🌴 Chapter 2: Poolside Barbs & Palm Fronds 🌴
The Breakers pool sparkled like a sapphire spilled across marble. It was a weekday morning, which meant only the real Palm Beach power players were present: no tourists, no hangers-on. Just housewives with diamonds the size of quail eggs and lap dogs with better grooming routines than most CEOs.
Margaret Jewel Holt Evans arrived promptly at 10:00 a.m., as always. She wore the perfect pink cotton midi dress with fabulous turquoise earrings that matched the cushions on the lounge chairs. She didn’t need to be announced. The pool knew her. The staff knew her. The ice cubes in her drink practically arranged themselves.
She had just opened Southern Living when a shadow fell across her lounger.
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The shadow was wearing coral Chanel slides.
“Is this seat taken?”
The voice dripped honey… and arsenic.
Margaret looked up slowly, over the rim of her sunglasses.
There she was.
Calista Beauregard DeVere.
White-blonde hair coiled like spun sugar, a cotton matching set, perfect for poolside sipping, clinging to curves that had clearly never met a carb they didn’t conquer. Her earrings caught the sun and flashed like warnings.
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Margaret smiled. Soft. Southern. Surgical.
“Only if you’re the kind to ask permission,” she replied, crossing one elegant leg over the other.
Calista sat.
“Oh, I always ask. It’s the Charleston in me. You know… manners.”
She took a sip from her drink—something neon and aggressive, garnished with a full sprig of mint and a small orchid that was probably endangered.
Margaret gestured to the bartender for her usual: one cucumber-infused tonic, no gin, not even if you begged her.
“I heard you’re hosting the Seaside Rebellion,” Margaret said sweetly, as if commenting on the weather or mildew.
Calista tilted her head.
“Only because the monarchy has gotten a little… stale. Don’t you think?”
Margaret didn’t flinch.
“Well, we all play to our strengths. Yours is theater. Mine is legacy.”
“Oh honey, they’re not mutually exclusive,” Calista purred. “I’m a DeVere. We founded half the shipping ports on the Eastern Seaboard and most of the scandals in Charleston.”
Margaret turned to face her fully now.
“I suppose we’ll see which carries more weight in Palm Beach—old money, or good taste.”
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