Devil's Food at Dusk

by Anna Martin

  “Hey, Mom.” Henry leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

  He was pretty sure he didn’t imagine her momentary flash of distaste for the use of “hey.” It was probably similar to “guys.” Once he’d asked his mother “What’s up?” and she’d nearly passed out. Henry had to hold back a grin. It wasn’t that he hated it here; he just had fun trying to loosen them up a little. They could use it.

  Well, except for his sister, of course. Trixie came bounding over when he was finished with his mother and smacked a cheery kiss on his cheek. “What happened? Is Millie going to kill you when she finds out? Did this have to do with a boy?”

  “No. No boy.” Henry rolled his eyes. “And someday, the two of you are finally going to realize she works for me, not the other way around. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to come to terms with that.”

  Trixie rolled her own eyes just as hard as Henry. Even if it weren’t for the dark hair and matching big, dark eyes, there was not a single question they were siblings. “So what was this big disaster?”

  “A bag of flour fell and exploded all over the kitchen. But it’s okay. Millie offered to clean it for me.”

  “That’s not going to come for free.” Trixie laughed. She tossed her hair over her shoulder in a perfectly lovely, perfectly practiced move. On the surface, he and Trixie could nearly be twins, even though she was three years older than Henry and far more acceptably groomed and dressed. Below that, they weren’t very much alike, other than a few odd mannerisms. Still, they somehow managed to be really close friends. Henry was glad he had her.

  “I know it’s not going to come free. It never does with Millie.” Henry gave her a knowing and rueful smile. “Gotta love her.”

  Henry’s father stood, then, and shook Henry’s hand. Bradford Livingston the third. He lived up to that honker of a name. Even Henry was a bit intimidated by his steely hair and stern demeanor.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “It’s nice to see you, son.” He nodded at Hudson. “Let’s go eat dinner so Hudson doesn’t miss his show. You know he hates that.”

  “What’s Hudson addicted to now?” Henry asked.

  Trixie giggled. “The Voice. He’ll lie if you try to get him to admit it, though.”

  Henry looked back. He thought Hudson might have cracked a smile. He’d always loved Trixie, even when he was helping to drag her in the door from one sloshy society party or another all through her teens and twenties.

  They trailed into the dining room after the butler and took their habitual seats. Sometime, Henry thought he might sit at Trixie’s spot and shake things up a little. Then he thought that would probably be too much. He didn’t want to make their world come tumbling down. Better not.

  Henry let his family’s polite chatter wash over him through the soup course while he stared at the ornate floral wallpaper and tried to count the pink and red roses. He’d never bought in to their whirlwind social scene, no more than he’d had to, at least. It’d actually been almost a relief when he’d come out to his mother when he was seventeen. That had been the end of his enforced presence at all her social functions. Why bother dragging him along when there was no hope of finding him the perfect Park Avenue princess to dangle on his arm like some shiny exclusive Birkin bag in human form?

  “Oh, H. Babe. I have great news for you.” Trixie reached over and swatted his arm.

  “Christina,” his mother admonished.

  “What?” Trixie gave their mother her patented cherubic smile. It worked on nearly everyone. “It’s just the family. We don’t have to be so formal.”

  Ophelia Livingston knew better than to fall for Trixie’s charms. “It’s not proper, dear.”

  “Okay, Mom. Won’t happen again.” Henry thought he saw Trixie rolling her eyes. Clearly she’d spent too much time downtown with him. “Anyway, I have a fun job for you, brother. She said she’d give you a call in a few days.”

  Another big job? Henry didn’t know whether to be ecstatic or horrified. Trixie had been dragging more and more of her upscale friends into his shop to bump up business. Henry was fairly sure he didn’t need her help. Or the pressure. “Who? What is this job?”

  Trixie waved him off. “Oh, I can’t ever remember those things for more than ten seconds. But it’s Cherish’s cousin Poppy’s daughter’s thirteenth birthday or something. You know how those things go. She wanted the best in the city. I told her you were the best. You know Poppy, right? She’s up from Kentucky for the fall.”

  Not really. But he figured he’d let that go. Henry could never keep up with Trixie’s never-ending kaleidoscope of social contacts, especially since most of them seemed to come and go with the wind, blowing around to whatever fabulous location suited them for the moment.

  “The best at what, Trix?” He chose to focus on the part of her rambly speech he’d sort of understood.

  “What?” Trixie cocked her head. Her dark waves tumbled down over her shoulder and over what was probably an eight hundred dollar blouse. At least.

  “You said I was the best at what?”

  Trixie looked confused for another moment, like she was trying to remember some insignificant detail like what kind of torture she’d just signed her brother up for. Her face brightened, and she snapped her fingers. “Oh yeah, I remember. Macarons. Poppy wants macarons.”

  Tristan Green leaned back in his chair and let the sounds of a bustling office ebb and flow around him, echoing off the charming but loud wooden floors. It was supper time, far past it by the small-town standards he’d grown up with, but the offices of Blanchard and Star were still packed with ambitious junior ad reps who worked long hours in the hope that someday they’d be one of the senior ad reps, with a posh corner office, big salary, and a portfolio of lucrative accounts.

  Tristan had always thought he was one of them—the ones with big aspirations and a future in a roomy corner office.

  But more than anything, he wanted to go home. And he didn’t mean home to his lovely but empty rented flat in the West Village, or even the smaller, much less lovely one he’d had in London before that, but home. Home to his family in Yorkshire and the quiet town he’d been desperate to escape from once upon a time. The big exciting world wasn’t quite what Tristan had expected.

  “Oi. Jolly!”

  Tristan nearly toppled over in his desk chair but managed to right the damn thing before he made a rather prodigious arse of himself. Again. He groaned once he’d managed to get his heart to stop racing.

  Jordan. Jordan of the slicked-back quiff and perfectly tailored designer suits. He and his cronies hadn’t stopped torturing Tristan since he’d first been introduced at a staff meeting a little over three months ago. Blanchard and Starr had decided his skills were better utilized at the New York office instead of London, where he’d originally interviewed. At the time, Tristan had been fresh out of school and excited at the prospect of an adventure, but over the weeks, the adventure had been tarnished by snarky, competitive coworkers and loneliness like he’d never felt before. Even in London he’d had his mates from uni. He hadn’t had much time to see them, only a pub night every so often, but at least they’d been there. In New York there was nobody. Worse than nobody.

  “What do you need, Jordan?” Tristan asked. Perhaps he’s come to tell me he’s quitting and I won’t have to be bothered by his obnoxious face anymore. His least favorite coworker had sidled up to Tristan’s desk with an oily smile Tristan now knew was completely fake. And dangerous. That had taken a few stinging setdowns to figure out. “And please stop calling me ‘Jolly.’ It’s not bloody funny.” He wasn’t sure if they were mocking his last name, his dialect, or his height. Probably all three.

  “Bloody.” Jordan mimicked Tristan’s accent, then snorted. “Rob,” he called across the open, buzzing office. Rob of the ginger comb-over and unfortunate pleated pensioner trousers looked up, pencil frozen in his hand. “Is it funny when we call Tristan ‘Jolly’?”

  Rob snickered.

  “See
?”

  Not sure he’s got the right to be mocking anyone with those trousers. Tristan took a deep breath and tried to smile. It was hard when he knew most of the office resented him for coming from out of nowhere as an equal. He was probably five years younger than the next closest coworker. Ten years younger than most of them. It had to sting. Didn’t mean it was his fault.

  “What do you need, Jordan? I’m trying to get these layouts done before I go home.”

  “Oh. Nothing. A few of the boys were going to Watertown to get drinks later tonight.”

  Tristan didn’t know what to say. “Were you coming to ask if I wanted to join you? ’Cause that would be a first,” he finally mumbled. He hated to hope they’d finally decided he was worth being friends with.

  “No. Why would we do that?” Jordan turned and flounced back to his desk.

  Tristan rolled his eyes. Dicks. Could’ve been worse, he supposed. Maybe.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time Tristan got home, which, seeing as though the city was still hanging onto the last of the late-summer evenings, was saying something. Someday, he hoped to get out at a decent hour and actually do something for once—if he found someone to do anything with.

  The evening heat was still intense. It had mellowed only enough to be just about bearable. He’d nearly fallen asleep on the subway, which would’ve been a disaster when he first moved to the city. At least by now he could find his way back to where he belonged from a different stop.

  He trudged up the stairs of his building—old, brick, full of character from the outside, dark and pokey from the inside. He lived on the top floor, in a flat Blanchard and Star rented out to their international transfers at a very—well, not so reasonable—rate.

  At least it was in a neighborhood he liked. The rows of townhouses and canopy of leafy trees reminded him of home, in an odd way. He pulled his windows open to let in what little breeze there was. Mostly it was just humidity, thick and heavy, but the inside of his place was stifling. His curtains lifted encouragingly for a moment, but then fell flat. Well, there goes that brilliant idea.

  Tristan flopped down on his settee and stared at the floor-to-ceiling bricks in front of him. The wall was still blank. He hadn’t really bothered to do much with the place, even when he’d thought moving to New York was the best idea in the world. Might have been a sign he didn’t want to stay. His flat was vaulted and airy, but it still felt tight somehow. Suffocating. He wanted to get out.

  Tristan slipped off his loafers, pulled off his work shirt and trousers, and changed into jeans and an old T-shirt. That felt more like him. Better. Putting on his ratty old Converses he’d had since freshman year of uni helped too. Time for a walk. And dinner.

  Tristan’s favorite part of living in New York so far was the Village at night. It had been the only good thing so far, if he was being quite honest. There was something special about the warm, velvety darkness and the glowy gilded sheen that seeped into every tree-cracked sidewalk and weathered-brick townhouse. It made him wonder about stars and fate and magic. Tristan figured he was due a bit of magic, especially after the week he’d had. Especially after the month he’d had.

  Most of his neighborhood was quiet, just the stray dog walker and a few die-hard gym goers on their way home from whatever twenty-four-hour gym was close by. He’d not gotten as far as finding a go to doughnut stop or a favorite market yet. It was all Tristan could do to hold his head above water at work and survive on greasy pizza slices and the occasional curry from an Indian place on Christopher Street he’d been lucky to find. Tristan wasn’t in the mood for curry, and the thought of late-night spicy pizza made his gut clench. He just wanted to walk.

  Block after block, street after street, Tristan walked. He’d been in the city for weeks, so there wasn’t much to look at anymore on the streets he already knew – not unless he wanted to get hopelessly lost searching for new crannies of the Village to explore in the middle of the night. Instead, he thought. He thought of home and his family and the rest of the village he came from, he thought of the knob squad at the office who seemed quite bent on making his life a bloody nightmare. He thought about what he could do to prove he belonged. He had a year left on his contract here. If he quit and ran home to mummy like a little boy, he might as well just admit he couldn’t hack it in the big world. Tristan refused to do that.

  He pulled out his mobile and checked the time. Past midnight. Shit, shit, shit. He had to be at the office by six the next day to make sure he got his layouts and ad copy turned in to the supervisor of the sports drink account he’d been working on. Not exactly the glamorous existence he’d been dreaming of when he’d packed his bags for university and vowed never to return to village life for more than a visit.