The Cousins(2)

Mom picks up her glass again. Sips, flicks her eyes toward the mirror, pats her hair. When it’s down it falls in dark waves, but, as she likes to tell me, pregnancy changed its texture from smooth to coarse. I’m pretty sure she’s never forgiven me for that. “I thought you were studying for finals.”

“I was. Before.”

Her knuckles turn white around the glass, and I wait for it. Milly, you cannot exit your junior year with less than a B average. You’re on the cusp of mediocrity, and your father and I have invested far too much for you to waste your opportunity like that.

If I were even a little musically inclined, I’d start a band called Cusp of Mediocrity in honor of Mom’s favorite warning. I’ve been hearing some version of that speech for three years. Prescott Academy churns out Ivy League students like some kind of blue-blood factory, and it’s the bane of my mother’s existence that I’m always ranked solidly in the bottom half of my class.



The lecture doesn’t come, though. Instead, Mom reaches out her free hand and pats mine. Stiffly, like she’s a marionette with a novice handler. “Well, you look very pretty.”

Instantly, I’m on the defensive. It’s strange enough that my mother wanted to meet me for dinner, but she never compliments me. Or touches me. All of this suddenly feels like a setup for something I’d rather not hear. “Are you sick?” I blurt out. “Is Dad?”

She blinks and withdraws her hand. “What? No! Why would you ask that?”

“Then why—” I break off as a smiling server appears beside the table, filling our water glasses from a silver pitcher.

“And how are you ladies this evening? Can I tell you about our specials?”

I study Mom covertly over the top of my menu as the server rattles them off. She’s definitely tense, still clutching her near-empty wineglass in a death grip, but I realize now that I was wrong to expect bad news. Her dark-blue eyes are bright, and the corners of her mouth are almost turned up. She’s anticipating something, not dreading it. I try to imagine what might make my mother happy besides me magically A-plussing my way to valedictorian at Prescott Academy.

Money. That’s all it could be. Mom’s life revolves around it—or more specifically, around not having enough of it. My parents both have good jobs, and my dad, despite being remarried, has always been generous with child support. His new wife, Surya, is the total opposite of a wicked stepmother in all possible ways, including finances. She’s never begrudged Mom the big checks he sends every month.



But good doesn’t cut it when you’re trying to keep up in Manhattan. And it’s not what my mother grew up with.

A job promotion, I decide. That must be it. Which is excellent news, except for the part where she’s going to remind me that she got it through hard work and oh, by the way, why can’t I work harder at literally everything.

“I’ll have the Caesar salad with chicken. No anchovies, dressing on the side,” Mom says, handing her menu to the server without really looking at him. “And another glass of the Langlois-Chateau, please.”

“Very good. And the young lady?”

“Bone-in rib eye, medium rare, and a jumbo baked potato,” I tell him. I might as well get a good meal out of whatever’s about to go down.

When he leaves, my mother drains her wineglass and I gulp my water. My bladder’s already full from the seltzer at the bar, and I’m about to excuse myself for the restroom when Mom says, “I got the most interesting letter today.”

There it is. “Oh?” I wait, but when she doesn’t continue, I prod, “From who?”

“Whom,” she corrects automatically. Her fingers trace the base of her glass as her lips curve up another half notch. “From your grandmother.”

I blink at her. “From Baba?” Why that merits this kind of buildup, I have no idea. Granted, my grandmother doesn’t contact Mom often, but it’s not unprecedented. Baba is the type of person who likes to forward articles she’s read to anyone she thinks might be interested, and she still does that with Mom postdivorce.

“No. Your other grandmother.”



“What?” Now I’m truly confused. “You got a letter from—Mildred?”

I don’t have a nickname for my mother’s mother. She’s not Grandma or Mimi or Nana or anything to me, because I’ve never met her.

“I did.” The server returns with Mom’s wine, and she takes a long, grateful sip. I sit in silence, unable to wrap my head around what she just told me. My maternal grandmother loomed large over my childhood, but as more of a fairy-tale figure than an actual person: the wealthy widow of Abraham Story, whose great-something-grandfather came over on the Mayflower. My ancestors are more interesting than any history book: the family made a fortune in whaling, lost most of it in railroad stocks, and eventually sank what was left into buying up real estate on a crappy little island off the coast of Massachusetts.

Gull Cove Island was a little-known haven for artists and hippies until Abraham Story turned it into what it is today: a place where rich and semifamous people spend ridiculous amounts of money pretending they’re getting back to nature.

My mother and her three brothers grew up on a giant beachfront estate named Catmint House, riding horses and attending black-tie parties like they were the princess and princes of Gull Cove Island. There’s a picture on our apartment mantel of Mom when she was eighteen, stepping out of a limousine on her way to the Summer Gala her parents threw every year at their resort. Her hair is piled high, and she’s wearing a white ball gown and a gorgeous diamond teardrop necklace. Mildred gave that necklace to my mother when she turned seventeen, and I used to think Mom would pass it along to me when I hit the same birthday.