closer, lifting a hand to rest his fingertips lightly against my cheek. “Because you said you loved him. Because you deserve your fairy-tale ending. And because I’d do anything for you, Gracie Cooper. Even if it means letting you go.”
Twenty-Six
I don’t have time to dwell, and maybe that’s a good thing—I’m afraid I would cry and never stop. Or abort the whole evening altogether out of sheer overwhelming panic. But somehow I manage a smile and let Keva distract me on the way to the studio.
From then on, it’s been a blur.
May cries when she sees me, then proceeds to take about a hundred photos. Myron comes over and starts to tell her there’s no photography in the gallery but backs off when she compliments his velvet boots. Or maybe because her earrings tonight are a grenade and a machete. In case your guy is a dud and needs to be taught a lesson.
“May,” Lily says in laughing exasperation as May motions for Caleb, Lily, and me to stand side by side. Again. “What are you going to do with these pictures?”
“Take them to Heaven to show your mom and dad,” May says in all seriousness, clearly irked that she even has to explain this.
“I don’t know what’s more ballsy,” Caleb says out of the corner of his mouth as he puts his arm around my shoulder. Lily’s arm slips around my waist from the other side. “That she thinks Heaven allows cell phones or that she thinks she’s going there.”
“You mind your tongue, Caleb Cooper,” May says as she snaps the photo. “Or I’ll be telling your lady friend here all about the way you once had to ask your dad why your underwear had an open flap in the front and your sisters’ didn’t.”
“You weren’t even there for that!” Caleb says as Michelle, his girlfriend, laughs beside May.
“Yes, but your father was, and you never forget a story like that.” May looks down at her phone and, finally satisfied, drops it into her shark-shaped clutch.
“He was fourteen,” I whisper loudly.
He swats the back of my head.
Alec appears carrying an impressive amount of champagne flutes, which he hands around.
Lily takes the tiniest sip of Alec’s since she can’t have her own. “Ooh. That’s excellent!”
“Of course it is, I picked it,” Robyn says, appearing from nowhere with a wide grin, dressed to kill in a red dress that matches the lipstick Keva bought for her.
“Well done,” May says, clinking her glass to Robyn’s, all smiles for her now that they no longer have to work together and bicker over how long May’s sushi lunch break went. “It’s delicious.”
“Quick toast to our lady of the night,” Alec says.
“Well, that makes her sound like a prostitute, but sure,” Lily says, earning what I’m pretty sure is a quick pinch on the butt from her husband. She giggles. Actually giggles, and it’s the best thing I’ve heard in forever. It’s like a front-row seat to happily ever after after.
“To Gracie,” Alec continues, his arm around Lily’s waist as he smiles at me.
We all lift our glasses, and my eyes water a little at the near perfection of the moment.
“You’re a hit,” Rachel says, coming up behind me. “I’ve been doing regular laps of the room, and the Sold signs are going up like crazy.”
“My personal favorite painting was sold before we even got here,” Lily says with a little pout.
“Which one?” I ask in surprise. From the moment I’d arrived, Myron and Hugh swept me into a flurry of introductions and who’s who and heaps of praise, the latter of which had made me feel like flying, even as I try not to think about the one person who won’t be here—and the one person who will.
“I just love the one of the couple in Central Park at night. I don’t know what it is, but it gave me goose bumps,” my sister is saying, giving a little shiver. “It’s so romantic.”
“My favorite is the one of the woman on her phone,” Michelle says. “Am I right in thinking that’s the only self-portrait of the bunch?”
“Yes, actually,” I say, surprised but not displeased that Caleb’s lovely new girlfriend is so astute. “I mean, it’s stylized. My legs aren’t that long, I never wear heels, the hair’s a bit too glamorous, but yeah. Me!”
“That one also sold before we got here,” Alec says.
“Really?” I say, genuinely surprised. Not because I don’t think they’re good—they’re my favorites—but because they’re less flashy than the rest.
Lily shrugs.