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 hertiptoes 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 thebest 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.”
Ben smiles and shakes my hand. “Hi, thank you for coming,” he greets me politely, but then his eyes stray back to his brother’s face. “I didn’t think you’d come,” he says, words sounding a lot more clipped than when he was talking to Ada or even me. “Ada told me you were in the city, but I didn’t…” He breaks off, tilts his head. “And now you’re here.”
Lewis inhales deeply. “I am.”
I have the urge to grab each of their shoulders and shovethem together, to make them hug, and stop being this stiff with each other, but instead, I resort to pushing my index finger into the center of Lewis’s back. The gesture felt reassuring back at Vivienne and Jacob’s place when he did it to me. It told me I had someone in my corner, and I hope it’ll tell Lewis the same now.
