Somebody to Love (Gideon's Cove #3)(29)
Harry was a legend on Wall Street. The Welles fortune, founded first on shipping, then on mills, had dwindled significantly in the 1960s as manufacturing went overseas. By the time Harry was a teenager, there was a little money, but they were hardly the Kennedys or the Hiltons. Enough for membership in the country club and college for Harry and his sisters, a very modest trust fund to get each one started as adults.
Then Harry decided to swing for the bleachers. He took his trust fund, asked his sisters if they wanted in—they declined; Harry was just out of Wharton and what did he know? Harry sold his car, schmoozed every client his father had, hit up every friend for a loan and stepped up to bat. He took every cent he’d managed to get his hands on and bought up stock from a little company that dealt with a technology no one had ever heard of.
Turned out Apple Computer did okay. Harry was featured on the cover of Forbes magazine, a baseball bat over one shoulder, a cocky grin on his handsome face and the headline Play Big or Go Home. Welles Financial, founded by Parker’s great-grandfather, went from a stodgy, trustworthy investment firm to an enormous force on Wall Street, and Harry became filthy rich.
His sisters had their modest inheritances; beyond that, if they wanted more—and they did—they had to come to Harry and present their request, be it jobs for their husbands or the money for an addition to keep up with the Joneses. Harry might or might not grant said request; his sisters hadn’t trusted him back in the beginning, and he made them pay, and they hated him for it. Didn’t stop them from asking, though.
And so Parker was an outsider, too, by association. Her cousins became an impenetrable clique, her aunts joined forces to disapprove of her, and Parker found herself thinking of them as the Coven. When she had to come to stay, Juliet, Regan and Esme made sure she was left out of the conversation, took potshots at Althea and her marriages, mocked Parker’s hair, clothes, shoes. Her aunts weren’t much better. Once, she overheard them discussing Althea’s latest divorce from Parker’s second stepfather, who was a lovely man; Parker had been devastated when he’d left. “Who’d want Althea and a sulky teenager?” Louise asked, laughing.
“Sulky’s the least of her problems,” Vivian said. “Juliet thinks she might be doing drugs.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Louise answered. “She’ll probably end up overdosing in a nightclub bathroom somewhere.” There was a pause and the clink of ice as Louise took a sip of her Long Island iced tea.
Parker became even more of a freak by getting pregnant out of wedlock—and staying pregnant—and choosing to be a single mom. The books put her over the edge.
Family gatherings…eesh. Parker once described them to Ethan as Flowers in the Attic meets Jaws. Generally, she avoided them like a robust case of Ebola, but once a year or so, she had to make an appearance, and Esme’s wedding was one such affair.
Parker was a bridesmaid, pretty much because Harry was paying for the wedding, an obscene affair at the Rosecliff mansion in Newport. Esme and Aunt Vivian had wheedled and whined to Harry for weeks before he finally played Santa and said of course he’d pay for his niece’s wedding. Apparently, Esme had been yearning to get married at Rosecliff since her conception, and she’d gleefully spent Harry’s money hand over fist: flowers and hairstylists, a twenty-thousand-dollar dress, yada yada yada.
None of that made Parker welcome. She’d spent the rehearsal dinner largely being ignored and pretending not to mind. She hadn’t been invited to help Esme get ready the morning of the wedding, either. Nicky was with Ethan, so Parker had gone to Rosecliff alone. She figured she’d do her bridesmaid duties, endure the reception, then leave as soon as she could.
“Thanks, Chuck,” she said to the driver of the car service her father kept on retainer. “I’ll be maybe three hours, okay? I’ll text you when I’m ready to go.”
“You bet, Miss Welles,” he said.
“Sure you don’t want to be my date?” she said, tipping him a twenty.
“Very. No offense.”
She laughed. “I hear you, pal. See you later.” Heart sinking a little, she got out of the car. “I am a wonderful mother,” she said as she approached the mansion. “I am a very successful author.” Preach it, sister! the Holy Rollers chorused. “And no one can make you feel inferior if you’ve had enough to drink. Or something.”
Without your consent! the angels corrected in their tiny, scolding voices.
Inside was the Coven—Esme, the bride, and Juliet and Regan as co–maids of honor—huddled together in a preceremony clump. Her aunts made disapproving noises about Parker’s timing, though she’d arrived ten minutes before they’d told her to.
“You look exhausted,” Aunt Vivian said, frowning. “Are you sick?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks,” Parker said. “Esme, you look beautiful.”
“Thanks. Um…so do you?” the bride said, staring at Parker as if she had a third arm.
Parker smiled determinedly, took her bouquet and walked down the aisle, her eyes searching for her father. One thing they had in common—they hated family events. She didn’t see him, but then again, there were four hundred wedding guests.
In the receiving line, Juliet took her shots. “Parker, did you bring your husband? Wait, are you married? I always forget.” As if they hadn’t seen each other the night before.