Save the Date(43)

“Thanks, son,” my dad said, giving Rodney a smile. “We appreciate it.”

“What’s this function?” my uncle asked, raising an eyebrow. “The kind with an open bar?”

“No,” my mother, father, and Linnie said simultaneously.

“It’s at an art museum,” I explained, and my uncle immediately looked less interested.

“I’ll leave you to that, then,” he said, clapping Rodney on the back. “Lead on!”

We watched Rodney and Stu heading up to the house, and when they’d disappeared inside, my mother turned to us. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”





CHAPTER 12


Or, The Family You Never Had




* * *



OKAY, IF YOU COULD ALL just smile . . . and hold it . . .” I held my smile even though my cheeks were starting to ache, as the photographer from the Stanwich Sentinel snapped away. It was all of us and Rodney, my mother in the center, holding the plaque that had been presented to her when the governor had named her, during the ceremony, a Connecticut citizen deserving of exemplary recognition. We were standing in the central lobby of the Pearce Museum, in front of the marble fountain, and I tried not to blink too much as the camera clicked.

I’d been coming to the Pearce my whole life—for school trips and special exhibits and kids’ art classes. It consisted mostly of the collection of Mary Anne Pearce, and it reflected her very eclectic tastes. I’d always loved how varied it was—how there would be a unicorn tapestry next to a Warhol, next to a Kara Walker. The museum had continued collecting after she’d passed away, but was more focused now on exhibits. I’d seen the banners for them when I’d driven past, but it had been exciting to walk up the white marble steps today and see the one hanging above me, huge and blowing back and forth in the wind—ELEANOR GRANT, A RETROSPECTIVE. 25 YEARS OF COMIC ART.

The ceremony had been lovely. Governor Walker had introduced my mother, thanking her for putting Stanwich on the map—or at least the funny pages—which was a joke that sounded like some speechwriter had written it for him, but nonetheless got a round of polite laughter. Then my mother had stood up and given her speech, thanking her syndicate and her team, and all the readers who’d been following the adventures of the fictional Grants over the years. And then she’d thanked us, her family, for being her inspiration, and also for letting her take liberties with our lives. She’d said how much it had meant for her to have her family with her today, but as she did, my eyes fell on the empty seat next to me.

A row of chairs had been reserved for us, but there was one extra, and I knew my mother had kept it aside in the hopes that Mike would show up. I hadn’t had any expectations that he would, but somehow, seeing the empty seat was bothering me more than I’d known it would, and finally I turned my back on it, angling myself slightly so it wouldn’t be in my peripheral vision.

There was a large crowd—every seat had been filled during the speeches, and while we smiled our way through the pictures, people were milling about on the other side of the lobby, where there was a bar and coffee station and waiters circled with trays of pastries and lemon squares. The exhibition would officially open after the reception was over. From where I was standing, I could see the gallery where the exhibit was, a ribbon stretched across the entrance.

“And last one, over here . . . ,” the photographer said, and I brought my attention back to him. “I think we’re good.” He pulled the camera away and squinted at the viewfinder. “If I could now get just Eleanor and Governor Walker?”

We all took a few steps away as the governor stepped forward, already smiling at my mother. I noticed his security detail, who’d been doing a very good job of blending into the background, now came a little bit closer.

Danny walked over to join Brooke, who’d been standing alone by the coffee station, and J.J., Linnie, Rodney, and I wandered away from the fountain. “Have you see the girl with the lemon squares?” J.J. asked. “I saw her like twenty times when we were getting our pictures taken and now she’s vanished.”

I looked over and saw my mother and the governor shaking hands while the camera clicked. “I think it went well, don’t you?”

“I guess I thought Mike might show up,” Linnie said, lowering her voice as though she was worried about being overheard. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting it, but . . .”

“Why should Mike do anything for someone else?” I asked, my voice coming out with a bitter edge. “Why should he think about anyone other than himself?”

“Charlie.” Rodney shook his head.

“He did come for the wedding,” J.J. pointed out. I looked around for Danny, to see if he would back me up, but he was still talking to Brooke. I glanced over and saw the photographer rearranging my mom and the governor, this time bringing my dad in—and I noticed that Andie Walker, the governor’s daughter, was starting to head in our direction.

I didn’t know Andie super well—I’d been a sophomore at Stanwich High when she was a senior. But after her father won in November, I’d reached out, to see if she’d be willing to do an interview with the Pilgrim. She’d agreed, and the feature I’d written on her for the paper—Walker Hits Her Stride—about her relationship with her dad, her life at Yale, her boyfriend who was a fantasy novelist, had been picked up by some national outlets, which had pretty much been the highlight of my year.