with a high, square neckline, a flouncy skirt, and little puffed sleeves. She had rolled her dark hair back on both sides and secured it with rhinestone-dotted combs. There were white leather pumps on her feet. The overall effect reminded Orla of her great-aunts in the sixties, smoking at parties in pictures.
“Welcome.” Floss did a sort of curtsy.
“To what?” Orla said, climbing the stoop.
“To our new home.” Floss let her in, and shut the door behind them.
Orla stood in the foyer, her head turning slowly. In front of her were stairs, wide and walnut, leading up to a second-floor landing with a small hexagonal window above it. To her right was a living room with heavy gold draperies and a long velvet sofa, emerald green. A fire burned beneath the mantel, which was engraved with dozens of icons—fruit and wheat and men in wigs. To her left was a dining room, a blizzard of blue and white—chinoiserie vases on the round, polished table, royal-and-cream-striped curtains, aqua crystal and milk glass held in the triangular cabinets built into the corners. A discordant flash of green inside one of the cabinets caught Orla’s eye. It was the urn with Biscuit’s ashes, she realized.
Orla looked at Floss, who was watching her carefully. “If this is a prank,” she said, “I’m not in the mood.”
Aston came padding barefoot down the thick runner in the hallway then, headed straight for her. Orla blushed fiercely, because—why had she assumed that by “our,” Floss still meant Floss and her?
Aston was wearing pants and a zip-up sweater, both cut from pale gray cashmere. Above where the zipper ended, Orla saw the new pink flesh of the scars on his chest. “Shouldn’t you be in, like, the best mood ever?” he said. “Miss new bestselling author! Polly just called Floss a minute ago.”
“She did?” Orla looked between them.
“Oh, yeah, you know Polly,” Floss said vaguely. She grabbed Orla’s hand and pulled her down the hallway. “Hope you didn’t fill up. I made lunch.”
They came into the kind of kitchen Orla thought did not exist in New York, not even for the rich; it was so deceitfully suburban. There was endless counter space, a full-size dishwasher, a real stove with lemon-patterned tiles behind it. At the far end of the room was a wall of windows, looking out on a narrow, sloping yard, and a long bench, padded in flowered fabric and bolted to the wall. Floss motioned for Orla to sit down there. Aston pulled the table back so that it didn’t squeeze her belly.
Floss brought things to the table, an endless parade of food off-limits to pregnant women—mayo-drenched seafood salad and sliced-turkey sandwiches that she left in their containers, not bothering with presentation. They talked about Polly. Floss would not apologize for sending the manuscript without Orla’s permission—“Because I was right—she loves you!” Aston wanted to know if Orla could give him the “TLDR” version of her book. “Like a shorter version of the story, because I have this thing where I can’t get through books,” he said, bouncing on his seat. “TLDR means ‘Too Long, Didn’t Read.’”
Could she even believe it, they asked, over and over, and later she thought that they must have been checking to see if she actually did.
Floss brought three champagne flutes to the table and sat down. She slid the one with the darker liquid toward Orla. “Sparkling apple juice.”
Orla flicked her glass. “Just this once, I’ll take the real stuff,” she said. “One glass of champagne won’t kill the baby.”
Floss and Aston grew quiet. They looked at each other.
“Whoa,” Orla said. “You guys are different in Brooklyn. Fine. Half a glass.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Aston said. He sounded like a child playing grown-up.
Floss lifted one puff-sleeved shoulder. “Maybe better safe than sorry?”
Orla rolled her eyes and reached for the bottle. Floss gripped its neck and tugged it back. She got up, skirt whirling, and set it on the counter, as if that settled that.
“Okay.” Orla leaned as close to the table as her stomach would allow. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“Let’s just get to it,” Aston grumbled to Floss. His shoulders slumped. “It’s just Orla. I don’t know why we had to make a big show.” He pushed aside a vase of carnations blocking his face from Orla’s view.
“Because,” Floss said. “It’s, like, a big deal, and I wanted it to feel special.”
Floss and Aston interlaced their fingers and put their hands on the table together. Orla gasped. Between