“And who did you use for the food?”
“See,” Alice laughed. “I told you!”
“Told her what?” Julian stole a pastry from Alice’s plate, looking back and forth between them. He had oversize, almost dramatic features: a large nose, deep-set eyes, wide cheekbones. Caught still for a moment, they didn’t seem to add up, until he made a gesture or expression, and then they slipped together perfectly.
“Just you and your obsession.” Alice slapped his hand away lightly. “One of these days, you’re actually going to have to open that restaurant, instead of just talking about it all the time.”
Julian gave a sheepish shrug. “When I get my ducks in a row. Anyway, I have to dash now, I just wanted to say congrats and all.”
“Oh,” Flora pouted. “Can’t you stay longer? There’s going to be croquet, and the cake.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head. “Yasmin’s flight gets in at five, I have to be there to pick her up.”
“But—”
“I’ll save you a slice,” Alice interrupted, before Flora could guilt-trip him into staying. “We still on for lunch tomorrow?”
“Definitely.” Julian nodded, shooting one last look at the dessert table. “Yasmin will probably still be crashed out with jet lag, so I’ll meet you at the pub around one?”
“Perfect.”
***
By the time the sunlight faded to a rosy dusk, the Pimm’s was flowing freely, and laughter was loud in the candlelit garden. Alice made her excuses to Mimi (and Ginny, and Sascha), slipping toward the house for a few moments of calm. She’d offered her advice on a breach-of-contract suit Ginny had mentioned and inadvertently found herself holding a legal advice session for the next hour: advising on nanny disputes, fiddling accountants, and shoddy workmanship on those vital conservatories.
“Leaving already?” Stefan called to her from the patio. He and Flora were tucked together on an antique love swing, her hair even blonder against the blue of his shirt. Their children were going to be angelic, Alice could say that for sure.
“Just taking a breather.” She wandered closer. “Don’t tell me you’ve been locked up in your study all this time?”
“On a call, with Hong Kong,” Flora answered for him, slightly petulant.
“Shame on you” Alice teased. “Workaholic.”
“Don’t remind this one.” Stefan gave Flora’s tiny shoulders a squeeze, grinning. “She still hasn’t forgiven me for the wedding.”
“You took a call,” Flora protested. “Two hundred guests, a truckload of imported roses, and when I appear at the end of the aisle, you’re off in the vestibule arguing over returns!”
Stefan gave an exaggerated sigh, hanging his head. “See, she won’t let me forget it.”
Alice looked at Flora, tucked snugly in the crook of his arm. “You shouldn’t hold it over him forever,” she agreed, a little wistful.
“Oh, I will.” Flora gave a sunny grin. “How else do you think I got everything pink?”
Alice watched her face glow. The vivid, tender intimacy between Flora and Stefan was still touching to see. She had only fleeting memories of experiencing that kind of love herself, years ago, and when the months stretched out alone, Alice even wondered if she’d ever really known it at all. So she watched them as if she were an anthropologist, at rare family events or holidays, studying for proof of a foreign tribe. The light glances, the reassuring touch—the completeness of their world together was beautiful, and almost baffling to her. To share that much with somebody, to need someone the way Flora so clearly did—Alice could hardly imagine it.
“Do you need anything from inside?” she asked, automatically checking the drinks and thinning dessert table. “I could bring some things out, if you need.”
“No, no, you’re a guest.” Stefan insisted, wrapping his arms carefully around Flora. “Just enjoy yourself.”
Alice left them curled together on the swing and made her way into the cool of the house, relaxing as the chatter of the party receded behind her.
“They’re that way.”
She looked up. A man in a loose linen suit was coming down the hallway toward her. Alice recognized him from outside, she thought, or perhaps they had even been introduced, in that first whirl of greetings. “I’m sorry?”
“The bathrooms,” he explained, his voice edged with an American accent. The man made a show of looking around before leaning in, conspiratorial. “I’ve got to warn you, it’s kind of a trek. You take a left past the stairs, and then a right…” He paused, visibly sketching out his route in the air before correcting himself with mock seriousness. “No, I tell a lie: it’s another left, at the strange ceramic statue. A horse, I think?”
“Unicorn,” Alice said with a smile.
The man raised his eyebrows. “I stand corrected. And the bronze figurines in the hallway?”
“Dolphins.”
“Really? Huh. I would have guessed mutant slugs myself.”
Alice couldn’t help but laugh. Flora’s décor had always been eclectic, to say the least.
“You need a map?” The man lingered in the hallway with her, making a show of patting down his pockets. Up close, he was square jawed and sturdy, with leather braces edging out from under his linen jacket, like something from a Prohibition-era movie. He made a change from the rest of Stefan’s sharp-suited guests, Alice noted, relieved she wasn’t the only one out of place. “I think I’ve got a napkin here somewhere…”
“That’s all right, I know my way around,” Alice assured him, and then, in case he thought she was snooping, added, “I’m Flora’s sister.”
“Really?” He glanced at her in surprise.
Alice bristled, just imagining the comparison that was going on in his mind. It was always the same, whenever people heard that they were related. Blond and ethereal, she wasn’t. But this time, the man simply gave her a teasing grin. “You don’t seem to have inherited her love for all things pink.”
She relaxed. “We’re stepsisters,” Alice explained. “The pink is definitely in her genes.”
“I guess that settles the nature-versus-nurture debate.” He laughed.
“Someone should alert the media,” Alice agreed.
There was a pause, one of those natural conversational spaces Alice knew signaled the time for a polite retreat, but this man was such a welcome, friendly break from the forced conversation that she lingered.