“A couple?” Natalie chimed in, but Roxie shook her head.
“—but that’s because she had her own walls, we all have fucking walls, Clara. Yours are thicker and higher than those of anyone I’ve ever met, with good reason. But when he comes along, and it’s scary as hell when he does, but when that guy, your guy, comes along and busts down those walls? Leo was literally the last thing I was looking for, and I did everything I could to mess it up, but we figured it out. It’s messy sometimes, and it’s scary sometimes, but it’s so goddamn worth it.”
“Oscar tunneled under my walls, sneak attack. I didn’t even know I was in love with him until I was,” Natalie said, her voice soft. “And it scared me to death. I let one guy into my heart before Oscar, just one, and it nearly broke me in two. And I wasn’t ever going to let anyone do that again. And it wasn’t easy with Oscar at the beginning, and it still isn’t sometimes, but there’s nowhere else on the planet I’d rather be than right here, right now.” She reached out for my hand and squeezed it. “Except sitting on Oscar’s face.”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, looking up at the sky and then down at my two friends, my family, and wondered what in the world I’d done to deserve crazy people like this in my life. And wondered maybe, just maybe, if there was a splash of truth in what these two were saying . . . or if it was just the Bloody Marys talking.
Twenty minutes later I was in the main dining room, watching the staff scurry around to get the last of the tables set and make sure that everything was exactly in its place. I watched them scurry while I tried my damnedest to get myself under control. Any second now the doors would open and families would pour in dressed in their Easter best to break bread and celebrate the return of spring, giddy and glad and bursting with love and happiness.
I was freaking out.
Everyone seemed pumped today, even the staff. This was their family. They had to work on the holiday, sure, but they were always together and there was still a festive feeling in the air. The candles were lit, the flowers were beautiful, the last of the winter fires were burning merrily in the fireplaces, and the beautiful brunch was laid out for everyone. Gorgeous hams, studded with cloves and shimmering with honey glaze. A thousand kinds of potatoes, each one more decadent than the last. The first asparagus. The first peas. Every kind of casserole you’d ever wanted, and every kind of “salad” ever prepared by your aunt Judy or grandma Ruth.
“Jell-O molds, can you believe it?” Mrs. Banning said as she zoomed by with a tray of quivery red towers. “They still make Jell-O molds!”
“Oh, they tried to get rid of them a few years ago, but the guests demanded they be brought back, they practically stormed the kitchen with pitchforks,” chimed in Mrs. Toomey as she also trotted out a tray full of the molds. “Well, forks, but you get the idea.”
“I think it’s that everyone still wants it the way their mom did it, you know?” said Mrs. Banning, pausing beside me and surveying the table. “Everyone just wants to re-create how it was in their childhood. Even if we’re in a hotel, we still want our mom’s home cooking.”
I nodded and smiled through gritted teeth, feeling a swirling ball of panic begin to rise.
“But there’s nothing like this family’s hot cross buns,” Mrs. Toomey said, flanking me on the other side and wrapping an arm around my waist. The three of us stood there as they brought out tray after tray of the most beautiful, perfect fluffy buns I’d ever seen. Just the smell of them was incredible. Buttery, cinnamony, flecked with currants and dripping with gorgeous white frosting. “You know, those buns have been in Archie’s family for over a century.”
So many things I could say right now . . .
“Tradition,” she went on, not knowing what a land mine she’d just laid out there. “This entire hotel is built on tradition. And family. It’s everything, don’t you think?”
The panic ball moved out of my stomach, pushing through to my spinal column and was now climbing each vertebra, leaving an icy trail behind. My throat bunched up a bit, and I wondered how it all got so damn thick in here.
“Oh, listen to me going on, holidays just make me all squishy inside.”
“Squishy?” a deep voice said from just behind us.
“There you are, we were just talking about you,” Mrs. Toomey said as Archie stepped next to us, looking around the room. Tall and proud, cleaned up after the egg hunt and back in his tailored charcoal-gray suit. Today the tie was a sunny, springtimey yellow, with a pocket square covered in— “Bunnies, Mr. Bryant?” I managed, looking at the little white cottontail butt sticking up out of his suit. My voice sounded shrill, forced.
“Don’t mock the bunnies, Ms. Morgan. It’s Easter.” He turned to Mrs. Toomey. “Everything is perfect, as always. The guests will love it.”
She glowed under his praise. Everyone did. He worked hard, he asked everyone else to do the same, and when a compliment came, it was well earned.
The women excused themselves and headed back into the kitchen, and I willed the panic now blooming upward of my rib cage to stand down.
“I think we’re ready to let the stampede in, don’t you?” he asked, looking toward the double doors that were still closed.
“Yeah, everything looks ready, and—”
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes darting around the room so as not to draw attention to us, but the warmest smile tugging at his lips was just for me.
“Thank you,” I whispered, not trusting my voice anymore.
Run. Get out of here. This is too much.
“You’ll be dining with us, all of your friends will be. This year we had to stretch out the family table.”
“Oh?”
Jesus, it’s too much.
“It’s always nice when families grow, isn’t it?”
This hurts. This actually hurts.
“So listen, I’ve got a bit of a headache and was thinking that—”
“There you are!” I winced when I heard Natalie behind me. “I’m starving. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Well said, Natalie. Is everyone here?” Archie asked. I opened my eyes to see the entire gang, plus a child I assumed was Polly, spread out like a picture in a family newsletter. Behind them, a horde of well-dressed guests were streaming in, taking their usual tables and beginning to line up for the buffet.
“We’re all here. Hey, thanks for inviting us, Arch, I haven’t been up here for Easter brunch since I was a kid. My mother loves it,” Leo said.
“Of course she does,” Roxie muttered, earning a giggle from Polly.