“You’re good at that,” I told him, as he prepped the video to send to Vinnie.
“What? Talking to people?”
“Yes,” I said. “A lot of people should have been annoyed by you shoving a camera in their faces, but somehow you charmed them all into complicity. It was pretty impressive.”
He smiled. “It’s not something they teach in the Ivy Leagues, huh?”
“Even when I’m paying you a compliment, you can’t stop making fun of my education, can you?”
He chuckled. “I appreciate your education. Someone has to keep the doors open at Harvard, otherwise, who would I make fun of?”
“Is it just the Ivy League you dog on, or, would you, I don’t know, make fun of an MIT grad too?”
He shot me a knowing look. “You’ve been talking to Dani.”
“You forced me to talk to Dani.”
“Whatever. I saw the way you looked at her at dinner. Don’t tell me you weren’t enjoying yourself.”
I leaned back into my seat. I had enjoyed her company. But there were so many complications. My phone buzzed with an incoming call; I was happy for the distraction until I glanced at the screen and saw my stepbrother’s name across the top.
Speaking of complications.
I thought of Gabriel’s warning earlier that week that Victor might try and tell me not to come to the wedding. I silenced the call. If there was anything truly urgent, Gabriel would have mentioned it when he saw me in person.
The voicemail notification popped up at the same time the pilot’s voice sounded throughout the plane, announcing we were finally next on the runway. I opened the voicemail, my jaw clenched as I listened to Victor’s message.
Alex, it’s been a while. Listen, I know you’d rather not associate yourself with the LeFrancs considering our criminal business habits, but what can I say. Alicio is more forgiving than the rest of us. You’re getting an invite to the wedding—Alicio says it’s the polite thing to do—but just a heads up, we don’t actually want you there. This is Dad’s day. Please don’t ruin it by showing up.
I closed my eyes. Typical Victor.
I had only been four years old when my mother had met Alicio LeFranc while he’d been vacationing in Charleston. Her divorce from my father had only been final a couple of months when she’d married Alicio and moved to New York. I’d been too young to understand the implications of how quickly everything had happened. But as an adult, I knew better than to assume anyone’s innocence. Even my mother’s.
In retrospect, I was just glad I’d been able to stay in Charleston with my dad and only live with my mother during the summer. Once she’d married Alicio, her life quickly became one of glitz and glamour and social importance. Alicio’s sons had been older than me when they’d gained a new stepmom, but they’d still been young enough to look the part of “darling children.” The press had loved to picture the four of them at fashion shows and other social events. Happy. Stylish. A perfect family.
It’s not so much that I wanted to fit into their world. I was probably better for not having been a part of it. My father had been a philosophy professor at The College of Charleston and had given me a good life full of books and music and culture. But my mother was still my mother. I couldn’t turn my back on the family she’d loved, whether they’d ever loved me or not.
It didn’t help the situation that Alicio, at my mother’s insistence, had bankrolled my entire education. The private schools I’d attended while growing up, then four years of Harvard undergrad, plus a master’s in accounting. That was the reason I’d agreed to go and work for him in the first place. My mother wanted it—of course that was the biggest reason—but I also felt obligated. So much money invested. How could I say no?
I remembered going to see Mom in the hospital as soon as I’d arrived in the city to let her know I’d decided to take the job. She was dying, her cancer terminal, the doctors mostly just trying to keep her comfortable, but I’d never forgotten her face when we’d talked that day. The hope she’d had in her eyes that I would build relationships with Gabriel and Victor, find a place in the family she’d grown to love over the years.
“You do belong here, Alex,” she’d told me. She’d reached up and cupped my cheek with her hand. “You’re so smart, and you have such good business sense. They need you. They may not realize it now, but once they see what you’re capable of, you’ll blow them away.”
I frowned, discouraged by the memory. I suspected accusing them all of fraud and threatening to go public wasn’t quite the “blowing them away” she’d had in mind.
Before leaving New York, I’d visited the storage unit Justine had filled for me. It was a little like entering a time capsule, except the woman reflected back in the clutter of belongings wasn’t someone I actually recognized. A few pieces of art I recognized as things I’d seen hanging in her bedroom in New York, but there was an old chair, worn and weathered, and a vintage-looking lamp that I’d never seen in any of the homes Alicio owned. The photo albums Gabe had mentioned were in a milk crate in the corner, their pages yellowed with age. Most of the photos I’d never seen before. My birth, my parents pre-divorce, still smiling and happy in each other’s arms, our house in Charleston. In one of the photos of the house, I’d noticed the lamp in the background. So she’d taken it with her.
It had brought a measure of comfort to realize Mom hadn’t completely abandoned her old life, but at the same time, it was as painful as it was comforting. Because where was this part of Mom for all those years? Hidden in a closet somewhere? Why hadn’t she ever shown the photos to me?
Finally on the ground in Charleston, I stayed mostly silent until we were crossing the parking lot toward Isaac’s jeep.
“You okay, man?” Isaac asked. “You seem bugged by something.”
“I’m good,” I lied. “Just tired, I guess.”
He unlocked his jeep and opened the back, sliding his suitcase in before turning around and reaching for mine. “Here, I got it,” he said.
“Thanks.”
A few minutes into the drive home, Isaac broke the silence. “Hey, listen I’m sorry about making fun of you on the plane. And about Dani, and all that.”
“What?” His apology caught me off guard. Isaac made fun of everyone, all the time. And he never apologized.
“I know it was real between you two. I’m sorry if I made things worse by . . .” He waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t know. By making you see her, or whatever.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, thanks, I guess.”
“So we’re cool?” he asked.
“Sure. Of course.”
“Cool.”
I hadn’t expected an apology. Hadn’t really even felt like I needed one. But after listening to Victor’s message, then replaying it in my head over and over throughout the flight home—just a heads up, we don’t actually want you here—it was nice to feel any measure of sincerity, whether from family or in Isaac’s case, a friend.
The simplicity of his apology reminded me of my father and a familiar ache welled up in my belly—a subtle tightening that lasted a moment then disappeared. I missed my mother, was sad that we didn’t have more time together, that we hadn’t had a closer relationship. But missing my father was visceral—a physical reaction that squeezed and tugged and needled like no loss I’d ever experienced before. It had dulled over the past two years since his death, but I still felt it. Still wished for the chance to have one more conversation with him. Still wished to just . . . belong somewhere.