Chapter Thirteen
What do you think? Fourth marriage or fifth?” I whisper behind my flute of champagne, tilting my chin in the direction of a middle-aged guy with a thick gray mustache as he shuffles by. “Or first, but secret, affair with the help?”
Lewis coughs mid-sip, and I remove my hand from his arm to softly pat his back.
The boat must’ve departed more than fifteen minutes ago, yet Lewis doesn’t seem like he’s in a hurry to look for his family.
As we toss down glasses of sparkling wine and sample the various bites, I resort to guessing the attendants’ scandals, hoping this will soothe him ahead of the inevitable reunion.
When a tray with bite-size puff pastry pockets floats by, I pluck one off and pop it into my mouth.
Across from us, an older woman talks to what must be one of Ben’s friends, judging by his age.
“Interesting… a lady friend,” I observe as she squeezes his shoulder.
Based on what Lewis told me, the personal drama in these social circles tends to be a little less juicy than what Gossip Girl has led me to believe, so it’s likely she’s simply the mother of a childhood friend.
But he’s finally loosening up, so I keep the outrageous ideas coming.
Lewis hands his empty glass to a waiter. “She actually dealt drugs when we were in school,” he notes, tipping his temple toward a woman in a modest two-piece suit. The brown color of her ensemble makes her look unfavorably pale, but I do another take at the down-turned corners of her mouth.
“Really?”
The glimmer in Lewis’s eyes tells me he was joking. I’m relieved he’s finally relaxing, but before I can respond, a small shape hurtles at us and collides with his legs.
“Uncle Teddy!” the girl exclaims. I check if anybody is with her, but she seems to be on her own.
She’s maybe six or seven years old and her sparkly outfit makes me like her instantly.
Velvety green trousers, a white shirt, deep purple patent leather shoes, and, my favorite detail, a black-and-white-striped top hat.
She looks like she whisked here after her shift as a circus magician.
Lewis folds himself around her, bending at the hip to lift up the girl. “You’re so much bigger than in the camera!”
She wrinkles her nose. “Not enough.”
“Has Dani grown taller than you, again?” he asks her.
“One inch,” she grumbles. Her hair is the same shade as Lewis’s, although much curlier, and their smiles are identical, if you ignore her two missing front teeth. She must be Alice, his niece.
“Where did you leave your mom?” Lewis clutches her with one arm, removes the hat, and deposits it on his own head.
Alice flaps her hand toward the window front. “Somewhere over there.” When she spots me, she twists around in his arms, blue eyes zeroing in on me. “Who are you?”
“Frances,” I introduce myself and hold out my hand. She considers it skeptically. “I’m your uncle’s girlfriend,” I say, to which she puckers her lips.
Tough crowd.
“Girlfriend,” she repeats and turns in Lewis’s arms. “Why do you have a girlfriend?”
He sets her down and the way he crouches to her height warms me up from within. “Because she’s wonderful,” he says.
“Hm.”
“And smart,” Lewis continues, squeezing her elbow. “And I like spending time with her.” He sounds almost sincere enough to convince me, too. It tickles a small smile out of me.
“Okay.” She frowns at him. “Is Miss Frances in danger?”
“What? Why would she be in danger?” Then, he cups a hand around her ear, and leans in to whisper something I can’t catch.
“Ooh, okay. Well, Mom said Doctor Frances must be part of a witness production program—”
“Witness protection program?” Lewis interjects.
She glares at him. “… because you’ve never told us about her.”
“I’m not in danger,” I hurry to say.
“Okay…” She takes my hand very hesitantly.
“And what’s your name?” I ask her, though I already know it.
“Alice. Do you also read brains, like Uncle Teddy?”
“Yeah I do,” I say, fighting a grin, and look up at the man in question. “Teddy?”
Before he can reply, the music stops, the conversations in the room louder now that they’re not carried by a blanket of melodies.
As the dull sound of someone tapping a mic echoes through the speakers, Alice pulls me closer to a stage in the corner of the room.
I guess she’s accepted me as her uncle’s girlfriend.
Lewis, still wearing Alice’s much-too-small top hat, rolls his eyes. “I’ve always been Teddy to my sister. Al took it over from her.”
Alice tries to catch a glimpse of the microphone on her tiptoes until Lewis scoops her up again to give her a view over the crowd.
She grabs the back of his collar, and their familiarity takes me by surprise.
After Lewis’s rundown of his family situation, I wasn’t expecting a kind welcome, but then again, he mentioned staying in touch with Ada and her daughter while keeping his distance from everyone else.
The commotion turns out to be a toast. “There’s Grandpa,” Alice whispers excitedly, but only gets a tight nod from Lewis in response.
Although he prepared me earlier today, up until now his issues with his father have felt insubstantial.
But his tension and his reluctance to say hello catapult it into reality.
“Welcome, welcome,” Mr. North greets the crowd with outstretched arms, and the resemblance to his son is uncanny.
He looks like an aged version of Lewis: same shock of hair—though his is shimmering silver at the temples—same square jaw and clear eyes.
But where Lewis tends to smile reluctantly, with only a corner of his mouth, his father shows off his whitened teeth in a confident smile.
His voice is a little rougher around the edges and deeper than Lewis’s, as he invites Ben to join him on the small stage.
Half a head taller than his father, Ben has the same winning smile, though it’s softened by his boyish looks; the dimple to one side of his mouth and the curve of his chin.
Mr. North launches into a speech about Ben’s studies at Princeton—Mr. North’s own alma mater—and how he’s graduating with honors, showing off the discipline and dedication that is inherent to the North family name.
“For the most part,” Mr. North adds, and from Lewis’s sharp intake of breath, I gather that it’s another stab of resentment aimed at his other son.
Mr. North goes on to name-drop several companies and programs for which Ben has interned and volunteered over the past years, and ends his speech with a formal welcome to the best company of them all, North Star Investments. At its mention, a cluster of older men hollers.
“Jesus,” Lewis exhales next to me.
Ben, who’s been smiling good-naturedly through the entire speech, runs a hand over his buzz cut and raises his glass for everyone to cheer. “Thank you all for coming!”
As applause thunders through the room and the crowd disperses enough to open up paths for the waitstaff, Lewis sets down his niece, snatches up another flute of champagne, and tosses it back in one gulp.
I’m about to ask him if he wants to head outside when Alice grabs Lewis’s and my hands, hauling us through the room with no regard for the people standing in her way.
“Al, hold up.”
But Alice doesn’t listen. She keeps pulling us through the crowds until she stops right in front of a man and a woman, fits my hand into Lewis’s, and lets go. Standing tall, she announces, like a courtier in a throne room, “Uncle Teddy and Dr. Frances. His girlfriend.”
The woman, who must be Alice’s mother, Ada, pulls me into a hug.
Even in her heels, she’s half a head shorter than me.
“So, you’re the long-guarded secret and the reason Teddy’s been too busy to drop by these past days.
It’s so nice to finally meet you. And you,” she adds, voice sharper as she’s turning to Lewis.
“If I’d known that all it takes to get you here is a scientific conference, I would’ve chaired one years ago. ”
Lewis stoops down to greet his sister with a kiss on one cheek.
She has the same upturned eyes as her brother’s, and her thick chestnut curls are pulled into some complicated half braid.
The man at her side introduces himself as her husband, John, enveloping my hand with both of his in a warm handshake.
As we get offered another drink, I pick it up gratefully, only to realize that I should eat something solid.
I crane my neck, but all I can see are square plates with dollops of colorful pastes and tiny glasses with tails of grilled scampi hooked over the rim.
The vegetarian bites I sampled were delicious but do nothing to soak up the—three? four?—flutes of champagne I’ve downed.
Lewis seems to be following my train of thought, because he leans close to my ear, stirring my heart into a quicker pulse. “I think tiny food is all we’re going to get,” he murmurs. “I’ll get you a slice on the way home.”
As he leans back, a tall figure flings itself into our circle and I immediately recognize it as Ben. “Ada, have you seen Mom— Oh.” He stops short in front of us, eyes wide and fixated on Lewis.
“Hi, Ben,” Lewis says hesitantly, opening up his arms as if to hug his brother, but somewhere midway he reconsiders the movement, falters, and leaves them suspended in the air. “I— well. We…”
His awkwardness is painful to watch, like at Vivienne and Jacob’s, but a hundred times amplified. It takes him a moment until he becomes aware of his arms again, lowers his elbows and yanks the back of his collar. Neck and ears flushing, he throws me a helpless glance.
I step up next to him. “Congratulations. I’m Frances, Lewis’s girlfriend.”