Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Sofia
If waking up and realizing that I had bitched and complained about my boss for at least an hour with him two feet away wasn’t enough, my cocktail-mixing hangover was in full swing.
And if the threat of unemployment and a hangover wasn’t bad enough, I was about to meet my father for the first time. Kill. Me. Now.
All I wanted to do was take a sleeping pill, crawl back into bed, and wake up sometime next June. Instead, I was wandering around, Google Maps open on my phone, trying to find my father’s house, where I was going for lunch.
I checked my phone to make sure that the address he’d sent said number seventy-one.
Yup, this was definitely the house. Most houses in London had an intercom and eleventy million buttons, one for each apartment cramped in behind the door.
But this one had just one button. Of course it did, because my father was rich as sin. And that’s exactly why I was here.
“God forgive me for the lies I’m about to tell. I’m trying to make my mom better,” I said, glancing at the sky and making the sign of the cross. I took a deep breath and hit the bell.
I didn’t have to wait long before I heard locks being unbolted and the door swung open to reveal a man in a red sweater. He had the exact same cheekbones as me.
“Sofia?” he asked and shook his head. “Of course it is.” He opened his arms and made a sweeping gesture, inviting me inside. “Thank you so much for coming. We’re all very excited to meet you.”
“Is she here?” a girl squealed from further down the entrance hall.
A child raced toward us wearing an old-fashioned, green-and-blue-checkered dress and blue velvet headband.
“I’m Bella,” the girl said, outstretching her hand. “Very nice to meet you. We’re half-sisters, you know.”
I shook her hand, a little dazed by her confidence.
I was somewhat prepared to see my father—the man who’d always been the missing piece of the puzzle as I was growing up.
And of course, he’d told me that his two children would be there.
I just hadn’t really thought about it beyond numbers sitting around a table.
But Bella was right. We were related by blood. We were sisters.
“Bryony is just coming.” She turned to the bottom of the stairs. “Bryony?” she bellowed.
“Shhh.” A woman appeared in the hallway just as Bella ran off back up the stairs. The woman was very British-looking. Tall and thin lipped, with a neat row of pearls sitting just on top of the neck of her camel-colored sweater that was no doubt one hundred percent cashmere.
“How do you do?” she said to me, giving me a wide smile as she offered me her hand. “I’m Evan. So pleased you could come to lunch. Please come this way.”
I glanced at my father, taking in his pale skin and light hair, which wasn’t anything like mine, and his amber brown eyes that looked like they’d been stolen from me. He was grinning like he’d spent the afternoon at Serendipity and was high on sugar.
I was led into a room at the bottom of the stairs that looked like something out of Downton Abbey.
There were huge old-fashioned portraits on the wall and flowery wallpaper that actually looked like fabric rather than paper, and those old-fashioned chairs I associated with France and long-assed wigs on the guys who wore pointy satin shoes.
There were flowers everywhere, crawling from the drapes into the rug and couch.
Bella slipped into the room like a cat burglar, holding the hand of a slightly shorter girl who was wearing exactly the same outfit. “This is Bryony.”
I waved and Bryony waved back. Bella led her little sister over to what looked like a footstool underneath one of the huge, Georgian windows. They both sat down, legs crossed at the ankle, hands placed gently in their laps, like one was the shadow of the other.
I almost burst out laughing, everything was so goddamn weird.
I bet these guys had servants and ate those teeny tiny sandwiches on tiered plate stands.
It was a whole other world from the tiny two-bedroom apartment I grew up in and still called home, with its yellowed walls and a toilet that had to be flushed twice after six in the evening or it got blocked.
This was the home of someone who’d had a very different life.
“You have a beautiful home,” I said, glancing up at the crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling, raining down refracted light.
“Thank you,” Evan said, sitting and patting the cushion next to her. “It’s Des’s family home that we took over after his parents’ death.”
My grandparents. I hadn’t known they’d died. But then again, I hadn’t known my half-sisters were called Bella and Bryony.
There was a lot I didn’t know.
I took a seat, and as soon as I had, wished I hadn’t.
This was too odd. I should have taken up his first suggestion of a quick coffee, just the two of us.
Now I was here among the chandeliers, watching him in his normal life that was so far from normal to me.
It was the life I might have had, if he’d chosen a different path and not run off and left my mother to figure it out—pregnant and as poor as a church mouse.
“Shall we have a drink before lunch?” my father asked as a young boy, no older than twenty, entered the room. I smiled and said I’d have water. The boy wrote it down, along with everyone else’s requests, like we were in a restaurant.
“How are you enjoying London?” Evan said. It seemed like only seconds had gone by and the boy was back with my water—complete with ice and a slice of lime—along with everyone else’s drinks. I took a sip and hoped my voice didn’t come out as a croak.
“I’m really enjoying it,” I said. “I haven’t gotten the chance to see an awful lot because I’ve been so busy at work, but I can’t wait to wander the parks and explore the museums.”
“We love the natural history museum,” Bella said. “Don’t we, Bryony?”
Bryony nodded diligently.
I laughed at their double act. They should be on Broadway.
“The natural history museum was a favorite of mine too when I was your age. As well as New York Public Library.” The library had been a babysitter to me.
My mother often left me there among the books while she went off on a shift at her main job as a manicurist. It didn’t seem odd at the time.
She said she thought it was safer than getting a local babysitter, which carried the risk of a crack addict boyfriend making an appearance.
She reasoned that bad actors generally didn’t spend loads of time in the library and besides—it was free.
We always started at the children’s section, where I picked out some favorites, and then my mom would tuck me away in the corner of the biology department where no one would wander.
If anyone did happen to pass by, I was instructed to say that my mom had just gone to the restroom and would be back soon.
No one ever did. I was left alone but I felt safe, surrounded by the books that were age appropriate and the ones that were less so.
I bet Bella and Bryony had never hidden in a library when their mom needed to get to her job. I wasn’t sure if I was envious or felt sorry for them.
Either way, it was impossible not to compare their lives now and what mine had been at the same age. We had the same father, after all.
I needed to snap out of feeling intimidated or maligned in some way and focus on the prize. Today was just a building block. A foundation stone to a relationship in which my father was more likely to give me the money I needed when I asked him for it. I had a job to do, and I had to get to work.
When we’d had more small talk and finished our drinks, we moved into the dining room, which was full of more chandeliers and floral wallpaper, and an antique dining table and chairs.
I wondered whether or not the British used silverware in the same way Americans did, or if I’d end up making a complete fool of myself. I should have Googled this shit.
“How’s the new job?” my father asked as we took a seat.
I was seated next to Bryony. When she took her napkin from her plate and placed it in her lap, I followed her lead. Yes, five-year-old Bryony would be my etiquette coach, whether she knew it or not.
“It’s good. I’m learning a lot.”
“Andrew Blake has a reputation for being demanding,” Des said. “I hope he’s treating you well.”
I shrugged. “I’m a New Yorker. I can handle Andrew Blake.
” Hopefully the heat that burned my cheeks didn’t show.
I didn’t want to talk about my job or Andrew.
There was a ninety-nine-point seven percent chance I was getting fired on Monday, and Des didn’t need to know that.
I wanted him to think he’d missed out on seeing his clever, charming daughter grow up, not dodged a curveball.
I needed to provoke regret in him, not relief.
As much as I was here for a reason, my curiosity about my father and his history poked at me. “Did you like New York?” I asked. I wasn’t looking to embarrass him. I wanted to know. He was half my DNA and I was curious about which parts of me, apart from my cheekbones and eyes, had come from him.
“I haven’t been in a long time, but I enjoy city life—although I think I’m more suited to the country.”
I didn’t know anything but city life. That was okay. I loved New York. I knew every crack in the sidewalk, every scuffed fire hydrant, every Duane Reade from the Apollo to Battery Park.
“We have a place in Scotland,” Evan said. “We go in the summer.”
Summer in New York was a challenge. Over the past few years, I’d spent the odd few days on the Jersey shore with Natalie, but because of jobs and studying, for the most part my summers were spent in the searing humidity of the city.
Like the rest of New York, I’d try to hop between air-conditioned buildings in order to avoid the feeling of being bathed in the drunk breath of an old man staggering out of a dive bar at three in the afternoon.
I imagined Scotland was a little different.
“And sometimes at Easter,” Bella said. “I like horses.”
“We all like horses,” Bryony said, speaking for the first time.
“Do you like horses?” Bella asked.
It was a simple question and one I imagined most of Bella’s circle would easily answer. The problem was the question and my answer betrayed much more than equine preferences.
“I don’t not like horses,” I replied.
Before the confused frown on Bella’s face could be translated into further questioning, Evan interrupted. “I have a few friends who’ve done their MBAs at Columbia. It’s a very good course, I hear.”
“I enjoyed it a lot.” For the first time in my life, being surrounded by the other students at Columbia, I’d felt like I’d been rubbing shoulders with the elite.
Sure, I still felt like an outsider, but I knew I wasn’t dumber than the people around me.
Just poorer. It had fired my ambition and given me a dose of confidence I’d sorely needed.
“It’s exciting to be able to face my future with that kind of qualification.
It feels like a world of possibilities opened up for me. ”
I glanced at my father, who looked away.
It seemed there was nothing I could say that was both authentic to who I was and comfortable for my father.
My mother’s answer for most things was to be myself.
She prized honesty over most things. “Non ho peli sulla lingua,” she would say, after telling me some truth I didn’t want to hear.
The problem was, I didn’t know how to be myself sitting around a table with my biological father’s family.
The situation was so alien to me. Everything from their sofa to their napkins felt like it came from a different world. Where did I fit in?
“It’s an incredible opportunity,” Evan said. “I’d be extremely proud if Bella or Bryony ever went to Columbia to get their MBA.”
A grateful smile curled around my lips and I nodded. She hadn’t needed to be so kind.
“You have to work hard,” Evan said, addressing her daughters. “Your sister has blazed a trail for you. This is why you have to do your homework. Isn’t that right, Sofia?”
“Homework’s definitely important.” Evan’s obvious effort at including me in Bella and Bryony’s world and addressing me as their sister was touching.
It gave me hope that despite my father’s discomfort, he might want to continue to build our relationship.
And that maybe Evan, Bella, and Bryony might just prove to be a lovely perk of my deception.