Family Weekend was an exquisite form of torture. Parents filled the quad, the football stadium, the hallways of the residence halls. Everyone seemed to have a parent, or an uncle, or a sibling, who had graduated in an earlier year. Jade couldn’tbelievehow many families came—families with two parents, families with rental cars full of siblings, families who dropped hundreds of dollars in the bookstore for sweatshirts and hats and collars for their purebred dogs. She couldn’t believe how much the wordlegacymeant in a place like this. Everyone knew the rules, where to go, what to wear, how to be.
When Jade graduated, when she gave the commencement speech for the business school, she was debt-free, with exactly the education she needed. But she wastired. She was twenty-two, but she’d been grinding so long and so hard she felt like she was forty.
The only person from Lawrence who was there to see Jade give her speech was Ms. Morin, who somehow found her in the immense crowds of happy families and gave her a bouquet of white roses tied with a maroon-and-gold ribbon. Ms. Morin hugged Jade; they both cried. Ms. Morin wished she could take Jade out to lunch, she reallydid, but her daughter had a dance recital that she couldn’t miss, and there was something with her costume that took a long time to—
“That’s okay,” Jade interrupted, to save them both the humiliation. “That’s totally fine! I have plans anyway. I’m so glad you could come.” Smile, Jade. Smile harder, so that nobody knows you’re lying.
Nicola
Felicity’s nanny comes down with strep throat on Saturday and has to stay isolated for twenty-four hours while the antibiotics do their work.
“I’m so sorry,” David says when he calls Nicola to ask if she can babysit. Taylor had to go to Boston for a meeting, and he has a commitment he can’t change at the last minute, he explains. “If I had anyone else to ask, I would,” he says. He doesn’t want to take advantage of Nicola, especially on a Saturday, her day off.
“Are you done with your extended apology and speech?” Nicola asks.
David snorts. “I think so.”
“Okay. I’m in. And I don’t need all of the reasons behind it. I’d be mad if youdidn’task me.”
“Are you really sure? And if you’re really sure, bring a bathing suit.”
“If you ask me again, I’m telling your mom about the rum you stole from the house where you were dog-sitting the summer you were fifteen. I’ll see you in forty-five minutes.”
David says, “Do you want me to—” and at the same time Nicola says, “Don’t you dare send a car or driver for me.”
“What about a helicopter?”
When Nicola arrives on her bike, only moderately sweaty (she’s getting better at the hills!), she very carefully does not look around for Jack Baker. David opens the door, and attached to his leg, looking at Nicola from underneath her ridiculous lashes, is Felicity. Jack doesn’t appear from any of the places where Nicola’s carefully not looking, and she doesn’t ask David where he is. She hasn’t seen Jack since Monday.
“You look fancy,” she says. “Where are you headed?” David steps aside to let her in and gently detaches Felicity from his leg. He’s wearing a long-sleeve button up in white linen, the sleeves rolled up halfway, and faded dark red shorts like you see on wealthy men of all ages on Nantucket. Well, like Nicola imagines you see. She’s never been to Nantucket, but she’s read a lot of summer novels set there. His skin has an even, golden tan, and Nicola can smell a subtle cologne when he bends to hug her. His teeth gleam. He’s like an advertisement for what money can add to what are already really fortunate genetics. But, she knows, he also looks right on a creeper (terrible name) under a car, or at a Minnesota lake house.
“Oh, to meet a friend. It’s more like a lunch appointment.” He doesn’t allow his eyes to meet Nicola’s.
Nicola darts her eyes toward Felicity, to see if she’s listening. Felicity is fully absorbed in a bracelet on her wrist. “Is the friend Juliana?” Nicola asks softly. David looks like he’s going to answer, but in the end he just turns toward Felicity and says, “Bye, sweetheart. I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”
Felicity looks up briefly. “Bye, Daddy.”
“Maybe an hour and a half, or two?”
Felicity lifts one of her hands in a gesture that seems fascinatingly adult, even dismissive. “Bye, Daddy,” she repeats. “I’m playing with Nicola now.”
“Well, there you have it,” says David. “I guess I’ll see myself out.”
“Come on.” Felicity takes Nicola by the hand and something in Nicola’s heart shifts with the sensation of Felicity’s warm littlefingers tucked into her palm. It’s almost a jolt. Is this what a biological clock feels like, when it starts ticking?
She follows Felicity down a hallway; her first tour with David didn’t include the bedroom wing (it is really and trulya wing). Many of the doors are closed (she’sdyingto get a look at Taylor and David’s room!) but one is open. She can’t help it, she pauses for a peek.
“What’s this?” she asks Felicity.
“Daddy’s office.” And then, with more authority than a three-year-old should have, “You can go in.”
Nobody has to ask Nicola twice. She pushes the door open wider. It is, maybe, a little bit funny that a person with no job has an office this nice, but okay, whatever, this is how the wealthy roll. The office has obviously been touched by the wand of the same interior designer responsible for the rest of the house—sleek, minimalist, a long low couch, a desk made of reclaimed wood with impossibly slender legs, an assertive chair in a deep orange that matches the small square pillows on the couch—but it does retain a few touches that seem very specifically David. On the desk, a coffee mug with an inch of coffee in it alongside an open can of Narragansett Fresh Catch. A tiny pile of clutter—sunglasses, mail, a bottle of vitamins. A pair of running shoes, laces akimbo, in the corner. And above the desk, incongruous with the decor in the rest of the room, is a framed poster, wildly neon, that makes Nicola smile.
“The Minnesota State Fair!” she says. She can’t tell if it’s beautiful or garish; probably, like the state fair itself, it’s a little bit of both. It makes her feel nostalgic.
“Mommy hates that poster,” Felicity says pensively.
“She does? Why?” Not that Nicola really has to ask. It’s the antithesis of the rest of the office, the rest of the house.
