She adored the city with all its contradictions, its rich colonial history and vibrant melting-pot culture. Art, food, music, and science, all rubbing elbows and vying for attention. But there was something about seeing it like this, away from the bustle and noise, that had always felt a little magical when she was growing up, as if she might suddenly grow wings with which to fly away.
She used to dream of flying away a lot when she was a girl, of being someone else, living another life. One that was her own. A career that had nothing to do with her mother. A husband who was nothing like her father. She’d almost done it too.
Almost.
The word felt like a stone in her chest, the weight of it always with her, making simple tasks like going to the market or meeting a friend feel almost overwhelming. It wasn’t normal, this need to retreat from the world. But it wasn’t new either. She had always leaned toward the introverted end of the spectrum, doing her best to avoid dinner parties and other social events, not to mention the attention that came with being the daughter of one of Boston’s most prominent social and philanthropic elites.
Never a hair out of place, never a faux pas made—that was Camilla Lowell Grant. The right clothes, the right home, the right art. The right everything, if you didn’t count the chronically unfaithful husband and the intractable daughter. Still, Camilla bore her burdens admirably. Most of the time.
Rory took in the table as she set down the fruit plates. It looked like something out of Victoria magazine: crisp white islet laid with her grandmother’s Royal Albert china, linen napkins flawlessly folded beside each place setting. And in the center, a bowl of waxy white gardenias—her mother’s signature flower. Perfection, as usual.
The brunch tradition had begun on her twelfth birthday and had quickly become a weekly event. The menu varied from week to week—fresh fruit and some sort of pastry baked from scratch, toast points with smoked salmon and creamy Boursin cheese, flawlessly turned omelets made with whatever was in season, and the one constant: mimosas made with freshly squeezed orange juice and perfectly chilled Veuve Clicquot.
It was meant to be a time for catching up, but lately, their tête-à-têtes had become increasingly tense as her mother found new and not-so-subtle ways to suggest it might be time to move on with her life.
Rory fingered the ruby ring on her left hand, a small oval with a tiny nick at the bottom. It was the ring Hux’s father had used to propose to his mother, all he’d been able to afford as a soldier returning from the Korean War. Hux had promised to take her shopping for a proper ring, but he’d wanted to use his mother’s ring to actually pop the question. Touched by his sentimentality, she had opted to keep the original, thrilled that he would entrust her with something so precious. Now his mother’s ring was all she had.
She pushed the thought away when Camilla appeared carrying two plates. “Mushroom and asparagus frittatas,” she announced, setting down the plates with a flourish.
“It looks delicious,” Rory said, taking her usual chair. Her mother had never been the domestic type, but she certainly knew her way around a kitchen.
Camilla slid several catalogs from beneath her arm and handed them to Rory before settling across from her. “They came last week, but you skipped out on brunch. I was tempted to tell the postwoman I didn’t know anyone named Rory, but did she have anything for my daughter, Aurora.”
Rory managed a dry smile. “You need some new material, Mother. That joke’s getting old.”
“Rory is a boy’s name. Your name is Aurora. And it’s a beautiful name. A lady’s name.”
“An old lady’s name,” Rory shot back. “And it was Daddy who shortened it. It obviously never bothered him.”
Camilla responded with a huff. “You have to be around to be bothered.”
Rory picked up her fork, poking listlessly at her frittata. It was true. Her father’s interests had always lain elsewhere. She had no idea how many affairs there’d been, though she suspected her mother could provide an exact tally. She’d kept careful tabs on the women who moved in and out of Geoffrey Grant’s life over the years, carefully adding each name to the collection, like quarters to a swear jar.
Why she’d never divorced him was beyond Rory, though she suspected the weekend at Doral with his twenty-eight-year-old receptionist might have proven the coup de grace if he hadn’t ended up dying in her bed first. It was the type of scandal from which most society wives never quite recovered, a cliché of the most delicious and disastrous variety, but for Camilla, it became the crown jewel in her collection of betrayals, a badge of honor, purchased with her pride.