bring my chair closer to hers. “The thing is, both my parents were scientists. Physicists, to be exact. That’s all they thought about. Science. And they had ambitions for me, because they believed—unscientifically, I might add—that all of their talents would be funneled into me. That I would be Their Best Work. My mother especially. I think my father just went along with her because it was easier for him. She, on the other hand, had this idea that I would be some kind of Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin. She was obsessed with turning me into the perfect scientist. When I was eleven, she told me not to have children. I’m not kidding, June. She said ‘They only interfere with The Work.’ She always talked about The Work like she was devoting her life to humanity or something. ‘Children serve no purpose,’ she said, ‘other than the survival of the family tree.’ And just to reiterate here, my mother said this to me, her only child.”
June is watching me, mouth open. “Oh, Anna. That’s awful!”
I shake my head. “I could never be like that to my own children. I smother them in hugs and kisses every day just to balance her out.”
June takes the card from me. “You are their best work, Anna.” She points to the words. “And she is proud of you.”
“Oh, yeah.” I take the card from her and throw it on the table. “Imagine waiting your whole life for this crumb.” But I feel a prick of tears and pinch my nose. I want to tell June about my mother forcing the Pentti-Stone on me at such a young age, all the pain she put me through with her hare-brained ideas, but I don’t. “You’d think she would have come, for this,” I say.
June is silent for a moment. “What does Luis think?”
I check over my shoulder to make sure he’s not listening, then lean closer to her. “He’s so angry with her. She didn’t even come to our wedding, can you believe that? He says I should just drop contact altogether. Not that we have much of that.” I laugh.
“I’m very sorry Anna. That’s—”
But we’re interrupted by Mila. “You are a bit of a dark horse, Anna!” she slurs. She grabs my arm to drag me off. June laughs and waves me away and I get up, glass in hand.
“I just wanted to say congratulations!”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” We clink our glasses. Her gestures are a little exaggerated.
“I wish you’d said something. I would have loved to help!” she says.
“I just wanted to wait until I was sure,” I say.
She wags a finger at me. “You are a bit of a dark horse!” and I say, “Yes, you said that,” and she laughs, congratulates me again. There’s been a lot of congratulations lately but there’s something in her eyes that doesn’t match the smile. For a terrifying moment I think that she suspects something, and my heart leaps into my throat. I try to picture Alex and Mila together, confiding, chatting, plotting, but no, it doesn’t resonate. I don’t think Alex even liked Mila much, anyway. Then I tell myself that I have to stop this second-guessing of everything everyone says to me or I’ll really go crazy.
Mila lifts her glass of champagne in my direction and says, “You kept it secret so I wouldn’t try to worm it out of you. You think I would have stolen it for myself.” She leans forward again. “You’re right. I would have. Well done, you!”
Then Geoff appears and puts his arms around both of us.
“I told Mila to write up a story on you for the website,” Geoff says. “We want a big splash page thing. Photos, quotes, the lot. Did she tell you?”
“Not yet.”
“Yes,” she says, dully. “What’s a good day for you?” and I see then she doesn’t like that one bit, that Geoff has asked her to do something probably quite mundane in her eyes, and that she thinks it’s a subordinate task. And I want to laugh, because suddenly I see she has lost some of her glow. Geoff has backed the wrong horse—he should have promoted the dark horse, I guess, not the pretty, shiny one. I bet he asks her to take minutes from now on. And if I were unkind, I’d say this is one of the best moments of the night.
I’m asked to make a speech even though we’ve had many of them already. I rise to