“Look at this puppy!” she said, her voice rising in pitch and her face lighting up. “He’s so precious! Hello, buddy,” Brooke said, bending down to meet him at his level. “Aren’t you just the cutest?” The dog looked at Brooke solemnly for a moment, like he was considering this, but then his tail started wagging very slightly. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a dog with a poker face, but this one seemed to be coming close.
“Whose dog is this?” she asked, scratching his ears as she looked around.
“He’s a loaner for the weekend,” J.J. said.
“Wait, what?”
“Okay!” I looked over and saw my mother coming down the kitchen stairs, dressed in the black pantsuit she always wore when she was doing events or presentations. “We need to leave for the Pearce in ten minutes, so . . .” She stopped and looked around. “Why isn’t anyone ready?” she asked, throwing up her hands.
“I’m ready,” J.J. said, brushing some crumbs off his T-shirt.
My mother just looked at him. “No. Go up and change. You too, Charlie.”
“I was going to,” I protested.
“Then do it, please,” she said, shaking her head. I glanced at the kitchen clock and realized that I did have to get moving. I hurried out of the kitchen and was halfway across the front hall when there was a loud, insistent knocking on the door.
I pulled it open and saw Don standing there, his arms folded across his chest and his face redder than normal.
“I need to talk to your mother or father,” Don sputtered. “Because this is just unacceptable.”
“Um, what is? Dad!” I yelled toward the kitchen. “Could you come here?”
“I am retired,” Don said, shaking his head. “And I need a certain amount of peace and quiet. And—”
“Twice in one day,” my dad said as he joined me. “How nice for us. Did you need something, Don?”
“Yes,” Don said, pushing his way inside. “I need you all to keep it down over here or I’m going to call the police with a noise complaint. There are trucks coming and going, a dog barking, your alarm going off—”
I backed away slowly, more than happy to leave this conversation—when my dad and Don were left alone together, things very quickly devolved into trading insults about begonias. I turned and hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
* * *
By the time I’d changed into my dress and hurriedly applied some makeup, everyone else who was going to the museum—Linnie, Rodney, my parents, Danny, Brooke (apparently), and J.J.—was waiting for me on the driveway. My mother had extended the offer to come to the Pearce with us to the rest of the people staying in the house, but everyone else had decided to stay behind—to rest after their travels (The Danielses) or greet the other people who’d be coming in (Aunt Liz), or get into a slightly altered mental state (Max).
“Finally,” my mother said as I hurried to meet the group, barefoot and carrying my heels.
“Sorry,” I said, smoothing back my hair and hoping it looked more or less presentable. I was terrible at doing my own hair, and not much better at my makeup, so I was very relieved there would be professionals coming tomorrow who would take care of both of those things for me.
“I think we can do this in two cars,” my mother said. “Danny, why don’t you take Brooke, Charlie, and J.J., and Linnie and Rodney can ride with me and your father?”
We’d just started to head to our separate cars when a taxi pulled into the driveway. I figured it was just one of the bridesmaids arriving early, until the taxi door opened and my uncle Stu—my dad’s younger brother, who was generally agreed to be the Cheapest Man Alive—got out.
“Hello, Grants!” Stu called, waving. “This is a nice welcoming committee.”
I glanced at my parents, who seemed just as baffled by this as I was. Stu wasn’t in the wedding party and wasn’t coming to the rehearsal dinner. My mom had invited out-of-town guests to come by the house tonight for pizza while we’d be at the rehearsal dinner, but we were still a good few hours away from that.
Stu hoisted his suitcase out of the cab, then walked toward us, smiling broadly. Stu looked like a slightly scrunched-down version of my dad—shorter and rounder, with less hair. Their relationship was somewhat strained by the fact that Stu had gone bankrupt twice in the last decade and my father had been the one to bail him out. “Nice to see everyone!” he said, pulling my dad into a hug and kissing my mom on the cheek, then ruffling J.J.’s hair. He noticed Brooke and held out his hand. “Hey there. I’m Stuart Grant. Uncle of this lovely bride-to-be. You here for the wedding too?”
“Um.” The cabdriver got out of his car, and I saw it was the same guy from before, the one who’d recognized the house. “Sir? You didn’t pay the fare.”
“Ah,” Stu said, nodding as he patted his pockets. He turned to my dad. “I don’t suppose you could handle that, could you, Jeff? I’m fresh out of cash.”
“We take cards, sir,” the driver called, but my uncle seemed not to hear him.
“Thanks, brother,” he said, giving my dad a punch on the shoulder. “I appreciate it.”
“Wait a second,” my dad said, shaking his head.
“I guess we thought you’d go to the Inn first,” my mother said, glancing down at his suitcase, a strained smile on her face. My mother had never been a huge fan of my uncle Stu, not since he’d invited the random strangers he’d been playing golf with the day of their wedding to attend the reception, all without telling my parents.
“I just need thirty-five fifty,” the driver said, a sigh somewhere in his voice.
“My brother’s handling it,” Stu said, clapping my dad on the back. “So I’ll just get settled in inside, how ’bout that?”
“Settled in?” my dad asked, his voice a bit strangled. “Why . . . ? I mean, what do you mean?”
“I take cash,” the driver said, raising his voice to talk over us. “All major credit cards . . . One guy even gave me a check once. . . .”
“I mean settled in!” Stu said heartily. “What do you think? I’ve come for my niece’s wedding.”
“I didn’t want to take the check,” the taxi driver went on, shaking his head. “But what was I going to do? And it worked out in the end, like, it didn’t bounce or anything, so I guess I take checks now too. . . .”
“But . . .” Linnie glanced at my mother. “We thought you were staying at the Inn.”
“The Inn?” My uncle made a forget about it gesture. “Why waste good money so that they can charge you for bathrobes?”
“They only charge you for the bathrobes if you take them,” J.J. pointed out, but my uncle kept going.
“I just figured I’d bunk with you. You know I’m not picky—just put me anywhere.”
“I can take a combination of cash and charge,” the driver continued, sounding more and more exasperated.
“I’ve got it,” Danny said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet and peeling off some bills, then handing them to the driver. As soon as the driver got the money, he started backing down the driveway, like he didn’t want to spend any more time with us than he had to.
“We have to get going to a function,” my mother said, looking at her watch again. “But—”
“I’ll get Stu settled in,” Rodney said. “And then I’ll meet you at the Pearce. How about that?”
“Thanks, son,” my dad said, giving Rodney a smile. “We appreciate it.”
“What’s this function?” my uncle asked, raising an eyebrow. “The kind with an open bar?”
“No,” my mother, father, and Linnie said simultaneously.
“It’s at an art museum,” I explained, and my uncle immediately looked less interested.
“I’ll leave you to that, then,” he said, clapping Rodney on the back. “Lead on!”
We watched Rodney and Stu heading up to the house, and when they’d disappeared inside, my mother turned to us. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
CHAPT
ER 12
Or, The Family You Never Had
* * *
OKAY, IF YOU COULD ALL just smile . . . and hold it . . .” I held my smile even though my cheeks were starting to ache, as the photographer from the Stanwich Sentinel snapped away. It was all of us and Rodney, my mother in the center, holding the plaque that had been presented to her when the governor had named her, during the ceremony, a Connecticut citizen deserving of exemplary recognition. We were standing in the central lobby of the Pearce Museum, in front of the marble fountain, and I tried not to blink too much as the camera clicked.
I’d been coming to the Pearce my whole life—for school trips and special exhibits and kids’ art classes. It consisted mostly of the collection of Mary Anne Pearce, and it reflected her very eclectic tastes. I’d always loved how varied it was—how there would be a unicorn tapestry next to a Warhol, next to a Kara Walker. The museum had continued collecting after she’d passed away, but was more focused now on exhibits. I’d seen the banners for them when I’d driven past, but it had been exciting to walk up the white marble steps today and see the one hanging above me, huge and blowing back and forth in the wind—ELEANOR GRANT, A RETROSPECTIVE. 25 YEARS OF COMIC ART.
The ceremony had been lovely. Governor Walker had introduced my mother, thanking her for putting Stanwich on the map—or at least the funny pages—which was a joke that sounded like some speechwriter had written it for him, but nonetheless got a round of polite laughter. Then my mother had stood up and given her speech, thanking her syndicate and her team, and all the readers who’d been following the adventures of the fictional Grants over the years. And then she’d thanked us, her family, for being her inspiration, and also for letting her take liberties with our lives. She’d said how much it had meant for her to have her family with her today, but as she did, my eyes fell on the empty seat next to me.
A row of chairs had been reserved for us, but there was one extra, and I knew my mother had kept it aside in the hopes that Mike would show up. I hadn’t had any expectations that he would, but somehow, seeing the empty seat was bothering me more than I’d known it would, and finally I turned my back on it, angling myself slightly so it wouldn’t be in my peripheral vision.
There was a large crowd—every seat had been filled during the speeches, and while we smiled our way through the pictures, people were milling about on the other side of the lobby, where there was a bar and coffee station and waiters circled with trays of pastries and lemon squares. The exhibition would officially open after the reception was over. From where I was standing, I could see the gallery where the exhibit was, a ribbon stretched across the entrance.
“And last one, over here . . . ,” the photographer said, and I brought my attention back to him. “I think we’re good.” He pulled the camera away and squinted at the viewfinder. “If I could now get just Eleanor and Governor Walker?”
We all took a few steps away as the governor stepped forward, already smiling at my mother. I noticed his security detail, who’d been doing a very good job of blending into the background, now came a little bit closer.
Danny walked over to join Brooke, who’d been standing alone by the coffee station, and J.J., Linnie, Rodney, and I wandered away from the fountain. “Have you see the girl with the lemon squares?” J.J. asked. “I saw her like twenty times when we were getting our pictures taken and now she’s vanished.”
I looked over and saw my mother and the governor shaking hands while the camera clicked. “I think it went well, don’t you?”
“I guess I thought Mike might show up,” Linnie said, lowering her voice as though she was worried about being overheard. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting it, but . . .”
“Why should Mike do anything for someone else?” I asked, my voice coming out with a bitter edge. “Why should he think about anyone other than himself?”
“Charlie.” Rodney shook his head.
“He did come for the wedding,” J.J. pointed out. I looked around for Danny, to see if he would back me up, but he was still talking to Brooke. I glanced over and saw the photographer rearranging my mom and the governor, this time bringing my dad in—and I noticed that Andie Walker, the governor’s daughter, was starting to head in our direction.
I didn’t know Andie super well—I’d been a sophomore at Stanwich High when she was a senior. But after her father won in November, I’d reached out, to see if she’d be willing to do an interview with the Pilgrim. She’d agreed, and the feature I’d written on her for the paper—Walker Hits Her Stride—about her relationship with her dad, her life at Yale, her boyfriend who was a fantasy novelist, had been picked up by some national outlets, which had pretty much been the highlight of my year.
Now, I gave her a quick smile and a nod as she passed, and she returned it automatically, then stopped, tilting her head to the side. “Hey,” she said, looking at me. “It’s Charlotte, right? From the paper?”
“That’s right,” I said, trying not to be too pleased that she remembered me. Politicians’ kids were probably taught to do that kind of stuff automatically.
“Well, it’s nice to see you again,” she said, then seemed to notice the three other people who were watching this exchange. “Hi, I’m Andie Walker,” she said to the collective group. She gestured to the cute, glasses-wearing guy next to her. “And this is my boyfriend, Clark McCallister.”
Both Rodney and J.J. made a weird strangled sound, like they’d simultaneously gotten something stuck in their throats. I looked at them, wondering what was going on. “You guys okay?”
“You’re . . . ,” Rodney started, his eyes wide. “You’re C. B. McCallister, right? The novelist?”
Clark smiled. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “That’s me.”
“Okay,” J.J. said, walking up to him and tugging him a few steps away, not seeming to notice—or care—that Clark was still holding Andie’s hand. “So, I have to know about the ending of Realm. There’s going to be another one, right? You’re not going to leave us hanging like that?”
“The new book comes out in a month,” he said, and I saw Andie shoot him a small, proud smile. “It’s probably a five-book cycle now, not a trilogy. And I promise all your questions will be answered.”
“But tell me,” Rodney said, joining them a few steps away from the rest of us, “because I never quite understood Ward’s backstory. Was he supposed to be evil from the beginning?”
Andie turned back to me, shaking her head. “This could go on for a while.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” Linnie said, glancing over to where their three-person group had moved even farther away, and it looked like J.J. and Rodney had Clark cornered, both of them asking him questions simultaneously, J.J. gesturing wide as he did so.
Andie waved this away. “It happens a lot. His book tour was insane.” She turned to me with the practiced ease of someone who’s gotten very good at small talk with people she didn’t really know that well. “So where are you going to school next year?”
“Here,” I said, then shook my head a second later. “I mean Stanwich, not the Pearce.”
“Oh, cool,” Andie said, nodding. “That’s where Clark went. He was there for a year before he transferred to Yale. I know he really liked it.”
I nodded, and before the silence that fell got too awkward, I gestured to my sister. “So, Linnie’s getting married tomorrow.”
“Congratulations,” Andie said, then paused. “Wait, I think that’s for the groom. Best wishes?”
“Either one,” Linnie said with a smile, but then it faded as she looked down at her watch. “There’s a ton to do, so I’m hoping we can sneak out of here soon.”
“You’re not going to stay and see the exhibit?” I was well aware of the schedule we were on, but I’d imagined all of us looking at the comics and the art that depicted our family, walking through the rooms of the exhibit together.
“I can come back another time,” Linnie said, raising an eyebrow at me, “you know, when it’s not the
day before my wedding.”
“I actually don’t think we can stay either,” Andie said. She looked over at her father and I could see the governor shaking hands with both my parents—it appeared that the photo taking had finally come to an end. “I know my dad has a fundraiser to get to.” She walked a few steps away and tugged on Clark’s hand. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but we need to get going.”
Clark just looked at her. “You just want to see Duke, don’t you?”
“I haven’t seen my dog in two months!” she said. “And video chatting just isn’t the same.”
“She loves that dog more than me,” Clark said to J.J. and Rodney, shaking his head.
“Were you waiting for me to disagree with that?” Andie asked, and Clark laughed as the governor approached us.
“Hello,” he said with a wide smile that I recognized from the cover of Newsweek when he won his election. “You must be the rest of the Grants.”
We all just stood there looking at him for a moment, and it was Linnie who remembered her manners and stopped being impressed the fastest. “Thank you so much for coming, sir,” she said.
“It was my pleasure,” Governor Walker said easily. Then he dropped his voice a little lower, leaning closer to us. “I’m actually a big fan. I read it every morning, right after the political news.”
“This is true,” Andie said. She raised her eyebrows at her father. “We good to go?”
“She misses her dog,” the governor said with a smile. “And unfortunately, I’ve got a schedule to keep. It was nice to meet you all. Take care!” He gave us a politician’s smile and he, Andie, and Clark headed for the exit, the governor laughing at something his daughter said and his security team following behind them at a discreet distance.
Save the Date Page 13
