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The Langdon family was old money, and as the oldest son, Francis (Frank) was required to be there at their largest fundraising gala. He stood in the middle of the venue, shifting weight from one foot to the other. His suit was perfectly tailored, of course (“nothing but the best for the Langdons," the tailor had cheerfully commented when Frank went to pick up the garment bag), but something still felt off. Was it his hair? He snuck a look at himself in a shiny metal cloche. No, that was perfect, as always (and thank god, since he'd spent a ridiculous amount of time fixing it in the mirror). His tie? It was a little tight; he loosened it.
No, what it boiled down to, Frank eventually reasoned, was simply that he didn't want to be there.
His mother had to do a fair amount of convincing to get him to show up, just like she did every year. He was busy, he'd told her. Even if “busy" amounted to watching Top Chef alone on his couch and scrolling through fantasy football picks.
He had plans, okay?
“Cancel them," Emily Langdon had said in no uncertain terms. “Your father needs to introduce you to his investors. And besides, Abby Garner will be there."
Something jolted through him at her name. A thought he didn't quite know what to do with, but didn't entirely want to examine either.
Abby Garner, of Miss Pennsylvania fame. But before that: prom queen to Frank’s prom king. They'd run in the same circles, circled the same orbits. Sure, he'd had a crush on her all throughout junior and senior year, as anyone with eyes—and certainly eyes as shrewd as Emily Langdon—could see. But the timing was never right. She was always dating someone, or he was. And when she went to the opposite coast to UC Berkeley, physical distance had pulled them apart.
Until now, apparently.
She was probably the only one who could've pulled him back to this fundraiser, honestly, after the blow-up fight he'd had last Fourth of July with his father at the annual Langdon barbecue. He'd said a lot of things, but the main one he'd remembered was that he wouldn't be coming to any more fundraisers. That he wouldn't be seeing the family anymore at all, actually.
That had lasted all of two minutes, because the Langdons were old money, and they were also like quicksand.
As if summoned by the memory of the barbecue, his sister Alice appeared in his peripheral vision. Three years younger but whip-smart, she was already playing the part that Frank wanted to opt out of. Her hand rested on the shoulder of one of their father's friends, even though Frank knew deep down she was probably dissociating. It had always been easier for her to slip back into the old roles, like putting on the snakeskin after you'd shed it.
In the heat of the summer, she’d had clarity — that barbecue and its events was the same one that had made Alice pull him aside. Stage an intervention, though she'd never admit to that. He'd slammed back so many beers she was surprised he was still standing, she'd said in that way of hers that cut straight to the heart of it. If it had been anyone else, Frank would have told them to fuck off, but this was Alice, the gray sheep of the family to Frank's black, the one who'd been in and out of mental health facilities and caused more trouble than their father would have liked, costing thousands in scandal management. She was mostly clean-imaged now, but apparently Frank wasn't. Upon further reflection, maybe he had a problem. Maybe he'd had a problem for a long time.
He'd tried to cut back more recently, but there was not really anyone holding him accountable, so it was too easy to reach for another one, in his apartment alone watching Top Chef. And over the months the urgency had faded, making it seem like less of an imperative request. But now that fourth of July conversation was fresh in his mind, Alice's blue eyes on him from across the room like a specter. He hadn't had a drink yet, but the urge was strong, itching under his skin. He reached into his pocket, finding a loose coin that the tailor must have mysteriously forgotten to remove. Turned it over and over in his hand, just to give it something to do. Half the partygoers had drinks in their hands and Frank felt naked without one.
Where was Abby? He searched the crowd for her strawberry blonde curls, searched the sounds of the party for her melodic laugh he'd always thought sounded like a windchime. Life would be so easy with her. This party would be easier with her. Suddenly it was his only mission to find her. He wove through partygoers, dodging waiters with plates of hors d'oeuvres, trying to ignore Alice’s eyes that tracked him the whole way.
“Sorry,” he muttered as he bumped into someone he didn’t recognize, standing in a cluster of people. His elbow jostled hers, and she startled, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. She was a full head shorter than him, if not more. Her hair was down, her teal dress backless, but there was something about her, a distinct fish-out-of-water vibe—
“Frank!” His mom suddenly stood in front of him, glittering in the family jewels and a long midnight blue gown. Her makeup was oddly garish in this light, and Frank bounced on his feet impatiently, not wanting to talk to her. Abby, his heartbeat repeated. Over and over. “Your father, over there—”
“Where’s Abby?” Frank asked, knowing his tone was not kind. But it was this or the bar, and he didn’t want to get a drink, not with Alice watching him like she was waiting for him to slip up, like she knew it was going to happen.
Something passed over Emily Langdon’s face, then. Something Frank didn’t care to dissect too deeply. Something almost… smug. “The Garners had a last minute engagement,” she said. She took a prim sip of her champagne, as if to drive the point home. “They sent their regards.”
Oh. Oh. So his only reason for going to this fucking thing? Great. Frank took a deep breath, nodding. This was classic, the old Langdon bait-and-switch.
“When?” he asked.
“Hmm?” Emily was already turning to go, her tone airy.
“When did you find out they wouldn’t be coming?”
“RSVPs were due a month ago, dear,” Emily replied, slippery enough to be neither a confirmation nor denial of what Frank suspected: that she’d known well in advance that the Garners wouldn’t be coming and that Frank would be left looking like a fool. Or at least feeling like one. And the Langdon family would get what they wanted, as always.
“Fuck,” Frank muttered under his breath. But Emily didn’t hear him; she was already a few feet away, talking to someone Frank dimly recognized as important in local state government.
Well, now what? His hand flexed in his pocket, fingers brushing against the loose coin. The promise of seeing Abby again, however faint, had grown in his mind until it loomed over him and consumed him. It had become the single red thread stretched between them. It had become his only fucking reason for being at this party.
It had been, however unfair this was to say, the only thing keeping him from a drink.
Frank seemed to float without conscious thought over to the bar. Frank of the past would have already been stationed here. Frank of the past would have already been two or three drinks deep into the evening, relying on the liquid courage to loosen him up, to keep him jovial and Langdon-like for the evening, loose and happy and free like his father expected.
(Except, underneath, being Langdon-like didn’t mean that at all. Being Langdon-like meant having sharp teeth and biting, like a mean dog. But nobody really knew that part, unless you got too close or smelled like meat or had a weakness.)
The bartender took Frank’s order, and he rested his arm on the bar while he waited. He couldn’t find Alice in the crowd, which was a relief. Hopefully he could buy some time before she chewed him out for this. A small part of him hoped she never found out, but that was just fucking unrealistic, wasn’t it? We can’t all get what we want.
As he waited, he scanned the crowd of attendees. Most of them were familiar faces, his father’s sycophants and old family friends. His shoulders sagged. He was tired—tired of the song and dance, tired of the bullshit. It was never going to end, was it? He’d tried to get out so many times—at the barbecue, he’d thought that was it, the final blow to a dynamic that had been building for years. He was free. And then the family. God, the family. They were always tugging at him, pulling him back in, demanding things of him. If the Fourth of July hadn’t done it, what would? This would never end, he thought miserably as the bartender slid a scotch on the rocks across the bar. Just a cycle of subtle violence, over and over.
The drink in his hand felt heavy. He looked down into the amber liquid, feeling like maybe he could sink into it and drown.
“Is this seat taken?”
The voice was low, almost conspiratorial. He looked up, feeling like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was the same woman he’d nearly bowled over in his quest to find Abby Garner. Same halter-top silk gown, dew drop crystal earrings that brushed her shoulders. She was smirking at him in a way that felt like she knew him. Instead of bristling at the implication like he might have usually, something in his soul opened to her. It felt good to be known, to be seen, in a party full of people he couldn’t give a fuck about.
“Mel,” she said, and he realized he hadn’t replied. “Mel King.” She stuck her hand out for a handshake, like a white man with confidence, and the boldness of it struck him.
He took her hand and he shook it. Her hand was warm, but not unpleasant or sweaty.
“Frank Langdon,” he said.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “I mean—not that your reputation precedes you. Just that, well, my boss gave me the rundown on the Langdons before we got here, that you’re the oldest and you have three siblings—” Her cheeks flushed a faint pink. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”
Frank wondered exactly what reputation he had that had reached Mel’s ears, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to turn over that rock either.
“Your boss?” he managed, latching onto the one part of the sentence that didn’t matter. But growing up in this world, swimming through it like a shark, you got used to sniffing out the ones that didn’t belong. So why was Mel King at this party?
“Right.” Mel turned and scanned the room, as if seeking her boss out. “I’m a legal aide to Janice Trask.”
Well, wasn’t that just perfect. Before Frank could respond, Mel jumped in, “Do you know her?”
“I’m familiar.” Frank chuckled, looking down into his glass again, swirling the liquid around. The buzz in the back of his mind telling him to drink it was still there, but fainter. Easier to ignore with a pretty distraction in front of him.
“Right,” Mel said again. “I assume you would, if she was invited to this party. Stupid of me to—”
“No,” Frank broke in. They just met, but he couldn’t handle hearing her disparage herself. “It wasn’t. Stupid, I mean. She didn’t tell you? That she was our family’s lawyer?” His eyebrows knit themselves together.
“She can tend to… ramble,” Mel said. She sounded like she was out of breath, and she took a moment to inhale, exhale. Frank’s eyes lingered on the rise and fall of her collarbone under the straps of her dress. “I guess that’s why we work so well together.”
“Nothing wrong with rambling,” Frank said. He did his own fair share, but this interaction was forcing him to slow down. Listen more. Nice change of pace. He tapped two fingers on the bar. “Drink?”
“Oh—no. I’m nervous enough as it is. And I want to stay clear-headed in case Janice needs me.” She held her hands clasped in front of her, elbows rigid and angular, and Frank wondered what it would take to loosen her up. He blinked.
“How long have you been working for Janice?” Frank thought for a moment, then set his drink down on the bar next to him. It didn’t seem fair to drink when she wasn’t. Or at least that’s the excuse he gave himself.
“Oh, not long. I’m… new.” Mel swallowed. “New to working for her, new to Pittsburgh in general.”
So his instinct had been correct. She didn’t belong here amongst the sharks. He fought back the urge to protect her. He didn’t even know her.
“Why Pittsburgh?” Frank knew it was maybe too forward to ask, but he couldn’t imagine willingly choosing to live here when everything in him had been trying to get out since he’d become a teenager.
“My sister, Becca. She has autism, and she got accepted into a center here. And we were looking to… get out. Fresh start.” Mel plastered a smile over those words, but Frank knew there was more beneath the surface that she wasn’t saying. “I’m going to school at Pitt.”
University of Pittsburgh, not the hospital—though the confusion had happened often enough that Frank thought maybe one of them should consider a name change. “That’s my alma mater,” Frank said. Felt like another life; taking business classes for the role he’d one day be expected to take over. All on his father’s dime. Something told him Mel didn’t have the same experience. Still, he said: “You got any questions about the campus, I’m there.”
“I’ll remember that.” Mel smiled in a way that felt authentic, and Frank couldn’t help but think, how fucking genuine was this? She said exactly what she meant, she didn’t cloak poisonous barbs behind smiles and the pretense of being kind. A breath of fresh air, just when Frank was beginning to feel like he couldn’t breathe.
Mel fidgeted with one of her earrings, her face a little flushed from the heat in the room. “So, um, why are you at this party?”
The question threw him for a moment. Why wouldn’t he be there? Everyone was, even Frank’s grandma who would probably much rather be in her room watching Jeopardy! or playing Scrabble. It was a requirement. If you were a Langdon, you attended the fundraiser. Frank had found that out the hard way.
“It’s kind of a birthright,” Frank said, cynicism edging his tone. “Sure, you get the money, but you also have to attend every family-related event until you die.”
Mel laughed, then, which made him feel less bad about the whole damn thing. He hadn’t been trying to make a joke, only tell the truth, but Mel’s laugh lightened it, made it feel less serious. Why was he so worried about it at all? It was only family ties, after all. He found himself laughing along with her.
“That must be terrible,” she said very soberly after she’d finished laughing, and she looked at him so deeply he thought he might combust.
Her eyes seemed to shift color in the light—he couldn’t tell if they were brown, or green, or blue. Right now it seemed like they were a deep sea green that matched the color of her dress. His fingers itched to reach for his drink again. “Can be, if you don’t like your family,” he said. “Fortunately I think they’re a bunch of peaches.”
His attempt at humor fell flat. Her eyes never left his face. “Be serious,” she said softly, as if they hadn’t just met tonight. As if she was telling him to tell her something real.
“It’s a fucking shitshow,” he said, bald honesty. It felt like getting naked with her. If he may be so bold.
“I could tell,” she said, voice quiet again, like they were sharing a secret. Frank reached for his glass, just to hold it, the tumbler cold against his fingers. He didn’t know why, he just needed it for support. This conversation felt like something that could unmoor him. “You didn’t look at your mom like…” She looked at the floor. He followed her gaze. There were sequins on the tips of her shoes, peeking out from under her dress. “Like you liked her,” she finished.
Well, fuck. “You saw that?”
“Kind of hard not to,” Mel said, and this time she met his gaze. “When we bumped into each other—”
“I bumped into you,” Frank corrected. It was only fair for him to take the blame. “Are you okay?”
“That’s nothing. I nearly twisted my ankle twice on the way out the door,” she said firmly. “I’ll be fine.”
Something about her tone said, I’m not delicate, and I don’t want to be treated that way. Frank understood; every time Alice looked at him, that feeling reared itself inside of him. Nothing worse than being held with kid gloves.
“So,” Mel said. “A shitshow?”
Her arched eyebrows held a question, but it was also a dare. I dare you to tell me how bad it can get, it said. I can take it.
And was it crazy that he actually was considering it? That this felt like a confession booth, a space for just them, where he could say anything and it wouldn’t be judged? Then there was another part of him that wanted to down the entire glass of scotch in a single gulp, liquid courage to aid the spill of vulnerability.
“Nobody here cares about you,” he said, words undulled and unfiltered. “They pretend they do, but they’re only focused on themselves and what they can take from you. What you can give to them. And they’ll suck you dry.” Something in him hurt at that, at the idea of Mel being the one drained by this world. “You have to quit your job.”
Her face turned quizzical, but her tone remained matter-of-fact. “I can’t do that. I have to pay rent, and Becca’s facility isn’t cheap.” She laid her hand down flat on the bar, dangerously close to Frank’s. “Not all of us have family money.”
It wasn’t intended to sting. He could tell she was just stating it as a fact, but it chastened him anyway. He dragged a hand over his face. “You don’t belong here, Mel.”
“I know I don’t,” she said, with conviction. “This is just to get through school.”
The choices he’d had were not just handed to her. It occurred to him, then, that he was being a massive asshole. Typical Frank Langdon behavior, but this time he was doing it completely sober. “I don’t really have a good excuse for what I just said,” he said weakly.
Her eyes sparkled again in the light, and he wanted to kiss her then, even though the timing was completely inappropriate. “You’re a passionate man, Frank Langdon,” she said softly. “And it seems like you’re living in a fishbowl.” She circled one finger to indicate the room around them.
Yes, he thought. Someone sees it too.
“It’s not that bad,” he lied. “I’ve learned to swim with the sharks.”
“It’s just, maybe once in a while you could come up to the shore?” The end of her sentence lilted, like she wasn’t sure about what she’d said, but Frank hung on to every word.
He didn’t know where the shore was. But maybe he was starting to.