Big Summer(29)

I’d barely had time to take a breath and smooth my dress before a tiny elderly man with a bald head and teeth too white and too regular to be anything but dentures tottered toward us.

“Uncle Mel,” Trip whispered, taking over Drue’s duties. “He’s… ah, Drue, how would you describe Mel?”

“A pervert,” said Drue, then turned her dazzling smile at Uncle Mel, who said, “Now, who is this beautiful young lady?” before wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face between my breasts.

Drue giggled. Trip snickered. I shot them both a dirty look, then looked down helplessly at the tanned, age-spotted dome of Mel’s head.

“This is Daphne,” Drue said, putting her hand on his shoulder and gently but firmly extracting him from my person. “My best friend from Lathrop and my maid of honor.”

“Daphne. A pleasure,” said Mel, giving my breasts another longing look and extending his hand.

When he was gone I managed a breath, and a sip of my seltzer, before the next wave of friends and relations crashed over me. I met, in short order, an aunt and an uncle and their children, two Harvard friends, and a colleague from the Cavanaugh Corporation.

“You okay?” Drue asked when they’d gone. She wore a wide gold cuff bracelet on her right wrist; pearl and diamond earrings hung from her ears. Her hair hung in a sheet of shimmering bronze and gold that fell halfway down her back, and her makeup was dramatic, with shimmery gold eye shadow and highlighter glinting at her cheek and brow.

“I’m fine,” I said, smoothing my hair and looking around. Mr. Cavanaugh was at the bar, talking to some other middle-aged men in dark suits, and Mrs. Cavanaugh had drifted to the windows that looked out at the northernmost end of Central Park. All night, I had watched the two of them make their way through the apartment, artfully crisscrossing the space without ever coming near each other. “How are things between them?” I’d asked Drue in the Uber on our way home from the Indochine dinner. She’d pursed her lips, then immediately unpursed them before she could damage her lipstick, but I saw her leg bob up and down as her toe tapped on the car’s floor. “I think they’ve just kind of decided to live separate lives and make appearances together when they have to.”

Delightful, I’d thought, picturing my parents, the way my mother would pull a cold beer out of the refrigerator when she heard the elevator doors slide open, so that she could hand it to my father the instant he walked through the door; and the way my dad would settle my mom’s feet in his lap when they watched the British police procedurals they both liked. I pictured them dancing together in the kitchen, swaying to old R&B, my father’s arms around my mom’s waist, her cheek resting on his shoulder. The two of them hadn’t spent a night apart, they liked to say, since the night I was born, when my mom sent my father home from the hospital to get his last good night’s sleep.

“So, do you think I’ll get a chance to actually talk to the man of the hour?” I asked Drue, who stood on her tiptoes to look at the crowd. It hadn’t happened so far. Even with all of the cocktail parties, the most Stuart and I had done was exchange pleasantries.

“I don’t see him right now,” Drue said. “Oh, but there’s Corina Bailey! Let’s go say hi.”

“Wait, what?” Corina, as I and the viewing public well knew, was Stuart’s former fiancée, the one to whom he’d proposed on TV, in a season finale that five million viewers had watched. Corina was the one he’d dumped to be with Drue. The last I’d heard, via US Weekly’s website, a heartbroken Corina was trying to make a go of it as a celebrity DJ in LA (of course, on US Weekly’s website, every newly single person was heartbroken). “You invited Stuart’s ex to the party?”

“And to the wedding.” At my shocked expression, Drue looked even more pleased with herself than she usually did. “We’re all adults, Daphne. Stuart and Corina went through a very intense experience together. They’re still friends.”

“Wow.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples, then spread them wide, miming an explosion. “Mind, blown. So is Corina the same as she was on TV?”

Drue made a scoffing sound. “Not even close. For one thing, I think she actually can talk like a grown-up, if she wants to. For another…” She paused, considering. “Well. She isn’t what people think. And she’s definitely not my friend. But if she shows up, it’s a story. People magazine will probably write something. They might use a picture, too.”

“Got it.” I put my glass down on a table by the door, next to a Chinese bowl with a blue-and-white pattern that was probably a costly and pedigreed antique. A caterer immediately materialized to whisk the glass away. I could hear music from the jazz trio in the next room, the clink of cutlery, the slosh of ice and booze in shakers, the cries of “Gordy! Great to see you, man!” and “Marcus! How long has it been!” I heard backs being slapped and lips forming air kisses; I could smell cremini arancini and stuffed figs wrapped in bacon and the butternut squash soup being served in shot glasses, with a dollop of crème fra?che and a sprinkling of chives. The smells should have been delicious, but I was so nervous that they made my stomach turn.

Just then, a pair of male hands covered Drue’s eyes. She squealed “Stuart!” and turned around. There was Stuart Lowe, even more handsome (if slightly shorter) in person than he was on TV. Drue gave him a long kiss, to cheers, and the clinking of glasses and whoops, and a few guys yelling “Get a room!” When he let her go, he gave me a much more perfunctory hug and a dazzling smile. “Daphne. Great to see you again.”