he were gum on the bottom of her shoe. I glanced between the two of them. It was clear that Caitlyn hadn’t filled him in on her last interactions with Eric and Jane.
“Well, go on now,” she said to him like she was shooing away a bug. “He’s over there. You made me ruin these people’s evening, so you might as well do what you came here to do.”
Kyle Shaw shot his wife a bored, irritable look, but straightened his shirt collar underneath his seersucker suit and strode toward Eric.
“He’s dying to get his hands on this development project,” Caitlyn said. “Somewhere in the Bronx, if you can imagine anywhere up there worth developing.”
I blinked, thinking of Arthur Avenue. Of Matthew’s childhood home and the warmth there.
“There are some lovely places in that part of the city,” I said.
Nina snorted. “If you say so.”
“Mommy, Patricia said she would take me and some of the other kids upstairs to watch a movie. Is that okay?”
Caitlyn and I both turned to find Olivia standing in front of me, wrapped in a towel. She looked tired, shivering, but more content than I’d seen her in a long time. The afternoon with a group of children had done her good.
I blinked. “Yes, darling, but don’t you think you ought to say hello first?”
Olivia looked obediently up at Caitlyn, who softened as she looked down.
“Hello, O. How’s school?” she asked. “Tell your aunt Caitlyn all about it.”
Olivia eyed her. “Well, you’re not really my aunt.”
Caitlyn’s smile turned slightly sour. “I was there when you were born. I think that makes me an honorary aunt, don’t you?”
Olivia blinked back and forth between me and Caitlyn—looking, I supposed, for some confirmation from me. Well, I couldn’t argue with facts.
“I—I guess so,” she said. “But I’m not in school either. We don’t go back until September.”
“Well, that’s nice.” Caitlyn looked at me too, clearly out of questions to ask. I didn’t say anything, though she obviously wanted me to step in.
After a few moments of awkward silence, I took pity on them both. “Go on, darling. Enjoy the movie.”
Olivia nodded and scampered off. On the other side of the pool, where he had sidled into the conversation Eric and Kyle were now having, Matthew’s eyes followed Olivia out of the party, then flashed back at me before he resumed listening.
“Let me guess. You’re dying for her to go back already.”
I turned back to Caitlyn and shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. It’s been lovely having her home.”
“Does Calvin think that too?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. Caitlyn knew. She knew exactly why I sent Olivia to Andover every fall instead of enrolling her in one of the many excellent schools in New York. Why she had spent the entire summer in England and would go straight back to Massachusetts in just another week.
“Oh, N,” Caitlyn murmured as she squeezed my hand. “I know.”
I bit my lip and was grateful for my sunglasses. For some reason, all of a sudden, I was finding it terribly difficult not to cry.
“Yes,” I murmured. “Well.”
But by that point, Caitlyn was clearly no longer engaged in the conversation. Instead, she was staring openly at someone else on the other side of the pool. Someone currently making her husband laugh hysterically while mixing the man what looked like a very generous high ball. Someone with more natural charm and charisma than everyone in this party combined.
“What is he doing here?”
I turned to follow her gaze toward Matthew.
“Blending in, I suppose,” I said.
“Blending in? With that ridiculous hat? And that absurd chain?”
“I don’t know. It’s stylish, I think. Classic.”
Caitlyn snorted. “He looks like a Mad Men extra.” She turned to me. “Like he’s dressed in some costume of what he thinks rich people wear. He looks like he’s really from—”
“Paterson?” I interrupted, more sharply than I intended. I couldn’t help it. I had absolutely no interest in hearing a single word deprecating the best man I knew. And certainly not from someone who came from equally humble beginnings.
Caitlyn looked wounded. “Do you know why he’s here?”
I shrugged. “Eric and Jane invited him. They knew him from Boston, I think.”
“Harvard? How is that possible? Zola is from New York, isn’t he?”
I blinked. Oh, dear. “Um, yes,” I sputtered. “But—”
“And he only went to some grubby state school, isn’t that right?”
I frowned. How much did she actually know about Matthew?
The night at the opera clanged in my head like a bell. Not just the memory that Matthew