“Okay,” I say, plucking the mostly-empty glass of wine from her hand and steering her toward the doorway. “Let’s get this soapy show on the road!”
Maddie’s only been gone a few minutes when the bell rings. Liam. I swallow down the hive of bees in my chest and make myself count to five before hitting the buzzer to let him in. When I swing the door to my apartment open a moment later, Liam is standing on the other side in a perfectly fitted tux, his dark hair slicked back off his forehead and his shoes shined to gleaming.
I gape at him for a moment, I can’t help it.
He looks good.
Finally, Liam clears his throat, snapping me out of my daze—before I start drooling all over those well-shined shoes of his. “You look... Beautiful,” he says, sounding awkward. And sure, he’s just being polite, but I’m tempted to blow off the memorial altogether. Instead, I imagine taking his hand, leading him through the apartment to my bedroom, and peeling one expensive item of clothing off him at a time before falling onto the mattress and—
“We should go,” I announce, my voice coming out the tiniest bit strangled. This is a memorial service we’re going to, not a meat market!
“Right,” Liam gives me an odd look. “Of course.”
The event is being held in a gilded reception hall in the New York Public Library. It looks gorgeous, with candles glittering on linen-covered tables and a soul band playing covers of songs by The Temptations and Otis Redding. Waiters circulate with trays of mouthwatering hors d’oeuvres: fresh crabmeat and avocado, fluffy little quiches topped with caviar, puff pastry stuffed with vegetables and feta cheese. I barely resist the urge to tip a full tray of cocktail weenies into my purse—after all, who knows how much longer I’m going to have a job that pays the grocery bills? Instead I pop a beet and goat cheese puff into my mouth and trail behind Liam as he dutifully makes the rounds, chatting with the hundreds of industry and society types who’ve come to pay their respects to his late father—
And drink from a literal fountain of champagne, of course.
“I was so sorry to hear about your dad,” gushes a bespectacled agent from a tony uptown agency, his balding head gleaming in the candlelight. “You must miss him very much.”
“It’s very admirable, how you’ve stepped in to help Celeste with the business,” another says, leaning in a little too close. “Your father would be very proud.”
“Would he?” Liam asks shortly. “I suppose I wouldn’t know.”
I lift my eyebrows. On one hand, this guy has never met a social grace in his life. On the other, I can’t help but feel bad for him. It can’t be easy to stand here eating canapés and smiling gamely while well-wisher after well-wisher comes up to him singing the praises of a father he never really got to know.
“Hey,” I say quietly, nudging his arm with mine. “How do you feel about a party game? Publishing gossip charades, maybe? Musical chairs, but instead of chairs they’re bestselling celebrity tell-alls? Pin the sexual harassment scandal on the C-level executive?”
Liam looks at me a little oddly. “I, ah, think I’ll pass,” he says.
“Right,” I mutter, feeling my cheeks flame with embarrassment. This guy is a brick wall. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”
“At my father’s memorial?”
I grimace. “I mean, okay, when you put it that way—"
But Liam holds a hand up to stop me. “I understand,” he says, softening a bit. “I—Thank you. I appreciate it.”
That stops me. I’m just about to reply—to ask him how he’s really feeling, if there’s anything I can do—when we get the signal to find our seats for dinner. Celeste has us seated at the family table, which of course shouldn’t surprise me. After all, Liam is Harry’s son. Still, it’s definitely one of the more… Delicate social situations that I’ve been in lately. I glance at Liam’s face to see his reaction, but his face is a stony mask.
“Eliza!” Celeste says, kissing my cheek in greeting. She looks luminous in a long cream dress embroidered with hundreds of tiny seed pearls, her dark hair a glossy cap. “Thank you so much for coming. And you remember Betsy and Bryce?” She gestures toward her two twenty-something children.
“Of course!” I smile at them in greeting. Both of them favor their mother more than Harry. Bryce, with a crew cut and linebacker shoulders, looks like he’s late to his tryout for the New York Giants, while Betsy—who I seem to recall being some kind of rich-girl eco warrior—is sporting Tevas along with her dress. “Sterling Family Barbecue, two years ago.”
That’s what the invitation said, anyway, though the event was hardly a backyard cookout. Instead Harry had the whole staff out to their summer place on Fire Island, where he’d hired pit-masters from North Carolina to grill ribs and brisket and pulled pork—all on the company’s dime, though I don’t mention that to Liam.
“Of course!” Betsy says now, motioning for Liam and I to sit down. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
Betsy and Bryce are easy to talk to—more polished than Liam, which I guess makes sense, and full of stories about Harry in his off time. Remember when Dad was out in the yard with Lola and they both got sprayed by a skunk? Remember when he took us snorkeling in the Galapagos and kept saying he was going to take a turtle home and keep it in the bathtub? Remember when he insisted a real man cleans his own gutters and wound up falling off the ladder and landing in Mom’s prize roses?
It’s nice to hear all these new-to-me stories about Harry—not to mention the fact that this is a memorial, after all. The memories are sort of the point. But the more I listen to Bryce and Betsy reminisce, the clearer it becomes that while they might have an unlimited supply of charming Harry anecdotes to cushion the blow of losing their father…
Liam definitely doesn’t.
I don’t think his half-siblings are rubbing salt into the wound on purpose. I doubt they even realize it’s happening. But as we eat our steaks and drink our wine I watch as Liam retreats further and further into his stony mask until he’s basically disappeared.
“Are you okay?” I murmur, as they’re clearing the entrees.
Liam nods. “Fine,” he says tightly, but a moment later he’s standing up wordlessly and making his way toward the exit. He doesn’t look back as he goes.
Okay then. I glance around the table to see if anyone else has noticed, but Betsy has Bryce and Celeste in stiches with a story about Harry refusing to ask for directions to the Eiffel Tower on a family trip to Paris and leading them all confidently into a house of ill repute. In truth, I’m the only one who even seems to register the fact that Liam’s gone.
Which kind of proves his point.
Ouch.
I keep an eye on the door as we finish our meal, but Liam hasn’t returned by the time dessert is served, and eventually I push my chair back as unobtrusively as possible. “Excuse me,” I say, laying my napkin on the table. “I think I’ll just go powder my nose.”
I wander through the winding, ornate corridors of the library for a while, past the special collections of rare books and the reading room with its long tables and banker’s lamps shaded with deep green glass. No matter how long I’ve lived in New York, and how many times I’ve visited this library, it never stops feeling magical to me. But tonight, there’s no time for browsing, and eventually, I find Liam. He’s out on the grand stone terrace that looks out over the park, the lights and noises of the city muffled down below. He’s taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, leaning on the stone balustrade, a distant look in his eyes as he takes in the view, like he’s deep in thought.