on my family specialties. Maybe a flashback to that would remind Nick of a time when things were simpler and better. So I laid enough of a sob story on Marj that she felt either sorry for me or sick of me, and pulled strings to make sure Nick had Thanksgiving off. I then called my mom for cooking advice.
“Remember to take out the plastic bag of giblets,” she’d said, once she stopped laughing at the idea of me throwing a dinner party for which I actually cooked. “On our first Thanksgiving together, your father forgot, and the entire apartment smelled so foul that we went to the Holiday Inn for a week.”
Lacey ended up staying in London after our birthday. Ollie had decided to return to his position at Cambridge, and had asked her to move in with him when they both finished in Kenya. The prospective social buffer of their presence seemed to make it easier for Freddie to accept our invitation, though he declined to bring the chemist he’d been courting.
“Not everyone can knock off work on a Thursday for a boozy early dinner, Killer,” he teased.
Lacey took over the job of making our beloved Chex Mix, and Olly was bringing something from his father’s bakery. We’d invited the Omundis to join us, but they politely declined. A photo of Lacey and Olly at the theater had led to a minor resurgence in public curiosity about Lacey, and I didn’t blame Olly’s parents for wanting to steer clear—though I was encouraged, and pleasantly surprised, that Lacey herself also seemed disinclined to stoke the flames.
“I kind of forgot anyone here might give a shit,” she’d said, but not with the awe she’d have used even a year ago.
I liked Olly instantly. He was muscular but compact—not much taller than me or Lacey, but with rock-solid biceps, from what his short-sleeve collared shirt displayed. His aura was of an endearing low-level nervousness; the way his eyebrows arched over his thick-framed black glasses gave his face the impression of constant hopeful anticipation, as if he simply cared very much about everything going well for the people in his life, and wanted to be the first to smile when it did.
“…not at all unlike elephant herds, actually, because the matriarch really sets the tone for the herd and they’re very reliant on her,” Olly was now saying to Nick, squeezing his left thumb with his right hand in a way that I would come to realize was his calming tic. “The whole elephants-never-forget expression comes largely from the females, and they are very hardy.”
“Gran is nothing if not tough,” Nick agreed.
“Oh God, and now I’ve called the Queen an elephant,” Olly fretted.
“I’ve done worse,” I said.
“I took it as a compliment,” Nick assured him. “Come sit and catch me up on the Sands preserve—it’s been eons since I’ve been.”
“Is this the famous Olly?” called out Freddie, sauntering in from the foyer. “Delighted to meet you, sir.”
“Who let you in?” I said, giving his cheek a light peck.
“You did,” he said, tugging on my ponytail. “Lock your doors, Killer.”
He gave Lacey a warm hug and shook Olly’s hand, then very formally thanked Nick for inviting him before wandering over to the bar cart.
“How’s your chemist?” I asked in a low voice, following him.
“No idea,” was his reply. “She broke up with me fifteen minutes before our lunch date today.”
I squeezed his arm. I heard Nick cough, but when I looked up at him, his eyes were on Olly.
Lacey and Olly, in fact, made for a great social lubricant. The common ground of the Sands preserve gave way to casual, amusing anecdotes, like the time five-year-old Olly burst into tears at the London Zoo because he’d thought all the animals were under arrest, or Nick’s subsequent embarrassment that he technically owned one of the elephants there (a birthday gift), or the admission that we all lived for watching Cotswolds Coroner and that Freddie had screamed when the bell ringer had been butter-churned to death. By the time we were rubbing our full bellies, I was feeling misty and proud. Finally, a plan of mine had worked.
“That was shockingly not terrible, Killer,” Freddie teased, nibbling on one last piece of turkey. “I might even survive the night.”
“Wow,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve gotten higher praise than that for anything I’ve ever cooked.”
“I have to admit, I had some concerns coming over here tonight,” Olly said. “Lacey once microwaved a Pot Noodle without the