Why did you never tell me anything about her? About your family?
A muscle in his cheek twitches as he gives a light shrug. He runs a hand over his face before answering, “I love Rissy, but I don’t like to shout she’s my sister from the rooftops. She already has her own shit to deal with. She doesn’t need mine as well. Most of the time I don’t feel like explaining all the family drama. A few people know but it’s not common knowledge. It’s almost the only part of my life I’ve been able to keep private.”
The thought that he didn’t feel close enough to me to mention Iris leaves a crater-size hole in my gut.
He shifts under my gaze and I realize I’m not hiding my thoughts well.
Bancroft continues, “Our mother and Lars were a whirlwind relationship while my parents were still married. So when my mother found out she was pregnant she disappeared for a while to have Iris. Thankfully the press never really caught on.” He lets out a dead laugh. “I guess that’s a silver lining of never being actively involved in our childhoods.”
We move so that we are standing in front of a minuscule phallic statue draped in clear cellophane with a placard about size not mattering.
“Andyourdad?” I ask, wide-eyed.
He laughs but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “What about him?”
I’m a lion tamer creeping around the ring, waiting for the clawed swipe. “What’s... he like?”
He cuts me a sideways, narrow-eyed glance. “If you’ve read a magazine in the last twenty years you know what he’s like.”
“I’ve read somestuff.” I draw the words out; the headlines were always something along the lines of: “Architectural Tycoon Malon Bancroft breaks ground on new skyscrapers and a new wife.” “But what is he reallylike, you know, as a dad?”
He cringes. “Imagine Lex Luther as a father and go from there.”
I don’t laugh at the image, just expressionlessly hold his gaze until the Fabergé egg cracks open.
“I’m not a reporter. You can trust me,” I say, less confirming and more reminding him of the obvious. “You can pat me down for a wire if you want,” I offer with dead seriousness, trying to lighten his mood the only way I know how.
Bancroft smirks, amusement finally reaching his eyes. “Hastings, we’re in public.”
He eventually relents with a sigh. “As you probably already know, my dad has a reputation for getting around. When I was growing up my parents tried so hard to put on this facade of a perfect, family-run business, but they were barely living in the same house. My mother was my dad’s secretary, their relationship started as an affair, so I don’t know why, even after fifteen years together, she expected it to end any differently.”
I start to ask another question but he turns thespotlight onto me. “What about your parents—what are they like?”
I push my hair back and prepare to tell my rehearsed story. “They met in a pub on Christmas Eve. They were both from out of town but happened to be in the same place at the same time. They saw each other from across the room and it was instant, love at first sight.” I shrug my shoulders and look up to the ceiling as though Cupid is sitting there on a little cloud, ready to corroborate my story.
He tilts his head to me with a smirk. “This isveryon brand for you.”
I respond with a sarcastic smile, choosing to ignore his completely correct comment and continue. Since I could comprehend full sentences, the story of how my parents met and fell in love has been told to me at least three times a year. When I moved away for university and then for work, if I ever wanted to put people in a feel-good mood I told my parents’ story. It’s my go-to real-life fairy tale, drilled into my head as the standard I should hold any relationship to. It might be cliché, but sharing the story makes me feel as if I’m slipping into fresh bedsheets. Familiar but somehow indulgent.
“They shared a kiss, but my mum’s friends dragged her out of the pub soon after—they didn’t even know each other’s names! The next year, he returned to the same pub with a secret hope of seeing her again. She was there, but she told him she now had a boyfriend. They talked all night, and danced, but nothinghappened. Then the same thing the next year. That time, she was single, and he wasn’t. This happened again and again, over the course offive years. Each time something was in the way. Dad says he started imagining he’d seen her on the street, at the supermarket, at work; like he was going insane, but he knew it meant she was The One. By the sixth year, he’d decided enough was enough. He had a lot of liquid courage and confessed that one night a year with her felt better than three hundred and sixty-four days with anyone else. From that day, they never spent more than a week apart.” I take a breath, preparing for the big finish. “The pub where they kept meeting was known locally as the Grace.”
I wait for the usual reaction of swooning over my story. Instead, Bancroft scans me up and down, a robot analyzing how and why humans feel emotion.
“Cute,” he says simply.
I purse my lips, feeling my cheeks prickle. “I wouldn’t call destiny ‘cute.’”
“That’s not destiny.” He turns nonchalantly to inspect the next piece of art.
“Then what is it?” I demand, glare fixed on the light bouncing off his cheekbone.
“Two people who decided to leave it up to ‘the universe’ and be apart for five years instead of just admitting their feelings to begin with.” His gaze remains fixed on the oil painting in front of him.
“There were, like, hardly any phones back then. It’s epic and romantic!” I exclaim with a scoff.
“It’s naive,” he concludes, moving to the next piece.
I follow him, mouth open in disbelief. “You’re saying you wouldn’t wait five years for the love of your life?”
