They were talking so heatedly that Poppy seemed oblivious to the cake lighting. More important, she didn’t seem to notice that Rowan had just come out of the bathroom with her husband.
But someone else had noticed. Natasha stood at the end of the hall, her head cocked, her gaze squarely on Rowan’s face. She raised one eyebrow, just as knowingly as she had that night Poppy and James met. Rowan looked away, watching James kiss his beaming daughter on the cheek.
They can’t all be like me. Little did James know how true that was. She’d known James for nearly fifteen years, and she’d loved him every minute.
4
A few days later, Aster sat down in her parents’ Upper East Side town house for the dreaded but obligatory weekly Wednesday dinner. The enormous table in the baroque-style dining room was set for twelve, with silver candlesticks in the center. The high-backed mahogany chairs were so huge and heavy they could have served as kings’ thrones. The blocky mahogany china cabinet, an heirloom from the eighteenth century, took up a whole wall and bore priceless Sèvres plates, artifacts from her parents’ world travels, and a silver tea set that had once belonged to a queen. There were lots of portraits of dead relatives, landscapes showing a foxhunt on the moors, and a huge painting of Edith and Alfred with their young children, standing on their staircase. On the top step were Mason and Lawrence, Poppy’s dad, both with slicked hair; then Rowan’s father, Robert, and Natasha’s mother, Candace, at the bottom. Candace, probably no more than four at the time, struggled to hold Grace, a fat, grumpy-looking baby. Years ago Aster had loved this room, and made up stories about the people in the paintings and the previous owners of the artifacts. She would tell tales to her father over breakfast in the morning. He always listened attentively, and laughed at all the right parts. “Maybe you’ll be an author someday, Aster,” he’d tell her.
“Thank you so much, Esme,” Penelope Saybrook murmured as their private chef placed a roasted chicken in a red wine reduction next to a platter of grilled asparagus and Brussels sprouts. As usual, Aster’s mother stood, rearranged some of the garnishes, and added a dash of pepper to the bird. You don’t get to pretend you cooked it just by playing with the pepper, Aster thought.
“Yes, thank you, Esme,” Corinne echoed. Dixon, who was sitting next to her, nodded his thanks, and Poppy, who was next to Mason, smiled sweetly. Ever since Poppy’s parents died, she’d had a standing invitation to dinner. Sometimes Aster wondered if Poppy’s recent closeness to Mason stemmed from her father’s survivor’s guilt; he was supposed to have been on the plane that killed Poppy’s parents. Usually Poppy brought James and the kids, but today she had come alone. She’d brought with her a homemade strawberry pie, using the berries she’d picked the previous week during a visit to her family’s rural estate in western Massachusetts. Only Poppy, who probably worked twenty-three hours a day, could also find time to bake a pie.
“You rock, Esme!” Aster yelled enthusiastically, adjusting the strap of her jacquard bustier top. Her father eyed it disapprovingly. Whatever—everyone and her grandmother were wearing bustiers these days. Well, except Corinne, who sort of looked like a grandmother in a Wedgwood-blue sleeveless silk dress and Mikimoto pearl earrings.
Aster eyed her sister across the table. Corinne hadn’t even glanced in her direction yet, and Aster certainly wasn’t going to make the first move. Her gaze then wandered to another portrait on the wall, this one taken about ten years ago. It was of herself, Corinne, Poppy, and all the other first cousins, including Rowan’s brothers and Aunt Grace’s young sons, Winston and Sullivan, who lived in California with the now-divorced Grace. Natasha was there too, front and center.
Just looking at Natasha irritated Aster. The girl had acted like their best friend for years, hogging the spotlight, begging them to come to every school play she was in, even once dragging Aster to accompany her to an open-call Broadway audition when they were both fourteen years old. And then, suddenly, she just . . . didn’t need them anymore. Aster still couldn’t believe Natasha was in Corinne’s wedding; Poppy had somehow talked her into it.
“Is that blood?” Aster’s grandmother Edith asked, pulling her mink stole tighter around her shoulders—she never took it off, even though it was uncharacteristically warm for May. Her white hair was slicked back from her face, showing off her good bone structure, the high cheekbones and tiny pert nose that Aster had thankfully inherited. Jessica, the personal-assistant-slash-nurse who accompanied Edith everywhere, leaned over to examine the plate.
Mason, who was thinner now that he was working out with a personal trainer, inspected it as well. “No, Mother,” he said wearily.