“I’ve never had someone roll their eyes at me so much,” Henry mutters, his arm roped around my waist. Daniel flanks my other side, a step behind us. It’s been two weeks since that stupid magazine article hit shelves, and the online gossip cycle has moved on to a senator caught on video having his diaper changed at a sex party. I want to send him a thank-you card.
“She’s a teenager. That’s normal.”
“Did you do that?”
“No, but I wasn’t spawned by sin,” I tease. “Seriously, I think it’s a good thing. It means she’s comfortable with you.” As a person, and maybe even as her father.
“It’s a highly annoying thing.” But his lips curl with a smile.
Bishop Prep reminds me of my high school and every other high school I’ve ever stepped inside.
Same speckled vinyl floor that gleamed on the first day of school and hasn’t since.
Same line of gray lockers, every fifth or sixth wearing a dent from a toe kick or a shoulder.
Same faint odor of stale sweat and dirty socks permeating the air.
Henry leans down to whisper dryly, “Remind me again why Violet isn’t enrolled in the excellent private school seven blocks from here?”
“Because her friends are here, and this is her life.” I smile sweetly up at him.
He flashes me an unimpressed look. I know he only wants the best for her, but she’s had enough upheaval in her life. She needs something familiar, at least for now.
“Goodness, I haven’t been here in … well, since Audrey went here.” Howard wiggles his fingers at a little girl bundled in head-to-toe pink winter gear, her thumb in her mouth.
The Sunday morning after we trudged to Rockefeller Square, snow began to fall and didn’t stop for the next thirty hours, blanketing the northeastern states, wreaking havoc on travel, and earning these kids a day off from school. My flight to Chicago that Tuesday to write my exams was uncertain, so I ended up taking Henry’s jet.
Violet warned us to arrive early tonight to ensure we found decent seats, but plenty of families must have had the same idea because the main corridor is busy, the floor stamped with boot prints.
A middle-aged woman’s gaze stalls on my face, then moves to Henry’s where it lingers even longer, and my stomach tenses. “They read the article, they know what you did,” that anxious voice in my head still whispers. But the average person wouldn’t make the connection, would never expect us to be here, and even if they did, it’s getting easier to deny it as trash and move on.
Henry is right—I could have fucked every guy in the Outdoor Crew, at the same time—and it’s none of anyone’s business. No one is entitled to my personal truth, despite how many people think they are.
“This place hasn’t changed at all.” Gayle shuffles along, leaning against her cane for support as we wait in line.
“Alex said the work on the house is done?” Henry asks, keeping pace with Howard.
“Yes. The photographer is coming in next week, along with some sort of stager?” Howard’s wrinkled face crinkles with confusion.
“Yes, they’ll rearrange things and furnish any missing pieces. It’ll get you the best price possible for the house.”
“Never needed those people before. Then again, I’ve never sold a house. We’ve been in ours for fifty-five years.”
Henry whistles. “That’s a long time.” Nobody could guess who Henry is and what he does by listening to him now. He’s just another ordinary man. One who’s wearing a five-thousand-dollar suit and whose driver is parked outside waiting for the show to end.
But I think seeing Henry like this—chatting up a kindly old man while standing in a public school foyer—is my new favorite.
Howard smiles wistfully at his wife as she surveys the graduating class pictures along the wall. “We’ve been lucky.”
“This is her year.” Gayle pauses at one graduating class. “There she is.” She taps the glass on a photo of a much younger Audrey. Violet has shown me enough pictures that I could pick her out of a lineup now.
I lean in to get a better look at the stunning senior. “I see a lot of her in Violet.”
“I used to only see Audrey in Violet, but now that I’ve met her father …” Her voice fades. Is she thinking of her late daughter’s misdeeds? How does a parent wrap their head around something like that, especially when their child isn’t here to answer for it? Audrey could have confided in her parents, regardless of the contract she signed with William. That she didn’t is telling. She didn’t want to burden them with that heavy truth.