Chapter 8
Chapter 8
I sit with Kaede in my lap, and she gives me a beautiful, snotty kiss. “Sorry.” Minami wipes my cheek. “We’re working on her penchant for sharing bodily fluids. You know everyone here, right?” Minami asks.
“Yup.” Despite my better judgment, my eyes are already flying to Conor, who has fallen in conversation with Nyota, and Avery, and…And? “Actually, not the blonde.”
“Oh, right. Tamryn. You’re going to adore her, she’s lovely . Irish. I can’t wait for you to hear her and Hark talk to each other.” Plates stuffed with bread, eggplant rolls, and sun-dried tomatoes are deposited in front of us. “Oh my god, this looks amazing .”
Everyone laughs, eats, sips from constantly refilled glasses. I focus on cajoling Kaede into not playing with the pepper shaker and accept a few bites of shredded chicken. Take a deep breath. Inhale the burning scent of citronella and land a blueberry jet plane inside a very eager mouth. My eyes, though, keep straying to Tamryn. Her long face, wide lips, fair complexion. There’s something about the way her features come together that takes my breath away. This is someone who could easily make money off her looks. She laughs at the chatter buzzing around her and plucks a roll from Conor’s plate, easy, intimate.
“He said what ?” Nyota is asking from the other side of the table.
“I think COB reminded him of the inevitability of death.”
Conor shakes his head. “Avery, if you bring this up at the next board meeting, I will rename Harkness after you.”
“He’s actually gonna go through with it,” Tamryn says. Her eyes catch me staring, and she grins, kind.
I flush. Ferociously. Am relieved when someone says, “So, Maya. I hear we might be colleagues.”
I turn to the man sitting at my right. “Oh my god. Paul?”
“Yup, that’s me.”
We maneuver into an awkward hug above Kaede’s head.
“How long has it been?”
“A while. I think since that time—”
“Do not mention the mac and cheese.”
“—you puked mac and cheese all over me.”
“That’s definitely not true. We’ve met at least twice since, and on both occasions you reminded me of that incident.”
“Touché.” Behind wire-rimmed glasses, light blue eyes squeeze into a smile. That’s when I parse his words.
“Wait, what do you mean, we’ll be working together?”
“You’re coming to Sanchez, right? Their semiconductors are state of the art. You’ll love it there.”
He’s talking about the California company that’s pioneering new chip technology and offering me a frankly unprincipled amount of money to go work for them. “How do you know that—?”
“I’ve been doing R & D for them for the last couple of months, and your name cropped up a lot. Once Eli told the C-suite that you might be going into industry, they went hard to recruit you. Congrats on that young researcher medal, by the way.”
I tilt my head. “You know a lot about my life.”
“That’s because I constantly brag about you,” Eli says from a few seats down. “And no, I will not stop bringing up your accomplishments, so don’t ask.”
“I think Eli may be living his mad scientist dreams vicariously through you,” Minami whispers. Her smile is indulgent, but my stomach locks up.
I set down my fork. “Actually,” I tell Paul, “I haven’t accepted Sanchez’s offer yet. I’m undecided between that and—”
“Ah, yeah, the MIT position, right?” Paul nods. “I heard that it comes with a Fermilab project?”
“I’d ask how you know, but…” I glance at Eli, who has moved on from the conversation, and is whispering something in Rue’s ear that has her laughing.
“Whenever I see Eli, he spends approximately twenty minutes catching me up on how amazing you are. That’s before hello.”
“And as he speaks, all you can picture is cheddar-orange puke in your lap.”
“Always.” His eyes roam my face. What little he can see of the yellow halter romper I put on for dinner. “You look different. From before, I mean.”
I laugh. “Because I’m not currently eating mac and cheese?”
“No. Because…” His gaze dips down to my collarbones, fleeting. Bounces back to my eyes.
“You look the same,” I say. Paul has always been cute. Wavy light hair, deep dimples. He’s about four years older than me. At twelve, I was doomed to develop a crush on him, and while he must have noticed how I’d blush and disappear into my room the second he set foot in our house, he kindly pretended not to.
“So.” He clears his throat. “Have you made a decision yet? Industry or academia?”
“Not yet, no.”
“You’re leaning toward…?”
I bite my lower lip. What little I ate churns in my stomach. Perennially underfunded ivory tower, or big business that prioritizes monetary gains over scientific curiosity? “When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.” And before Paul can utter the but forming on his lips, I turn to the person across from him. “Hey, Axel,” I tell Paul’s brother.
“Hiya, kid,” he booms, just a little too loud. Axel used to play hockey with Eli in college, and later went on to the NHL, which made him incredibly popular among my high school classmates, to whom I should never have revealed my connection to him. I can’t deny that he’s attractive, but he was always too much of a protein-shake, Would you like me to lift something heavy for you? jock to truly appeal to me.
Supposedly, he and Eli used to party hard. Supposedly, Axel never stopped.
“Do you still play in…was it Philadelphia?”
It’s as if I asked to borrow his kitten’s entrails for my soup. “Bro.” He shakes his head, crestfallen. He turns to Tisha to ask her to pass the olive oil.
“Impressive,” Paul whispers at me.
I blink. “What just happened?”
“You destroyed my plus-one’s peace of mind in three words, Maya.”
“Oh, shit.”
“He’s with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Philly’s rivals.” He shakes his head, reproachful. “Do you not follow the ins and outs of the Eastern Conference?”
“I don’t really believe in the concept of team sports. Does that absolve me?”
“I don’t know, let’s ask Axel.”
We regard each other for a few seconds, amused, until Kaede grasps a piece of cantaloupe too big for her mouth. “Are you really here as your brother’s plus-one? I mean, no way a Pittsburgh Penguin would be snatched up,” I say, raising my voice. Either Axel doesn’t hear me, or he’s not ready to forgive.
“Unfortunately, this Pittsburgh Penguin doesn’t really have the attention span to…”
“Date?”
“Hold a conversation, I was gonna say. As for me, my antibiotic-resistant toenail fungus doesn’t play to my advantage. What about you?”
“Um, when I was a kid I once got a rash on my wrist, but…”
“I meant, are you here alone?”
“Oh.” I laugh. “Yeah.”
His smile widens. I wait for a flutter of something to flap its wings in my stomach, a skipped heartbeat, a glimmer of interest—in vain. It’s been a recurring problem. My gaze strays to Conor, who briefly excused himself to take a call by the balustrade. He stares past the cliff, half cloaked in shadow.
Maybe it’s time you did something to solve this problem , Maya.
After all, it’s nice talking to Paul. Easy. By the time the first course arrives, penne with cream sauce and chunks of salmon, I know everything about his mechanical-arm project, and he’s called me a childish brat exactly zero times.
We are, I think, the odd men out. The ones who don’t have a horse in the race when a table-wide fight over a trade deal breaks out, Nyota and Conor leading opposite sides, with the argumentative relish of people who love disagreeing about their circumscribed interests.
He laughs several times—Conor, that is. Often in response to something Avery said. Once or twice after talking, hushed, with Tamryn. Each time, my stomach politely asks me if it could keel over. No, I say flatly. In this body, we endure.
Before dessert, a smiling, statuesque woman whose English vocabulary seems to consist of the words Good and Eat steps out from the house. Lucrezia, the housekeeper, makes a round of the table—to both vigorously squeeze everyone’s hand, and to shake her head in disappointment at those of us who didn’t polish their plates. Kaede begins to fidget, and with Minami’s permission, I let her lead me back to her favorite jasmine shrub.
It’s nice, the short respite from the constant chatter. “Are you taking me on an adventure, princess?”
I smile at the faint stumble of her little steps, the way she turns back to make sure that I’m keeping up. Her brown eyes widen, take in all the wonders of the world, reach for the strings of overhead lights that flood the garden with amber hues.
“Those two are so cute,” I overhear an unknown, Irish voice say behind me. Tamryn, I think.
“Maya’s so good with kids,” Avery agrees.
Conor’s voice is a low rumble. “She was one most recently.”
My stomach asks if self-implosion is still off the table.
“…kind of endearing, that the person Maya has the most in common with is a not-quite-two-year-old,” Diego says.
“Maybe we should set up a kids’ table for the under-thirty?” Tisha muses.
“Will you stop trying to kick off an intergenerational war?” Nyota asks.
“With you ? Never.”
I take a deep breath. Let the rest of the conversation flow around me as I keep an eye on Kaede, smiling when Tiny joins us, tail wagging furiously. She points at a tree with a noise that sounds like her version of What’s that? “Lemon, baby. A lemon tree.” She must like the answer. Because she plops down and starts playing with the low-hanging fruits.
Past the railing and cliff, I can count more lights dotting the shoreline—other villas, hotels, residences, parties. Other older brothers and unrequited crushes. Isola Bella and its thin isthmus are little more than a dark, vague outline. No one is there at night. At least, no one who might require illumination. If it weren’t for the occasional rustling of the foliage, I would barely be able to make it out.
I sit on one of the many benches, Tiny curled at my feet. Perform undying gratitude for Kaede whenever she brings me her scavenged gifts—little rocks, leaves, dry sticks. In the distance, a boat cuts through the starlit water, leaving a hum in its path.
“So pretty,” I praise. Lucrezia is distributing lewdly rich slices of chocolate cake at the table, and I make a mental note to leave more room for dessert in the future. “I swear,” I tell Minami when I hear her coming to check on me, “I’m not letting your firstborn eat dirt. Well, maybe a bit of dirt, but what’s an immune system for, if not—”
I turn. Meet a pair of dark eyes, and my heart stumbles.