Chapter 33
Penelope
A week of getting settled in my new home—for the year—Xander suggested we go to the club after our weekly Sunday brunch. I
think he caught on that I was feeling a little restless, the issue of my visa was still pending and even though it had only
been a little less than two weeks since getting back from Singapore, I felt like maybe I’d left too soon.
“Poppy.” Xander’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.
I hadn’t been back to the pottery studio in a while and I was having a project delivered there that I wanted to start on,
but I wasn’t expecting Xander would join. He wasn’t particularly artistically inclined.
“The studios are down the north wing.” I pointed to the elevators as we walked by them. We just missed the corridor to the
studios and kept walking toward the galleries.
“I know.” His smile taunted me as we continued down the hallway.
When the summer wound down and every high-society family returned from Newport, Nantucket, or the Hamptons, the Augustus Club
in Manhattan began to effervesce with a renewed vitality.
I preferred it in the summer and usually spent my time there when Sloan and her friends went to the Hamptons, but as autumn began its slow conquest over the city, I was happy to see it coming. I missed the fizz of the busy club.
“There’s a private collection being shown this weekend.” I read the placard on the door aloud to Xander.
The Augustus had a well-appointed arts center. There were studios and galleries as well as open workspaces.
“Yeah, I know.” Xander led me around the corner to the back entrance of the exhibit hall. “They haven’t opened it to members
yet.”
“Oh.” I cocked my head. “Then, why are we here?”
Xander didn’t say anything, he only smiled and lifted some of the clear plastic sheeting that covered the double doorway.
We took a few steps into the exhibit space. Most of the paintings were still in their protective carriers, but even with the
covers on many of them I could recognize the works a mile away.
My eyes swept over the deep reds, the mustard yellow, the colors that saturated art of that era. “This is Norman Rockwell’s
collection,” I sputtered.
My heart thumped erratically. It was on the list.
Xander ran his arm around my waist. “The museum is under renovation, which means no visitors for the rest of the year.”
“So, you brought the museum here?”
He shrugged. “It was the least ambiguous goal on that list.”
The line I’d written on my list was “Norman Rockwell Museum.” He had no idea which of his paintings I wanted to see or why.
My eyes homed in on the only painting that was fully uncovered, hanging on the wall. My mouth fell open.
“I told them to put that one up first.” His voice played softly over the excited hum that filled my ears.
I turned my ring along my finger. It was probably one of Rockwell’s most famous pieces: Freedom from Want. An idyllic family rendered in oil paint, sitting around a Thanksgiving table, right before the feast.
I tried to buy the piece; it was on auction once. Without my inheritance, even with my salary from the firm, I couldn’t afford
it. The final bid went over fifty million dollars, so this piece, the one that was stuck in my heart, was impossible to see
unless someone enchanted the private collector and persuaded them to allow the Augustus to show it.
“How did you manage to find the collector?” I whispered.
“I can be convincing. And the Sotheby’s art dealer was willing to bend the rules when I bought out her gallery,” he said quietly
as his hand rested on the small of my back. “She gave me the name of the private collector.”
“And you used the legendary Xander Sutton charm to convince them to show it?” I surmised.
“Yeah,” he answered curtly. “And it did not work. He refused to allow one of his pieces to be shown here.”
I looked up at him speculatively.
“He wasn’t open to lending it, but he was open to something else and the new owner is a lot more considerate,” he explained.
The realization wrapped around me slowly. My heart stopped before it picked up like a roaring engine.
“You bought it?” I managed to choke out before looking back at the piece that I was sure I’d never be able to see with my
own eyes. A quiet tremble ran through my muscles. I looked back up at him. “You own this?”
“No.” He shook his head. “You do.”
He nodded in the direction of the small golden plaque beneath the painting.
The light reflected off it and I read the inscriptions. “ On loan. ” Just below it was my name. “ Penelope Chen-Astor-Sutton’s private collection .”
The only thing on the list was that I wanted to visit the museum. I hadn’t mentioned this painting. Or every feeling that
was tied to it.
Every sentiment clogged my throat. He considered me and what I wanted. A simple courtesy but one I was never granted before. Xander took time to consider the things I said and the things I didn’t say. He spent enough time thinking about it that he was able to figure out this one piece without ever being told. With a deep breath I managed to choke out, “How did you know?”
“I didn’t. I was just thinking about that night you were drunkenly musing about Tolstoy’s family dysfunction.” He pressed
a kiss on my head. A circuit clicked in my mind—that night in my kitchen. He carried that tiny scrap of information with him
and turned it over in his head enough times to know it was this painting. “I thought maybe this one was your favorite. Was I right?” he whispered, his thumb running slow circles in the
same spot on my back.
I nodded and, even though he didn’t ask, I told him. I wanted him to know. “I spent the summers in Singapore and my mother
went to the farm—the one where she lives now, outside of Glasgow. I always imagined in some alternate universe if I was in
a real family , on that little farm...” Emotion welled at the base of my throat. “One that didn’t...”
Tears stung the corners of my eyes.
It was all too much. The lengths he must have gone through parsing details from that night to come to the correct conclusion,
finding the collector, buying it for me. All so that I could have this one painting that made me feel so many things all at
once.
“They aren’t the only family you have.” His hand moved soothingly up and down my back.
I nodded. I understood what he meant, that I had a life here, too.
But I missed Singapore.
Maybe I should have stayed longer.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left. I hated questioning myself, not trusting what I felt. That feeling of rejection I always felt when I went home was still there, but so easily smothered by the joy in Olivia’s laugh. Or the occasional biting remark Arabella would let slip.
Xander’s eyes flickered along my face, his jaw became tight.
“Why don’t we visit again soon?” he offered, knowing it was what I was thinking about.
I nodded.
I’d texted Arabella and Olivia. A couple short calls. Restarting a relationship that was on hold for years took work and was
made even harder by distance.
A visit sounded wonderful even though we’d just been there. But it felt like adhering a Band-Aid to a gaping wound.
He didn’t say anything else. His eyes wavered around the other pieces and then back to the one in front of us.
“They look happy.” I sighed, taking it in even though I had every detail of it committed to memory.
I remembered seeing it as a girl and wondering what it must have been like to be one of them. All seated around a table where
everyone wanted you there. I always found myself picturing this when I pictured my future. A silly perfected version of happiness.
“It was the forties.” Xander’s voice lifted with a playful lightness, like it was a reflex to not let anyone around be anything
other than content. “A lot of American housewives were on drugs.”
I shook with a reluctant laugh at the dark humor. I tried to contain my smile, but it refused to cooperate. “Are you ever
serious?”
“Yeah, I am.” His hand continued to slowly stroke my back, voice dropping to a whisper. “When it comes to you.”
I was trying not to let my head interfere with something that felt so good. Giving in to the attraction with Xander allowed
me to finally indulge in passion and all the things I’d ignored for so long. For now, I didn’t want to question it, I wanted
to float along and enjoy it.
“Thank you for this,” I murmured softly, unable to sort through everything I was feeling. I looked down.
Seemingly understanding without a word, he held my chin with his thumb and forefinger, lifting it so I could see the mischievous
glint through the mossy green. “Nothing on that list is safe.”
I smiled and basked in the warmth of his touch and the reprieve he’d granted me by not pushing the subject of us.
The reality began to dawn on me. I knew what this relationship was supposed to be; exactly what I’d asked for: a year to get
what I needed so I could figure out what I wanted.
Except now maybe, what I wanted was a few things.