Lainie made a murmuring sound, dismissing not the sentiment but the need for it. Her gaze went inevitably to the framed family portrait above the heat pump, and zoomed in on one face.
Hannah had inherited her freckled cheeks and gap-toothed smile straight from their dad. She and Lainie were also the only ones who had copped his dark red hair. In appearance, their father was basically the lost Weasley. Hannah had stopped talking about dental surgery after Georgia May Jagger and Anna Paquin had made the tooth gap fashionable, but she had always moaned about the freckles.
At least until other problems had made them seem a comparatively petty complaint.
Lainie had thought then, and still thought now, that her little sister’s face was adorable. Freckles and all. Hannah had retorted that it was easy to say that when you looked more like Jessica Rabbit than Raggedy Ann.
A wave of grief hit her. She longed intensely for the sound of her sister’s voice. Even at its most high-pitched whine. It almost toppled her where she stood, at least once a day, how much she missed the irascible little brat.
“We all miss her,” Sarah said quietly into the receiver. “She would be really proud, you know.”
“Not that she would admit it in a million years.” Lainie bit her lip. “But, yeah. I know she would.”
“And she would get a huge kick out of this thing with Richard Troy.”
“Her opinion of my taste in men was always low.”
“Well, after Wee Willy and Sir Stamps-A-Lot, we can only assume it’s all uphill from here.”
“We can but hope.”
*
Richard could hear voices when he stepped into the foyer. One was female, high-pitched and came with a laugh that would have been invaluable as an air-raid signal during the Blitz. He followed the lingering scent of lavender floor cleaner to the kitchen. Mrs. Hunt had left the radio on for him again. She was convinced it was “friendlier” than coming home to an empty house. Apparently his housekeeper was confusing him with a dog with separation anxiety. Lovely woman. Absolutely no common sense.
He switched the radio off, silencing another paint-stripping peal of laughter. Then he began the arduous process of turning off almost every light on the ground floor. Mrs. Hunt also thought it was friendlier if he came home to a house lit up like a burlesque hall.
His thoughts became considerably more charitable when he reached his study and found a tray on his desk, whisky decanter sitting ready. She’d also laid out a cigar from the box he kept for visitors, mostly uninvited former colleagues of his father. He didn’t smoke, but suspected Mrs. Hunt had formed her conception of actors based on Victorian novels.
Pouring a couple of fingers of whisky, he dropped into the armchair by the window and looked absently out at the dimly lit street. Every few seconds, headlights flashed by and car tyres threw up a silvery splash. It was starting to rain heavily. He sighed, letting the tension drain from his muscles. The adrenaline buzz from the performance had worn off about ten minutes into the charity benefit. He had a perfectly competent assistant whose job it was to quietly disburse money into charitable donations and endowments. He had no problem parting with the cash. His objections lay in having to do it publicly, with second-rate champagne in his hand, for the edification of a bunch of social degenerates with cameras.
His iPad beeped with an incoming text message and Richard rolled his head to the side to look at it. He glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was bound to be from a woman. Men had the judgement to reserve this hour of the morning for sleeping, sex, or live-streaming American sports. Stretching out a lazy hand, he picked up the tablet. He trusted the message wasn’t from the date he’d taken to the Ivy the other night. He’d realised that was a mistake the moment they’d been served with their entrée and she’d pulled out her phone to take a photo of it. She’d uploaded the image to a calorie-counting app, and then refused to eat it based on an arbitrary and almost certainly inaccurate analysis. He thought Gearing’s food was overpriced and barely worth eating too, but not because the man cooked with butter.
The text was from Lynette. A jubilant Lynette. She’d actually inserted a smiley face. The last time his agent had used an emoticon on him, he’d just walked out of a live interview. The symbol in question had involved a fist and several fingers, and was probably banned in the district schools.