Chapter 14
The summer supper began when Bennett invited twelve people home and forgot to tell me. I fed them with roast chickens, tomatoes and enough wine to make scarcity look intentional. They returned the next year with friends. Now seventy people came.
Bennett called it our tradition. I called it mine.
On the morning of the supper, Nina DeLuca stood in my kitchen with three tasting spoons and the expression of a woman who had recently considered stabbing someone with all of them.
“The peaches are late,” she said.
Nina was fifty, compact and usually immaculate even after twelve hours in a restaurant kitchen. Today her dark hair was escaping its knot, and a yellow smear marked one cuff of her chef's jacket.
“How late?” I asked.
“New Jersey late. Which could mean twenty minutes or a change of government.”
She pushed the spoons toward me. “Try these.”
The first held whipped ricotta and basil. The second had corn custard with smoked salt. The third was a mouthful of lemon, olive oil and something warm I couldn't place.
“The third,” I said.
“Marco wants the first.”
“Then why are you asking me?”
“Because Marco thinks the menu collection needs to be accessible.” She made the word sound like a disease. “Celeste agrees with him.”
I knew Celeste King as the publicist for Nina and Marco's restaurant group. She had sharp cheekbones, perfect timing and a talent for making every newspaper profile sound as though Marco had cooked dishes I'd watched Nina invent.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To serve the third.”
“Then serve it.”
Nina gave me a tired smile. “This is why nobody lets event planners into a kitchen.”
My phone rang on the counter. Bennett.
I let it go to voicemail.
“He still thinks he's coming, doesn't he?” Nina asked.
“He isn't sure whether he's invited. He's decided that uncertainty means yes.”
“Marco says men hear silence as permission because their mothers answered too quickly.”
“Does Marco answer quickly?”
“Marco has Celeste.”
She opened the refrigerator and frowned at a tray. “She's handling the press and contracts for the hotel-menu collection. I'm finishing the recipes before the photographer arrives next week.”
“Have you seen the contract?”
“I've seen enough contracts. I want to cook.”
“Nina.”
“Don't use your Elise voice on me. I'll look after tonight.”
Before I could press, a delivery driver arrived with the peaches.
By four, long tables ran beneath warm lights and Nina's team moved through the kitchen and terrace. I found Mallory near the bar and began listing small problems.
“Already handled,” she said. “Go get dressed, Claire.”
The party continued while I stood still. My fingers twitched, then went quiet.
At five thirty, I went upstairs to dress.
Evelyn followed me with two glasses of champagne.
“You hired enough staff to invade a small country,” she said. “Why are you still checking the terrace?”
“Habit.”
She handed me a glass and sat on the bed while I opened the closet.
“Are you sure you want to do this tonight?” she asked.
“Host my own party?”
“Pretend it won't hurt if he walks in behaving like he still belongs here.”
I set down the glass. “I don't think it won't hurt.”
That answer satisfied her more than a confident lie would have.
“Good,” she said. “Because Grant has already volunteered to throw him into the hydrangeas, and I told him Claire Rowan Whitmore doesn't need a man ruining her landscaping.”
“The hydrangeas are expensive.”
“Exactly.”
She unzipped the garment bag holding my dress. “You stood beside me when Adrian tried to erase me from my own life. Tonight, you don't have to be graceful for anybody.”
“I have seventy guests.”
“Then be graceful for sixty-nine of them.”
The bedroom still held traces of Bennett: empty hangers and our fifteenth-anniversary photograph turned toward the wall. I hadn't decided what to do with it.
I chose an ivory sleeveless dress and earrings my mother had given me when I opened Rowan Events. When I came downstairs, Evelyn and Grant were the first guests through the door.
Evelyn and Grant arrived first. Ruth brought champagne and legal gossip; Elise came directly from court and changed into sandals downstairs. Table Six was no longer a table. It was the women who knew when not to let one another go home alone.
At six fifteen, Bennett texted.
Laurel and I will be there by seven. I assume you want everyone to see we're handling this with dignity.
He hadn't asked her, either. Laurel sent me a separate message two minutes later.
Bennett says you invited us. Is that true?
I wrote, I didn't invite either of you. He knows that.
Her answer was immediate.
Thank you for telling me.
I called Nate.
“Any last-minute botanical emergencies?” he asked.
“One invasive species.”
“Bennett?”
“He's coming.”
“Do you want me there?”
I watched guests begin to fill the garden. This wasn't a trap I'd built for Bennett. I didn't want him to determine the evening's meaning, including whether the man I was seeing could stand beside me.
“Yes,” I said. “I want you here.”
“Then I'll be there.”
“And Nate?”
“I won't hit him.”
“I was going to say wear a jacket.”
“That too.”
Bennett arrived at six fifty-eight.
Laurel wasn't with him.