Chapter 38 Cynthie #2
Lee’s face smooths out again, and she removes an invisible speck from her trousers. “I didn’t display a lack of interest,” she says, and there’s an edge of weariness in her voice, as if she’s had this conversation many times before. “I simply told you that I preferred math.”
“My daughter.” Max shakes his head solemnly. “An accountant .” He says the word heavily, as if it is a synonym for drug dealer.
“After all those lessons too.” Caroline shakes her head. “She was a beautiful ballet dancer,” she says to me, before remembering that we’re not on the same team, and looking away.
“But you can’t be serious,” Max presses me. “There’s no need to be polite for our benefit.”
Jack scoffs at this, as well he might, but I keep my smile fixed.
“I’m not being polite. I think it’s a great show. Entertaining, fun, it has a huge following. People really love it.”
“ People meaning the lowest common denominator,” Caroline sniffs.
“Given your daughter and I are both fans, it’s clear you aren’t concerned with being polite.” I lace my tone with sugar.
Beside me, Lee chokes into her water glass. Caroline actually looks briefly thrown. “I only meant… as his father says, it’s a waste of Jack’s talent,” she says stiffly. “No serious director will want to work with him now. Only people like that Logan Gallow with his shoot-em-up car explosions.”
“Not a huge number of exploding cars in Regency England,” Jack muses, and it’s the lack of frustration on his part that makes my temper leap higher. This is normal, I understand, the way they speak to him, belittling him.
“I guess you haven’t actually watched the show.
” I press my lips together, trying to keep a hold of my anger.
“Because Jack is doing wonderful work in it. It’s a very physical role, yes, and he handles that brilliantly, but he also brings real depth and vulnerability to the character.
” Jack’s eyes are pinned on me now, the look in them hard to read.
“There was a scene in the last series where he lost his sister. My eyes were swollen from crying for two days afterward.”
“Oh, yes.” Lee looks more animated. “It was awful, wasn’t it? Imagine watching that and being his actual sister.”
“I still can’t believe you watch it, Lee,” Jack says softly.
“I don’t know why you’d be so surprised… You’re the one who took me to see Twilight at the cinema.”
Jack groans. “Longest four hours of my life.”
“The first Twilight film is only two hours long,” Lee says primly.
“Didn’t seem like it.”
“Don’t be a hypocrite. As Cynthie just pointed out, dismissing popular culture is not a good look.”
“Oh.” Jack looks pained. “But Twilight , Lee. They sparkle …”
The siblings are interrupted then by the appearance of a woman in the doorway.
“Ah, Marie-Therese,” Caroline says. “Perhaps you could refresh our drinks. And whatever our guests would like,” she adds as an obvious afterthought.
“Of course,” Marie-Therese agrees.
“Hi, Marie-Therese. I’m Jack.” Jack waves from his seat. “And this is Cynthie. I’d love a sparkling water please, but I know she thinks sparkling water is the creation of mad men.”
“It absolutely is.” I’m surprised he remembers that conversation. “Just still water for me, thanks.”
“Certainly,” Marie-Therese replies. “And I wanted to let you know that lunch will be ready in thirty minutes.”
“That’s perfect, thank you,” Caroline says airily.
There’s a chiming sound, and Caroline’s head turns toward the hallway. “And check who’s at the door, will you?”
With that, Marie-Therese slips silently from the room, and Caroline tells Jack he doesn’t need to introduce himself to the help every time he’s here, and Jack says if she could keep her staff for longer than two weeks he wouldn’t have to.
Before they can get into a longer argument, a new person enters the room on a wave of crackling energy, to universal exclamations of delight. Even Caroline unbends enough to smile. It’s a man, tall and rangy with a tousled mop of dark curls.
“Nico!” Jack exclaims, leaping to his feet. “What are you doing here?”
The man in the doorway laughs. “You said you were coming up, so I thought I’d call on Ma and catch you at the same time.” He and Jack hug, exchanging slaps on the back, and Nico comes forward to greet everyone.
“Caroline.” He kisses her on the cheek. Apparently Nico is important enough to warrant her getting to her feet. “Looking lovely as always. No Gran today?”
“She had another engagement.”
“Thank God,” Max mutters before shaking Nico’s hand.
“Her bowling team are playing in the league finals today,” Lee offers, her voice a little unsteady, and Nico turns to her.
“Hello, Daisy,” he says fondly, hauling her up from her seat, pulling her into a bear hug. When he releases her, there’s a wash of pink in her cheeks that wasn’t there before.
“Nico,” she says, tugging her shirt back into perfect lines.
“It’s been a long time.” Her words are steady as she drops gracefully back into her seat, but the color in her face remains, her breathing not quite even.
I smile, wondering if Jack knows that his sister has a giant crush on his best friend.
Jack introduces us with genuine pleasure.
“Nico and I grew up together,” he says, his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “He and his mum lived in the house next door, and then we were shipped off to the same boarding school.”
“Ma moved back to the States while we were there, so rather than fly out I was here for almost every holiday,” Nico explains.
“Practically part of the furniture.” He grins at me, and I totally get Lee’s interest. He’s tall and fit, in jeans and a battered leather jacket, the gleam of a tiny gold hoop in his earlobe, but his face belongs to a tortured poet, finely drawn with dark, expressive eyes.
There are faint blue smudges under his eyes as if he hasn’t slept, and a day or two of scruff covers his jaw.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Cynthie.” He shakes my hand. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”
“I’m surprised.” I dart a look at Jack.
Nico laughs. “Well, I had to read between the lines a bit. Jack here has had a giant crush on you for thirteen years.”
I grin back at him, as Jack thumps him on the arm hard enough to hurt.
“So your mother is in town, did you say, Nicolas?” Caroline asks once we’re all seated again, and Nico is happily sipping a beer, seeming more relaxed here than either Lee or Jack.
“Yes, her latest bloke is something to do with finance and he had a couple of meetings. Ma’s going to hang around for fashion week. Chat up all her old mates, you know.”
“Nico’s mum was a model,” Jack explains.
“What about you, Nico?” Lee asks, and she has herself firmly back under control now. You’d never guess she had any particular investment in the answer. “Weren’t you just in New Zealand?”
“Yeah, shooting some divers off the Auckland Islands,” he says. “With my camera,” he clarifies for me with a laugh. “Got some amazing underwater images of southern right whales. It’s a designated sanctuary, and we were able to swim with them. It was incredible.”
“Was that for National Geographic ?” Jack asks.
Nico nods. “I’m actually just here for a few days before I fly out to Mexico, so I was happy to catch you.”
“It’s good to hear your career is going from strength to strength,” Max says heavily, a significant look at Jack, just in case he missed the subtle dig. It seems we aren’t over the part of the afternoon where Jack’s parents try to make him feel shit about his life choices. Well, not on my watch.
“Nico, you must have some excellent stories about Jack that I can take back to set with me…” I lean forward, conspiratorially. “Tell me everything.”
“Absolutely.” Nico is instantly on board. “Shall we take Jack’s most embarrassing moments chronologically or on a scale of how mortifying they were?”
“Just start at the beginning,” I say, while Jack groans.
Nico tips the rest of his beer back and then he puts the empty bottle down and rubs his hands together. “Right. So, we’re eleven years old and Jack is painfully into magic…”
“Wait,” I say, holding up my hand. “I need further details on what ‘painfully into magic’ means.”
“You really don’t,” Jack puts in.
“Wore a cape that he never took off.” Nico ticks off on his fingers. “Insisted we refer to him as The Grand Magneto at all times.”
“The Grand Magneto?” I whisper.
“Oh yeah, he was also a comic book nerd,” Nico explains.
“I maintain that it’s a very cool name for a magician,” Jack interjects.
“Anyway, he’s been practicing this trick for ages where he pulls a tablecloth out from under a load of glasses,” Nico continues.
“He’s invited all our mates around to my house so that he can do it for them.
Always the little performer.” He smirks at Jack who only shakes his head.
“Now, crucially, in the audience is Tansy Bennet, the girl of Jack’s dreams.”
“Uh-oh,” Lee murmurs, and I get the impression she’s never heard this story.
“So Jack sets up the trick, and he invites Tansy to take the prime viewing spot right next to him.” Even Max and Caroline are listening with amusement on their faces at this point.
“And he really piles a lot of stuff up on the table, basically all my mother’s breakables.
It looks spectacular. Then he pulls the tablecloth out.
He’s cool and confident; it comes away with no problem…
except that he’s pulled it hard enough that he loses his own balance and goes flying backward… ”
I wince.
“Into my mum’s giant aquarium,” Nico finishes.
“Noooooo!” I gasp, my hands flying to my face.
“Yep,” Nico says. “He tips the whole thing over—it’s a miracle it didn’t shatter—and gallons of water crash over Jack and Tansy.
She’s screaming; everyone’s screaming. There are tropical fish leaping all over the place.
Jack’s sliding around trying to scoop up the fish and get them back in the water.
Tansy—who looks like a drowned cat at this point—has one leaping about in her hair and she starts crying. Everyone’s fucking traumatized.”
“Thankfully no fish perished,” Jack says heavily. “But the Grand Magneto retired that day. And Tansy Bennet remains the one who got away.”
“Wow,” I say.
“I expect your mother wasn’t best pleased,” Max chuckles.
“She actually thought it was pretty funny,” Nico remembers fondly. “But we were finding those tiny aquarium rocks everywhere for months.”
Marie-Therese comes in then, interrupting the laughter to tell us that lunch is ready.
When we stand up, Jack takes my hand in his, even though he doesn’t have to.
I try not to look too happy about it.