“Oh dear, you’re already waxing lyrical. So, she’s a redhead?”
“No, a brunette, but with reddish hints. Like when Amelia used to henna her hair.”
“And does this girl henna her hair?”
“No, that’s the color it is.”
“Amelia used to say it was her natural hair color, too.”
Tom frowned. “Look, what our sister did is irrelevant. Nina has reddy-browny hair, and her eyes are hazel, and she’s gorgeous and small.”
“You already said small. Is she under four feet?” He paused. “Are you preparing me for someone who’ll need a booster seat at dinner?”
“No, but she’s smaller than, say, Rachel.”
Rachel was Richard’s fiancée. “Rachel’s five foot nine; she’s not small at all.” Richard’s voice was amused. “Not that there would be anything wrong with you dating someone who needed a booster seat as long as they weren’t an actual child. Good things come in small packages, right?”
Tom made a frustrated noise. “Richard, she’s regular height, she’s pretty, and I don’t really know why I’m even telling you about her. She’s really smart, probably too smart for me.”
“That’s good. You’ve had a tendency to date women who are too nice.” He coughed. “Or totally insane.”
“Her name is Nina.”
“You told me that. Did you sleep together?”
“No. We kissed, she invited me in, but I said no.”
“Why?”
“She was a little bit drunk. Not a lot, but a bit.”
“Oh yeah. I remember your ridiculously firm stance on that. So, what are you going to do now?”
“I’ll go see her at work and ask her out.” He hadn’t realized he had a plan, but apparently he did.
His brother laughed. “Great. Are you coming to dinner this weekend? I want you to meet Rachel’s family. It’s ridiculous you guys haven’t met yet.”
“I agree. But seeing as you met Rachel and decided to marry her in the space of, like, a month, we’re all scrambling to keep up.”
“I guess instant attraction is a family failing.”
“Better than a cleft palate.”
“Is that genetic?”
“No idea. Google it. I’ll see if I can come this weekend. I’ll try.”
“All right. Good luck with the girl. I hope she isn’t an insane stalker like the last one.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“So my future wife tells me.”
“Presumably only when you take your pants off.”
“And now you’re a comedian. Bye, Tom.”
Tom said good-bye and hung up, smiling. Then he noticed he’d pulled over in front of a donut place, so he went in and got himself a cruller. He was, after all, a man of action.
Fourteen
In which Nina learns even more about her family.
Despite Nina’s fervent hope that the Reynolds family was going away, never to return, she was pleased when Peter reached out to her again.
“You don’t have to like all of us,” he said. “But I think you and I should be friends, even if it’s only because we each need someone to talk about paper goods with.” He cleared his throat. “Or is that, ‘We need someone with whom to discuss paper goods’?”
Nina grinned. He’d called her while she was on her way to work the morning after the trivia debacle, and she’d been happy to see his name pop up on her phone.
“I don’t think it matters. I know you’re not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but I think it’s acceptable between friends.”
“Or relatives?”
“Or relatives. I will even allow split infinitives.”
He laughed. “To actually permit the laws of grammar to literally be suspended?”
She winced. “Ouch, that’s enough. It hurts more than I thought it would.”
Peter’s tone changed. “I’m sorry about Lydia. After you left the meeting, Sarky basically told her she can’t force you to take a paternity test, and that as far as the law was concerned, she didn’t have a leg to stand on. She didn’t have anyone on her side except her mom and Grandma Alice, so in the end she stormed out.” He sighed. “Your existence was a bit of a shock, but I thought Archie was the one who was going to get upset.”
“He seemed somewhat irritated when we met, but a cheese sandwich made it all better.”
“It usually does. Anyway, Archie is pretty distracted right now, what with the baby.”
“He has a baby?”
“Not yet. You didn’t notice how pregnant Becca was? I guess she didn’t stand up. Their little boy is two, and the new one is due any minute. I don’t think he’s thinking all that much about his father.”
But Peter was wrong.
When Nina came out of work at the end of the day, Archie Reynolds was standing in the street waiting for her. Even after only meeting him twice, it was a pleasure to see his face. Her brother. Her older brother. Better late than never, she supposed.
He half smiled at her. “Hi, sis.”
She went to shake his hand and then realized that was dumb and hugged him. This was a benefit of family she’d never thought of: more hugging. Once her nanny Louise had moved away, there wasn’t really anyone around she could just, you know, hug on to. Her friends hugged her when they said hello or good-bye, but it wasn’t like she could scooch up next to Polly in the store and lean on her for twenty minutes. She stepped away from Archie and realized she was related to someone she wouldn’t have picked out of a lineup two weeks earlier. Presumably, she would get used to it. Most commonplace things started out strange: Electric light! Running water! Watching ALL the episodes one after the other!
In turn, Archie looked at her closely, seeing elements of his father’s face in hers, wondering if it would ever not seem strange that he’d actually been in this bookstore many times without noticing those same similarities. He must have seen Nina before; there had been a stretch in his son’s early life when they’d come to Knight’s once or twice a month, after the weekend farmers’ market. He may have talked to her, certainly smiled at her, purchased books from her, without ever even thinking about her for more than a moment or two. How many people do we encounter every day who might be related to us, or simply people who might have become the best friends we ever had, or our second spouses, or the agents of our destruction, if we only spent more than seconds with them? He realized he was staring.
“It’s weird, right?” Nina had been staring at him, too. “This whole thing is really a bit upsetting.”
Archie nodded. “It is. I wanted to talk to you. Are you rushing off somewhere?”
She had been on her way to yoga class, but any excuse not to feel inflexible and clumsy was welcome. And to be fair, she was only going so when she got to book club later on she could say she’d been to yoga and feel OK eating as many cookies or cupcakes as she wanted. She shook her head. “No, not at all. Do you want to get coffee?” She pointed across the street. “We could go back to our usual spot.”