to Laurel, looks her directly in the eye, presses her hands against Laurel’s forearms, then enfolds her inside her soft, welcoming body that smells of violets and talcum powder and says in the voice of a woman who has smoked and drunk and cried and sung, “At bloody last. At long bloody last.”
Floyd meanwhile has made his way straight to Paul to shake his hand and tell him what an honor it is to meet him; there is a moment of gentle hilarity as they realize that they are dressed virtually identically and that they are in fact wearing exactly the same Paul Smith socks.
“Look,” says Paul, pressing himself up against Floyd. “Twins!”
As onerous meetings between exes, new partners, old partners, and various children go, Laurel thinks, it really has been at the upper end of the scale.
She sits between Floyd and Bonny. Paul sits at Bonny’s other side with Hanna at the head of the table, and Jake, Poppy, and Blue are opposite. Blue looks sour-faced and disgusted to be here and Laurel can only imagine the emotional wrangling that Jake must have undertaken to get her to agree to coming tonight. If Blue had her way, they would never leave their cottage.
But Blue is the only dark point in the proceedings. Laurel looks around the table and sees a best-case scenario. No one would ever guess, she thinks, no one would know how weird this is, how extraordinary. Even Hanna is smiling as she chats with her dad and opens his gift to her.
A waiter brings two bottles of preordered champagne and fills all their glasses. It feels as though someone should get to their feet to raise a toast to the birthday girls, but there is hesitation because, of course, who should it be? Without Floyd, Paul would be the obvious candidate: father to one, ex-husband to the other. But with Floyd it’s not so clear-cut, and the hesitation builds and builds until suddenly, unexpectedly, Poppy gets to her feet.
She grips her half-glass of champagne between her hands and looks around the table from person to person, her focus not wavering. “I’ve only known Laurel for a couple of weeks,” she begins, perfect diction, unerring poise. “But in that time I’ve got to know her well enough to consider her to be a true and beautiful friend. She’s so kind and so generous, and my father and I are so lucky to have her in our life. And now I can see that she is not the only lovely person in her family. I know I’ve only just met you all, but I can feel how much you all love each other and I feel honored to be a part of all this. To Laurel”—she raises her glass—“and to Hanna. And to happy families!”
There’s a brittle silence, just long enough to acknowledge the strangeness of Poppy’s pitch-perfect speech, the irony of her comment about happy families, before everyone else raises their glasses and says, “To Hanna, to Laurel, happy birthday.”
Paul catches Laurel’s eye from the other end of the table and throws her a conspiratorial whatthefuck look. She smiles tightly at him. She wants to join in with his wry judging but she feels strangely loyal to Poppy. She’s young. She has no mother. She doesn’t go to school. She doesn’t know.
Bonny turns to her as they all put down their glasses and says, “I hope you know I’ve been wanting this to happen for an awfully long time.”
Bonny has an unruly face: a wide mouth that moves in all directions at once, a dip and a curve in her nose, one eyebrow sits higher than the other, and her chin has a scar running through it. But it all works together somehow and Laurel can see that she is beautiful.
“Yes,” says Laurel. “I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t ready before. It was never anything to do with you. I promise.”
Bonny’s hand covers hers. Her nails are short and painted red. “Of course I know that. And Paul has never spoken about you in any way that wasn’t positive and generous. I’ve always understood. And I understand now, too. You’re moving on, because you can. You couldn’t before. There’s a right time for everything. Don’t you think?”
Laurel nods and smiles and thinks, Well, maybe not. Maybe, for example, there’s not a right time to lose your child. But she doesn’t say it because this nice woman is trying her hardest and this is an important conversation, one