Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
I n an example of spectacularly poor timing, the mouse emergency occurred on the same day that Sloane had scheduled a meeting with her father.
If Sloane had been the type to cancel established plans at the last minute, she’d have cancelled the meeting. But alas, that was not good etiquette. Also, she couldn’t let Ivy down. The teen had been counting the days until they could go through Harper’s records, housed at Dad’s condo, because Ivy had high hopes of pinpointing information in those records that would lead to her birth father.
After Sloane picked up Ivy from the church, the two of them grabbed chowder for lunch, then drove toward Sloane’s hometown of Waldoboro.
As the scenery became more and more familiar, a sense of dread grew within Sloane. The dread had nothing to do with the town itself and everything to do with her childhood here.
When Sloane was one and Harper three, their mother had left their father. Her parents had never been married, so there’d been nothing to dissolve legally. Not a marriage and not custody, since their mother hadn’t desired custody. Gone had been gone . After their mother departed, Harper and Sloane had never seen her again. Nor heard an update about her until midway through Sloane’s high school years, when Dad had informed them that she’d died of complications of pneumonia.
Reading between the lines, Sloane had eventually concluded that Dean Madison had loved their mother but that his gambling addiction had driven her away. The loss of her had removed whatever stuffing he once may have possessed. Without stuffing, he’d acted like a doll missing its insides.
Her father hadn’t yelled at her and Harper. He hadn’t hit them. He was not an evil man.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t a good one, either. He’d been unreliable when present and absent a lot of the time—bouncing from job to job. He’d worked as a forklift operator. He’d mowed lawns. He’d stocked shelves. He’d driven trucks. He’d served in Maine’s National Guard.
When employed, he gambled away much of the money he made. When unemployed, their family of three survived on unemployment insurance.
Without a trustworthy adult in the house, she and Harper had been forced to teach themselves to bathe, brush their teeth, and comb their hair after being ridiculed by other kids for being dirty and unkempt. They’d almost never had clothes that fit. Their kitchen had rarely been stocked with enough food. They’d made it to school only because she and Harper had gotten themselves up and walked there. They’d depended on the free lunch program because Dad seldom provided meals at home.
It hadn’t been until much later that Sloane realized what she’d endured as a child had a name.
Neglect.
Her father’s struggles had plunged Sloane into a chronic state of stress. She now understood that some of the demons Harper had battled—anxiety, an eating disorder, substance abuse—were struggles shared by others who’d been neglected. Even Harper’s decision to leave home at eighteen to escape her role of caregiver to Sloane was a behavior shared by many.
Though Sloane’s demons were different, she had her share. She needed to be orderly. She struggled to delegate or let others in because she found it hard to trust people to take care of things. She didn’t feel safe unless armed with etiquette, clothing, and grooming.
She reached her father’s condo complex—a grouping of buildings that reminded Sloane of a woman who’d enjoyed a few glory days when young but was now well past her prime and had given up on maintenance. Together she and Ivy walked toward her father’s unit.
Ivy had communicated her eagerness to dive headlong into her search for her birth father. Yet the teenager had shown neither excitement nor negativity regarding the prospect of seeing her biological grandfather. Which made sense because Dean Madison was a non-entity in Ivy’s life.
Sloane’s father answered their knock looking a decade older than his fifty-eight years. He was uncomfortably thin beneath his threadbare gray sweater and beige pants. His beard was grizzled, his loosely curling brown-gray hair untidy. Deep lines furrowed his hawkish face.
A panicked fear—that she’d be stuck here with him, depending on him—flashed through Sloane’s mind. But no, she reminded herself. She was an adult. Free to leave this condo at any time. Secure in the income she made. Able to depend on herself.
“Hello, Dad.”
“Hello. Welcome.” He did not attempt to hug Sloane or Ivy. Tiredly, he motioned for them to enter.
He’d moved in here around the time Sloane graduated from college, so this condo had never been her home. Yet it shared similarities with the apartments they’d lived in when she was growing up. Worn-down furniture. Mess. Dust.
Coming face-to-face with him was like stirring sand that had been resting dormant in the bottom of a pail of water. Suddenly granules of resentment, pity, and guilt were spinning upward within her.
“How’s your health?” Sloane asked.
“Not great. My emphysema isn’t getting any better.”
She nodded. Decades of smoking had caused the condition. Based on the smell of the condo—cigarettes and burned coffee—he was never going to quit. “What can I do to help you while I’m in Maine for the next few months?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you have plenty of food?”
He lifted a bony shoulder. “Enough.”
Many years ago, he’d sustained an injury on the job and been living on disability pay ever since. Sloane went to the kitchen adjoining the living room. He made a protesting sound, but she ignored it in order to take stock of the refrigerator and pantry. As expected—very little there.
She’d spent most of her life trapped in a cycle of hoping he’d come through for her and Harper, realizing he wasn’t going to, and hoping anew. During her time at Penn, she’d finally brought an end to that cycle.
However, this kitchen empty of food—such a jarring throwback to her childhood—pricked her spirit. He hadn’t come through for his daughters, but she would come through for him. At the very least, with groceries. Sloane could not allow her parent to starve while she herself was living in the lap of luxury down the road in Groomsport. “I’ll be stopping by weekly. When I do, I’ll clean for an hour and bring food.”
“No need?—”
“I’ll be stopping by weekly,” she insisted in her business-owner tone. “I’ll text you to set up a time.”
He didn’t fight her on it. He was still a doll missing its insides. “Come sit down.” He took an armchair.
Sloane and Ivy perched on the front edge of the sagging sofa.
“You said over the phone that you wanted Harper’s records?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I pulled them out of the closet for you. They’re there.” He bobbed his chin toward two containers stacked in the hallway.
“Thank you. We’ll take them with us when we go.”
A pause. “What’re you after?” he asked.
“Details on my biological father,” Ivy answered.
He responded with a cough.
“Did Harper ever say anything to you about Ivy’s biological father?” Sloane asked.
His hollow eyes seemed to peer back through time. “I know they were together for a short time when she lived in Boston. When you were born, Ivy, I told Harper to call your father and tell him he needed to support you financially.”
“What did Harper say to that?” Ivy asked.
“She told me it was none of my business and that her relationship with him hadn’t been a public thing. I remember that very well. Those were the words she used. Not a public thing . I asked her what she meant by that.”
“And?” Sloane asked.
“She wouldn’t say.”
Sloane’s phone chimed, alerting her to an incoming text. From an unknown number.
There are very few pest-control companies in the northeastern United States of America who remove mice from homes alive.
Clearly, this was from Max. As landlord, he’d have access to her phone number thanks to the rental documents for the garage apartment.
Max
But my assistant looked high and low and finally found one who lives near Acadia National Park. I’m going to pay him a small fortune to come and remove your mouse, but he can’t be in Groomsport until the day after tomorrow.
This Wednesday was becoming a real kick in the teeth.
Sloane stood. “Ivy and I will be on our way. If you remember anything else about Ivy’s birth father, please let us know.” She couldn’t wait to leave.
Sloane carried a box out. Ivy carried a box out. And her father shut the door behind them.
On the way back to Groomsport in Brooke’s big SUV, Ivy turned down the Bruno Mars song she was playing to ask, “Does it make you sad to see Dean?” Ivy didn’t call Sloane’s father “Grandpa” because they didn’t have that type of relationship.
“To be honest, it does.”
“Yeah. I thought so. How come you said you’d go by there every week?”
Sloane rubbed the side of her thumb against the steering wheel. “Do you agree that one of the most famous verses in the Bible is ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’?”
“Yep.”
“In the devotional book I’ve been reading, the author suggested a way to rephrase that verse. It’s this . . . Give to other people what you need. I’ve spent time pondering it as a question. Am I giving to other people what I need? ”
Sloane had come to faith during her college years when her roommate had invited her to a Bible study. She’d been the daughter of an unloving and unfaithful father. Learning that she had a capital F Father who did and would love her unconditionally? Who was faithful by nature? That had changed her life, flooding the dark places inside her heart with sunlight.
Ivy had been raised in a family of faith and so it was a joy to have this bedrock part of both their lives in common.
“The second I saw that my dad barely has any food,” Sloane went on, “I felt this internal nudge. I knew that I was meant to give him some of the things I needed when I was little. Groceries. A clean place to live.”
It didn’t matter whether he wanted or appreciated the groceries. The concept of giving others what you need didn’t come with qualifiers like, “Only if the person is grateful.” Or “Only if the person deserves it.”
Sloane darted a glance at Ivy and saw that the girl was watching her with sympathy. “I’m sorry,” Ivy said, “that you and Harper didn’t have groceries and a clean place to live when you were kids.”
“That’s kind of you to say, sweetheart.”
“And I’m glad that you’re okay now.”
“I’m definitely okay now,” Sloane reassured her. It was true. Thanks mostly to God’s grace, but also to therapy, distance, and the passage of years, she was okay now.
Pulling onto The Gables property, they didn’t have the option of returning to their apartment, currently the dwelling place of two caged rats and one free-roaming mouse. Which meant they had no choice but to take Harper’s containers into Max’s mansion.
It was midafternoon, a time of day when Max was always at the office. Even so, they knocked on his front door, rang the bell, waited. No response, so Sloane used the key he’d given her. It felt a little as if they were breaking and entering as they eased into the silent foyer and then transported Harper’s boxes up the stairs.
“This house is amazing,” Ivy stage whispered as they deposited their boxes on the third-floor landing. “Like, I think this is the best house I’ve been in. Ever.”
Yes, look at the splendid place where he lives thanks to the company I co-founded . “It’s gorgeous,” Sloane admitted. It was Max’s house, so she’d have liked to resist its charm on principle. However, The Gables was such a brilliant mix of old-world character and modern comfort that the house was seducing her into loving it.
The tote bags with their belongings from the apartment were still downstairs so they brought those up, selected which rooms they’d be staying in, then plopped onto the floor of the third-floor hall beside Harper’s containers.
Ivy opened her box immediately.
Sloane, needing a moment to prepare herself, took a deep breath. You can do this, Sloane .
She removed the lid and saw Harper’s jewelry box resting on top. She lifted it out and opened it with a creak. Several necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings. These were all worth pennies yet held great value for her because she could remember Harper wearing each of these items.
She missed her sister. The enormity of her loss pressed into her like a gale-force wind.
“Are you all right?” Ivy asked.
Sloane looked up. “Yes. I love Harper. So . . . going through these things is definitely good. But also hard.”
“My siblings are super important to me. I can’t imagine losing one of them.”
Ivy’s siblings were now twenty-five, twenty-two, and twenty. The oldest, Chelsea, was a nurse in Portland. Next oldest, Caleb, was finishing his college credits with a study-abroad program in Spain. Next oldest, Jordan, was working all summer in Canada. Ivy was rich in sisters and brothers—all of whom had always doted on her. Sloane wouldn’t have had it any other way for her niece. But she would have had it a different way for herself. If she’d been able to choose, Harper would be with her still and that version of Harper would be whole and healthy.
Sloane set the jewelry box to the side. Next came high school yearbooks. A graduation cap Harper had personalized on the top to say, One degree hotter . A leather jacket.
Ivy was going through the loose papers in her box one by one. “I’m seeing bills and stuff.”
Sloane had also reached paper at the bottom of her box. “Same here. We’re after records that have to do with you. Your birth, your adoption.”
They studied each page. Most were irrelevant and could be thrown away.
“Oh!” Ivy held up a yellow folder.
“That looks promising.”
Ivy crawled across to sit next to Sloane and opened the folder on the carpet in front of them. “You can go through it, Aunt Sloane.”
“No, it’s all right. This is your search. I’m here as your ally and supporter.”
The teen flicked past Harper’s birth certificate and Social Security card. She gasped. “ Look . Here’s my birth certificate.”
They both leaned forward to read it.
“The space for the name of my birth father is blank,” Ivy said, disappointment clear in her tone.
“Let’s keep going.”
Ivy flipped over a few more documents.
“There,” Sloane said. This paper was titled “Voluntary Adoption Surrender.” Sloane tapped her finger on it. “Look, this is dated five months after your birth, right around the time when you were placed for adoption.”
“ Wait! I think you’re right. Is this his name? Here? It says Seth Taylor.”
Sloane rapidly scanned the text. “I believe that is his name, yes. Your biological father.”
“Seth Taylor,” Ivy said slowly, as if test-driving the syllables.
Ivy’s profile was still bent over the paper, strands of strawberry-blond hair drifting forward. Her niece was one of the greatest gifts Sloane had received in her lifetime. It was hard to compute that anyone would have terminated their parental rights to her, but Seth Taylor had. Was Ivy feeling a sense of rejection in response to the black-and-white evidence of that?
But Ivy, so well-adjusted and cherished, didn’t appear upset. Only enthusiastic. “Let’s look him up!”
“Sure. Can you grab my computer from my room?”
Ivy was back with it in seconds, returning to her spot beside Sloane. “Should we start with Google?”
“Seth Taylor is a fairly common name, but we can certainly start with Google.” Sloane ran a search.
The Seths that came up in response to Sloane’s search all lived far away and none were the right age.
“I could try to find him on Facebook,” Sloane suggested.
“Yes, please!”
Sloane ran a search there. Several Seth Taylors appeared. Again, none seemed like a match.
They did the same on their other social media apps. No viable hits.
“Bummer,” Ivy whispered.
“We’re just getting started,” Sloane said. “We’ll do more research on how to find people and then we’ll keep trying. Remember that we actually had a very productive day.”
“Right! Because now we know his name.”
Max arrived home that evening feeling unusually pleased with himself.
A mouse was occupying Sloane’s apartment. Which meant Sloane was occupying his house.
He found he liked, very much, the idea of having her under his roof.
He hadn’t planted the mouse. But he would have if he’d understood that doing so would land Sloane at The Gables. The mouse had earned the right to live. Maybe Max should negotiate a mouse raise and mouse food for life.
He entered his house, set aside his keys, and listened. He couldn’t hear Sloane or Ivy.
He climbed to the second story and stopped, looking up toward the third story. “Everyone doing okay?”
A distant “Yes!” from Ivy. The girl bounded into sight.
“Do you ladies need anything? Dinner, for example?”
“We ate an early dinner out.”
“Help yourself to the pantry and refrigerator.” Where was Sloane? He craned his head for a glimpse of her but couldn’t see her.
“Thanks! And thank you for letting us stay here. Would you mind helping me bring Kevin and Ricky over from the apartment? While we’re there, I’ll get clothes for me and Aunt Sloane for tomorrow.”
Which was how Max ended up standing in his garage apartment with his hands on his hips, eyeballing Ivy’s rats. “What horror movie did these two escape from?”
She giggled. “They’re cute!”
“They’re hideous.”
“Look at their sweet little ears and noses.”
“Look at their creepy tails.”
“Want to cuddle one?”
He met her eyes. “If there’s any detail of me that makes you think I’m the type of person to cuddle rats, tell me, so that I can change that detail.”
Smiling, she rolled her eyes.
One rat was eating while the other one was doing its best to climb on its head.
“They’re very intelligent,” Ivy said.
“Yeah,” he responded dryly. “It looks like it.”
“And friendly and silly. You have to have at least two of them because they’re social.”
She covered the rat cage with a blanket. Then Max and Ivy began the journey to the main house, Ivy talking his ear off about the details of rat care.
Sloane did not emerge from her room all night.
Max would have much preferred it if he’d had a chance to see and talk with her. But he wouldn’t complain. It was surprisingly satisfying simply to know she was sharing his space. The feel of his whole house was different. Better. Fuller.
More alive.
More complete.
The next night, Sloane and Ivy reclined side by side on the bed in Sloane’s guest bedroom at The Gables. Sloane had propped her computer on a pillow between them. It was playing the scene from The Princess Diaries when Mia arrives in Genovia.
This was their fourth shared movie night since Sloane had arrived in Maine. She and Ivy were taking turns picking movies. So far, Sloane had gravitated toward selections like The Princess Diaries that introduced her niece to movies Sloane had enjoyed when she was a kid. So far, Ivy had found all of Sloane’s selections weird, but Sloane pressed on, maintaining that it benefited the girl to receive a solid introduction to the early 2000s.
Far below, Sloane could vaguely make out the sound of the front door opening and shutting. The hum of conversations.
When they’d come downstairs this morning, Sloane had informed Max that they’d planned to get breakfast on the way to the church. But she’d floated that plan too late. He’d already been in the process of making them cheese omelets with a side of ham.
He’d fed them and sparred with Sloane in equal measure.
The garage apartment had provided Sloane with a modicum of separation from Max since arriving in Maine ten days ago. A sense of urgency to return to the privacy of that was mounting inside her.
Max did not appear to be experiencing the same urgency. On the contrary, he acted as if their presence at The Gables was a battle he’d won instead of what it actually was—a battle he’d lost when he’d allowed a rodent to invade his property .
After dropping Ivy off at the church, Sloane had taken her computer to Java Junkie and worked there. She’d updated My Fair Lady’s social media accounts, answered emails about upcoming events, paid bills.
She’d removed herself from The Gables in order to put space between herself and Max. Also, she worried that if she spent hours alone at Max’s house, she might be tempted to snoop through his bedroom.
If anything was bad etiquette—that was it.
The Princess of Wales did not snoop.
“I think Max is having people over,” Ivy whispered now.
“I think you’re right.”
After another fifteen minutes passed, Ivy paused the show. “I’m dying to go down there and see what’s going on. Can I?”
“No.”
Ivy scrambled off the bed. “How ’bout if I just peek over the stairs? They won’t see me. ’Kay? Please?”
“Fine. But stay out of sight.”
Ivy moved stealthily onto the third-floor landing. Sloane followed, hanging back as Ivy angled her body to try to get a look at Max’s guests.
Trendy music overlaid with male and female laughter bubbled up to them. It sounded over-idealized, as if Sloane was listening to a canned party-scene track.
“I can’t see anything.” Ivy returned to Sloane and wrapped her hands comically around her neck. “I’m thirsty. There aren’t any glasses up here. What are we supposed to do? Lean over and slurp water out of the sink faucet? Surely that’s bad etiquette, right? I can’t imagine you drinking water that way.”
Sloane pursed her lips.
“The party might go on for hours and hours,” Ivy went on. “We’ll be parched.”
The girl was obviously angling for a visit to the party. Nonetheless, she’d made a decent point. For the third time since they’d come to this estate, Sloane and Ivy were once again in need of water to drink. Max should have let them know that he was having people over so that she and Ivy could have prepared accordingly. But of course he hadn’t.
“Let me go downstairs and get us some glasses of water. Please.” Ivy made prayer hands.
Sloane was suggestible enough to be feeling a sudden pang of dry-mouthed thirst. She ran a cost-benefit analysis in her head. Inject herself into Max’s party? Or slurp from sink? “Fine,” she told Ivy. “I’m going with you.”
She didn’t think anything untoward was happening downstairs. It sounded jovial yet dignified. Even so, she refused to send a fifteen-year-old into an adult party solo. “We’re going to be very unobtrusive and quick. We’ll just get our water and come back upstairs. All right?”
“Yay!”
In wide-legged gray sweatpants and a matching cropped sweatshirt, Sloane was wearing the most casual garments she ever wore during waking hours. She wholeheartedly believed in dressing as the person you wanted to become and coached her students to do the same. That meant she selected clothing as formal or more formal than the people she came into contact with. It would be uncomfortable and unusual for her to be dressed less formally than the people at Max’s party. But also not her fault since he’d given them no warning.
Ivy hurried down the stairs. Sloane followed at a more sedate pace.
Upon reaching the first floor, it became immediately apparent that Max was hosting a stylish and expensive gathering. Oh dear. There were more people down here than she’d realized. The women were in party dresses, the men in sport coats.
Sloane nodded to the knot of guests in the front hall. Turning into the formal dining room, she encountered more guests, as well as a meal served by a catering team. She met people’s eyes, nodded, murmured polite hellos as they moved through. In the kitchen, they each speedily filled water glasses.
Any route back to the third floor had to be less crowded than the route they’d just taken, so once they had water, Sloane exited the kitchen in the direction of the living room. As she did, her attention intersected with Max on the far side of the space.
He was staring directly at her. Clearly, he’d spotted her before she’d spotted him.
Positioned near the fireplace, dressed in a suit, he was talking to three women. They were all his type. Bikini-model bodies, long hair, short dresses.
A shaft of displeasure iced through Sloane. What had she expected? He was a rake doing rakish things.
Sloane lifted her glass and mouthed, “ We just came down for water.”
Max mouthed back, “ Stay.” Though she couldn’t hear him, she could read his lips, even after all this time, as effortlessly as he’d read hers.
She shook her head and was guiding Ivy toward the hallway when a man to her right said, “Sloane!”
She and Ivy halted to face the speaker. In a flash, Sloane recognized him.
Nate Whittaker. He’d been an employee at Libri during her last few years there. They’d dated for a couple of months around the time she’d been booted from the company. His light brown hair and ruddy complexion had always been appealing, as had his long-lashed hazel eyes and calm, friendly demeanor. He had a square face and the stout body of someone who’d played football in high school. He was more muscular than she remembered and, on the whole, looked to have improved with age.
“Nate. It’s wonderful to see you again.”
“You too.” He came in for a hug, which she returned.
They stepped apart. Sloane gestured with a water glass toward her teen sidekick. “Nate, may I please introduce my niece, Ivy.”
“Hi, Ivy,” he said amiably.
“Hi!”
“I didn’t know you were back in the area,” he said to Sloane.
“Ivy and I are renting Max’s garage apartment this summer. There’s a pest-control issue in the apartment tonight so we’re staying in the guest bedrooms upstairs out of necessity.”
“You’re staying in Max’s garage apartment?” His expression communicated, I’m highly confused because I thought you two were enemies.
“Yes.” She didn’t owe him an explanation so didn’t provide one. “We crashed this party because we got thirsty.”
“Ah, gotcha. Party crashing for a good cause.” He grinned.
Sloane smiled back.
“Is this party celebrating something?” Ivy asked Nate.
“Excellent quarterly earnings,” Nate told them. “Every time that happens, Max hosts his employees and several other people from the local business community here.”
“Ah,” Sloane said. “So you’re still working at Libri?”
“I am. I moved to Maine when Max brought the headquarters here. I could’ve stayed in Philadelphia and worked remotely but I’ve always liked coming into the office. I’m pretty near the introvert line but I am, technically, an extrovert. It’s good for me to be around people. Wow . I can’t believe you’re here. Will you . . . stay down here so we can talk more?” Nate gestured to the glasses. “I can set those aside for you ladies if that would help.”
“Thank you for offering, but we’re going to head back up.”
Ivy slumped at that announcement.
“It’s really so good to see you, Sloane,” Nate said. “There are at least five of us from the days when you were at Libri who are still around. Now and then we talk about how awesome you were.”
Were. As if she was deceased.
“And I think about you often,” he continued. “Always with fondness.”
“I often think about the Libri team with fondness, too.” Except for Max. “It would be wonderful to catch up with you some other time.”
“Is your cell phone number still the same?” he asked.
“No, it’s different.”
“Would you mind sharing it with me?”
“Not at all.”
He pulled out his phone and she rattled off her number.
Nate wasn’t wearing a wedding band, which was surprising. He’d make a terrific husband and father. Maybe he was married and not wearing a wedding band? But if so, why was she getting chemistry vibes from him? It felt, despite that she was wearing sweatpants and holding enough water to replenish a fishtank, that he might be interested in revisiting the romantic relationship between them that she’d broken off.
“I’ll be in touch.” He pocketed his phone.
“Fabulous. Enjoy the party.” She moved off.
“Nice to meet you, Ivy,” Nate called.
“You too.”
As they made their way down the hallway, Sloane’s vision landed on Max’s mother, who was coming in their direction.
The older woman halted, face lighting up with delighted surprise. “Sloane?”
“Nicole,” Sloane said with warmth.
“Oh my goodness! Sloane!” The older woman embraced Sloane—a long, tight hug. “I missed you.”
Sloane’s personality had always endeared her to the parents of her friends and occasional boyfriends. For the nine years that Max had been in her life, so had Nicole. Max’s mother could be feisty. But, overall, she’d been wonderful to Sloane. Caring, encouraging, approving. When Nicole had visited Philadelphia, she’d made big meals for Sloane and Max. She’d sent Sloane birthday gifts. They’d had long talks during which Nicole had asked countless questions and shown genuine interest in Sloane’s life.
Back when she’d lost Libri, she’d lost a lot of people other than Max. People like Nicole. People like Nate.
Sloane introduced Ivy.
“You were this tall the last time I saw you!” Nicole told Ivy, holding her hand near her waist.
“Was I?” Ivy asked.
“Yes. My, how you’ve grown.” Nicole’s focus lifted to Sloane. “I had no idea you were going to be here tonight. Have you and Max made up?” Shaking her head, she swished both hands forward like, Never mind, don’t answer that . “I’ll get the story from him later. And I’ll give him a piece of my mind about the fact that he didn’t tell me you were in Maine. Why is he so secretive? He should tell his mother the important things. I raised him to tell me the important things. But does he? No. He’s as tight-lipped as a spy. Are you doing well?”
“Very well. I live in LA and run my own etiquette-teaching business.”
“I did not approve when I heard you’d been forced out of Libri. I’ve told Max that several times over the years.”
Sloane nodded. Silence could be her only reply because no way would she say anything negative about Max to his mother or any of his other guests.
“I’m extremely proud of my son,” Nicole continued. “But he has his faults. And his strengths. Did you know that he bought me a house?”
“I didn’t. Where?”
“In Montville. I love my house. Please, the two of you, come over for lunch one day soon and I’ll show you where I live.”
“We’d like that.”
“Max has done so many things to support my family. He asked me not to tell people about this, but I’ll tell you because you’re you. He paid off my parents’ home. He bought cars for all his cousins. He invested in my brother’s business and paid for the foundation work my sister needed.”
Sloane didn’t know where to file the kindness and generosity Nicole was attributing to Max. It didn’t seem to fit on the shelf next to “Man who coldly excluded me from my two-hundred-million-dollar share of Libri.”
“That’s very nice of him.” Ivy stepped into the void to make the appropriate comment.
“I hope you can find it within yourself to forgive Max.” The hope in Nicole’s eyes was hard for Sloane to see.
When Sloane hesitated, Nicole once again swished her hands forward in a Never mind, don’t answer that way. “Max would throttle me if he knew I’d said that.” She laughed. “We girls need to have our secrets, don’t we?” she asked Ivy with a wink.
“Yep,” Ivy agreed.
“Nope,” Sloane corrected Ivy with a smile. “You’re not allowed to have secrets until the age of twenty-one.”
“This has made my day,” Nicole told them.
“We’re staying on the third floor and came down for water glasses,” Sloane explained. “We’ll head back up there now and let you get back to enjoying the party.”
“I’ll be in touch about having you over for a meal,” Nicole said in parting as Sloane and Ivy carried their water upstairs.
Once they were out of earshot, Ivy whispered, “ Oooh .”
“ Oooh what?”
“ Oooh , that Nate guy likes you. And also Oooh , those people are all so fancy. Did you see the women with Max? I think one of them was Milla Smithson.”
“Well, if Milla knows what’s good for her, she will not allow herself to fall for Max.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no more certain route to heartache.”
Sloane shut them back into her room where they both guzzled water and resumed the spots they’d left on top of the bed’s comforter. She tried to interest Ivy in returning to the movie, but Ivy was suddenly obsessed with locating pictures of Max online.
Ivy found one photo after another of him circulating through the social scene in Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania. Art galleries, philanthropic events, concerts, cocktail parties. In every picture, a different gorgeous woman stood beside him.
As many dates and girlfriends as Max had had back in the day, he’d never cared about a “social scene” per se. It seemed that had changed.
“I was right,” Ivy crowed. “That woman downstairs is Milla Smithson. She’s a socialite. Her father owns an aerospace company, and she has her own line of cosmetics.”
“Shall we turn on the movie?”
“Can we wait just one more minute? This Instagram account is called Maine Social Scoop and this lady who calls herself Social Sophie reports on gossip and events and—look!—Max is a favorite of hers. He’s in so many of these photos! Here’s one of him in a tux with the brunette who was downstairs.” Ivy held her phone screen so that Sloane could see. “She’s an investment banker and she’s wearing a gown by Marchesa.”
Instinctively, defensively, Sloane tried to block the image from hitting her retinas but didn’t succeed.
More scrolling. “And here’s one of him with a model who was born in Amsterdam.”
Sloane had attempted to shut Max and Libri completely out of her mind when she’d left them both behind. However, the “completely” part of that sentence had proven unattainable. More than once, she’d stumbled on articles about Libri in business publications. Posts about Max routinely invaded her social media feed. Several times, she’d sat next to people on airplanes who were reading on the Libri app in flight. A year ago, she’d turned on her TV to the sight of him giving an interview. Friends from her Philadelphia years brought him up in conversation.
So many reminders.
She’d tried to resist feeling envious. Had prayed against that countless times with mixed results.
Sloane had once loved Libri, dreamed big dreams of its success, and poured herself into the company. For her, all of that had ended in scorched pieces of wood. Which Max had gone on to build into a blazing bonfire without her.
It stung to be Blockbuster in the story of how Netflix offered to sell their company to Blockbuster for fifty million and Blockbuster turned them down. It stung to be Ronald Wayne in the story of how Apple’s third co-founder had sold his ten-percent stake in the company for eight hundred dollars.
Some days it felt as if she was achieving peaceful acceptance of her past with Libri. Other days, like this particular day in Max’s expensive house surrounded by a fortune in original art, doing so felt impossible.
So what are you going to do, Sloane? Give in to jealousy and bitterness?
No.
Acceptance seemed impossible at this moment, but that was a lie she couldn’t let herself believe. It was possible to accept. It was.
Once the closing credits rolled on The Princess Diaries , Ivy padded to bed.
Just like earlier when Ivy had mentioned their lack of water and Sloane had instantly craved water, she was now craving food. They’d eaten an early dinner specifically so they’d have as little reason to interact with Max as possible. It was now 10:20. Five hours since dinner.
She thought covetously of the berries, crackers, cheese, and chocolate stored in the cupboards of the garage apartment. Was the mouse feasting on those items at this very moment?
She shuddered. No way was she braving a trip across the backyard to the apartment. And no way was she braving a trip downstairs if Max’s guests were still present. She hadn’t registered party noises for quite some time. Maybe they were all gone?
She tiptoed to the banister. She could still hear people below. Very few now. Just Max’s low baritone and feminine voices purring back at him.
Yeesh!
Returning to her room, she got herself ready for bed, then switched off the light and tried to sleep.
Couldn’t.
Her mind’s eye replayed how Max had looked earlier this evening. In a suit without a tie, a trio of women admiring him.
She rolled from her back onto her side. From her side onto her back. She scrunched closed her eyes. Then opened them wide and stared at the moon-silvered window shade.
She was starving!
An hour crawled past.
She crept back out to the landing. This time, she registered only silence.
She waited, straining her ears. All clear. She could safely go downstairs and forage for snacks.
Mellow lighting had been left on in the kitchen, which she used as a beacon as she made her way across the first floor in her slippers. Just as she was gliding through the living room, a masculine voice from the darkness spoke.
“Parading around in front of me in your sleepwear again?”