Post by Sky Verati on Feb 27, 2009 18:35:36 GMT -5
It was Asaph's party for the rich folk of Stone City. Business partners, investors, politicians. He didn't do this often. Everywhere I looked I saw business suits and diamond-studded jewelry, prettier hair, handmade purses, designer brands, two-inch heels, ties and polished shoes, and shark smiles. Predators. Not the lurk-in-your-alley kind, but the take-you-down-by-my-country-club-full-of-lawyers kind. There was a reason Asaph didn't do this often. He wasn't a predator. He wasn't a wolf. I thought of my brother as the sheepdog always guarding his flock, and that night that impression was imposed all the more strongly by the presence of the people he'd invited into his home.
Asaph was only doing this as a sort of business investment: Verati Steel and Construction wanted contracts, and getting contracts meant being social and letting people know what kind of person you were face-to-face. My brother always believed that showing people what they paid for and being honest was one of the keys to his success over the years, and I couldn't disagree with him: when you met Asaph Verati, you saw one of the real true diamonds in the rough.
"Sky," said Abel in the tone of someone repeating himself. "Sky, earth to--"
"Huh? What?" I set my empty wine glass on the refreshment table and blinked a few times. "What do you want?"
"Did I cut the cake right?"
"Yeah, sure," I answered distractedly. More seriously I added, "Sorry. I was thinking."
"Stop thinking," replied my youngest sibling. "You're not good at it."
I would have punched him in the arm for that smirk he shot me over his shoulder from studying the cake, but it would have looked unprofessional to anyone who may have been watching. I'd get him later. Or maybe I had something better. "At least I don't have caterpillars on my face."
Abel's eyebrows were as thick as Mom's and weren't as blonde as Asaph's, so they were prime targets for verbal abuse. He wrinkled his nose at my turn to smirk, and I walked away.
The party itself was in the Verati backyard, which, contrary to it's name, could barely be thought of as a yard to those of us in Bakerline. Asaph's estate was a miniature park. The tiled patio extended a few yards from his back doors made of glass and was coral pink, set up for the occasion with a baker's dozen round tables with about ten chairs each. Walk past the tables and you encounter a few steps that lead into the "garden" proper. There was a fountain straight ahead of Greek inspiration, and on either side a gravel path that led into trees segregated by type. It was like our own family arboretum--palms, ferns, bamboo, flowers of all kinds, black walnut, fruit trees, red buds--there were even benches where you could just sit and enjoy the shade or solitude in little recesses of the tree line. Asaph allowed his guests the run of the garden and the patio where all the action was taking place while he restricted his youngest, Madeline, to stay within her daddy's eyesight at all times. At the very least, to not go sneaking off for the night like last time.
It was for this wild eighteen-year old that I would be constantly looking over my shoulder when I wasn’t actively doing something else. Madeline was benign in nature, but in practice, she and Abel had the same tendency to run into trouble by themselves. Not one social gathering went by that some misfortune didn’t chase them like a hunting hound to a pair of foxes. We thought Abel was bad when he was that age, and he still had his gullibility and his temper. Having the same traits in a flighty cheerleader was recipe for disaster.
And both of them were present.
“What’s the bet one of them knocks the punch bowl onto someone’s three-hundred dollar suit,” I muttered to myself. I settled down on the rim of the fountain and peered down into the water, my voice quiet. “I don’t look rich enough for this place.”
Asaph was only doing this as a sort of business investment: Verati Steel and Construction wanted contracts, and getting contracts meant being social and letting people know what kind of person you were face-to-face. My brother always believed that showing people what they paid for and being honest was one of the keys to his success over the years, and I couldn't disagree with him: when you met Asaph Verati, you saw one of the real true diamonds in the rough.
"Sky," said Abel in the tone of someone repeating himself. "Sky, earth to--"
"Huh? What?" I set my empty wine glass on the refreshment table and blinked a few times. "What do you want?"
"Did I cut the cake right?"
"Yeah, sure," I answered distractedly. More seriously I added, "Sorry. I was thinking."
"Stop thinking," replied my youngest sibling. "You're not good at it."
I would have punched him in the arm for that smirk he shot me over his shoulder from studying the cake, but it would have looked unprofessional to anyone who may have been watching. I'd get him later. Or maybe I had something better. "At least I don't have caterpillars on my face."
Abel's eyebrows were as thick as Mom's and weren't as blonde as Asaph's, so they were prime targets for verbal abuse. He wrinkled his nose at my turn to smirk, and I walked away.
The party itself was in the Verati backyard, which, contrary to it's name, could barely be thought of as a yard to those of us in Bakerline. Asaph's estate was a miniature park. The tiled patio extended a few yards from his back doors made of glass and was coral pink, set up for the occasion with a baker's dozen round tables with about ten chairs each. Walk past the tables and you encounter a few steps that lead into the "garden" proper. There was a fountain straight ahead of Greek inspiration, and on either side a gravel path that led into trees segregated by type. It was like our own family arboretum--palms, ferns, bamboo, flowers of all kinds, black walnut, fruit trees, red buds--there were even benches where you could just sit and enjoy the shade or solitude in little recesses of the tree line. Asaph allowed his guests the run of the garden and the patio where all the action was taking place while he restricted his youngest, Madeline, to stay within her daddy's eyesight at all times. At the very least, to not go sneaking off for the night like last time.
It was for this wild eighteen-year old that I would be constantly looking over my shoulder when I wasn’t actively doing something else. Madeline was benign in nature, but in practice, she and Abel had the same tendency to run into trouble by themselves. Not one social gathering went by that some misfortune didn’t chase them like a hunting hound to a pair of foxes. We thought Abel was bad when he was that age, and he still had his gullibility and his temper. Having the same traits in a flighty cheerleader was recipe for disaster.
And both of them were present.
“What’s the bet one of them knocks the punch bowl onto someone’s three-hundred dollar suit,” I muttered to myself. I settled down on the rim of the fountain and peered down into the water, my voice quiet. “I don’t look rich enough for this place.”