“What she earned is the right to get rid of those last few pounds,” Calvin grumbled. “You heard your grandmother. You have to watch your appearance as a part of this family.”
Nina didn’t even bother reminding him or anyone else at the table that she was somehow thinner now than she had been before the baby. Depression, she suspected. Not to mention the constant desire to escape her house had her walking all of Central Park with the stroller almost daily.
But the truth was, this had nothing to do with her weight and everything to do with the fact that she still had not, as of yet, allowed Calvin to touch her. The fact that he continued to stumble sporadically into her bedroom in the middle of the night, drunken and irritable after trying to woo prospective “clients” (or so he said) was an entirely different issue and not one she really wanted to take on.
Instead, she reached for the plate with the stubborn set of her jaw as if she were thirteen, not twenty-one. “I’ll only have a little.”
“Nina,” Celeste said just as her granddaughter was reaching for the pasta. “Have the salad. It’s nearly summer, and you can’t go to the Hamptons looking like that.”
Reluctantly, Nina dropped the platter and left it in the center of the table.
“What inspired this feast, N?” Caitlyn asked in an overly friendly voice, clearly trying to break the ice.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nina said as she forked a few pieces of escarole. “Memories, I suppose.”
Calvin snorted before shoving enough penne into his mouth that the sauce dribbled over his lip. He looked like a sloppy vampire.
“Memories of what?” he asked, mouth full.
“Probably of Italy,” Violet tittered. “It is Italian food, isn’t it?”
Calvin tensed, but didn’t reply as he chewed. Celeste’s steely expression turned back on Nina.
Maybe it was the plate of plain lettuce that had somehow replaced the rest of her meal, but Nina suddenly felt emboldened. “Yes, I was thinking of visiting again this June. I miss it.”
“Oh!” Caitlyn replied. “For your anniversary? What a lovely idea. Are you going to show Calvin your Florence?”
Nina just took another bite of lettuce, wishing bitterly it were the fried artichokes. Calvin stopped sawing his beef; then too carefully, he made a production of unfolding his napkin and proceeding to tuck it into his too-tight collar.
“That will depend,” he said just before shoving another piece of bloody steak into his mouth.
“Depend on what?” Nina asked.
“Celeste, I wonder, has anyone heard from Eric lately?” Calvin asked over her question. “Some of my associates have been wondering about him.”
“Ooooh, no, no, no,” Violet murmured into her wine.
What associates? Nina wondered. So far as she knew, Calvin rented a one-room office space off Wall Street.
Celeste seemed to have the same question on her mind.
Caitlyn perked up, but Nina shook her head. She knew what was coming. This had been a particularly sore subject for her family. Calvin had continued to pepper her family about Eric’s whereabouts over the past year, and every time, he received escalating responses of the same sort: No, and it wasn’t any of his business.
She didn’t know why Calvin was so intent on contacting her errant cousin, but at this point, Nina had no desire to find him either. Yes, she missed the boy who had for all intents and purposes been a brother to her. Yes, she had wondered where he was and if he was all right. But at this point, his continued absence—treating her in particular like she was the same as the rest of their horrid family—was too painful to forgive.
“I have.” Celeste surprised everyone before taking a measured sip of her sparkling water.
Everyone turned to her in shock.
“You have?” Violet asked. “Mother, why didn’t you say?”
“Where is he?” Nina couldn’t help herself. “Is he all right?” Apparently she cared enough to know that much.
“A contact at Dartmouth informed me the boy is moving to Cambridge. He was in Hanover this week requesting recommendations from his professors.”
“But…why? Where is he planning to go?” Nina hated herself for the eagerness.
But Cambridge was outside of Boston. Only minutes from Wellesley, the school she had attended until just last year.
“Apparently he’s planning to apply to law school in the fall,” Celeste said wearily, as though the very thought of it tired her out. “So said Charlie Reynolds, at any rate.”
Charles Reynolds was the president of Dartmouth College.
“Another stage of his rebellion, I suppose,” Violet said as she delicately