Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
But Robert had already noticed Michael, crossing the room to pat his shoulder and say something jovially scolding about his tardiness, immediately drawing him over to the Nantes cousins, who were probably still getting the stink eye from the Placketts for being so foreign, so French.
Layla felt a pang of sympathy for Michael, of genuine understanding.
She remembered her own rehearsal dinner, her and her father’s distance from each other impossible for anyone to miss, the tongue-clicks of pity over Vaughn (“Oh, your only brother!”) being unable to make it, all of it contrasted with the MacKenzies’ gregariousness and warmth and abundance.
She’d loved that about them.
But it had been so much pressure sometimes. Especially early on.
Michael was smiling in a strained way, shaking hands, leaning in to say what Layla thought was, “Again, I’m sorry?
” to one of the cousins who was speaking quickly, probably in her thickly accented English.
For the first time since arriving in Paris, since that first morning after the dinner where she thought it had all gone wrong, she thought she could probably be more useful to Michael than to Emily.
“Can you distract Emily for a few minutes?” she said to Rosie. “I’m going to grab Michael real quick. He looks a little overwhelmed.”
Rosie said, “Uh, yep,” as though this was the only plan that made any sort of sense, and then she was flouncing off, probably to call Miranda’s husband “Finance Guy” to his face.
Layla did not hesitate. She breathed in through her nose and put on a placid expression, a real walking up the airplane aisle expression, holding her champagne lightly and weaving her way toward where Robert and Michael and the cousins stood, Céline a new and sharp-eyed addition, judging by how keenly she was watching Michael.
“Laylapalooza!” Robert said in welcome, extending an arm as though she might automatically tuck herself right there, the way she had so many times in the past, when she was like a daughter to him.
But she dodged it, worried it would delay her.
She smiled at the cousins, who had already given her double-kisses in greeting when they first arrived, one of them—her favorite, Anne—leaning in to tsk dramatically and say that Jamie must be bête comme ses pieds.
“I’ve been sent with a message for the groom,” she lied, a light, conspiratorial tone in her voice, the kind of I’m doing one of those secret errands! codes that no one ever questioned at a special event.
Anne said, “Oh! We beg your pardon!” in her lovely accent, and drew everyone away, including Robert, who looked like he was going to attempt—probably not for the first time—to pry the Placketts out of their corner.
Layla was waiting, wanting everyone well out of earshot first, when Michael said, “A message.”
No inflection in it—no question mark at the end, and when she turned to look up at him, he was already looking down at her with that strange blankness in his eyes, unlike anything she’d ever seen since she’d first met him.
He looked hollow.
“Michael,” she said, nervous now, that brief I don’t care boldness absolutely abandoning her. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about—”
“Are you over Jamie?” he interrupted.
She stared at him. No doubt her own expression was blank now, wiped clean at such an unexpected question, so bluntly asked. What in god’s name did he care about her and Jamie for?
“Am I—what?”
“Over. Him,” Michael asked, suspicion in his eyes now.
“Yes?” she said, the inflection in her own voice more about her ongoing surprise to be asked rather than any doubt.
Strangely, when she said it—when she heard the question in her voice—she knew that there wasn’t any question.
Not anymore. She didn’t suppose she would really ever get over the whole thing of it—the feeling of family, of losing it, of losing herself in the aftermath of it.
She didn’t suppose that was the sort of thing you ever did fully get over.
She didn’t suppose it would be right to.
But she had gotten over Jamie.
She’d let go of him, maybe longer ago than she’d ever realized.
“You don’t sound sure,” Michael said.
“Well, I am,” she said, snappishness in her tone now. They were in the middle of a party, for god’s sake; it wasn’t like they could drag out this conversation. She had a purpose here, and Jamie didn’t have anything to do with it.
“I don’t see how it’s any of your…”
She trailed off, an idea nudging at her—something about the way Michael was looking at her, the way he was asking her this.
It reminded her of those first couple of days with Griffin, the way he thought that what was going wrong with the wedding—with Emily—had to do with her, something she said, her and her fallen-apart marriage, and how it might somehow infect this whole week for everyone.
“Look, this isn’t about that, I swear to you,” she said. “Emily doesn’t care about me and Jamie. She’s worried about…”
This time, when she trailed off, it was because Michael had so clearly stopped listening. His gaze had gone over her shoulder, wholly hollow again, even bleaker this time. Layla hardly knew Michael, and still, it hurt to see him look this way, no matter that he’d just been sort of rude to her.
So she turned, too, and that’s when she saw him.
A column of smoke moving through the room, dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier, no change for the sake of this party.
No intention to be at this party, at least not for long.
She had not heard him come in; she suspected that no one had heard him come in; she wondered if maybe he had simply slipped, sinuous and untouchable, through the cracks in the door.
If he looked around, she couldn’t tell, because he had his hat brim pulled low, like when she’d first met him.
But one thing was clear.
He had not come to this party looking for her.
Oh no, she thought as she watched him make his way to where Em stood, Rosie beside her, the Finance Guy and his field hockey wife having moved on at some point, and Layla had the sense it was good that Rosie was there in her big pink skirt, her yellow bra showing, a fierce faerie sprite that wasn’t afraid of this dark prince who Layla knew was the culmination of all this gathering foreboding, all this inevitability.
Behind her, Michael did not move.
He did not move when Griffin reached Emily, and he did not move when Griffin bent his head, leaning in to speak beside Emily’s ear.
He did not move when Emily’s eyes shot up, surely catching Michael’s gaze, and he did not move when her face drained of color.
And he still did not move when the column of smoke straightened again, and turned to leave.
Out the very door no one had even seen him enter.