Chapter 3 #2
After Rebecca squeezed Liam in a hug that felt, to Lily, vaguely performative, Liam hugged Shelby and Chad and ordered the three over-twenty-one-year-olds glasses of champagne.
It was the kind of coffee shop that transitioned into a bar with a 1920s feel after five thirty.
Lily, Rebecca, and Liam clinked their glasses of champagne with Shelby’s and Chad’s sodas, and Liam explained everything that had happened on his phone call with his agent.
“I mean, I hadn’t heard from her in weeks,” Liam said.
“You can imagine that I was sweating about it. Nervous as heck. But she said it came down to Benson Albright and me, and they decided on me.” He stabbed his chest with his thumb.
“You’re amazing.” Lily gave him a side-hug, avoiding her mother’s gaze.
“How long will you be out in LA?” Rebecca asked. “And is Lily coming with you? Oh, but I’m sure this is all stuff you’ll discuss later on. It’s all so fresh.”
“I’ll be there for about three months,” Liam said. “And Lily can come West whenever she feels like it.” He turned and smiled happily at his fiancée. “But I know you have a ton you want to get done for the wedding.”
“If we’re going to get married next year, it has to happen fast,” Lily said. She half expected Liam to interject, Next year? Honey, I can’t make that work anymore. I’ll be too famous by then. She felt sweaty with nerves.
“That’s right! That’s why I’m marrying her!
” Liam cried. “She’s assertive. She knows what she wants!
” He raised his glass of champagne exuberantly, and everyone laughed, even Rebecca.
Lily reminded herself that this was a good thing, that Liam’s career taking off was exactly what she’d always wanted for him.
If it hadn’t, if he’d waited around forever for a call from his agent, she knew he’d be brokenhearted.
That was the last thing in the world she wanted.
Later, they took two cabs to the Javits Convention Center, where Yoko Reynolds was being honored for a lifetime achievement award in professional tennis.
Lily quivered with nerves in the back of the cab, lacing her fingers with Liam’s as she listened to him talk basketball shop with her brother.
Liam seemed ever capable of slipping into different personalities and different interests, depending on who he was talking to at the time.
It meant that almost everyone who met him went away thinking Liam was their new best friend.
Upon entering the beautiful hall, Lily was faced with a ten-foot-by-ten-foot photograph of Yoko Reynolds at age twenty or twenty-one.
In it, she wore an all-white tennis outfit and whipped across the court, her racket extended.
There was a look of determination in her eyes that terrified Lily.
Had Lily ever felt so driven to do anything?
She felt stuck in front of the photograph for too long, nearly forgotten.
Liam had to come back and fetch her, drawing her into the grand hall where the party was held.
Already, Rebecca was making her way to the front of the room, where Yoko and Kendall were seated, dressed immaculately and greeting their guests.
From the doorway, Lily could make out several faces she recognized from her vague memory of professional tennis.
These were the women who’d faced off against the great Yoko.
These were the men who’d probably lusted after her, marveling at a talent that had come from as far away as Osaka, Japan.
Lily and Liam found their place cards alongside Chad’s, Shelby’s, and Rebecca’s on a table next to Yoko and Kendall’s.
Lily put down her bag and turned to watch as Rebecca greeted Yoko with first a handshake, then a hug that seemed to make Yoko uncomfortable.
Lily’s cheeks were hot. “I hope your mom’s okay? ” she muttered to Liam.
Liam followed her gaze. “Mom’s fine. She has to get used to the attention tonight, right? It’s all about her.”
Lily couldn’t pretend to know what it was like to have so many eyes upon her. Yoko seemed flustered, as though all she wanted in the world was to throw off her heels and leap into the nearest taxi. Or was Lily imagining things? Was she projecting again?
Liam tugged at Lily’s elbow and drew her toward his mother and father, eager to introduce her as his fiancée, she guessed. But when they reached the table, the first thing he said was, “Mom. Dad. I got the part!”
Immediately, their faces transformed. Yoko was on her feet, kissing her son’s cheek, and Kendall reached across the table to shake his son’s hand, man to man.
Lily stood with a silly smile on her face, listening as Yoko and Kendall asked all the same questions.
What’s the part? Where is it? What happens next?
It took nearly three minutes of conversation before Yoko and Kendall remembered that seeing Lily today was a big deal.
Yoko blushed and took both of Lily’s hands in hers.
“Congratulations, my sweet,” she said. There was still a lilt to her English, proof that she’d learned it later in life.
Lily wondered when Yoko had last spoken Japanese and whether she and Liam talked exclusively in Japanese over the phone.
She hoped so. Lily pondered if she’d ever learn it, too, in order to honor this woman—and teach it to her children. They would be one-quarter Japanese.
After numerous congratulations and introductions to several of their friends, Lily floated back to the table with her mother and siblings. Liam was still in conversation with his former tennis coach, whom Yoko had been friends with when she’d been on the circuit.
“Did Liam ever play tennis?” Rebecca asked, sipping her wine.
“He did.” Lily explained that the man yonder had been Liam’s coach. “But Liam said he wasn’t very good at it. It hurt his mother. She’d wanted to bond over it.”
Rebecca’s forehead crumpled with worry. “It’s hard not to put expectations on your children.
Your father and I used to talk about that all the time.
We wanted you to know that you could be or do whatever you wanted.
” She took a breath, her eyes unfocused.
Lily wondered if her mother was thinking about her father and if she was missing him as desperately as Lily was right now.
“We felt that,” Shelby interjected, breaking the spell.
Chad nodded earnestly and raised his glass of soda. “Wish he was with us tonight,” he said. “I don’t know what he’d make of all the fanciness, but he’d get by.”
Together, the four remaining Vances chuckled at that, their minds’ eyes filling with Freddy’s face. Lily felt his blessing from wherever he was. She hoped he was safe and that he felt their love, too.