You know, you would really love my friend Monty.”

“Monty who?” Cliff sets his glass down with a loud thunk, his eyes going wide. “Wait. Are you referring to Montgomery Michaels?”

Nodding, I take his glass and fill it yet again. “He’s a dear family friend. And he’ll be at the wedding.”

“Oh my God, are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Oh, he’s stunning.” Cliff shakes his head when I offer him his full shot glass. “I can’t get drunk now. I need to keep my wits about me when I meet Monty for the first time.”

I polish off his shot instead, smacking my lips together. “I’ll introduce you to him.”

“You’d better.” He snatches the glass from my fingers. “Sylvie. Dearest. Please don’t drink too much. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself at your brother’s wedding now, do you?”

“I don’t really care. Everyone will expect me to act the fool anyway.” I grab my own glass and refill it, drinking it before he can stop me. “Besides, will anyone be paying attention to me? Doubtful. After all, it is Whit and Summer’s day. Everyone will be staring at the two of them. They’re so beautiful together.”

I stop talking, hating how I sound like a jealous shrew, which I suppose I am. And I have reason to be too.

Why does Whit get to marry the love of his life, while I had to marry the old man? I didn’t even get to have a big wedding—Earl and I went to the courthouse and got married. A quick marriage ceremony for a bogus couple, I suppose.

Not that I wanted to have a big wedding with Earl. Talk about a wasted opportunity.

“How are you and Summer doing anyway?” Cliff’s tone is somber. He knows everything about my past with Summer.

Well, mostly.

“We’re okay.” I shrug a shoulder and laugh, though it sounds hollow.

When it comes to my friendship with Summer, I still feel that way.

Hollow.

Will she ever be real with me again? We’ve healed our relationship somewhat after I betrayed her so long ago. When I was young and stupid and so heavily influenced by my mother. Full of insecurities and distrust.

I’m still that way, minus the heavily-influenced by my mother part.

Thank God.

“If you say so.” The look on Cliff’s face says otherwise. “And trust that everyone in attendance today will be paying attention to you at some point. It’s your first public appearance after what happened, correct?”

“In an official capacity, yes.” I don’t really go out. Not anymore. I’m a little hermit, holed up in my fancy apartment, all by myself. I prefer it that way.

Going out, partying…leads to temptation. To things I shouldn’t touch. Shouldn’t do.

“Is that what you plan on wearing to the wedding?” Cliff’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.

I glance down at my severely cut jet-black dress that I found in my grandmother Lancaster’s archives. Yes, my family archives clothes like they’re museum pieces, but with our kind of money, it’s a smart move. Most of the clothing we purchase goes on to become iconic. Historic even. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s black.”

“I’m in mourning.”

“Darling, you can’t wear black to an afternoon wedding.”

“Says who?”

Cliff ignores my question. “Definitely not a spring wedding. You’ll look like a dark, little, dreary cloud.”

“Everyone else will look like an Easter egg. I’m the only one who’ll arrive with an ounce of sophistication beyond the bride.” I drink more vodka, the alcohol buzzing through my veins pleasantly, making me feel warm. Loose. Languid. Like I could collapse on the floor and fall asleep at any moment. Cliff doesn’t stop me from drinking either, though I see the judgment in his golden-brown gaze.

It’s best that I ignore it.

“Hasn’t it been long enough? Your mourning period?” The concern in my friend’s gaze, in his voice, makes me pause.

A sigh leaves me and I rest my hands on top of the bar, curling my fingers around the edges of the marble countertop. “It will never be long enough.”

“Mourning a man you didn’t even love is pointless—”

“To you,” I interrupt. “But to me, I must continue mourning him because I didn’t love him, Cliff. I let him die. He deserves at least that bit of respect from me.”

He doesn’t acknowledge my let him die comment because Cliff doesn’t believe it. More like he doesn’t listen to me because if he did, for once, he’d realize that I’m telling the truth.

It’s my fault Earl is dead. And he deserves more than my meager respect, but I am only one woman, and can only do so much.

“You can’t wear black to your brother’s wedding.” Cliff says this with such finality, I’m momentarily taken aback.

And somewhat ready to agree with him.

“I still don’t understand why you aren’t a part of the wedding. He’s your brother, and you’re just a guest. At your family’s estate.” Cliff shakes his head. “It makes no sense.”

“It makes sense to me,” I say, my voice small. I didn’t want to play even a small part in Whit and Summer’s wedding because first of all, I don’t really deserve to and second, I don’t want to risk being forced to spend time with my mother. I expressed my feelings to my brother, and while he was upset that I didn’t want to participate, he also understood my reasons.

She’ll be there. The potential to run into her is unavoidable. I will do my best to ignore her and hope any interactions with her are quick and painless. People may talk about my lacking presence, but I don’t care. I’m in self-preservation mode.

“Come on.” He takes my hand and leads me away from the bar, from my beloved new friend, Clit Vodka. I trail after him as he drags me to the bedroom, the room that used to belong to Earl but is now mine.

It’s dark inside, the blackout curtains drawn tight. Cliff lets go of my hand and marches over to the window, hitting a button so the shades pull back automatically, slowly and steadily revealing the sunshiny day. The cityscape laid out before us. The tall buildings, their windows glittering in the sun.

I throw up a hand, blocking my eyes and hissing. “Too bright.”

“God, you’re such a fucking vampire,” he says drolly as he heads for the walk-in closet. I kept all of Earl’s bedroom furniture, and the room still smells like him, which makes me think I need to get rid of it.

I need no reminders of my dead husband. I should probably sell this apartment, but where would I go? I don’t want to move in with my father. I can’t move in with my mother.

For now, this apartment will have to do.

The minute Earl was laid to rest, I hired someone to completely revamp the closet, donating all of his clothes to charity before I moved in my own extensive collection.

Oh, his children were pissed at me. I didn’t even give them a chance to go through everything, but they wouldn’t want it anyway. And what if they found something? A little clue tucked away in Earl’s trousers or jacket.

I couldn’t risk it.

Besides, his children just wanted to be angry with me, and I get why. I’m an easy target. The brand-new, much younger wife. Their mother is dead, and to them, I’m a pariah. Younger than all of them, which I’m sure disgusted them.

Whatever. The only thing they couldn’t get me on was going after Earl’s money. I paid them fair market value for the apartment. I let them fight over the money in his bank accounts, even though it was split evenly among the four of them, according to Earl’s will. He may have married me, but he didn’t add me to his will, so I had no real say in anything.

I didn’t mind. I still don’t.

“What are you doing?” I wander into the closet, my steps weaving. I slap my hand against the wall to brace myself. “Oh God, you’re picking out something for me to wear, aren’t you?”

“I have to, considering you’d rather show up in a dress that looks like something your granny would’ve worn in the fifties.” The look of contempt on Cliff’s face cannot be denied. “As if Christian Dior himself designed it in 1952.”

I glance down at the Dior dress I’m wearing before my gaze finds his. “How did you know?”

“I am a fashion expert, darling. How dare you doubt me.” He begins to flick through each garment hanging in my closet, dismissing them with a murmured insult. Too pink. Too exposed. Too much. Too little.

I say nothing, like I usually do. Instead, I rub at the front of my dress, along the placket of buttons that run down the center of the bodice. “My grandmother did so happen to wear this dress.”

“Knew it.” His voice is smug. “Was she as tiny as you?”

“Tinier. I don’t think rich women in the fifties even ate.” I tap at the belt around my waist.

“Too many barbiturates to take to keep you looking and feeling your best. God, I wish I would’ve lived during that time. I would’ve been a skinny queen who didn’t eat a damn thing, spending every night with Andy Warhol at the Factory.” The dreamy tone of Cliff’s voice makes me laugh.

“That’s more like the sixties,” I remind him.

“Whatever.” He pulls a hanger out, revealing a soft blue dress that’s one shouldered with the occasional ruffle here and there. “Oooh, where did you get this?”

“At a tiny shop in the Hamptons a lifetime ago.” I approach him, plucking the hanger from his fingers. “I bought it when Earl was still alive and we were out at his house for the summer, but I never got a chance to wear it.”

Cliff glanced down at the dress, his frown apparent. “Hmmm.”

“You don’t like it?” I question.

“It’s not that I don’t like it.” He puts the dress away and keeps looking before I can say anything in protest. “More that we need no memories of Earl tainting the day.”

If he only knew. I don’t actually mourn Earl, not really. More, I mourn the girl I was before him. Before I married a man I didn’t love and lost the only one I actually care about.

Life is full of stupid choices and then you die. Someone said that to me when I had that brief stint at the mental facility a while ago. The one where my mother thought it would completely change me and solve all of my problems. I tried to fix myself.

I did.

Didn’t take though. I’m still the same fucked-up Sylvie I’ve been for what feels like my entire life.

“He won’t taint the day,” I murmur. “He was never much a part of my life with my family. I think Whit met him once, and that was reluctantly, on my brother’s part.”

“Why only once? And why reluctantly?”

Because the marriage was fake. Because Whit knew that and had no desire to spend time with my husband, who’s our father’s age. Because everything in my life the last few years has been one giant performance, not an ounce of it real.

He knew what our mother did, and told her to her face he didn’t approve, but she did it anyway. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

Certainly not me. Especially not me.

“Whit was too wrapped up in Summer,” is my answer, and close enough to the truth. “At the time I was getting engaged to Earl, Whit was in hot pursuit of Summer in Paris.”

“Really.” Cliff’s voice is flat, the expression on his face, doubtful. He doesn’t believe me.

I never said Cliff wasn’t smart. I like surrounding myself with intelligent people. Then I feel smart too. But when they’re too smart?

They become…dangerous.

“Find me a dress.” I wave a hand at the racks of clothing, desperate to distract him. “Something beautiful and appropriate for a big wedding on a beautiful spring day.”

“Something not so black?” His question is pointed as he resumes his search.

Surely I have something in my closet to wear to my brother’s wedding. As a matter of fact, I know I do.

“Help me get out of this.” I approach Cliff, turning my back to him so he can undo the zipper. He unzips it, giving me the freedom to shrug out of the well-constructed garment, and I shed it like a skin. I grab an empty hanger and slip it back on, smoothing out the skirt before I hang it on the door of my closet.

“It’s a beautiful dress,” Cliff says off-handedly.

“For a funeral,” I add drolly.

Our gazes meet, just before we crack up.