But then Jasmine stepped on Ariel’s foot. Aurora raised an eyebrow at Sofia the First, declaring that she wasn’t as real a princess because the Disney cartoon had only started a few years ago. Rowan, sensing disaster, tiptoed out of the room and into her cousin Poppy’s kitchen, reaching for a bottle of cabernet. It was Poppy’s daughter Skylar’s third birthday, and it was probably best to let the little princesses work things out for themselves.
The kitchen was large and airy, with new marble countertops and Brazilian cherry cabinets. Poppy, dressed in a gauzy batik-print silk popover and skinny pants that made her legs look a million miles long, stood at the island, arranging the tray of chopped-up locally grown vegetables she’d bought at the Union Square farmer’s market, her twenty-month-old, Briony, balanced on her hip. She noticed Rowan pouring the wine. “The kids driving you to drink, huh?”
“I’ve never really understood the whole princess thing,” Rowan said, recorking the bottle.
“Of course you don’t,” Rowan’s mother, Leona, said good-naturedly, smiling at her daughter from across the kitchen. “This one was all about climbing the highest trees in our backyard when she was Skylar’s age. And sometimes falling out of them.”
Aunt Penelope paused from making a plate of food for her husband, Mason, the CEO of Saybrook’s, and laughed. “You could climb higher than most of the boys, Rowan. I still remember when you beat your brother at the ropes course; he sulked for days.”
Corinne, who had been leaning against the counter, sidled over to Rowan and eyed the wine. “Can you pour me a glass? I need it after the week I’ve had.”
“I heard about Turkey,” Rowan said. “Congratulations.” Then she lowered her voice. “I also heard what happened with Aster.”
Corinne’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Yeah, well. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.” She peered around the room, probably searching for her sister, who’d been here a few moments ago but was now absent. “She’s probably passed out in Poppy’s bed right now,” she spat angrily.
“Don’t worry—I’ll make sure she’s on time to the wedding,” Evan said, taking a break from directing the housekeeper’s cleanup efforts. She hated messes, especially kid messes. “Believe me when I say I’ve dealt with worse.”
“Worse than the Saybrooks?” muttered Natasha from her perch near the pantry.
“Natasha!” Natasha’s mother, Aunt Candace, snapped from the corner, where she was helping Poppy with the hors d’oeuvres.
Rowan glanced at Natasha cautiously. Not so long ago, she and Natasha had been so close. Rowan was nearly ten years older than Natasha, but she’d happily played bit parts in Natasha’s one-act plays and cheered when Natasha put on karaoke concerts on the back porch at Meriweather. But after Natasha disinherited herself from the family—never explaining why—she treated Rowan and the others like irritating pedestrians taking up the whole sidewalk on Fifth Avenue.
Rowan knew her cousins were wary of Natasha too. Except Poppy, who’d begun to mend fences with Natasha a few years ago, after Poppy’s parents died. But perhaps that was because Aunt Candace and Uncle Patrick had served as Poppy’s surrogate family after the plane crash, smothering her, James, and their girls with love, help, and baked goods for months.
Luckily everyone ignored Natasha’s comment, even the perfectly groomed moms Poppy knew from Episcopal, where Skylar attended preschool. To Rowan, those poised Manhattan mothers with their matching Bugaboo strollers were a different species. They compared notes on organic cloth diaper vendors, bragged about sleep training, and rated their friends’ live-in nannies. But as judgmental as they were of one another, they seemed to judge nonmothers most of all. “Jealousy masked by superiority,” Poppy always said. “They envy your free time, so they pretend you’re selfish for not having kids to feel better about playing patty-cake all day long.”
And that was the beauty of Poppy. She had the Bugaboo stroller and made her own organic baby food, but she’d never behaved as though motherhood was a special, exclusive club.
“What’s going on, ladies?” Poppy’s husband, James, appeared in the doorway, dressed in a vintage T-shirt and well-cut jeans that, when he raised his arms, revealed just a half inch of his Brooks Brothers boxers. He swept across the room and pulled Poppy into a hug.
Poppy wriggled away and turned toward the fridge. “Did you get the hummus from Zabar’s?” she asked briskly. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Right here.” James reached in and produced a container.
“Perfect.” Poppy grabbed it from him and placed it on the table, next to the veggies.
“Thanks, James,” Rowan called out, when Poppy didn’t.
James gave the moms an exaggerated bow and an irresistible grin. “Just doing my job.” Then he grabbed his wife once more and kissed her cheek. Poppy squirmed away again, and James disappeared to the den. A whistle bleated from the flat-screen TV. James, Mason, and a few other fathers were back there watching the Djokovic-Federer French Open match.
A mother named Starla, her infant Baby-Bj?rned to her torso, sighed. “Poppy, he’s such a doll.”
“How do you keep other women away?” another woman named Amelia teased.