The Winters(24)

Dani let go of Katya and hopped back on her stool. “You can make me a sandwich, Daddy.”

“I am serving our guest.”

I decided women over a certain age could be divided into two camps: those who called their father Daddy well into adulthood and those who stopped in childhood, if they ever used the word at all. I was firmly of the latter camp. My own father would have taken it as a diminutive and an indication of stunted growth on my part for which he’d have felt personally responsible. But Max hadn’t flinched at the word. In fact, after making me a sandwich, he made her one, too, using bread instead of a bun, removing the crusts, of course.

“And how long is our guest staying?” Dani asked, tilting her head at me, brows up in mock interest.

“She’s here for good. That’s the plan,” he said, winking at me.

I was mindful of concealing my ravenousness, taking small, careful bites while listening to Dani chatter on about Paris and Auntie Louisa’s husband, Jonah, who was only able to come over for a couple of weeks, during which time they bickered every day over the stupidest stuff, and how she made friends with a famous singer’s daughter who lived in the flat upstairs by herself at fourteen, can you believe it? She became her second best friend behind Claire. And even though this girl’s father was super rich, he was super cheap, and how Dani had to pay for everything so she’d be needing a top-up, as she put it, to which Max said he’d talk to Elias. She continued to ignore me as she spoke.

Without the filters and makeup in her photos, she looked younger than fifteen. Her cheeks were flatter, too, her eyes a little closer together. She was what you’d call a commonly pretty teenage girl who, like most of them with a phone, simply knew her best angles. It never left her side, that phone. The whole time she spoke her eyes traveled automatically from Max’s face down to where she kept it beside her place mat, and she would absently pick it up to check a text or a post, sometimes midsentence.

“We went to the Pompidou,” she said, cueing up a photo and showing Max. I could see it was a painting of a woman with a stern face, wearing a red-checked dress, smoking alone in a café. “The Otto Dix,” she said. “Mum’s favorite.”

Max looked closely at the photo, then snatched the phone out of her hand. “Was your new Parisian friend always on her phone, too?” he asked, playfully holding it out of her reach.

“She was way worse,” Dani said, swatting at her phone before he handed it back to her. While checking it again, she asked me what I was on, “Like, social media wise.”

“Me? Oh, nothing. I only just got a smartphone.” In New York, Max had made that a priority, and I didn’t fight him on it.

“Not even Facebook? That’s weird. How do you keep in touch with your friends?”

I didn’t want to admit to her my friendless state and said lamely, “I give them my phone number. You can have it, too, if you want.” I immediately regretted the offer.

“Pass.”

Max rescued the moment by suggesting that Katya call it a night, telling her that he’d clean up, that it was getting late. “In fact, stay in a guest room. I don’t want you driving tonight.”

Katya insisted the snow had stopped falling and by now Gus had plowed the causeway all the way to the mainland.

“With my insomnia I need to sleep in my own bed, Mr. Winter.”

“Fine, I’ll walk you out. Make sure your car’s not buried under.”

Katya took off her apron and kissed the side of Dani’s head, said, “Welcome back, dear,” mumbled a good night to me, and followed Max out.

The two of us just sat there for a few painful seconds. I scrambled for something, anything, to talk about, landing on the lamest of subjects.

“Was it snowing in Paris, too?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it the middle of the night for you now? You must be tired.”

“I’m not,” she said, swinging her feet off her stool. “In fact, if I was in Paris right now, I’d probably just be getting home. Auntie Louisa says Americans live on banker’s hours. Que pouvez-vous faire? Les habitudes provinciales.” She put an elbow on the island and rested her chin on her fist, looking at me conspiratorially. “So, like, you totally lucked out, didn’t you? Snagging yourself a rich older boyfriend?”

I had expected people to have these thoughts, but I hadn’t counted on how unsettling they’d sound coming out of a fifteen-year-old’s mouth.

“If you mean am I grateful that I met your father, then yes, I guess you could say I lucked out.”

“Also, just because you’re here doesn’t mean you have the run of the place. The third floor is mine. And the turret’s hers, both off-limits to you.”

The question must have shown on my face.

“Yes, that was my mother’s bedroom you barged into. I don’t want you going up there.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

“How old are you, anyway?”

I told her, knowing Max had already mentioned it.

“And you two have known each other, like, a whole month?” She stretched the word into nearly two syllables.

“It’s been a bit of whirlwind.” I glanced at the door. Max had only been gone a minute but the time crawled by.