The Last of the Stanfields(14)

“Ha! Come on, I’m the one who doesn’t want to get married? Don’t be a hypocrite. I saw your face when my dad said the M-word.”

“And I saw you wasted no time in setting the record straight.”

“Look, Michel and my dad are both right here. London’s just too far away for me to keep an eye on them.”

“Your brother is a grown man, and your father has led the life he wanted. Isn’t it time you started living yours to the fullest?”

Maggie grabbed the remote and shut off the TV. She straddled Fred and took off her T-shirt, looking him straight in the eye.

“What? Why are you giving me that look?” he asked.

“Because we’ve been together two whole years and it’s the first time I’ve realized that I know next to nothing about you—your life, your family. You’ve never introduced me, never talked about them at all. Meanwhile, you’re a leading expert on all things Maggie, the whole family . . . I don’t know where you grew up, where you went to college, if you went to college.”

“Right. Because you never asked.”

“That’s not true! You just always get dodgy and elusive when I ask about your past.”

“Well, here’s the thing,” he said, brushing his lips across her bare breasts. “Sometimes a man has other priorities. But if you insist, I’ll tell all . . . everything, my whole life story, in full detail . . . I was born thirty-nine years ago in London . . .”

Fred slipped lower as he spoke, making a trail of kisses down Maggie’s stomach.

“Okay, you win, I see your point,” Maggie murmured, her breath quickening. “Stop talking. Now.”





8

KEITH

October 1980, Baltimore

Shafts of moonlight streamed into the loft through the skylights, filled with little specks of floating dust. May slept soundly, the folds of the bedsheets hugging tightly to the curves of her body. Seated at the foot of the bed, Sally-Anne studied her and watched her breathe. At that very moment, the rising and falling of May’s chest was the only thing she cared about in the world. They could have been the last two people on earth, the whole of the universe contained within that loft.

One hour earlier, visions of the past had jolted Sally-Anne awake. Familiar faces glared down at her in judgment—frozen, expressionless, and unforgiving—while she sat, immobile, on an empty stage. So much of Sally-Anne’s character came from these judging faces, from a youth spent learning everything, without ever being taught.

Can two broken souls fix each other? Sally-Anne wondered. Would one person’s pain cancel out the other’s, or would it simply be piled on top of it?

“What time is it?” May groaned, her face buried in the pillow.

“Four in the morning, maybe a bit later.”

“What’s on your mind, what are you thinking about?”

“About us.”

“Good things or bad?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“You think I can sleep with you gawking at me like that?”

Sally-Anne slipped on her boots and grabbed her leather jacket off the back of a chair. May sighed.

“I don’t like it when you ride at night.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be nice and careful.”

“That’d be a first. Stay. I’ll make you a cup of tea,” May insisted. She rose and draped a sheet over her naked body, crossing their living space. The kitchen nook was little more than a sad-looking portable gas stove, a handful of mismatched plates and glasses, and two porcelain mugs on a wooden table near a tiny sink.

Holding the sheet with one hand, May struggled awkwardly to make the tea. She filled the kettle, stood on her tiptoes, fumbled for the tin box full of Lipton teabags, plucked two sugar cubes from a terra-cotta pot, and struck a match to light the gas stove. Sally-Anne didn’t lift a finger.

“Well, don’t come rushing in to help me!”

“I was waiting to see if you could manage with only one hand,” Sally-Anne replied, grinning playfully. May shrugged and let the sheet drop to the ground.

“Be a dear and put it back on the bed. I can’t stand dusty sheets.”

After pouring tea for them both, May came back to sit cross-legged on the mattress.

“We’ve received the invitations,” Sally-Anne revealed.

“When?”

“Yesterday. I stopped by the post office to have a look, and there they were.”

“And you didn’t think of telling me sooner?”

“We were having a good time, and I thought you’d spend the rest of the night thinking about it.”

“A good time? All these piss-poor political conversations are tedious at best and unbearable at worst. The guys we’ve been running with lately are a pain in the ass, going on and on about changing the world when all they do is get stoned. So, sorry to say, I wasn’t exactly having the night of my life to begin with. Can I see them?”

Sally-Anne reached into her jacket pocket and casually tossed the invitations onto the bed. May tore through one of the envelopes, noting, as she did, the surface of the elegant paper and admiring the embossed letters bearing her fake name. But then her eyes fell on the date of the party . . . only two weeks away. The women would be decked out in extravagant gowns and their finest jewelry. All the men would be wearing absurdly over-the-top costumes, aside from a handful of grumpy older guests in simple tuxedos and domino masks, refusing to play along.