She planned the evening right down to where everyone would sit, marking everyone’s spot with a small teepee of scrap paper, their names carefully printed in tiny capital letters. Naturally, Jeffrey got the head of the table, but to Avis’s surprise, Lily assigned her to the other end. Avis would have liked to sit next to Jeff during such a special occasion, but she couldn’t deny her spot was fit for a queen—a queen who sat across from her king. The rest of the court was sanctioned to fill up the left and right sides of the table.
She was too nervous to eat, pushing food around her plate while smiling at Kenzie’s jokes. She listened as Sunnie and Robin discussed the vegetable garden, and watched Jeffrey from the opposite end of the table as he swirled wine in his glass.
The boys ate. The girls waited.
The boys finished. The girls began their meals.
Before dessert but after Sunnie and Robin had cleared the plates and silverware, Lily rose from her seat and held up her glass. Avis’s heart sputtered to a stop when Lily gave her a thoughtful smile.
“I know you’re all curious about the occasion,” she said. “But once I reveal it, you’ll all come to realize that the fanfare was more than necessary. An expectation for an expectation. A grand event for a grand prediction.”
Someone pulled in a sharp intake of air, as if catching on to Lily’s clues. Avis didn’t see who it was, too busy studying the knot of pine through the lace where her plate had once been. She hadn’t understood what Lily had been talking about the night before, and she still didn’t get what any of it meant. All she knew was that this was important, fulfilling some sort of prophecy. She was the bringer of a kind of divination that had yet to be explained. And again she was left to wonder: why hadn’t she been told of this all-important prediction before? Still on the outside, she thought. Looking in on your own party. Still Audra, no matter what they call you.
“Avis?”
Her gaze snapped up to meet Lily’s. The entire table was staring at her with bated breath. Jeffrey looked smug on his end of the room, like a guy who knew the punch line before the end of the joke. Their eyes met, and he gave her a knowing look, then leaned back in his seat and relaxed while everyone else waited for her to speak.
“Yes?” The word was parched, hardly audible. Her eyes darted back to Lily’s expectant face.
“Would you like to . . .”
Sunnie lifted her hands to her mouth, holding back a gasp. Clover and Gypsy exchanged a secret look and grinned simultaneously. Unsure as to why she would notice such a small detail at that very moment, Avis couldn’t look away from the empty spot at the hollow of Gypsy’s throat. For the first time, Gypsy wasn’t wearing her ornate cross. When she finally managed to pull her gaze away, she noticed Noah staring at her with his alien eyes, wide and disbelieving. Kenzie, however, looked confused. Leave it to Kenzie to not understand what was happening while the rest of the group was clearly in the know.
It was Deacon who spurred her into speaking. Sitting to Avis’s immediate right, he reached beneath the table and placed his hand on her knee in reassurance.
Go on, it said. Have faith.
Avis licked her lips, cleared her throat, and squared her shoulders.
“I’m pregnant,” she told them.
The room buzzed.
All heads turned from Avis to Jeff, as if waiting for him to say something in turn. But rather than speaking, he rose a single shoulder up in an easy shrug and lifted his wineglass as if to say I told you so. It was such a casual motion, so heartbreakingly gorgeous paired with his crooked half grin. He brought the glass to his lips and took a sip, and as though that drink had sealed some unspoken promise, the table erupted into jubilant cheers.
Sunnie and Robin rushed to Avis’s side with hugs and kisses, eager hands pressing against her stomach. But why isn’t anyone else pregnant? The question continued to spiral through her head. The boys moved toward Jeff, who was quick to receive manly hugs and handshakes. Why am I the only one? Clover and Gypsy murmured to each other, but their smiles were steadfast. Nobody made mention of the fact that Avis had slept with every man seated at that table, just as all the other girls had. There was an unspoken understanding: Jeffrey was the father. For some reason, there was no doubt about that in anyone’s mind.
“It’s a miracle.” She heard Robin say it to one of the other girls.
“I always knew she was the one,” Sunnie said.
“It’s perfect,” Lily chimed in.
“Bring life,” Robin whispered.
“Bring life.” The other two joined in. “Bring life, bring life, bring life.”
Avis remained in her seat, afraid to ask them about their quiet chant. She stayed where she was, feeling more unsure than ever before.
After dessert, she retired to the girls’ room while the others stayed downstairs. Because of his waning interest, the last thing she expected was for Jeff to join her. It seemed to her that over the past month, Jeff was far more interested in keeping Maggie and Eloise company than wasting his time on her. And so she was surprised to see him slip into the room and lean against the doorjamb with a sly sort of smile. He said nothing, so Avis broke the ice with a quiet confession.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know,” he said. “Just have faith. Love will be our salvation.”
She frowned, looked away. She could feel his expression fall.
“You’ve been unhappy lately,” he concluded. “Tell me why.”
Avis chewed her lip, tugged at her fingers, considered keeping her silence if only to keep the peace. Tell you why? Are you really that blind? She didn’t want to upset him, but it was the first time she felt as though she actually had some power. Having sat at the head of the table for a reason, she was the source of that evening’s joy. Perhaps now was the time to demand a few answers.
“Why wasn’t Maggie here tonight?” she asked, daring to glance up at him from behind stringy strands of hair.
“Is that what’s been bothering you?”
“You two look like lovers when Eloise is between you.”
Jeffrey leveled his gaze on her, then pushed away from the door to meet her next to the bed. The backs of Avis’s calves bumped the mattress as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “She isn’t one of us. I promise you that.”
“Then what is she to you?” Avis had no way of proving it, had no reason to suspect, but every bit of her intuition told her that Jeff and Maggie had slept together, just as Jeff had slept with all the other girls. And that would absolutely have initiated Maggie into their circle.
But you don’t know that, the voice whispered inside her head. You’re just jealous, and jealousy makes people angry. Unbalanced. Insane.
Unbalanced. That’s what the pills had been for. Pills that Jeff seized from her and poured into the kitchen sink, the toilet, the ocean, out the car window as they drove home from the clinic.
“Maggie is . . .” Jeff paused, considered his words. “She’s a protector, a mother. She has an innate need to take care of things, and we need a few things taken care of by someone outside the family.”
A mother. Avis clenched her teeth.