“Gran is nothing if not tough,” Nick agreed.
“Oh God, and now I’ve called the Queen an elephant,” Olly fretted.
“I’ve done worse,” I said.
“I took it as a compliment,” Nick assured him. “Come sit and catch me up on the Sands preserve—it’s been eons since I’ve been.”
“Is this the famous Olly?” called out Freddie, sauntering in from the foyer. “Delighted to meet you, sir.”
“Who let you in?” I said, giving his cheek a light peck.
“You did,” he said, tugging on my ponytail. “Lock your doors, Killer.”
He gave Lacey a warm hug and shook Olly’s hand, then very formally thanked Nick for inviting him before wandering over to the bar cart.
“How’s your chemist?” I asked in a low voice, following him.
“No idea,” was his reply. “She broke up with me fifteen minutes before our lunch date today.”
I squeezed his arm. I heard Nick cough, but when I looked up at him, his eyes were on Olly.
Lacey and Olly, in fact, made for a great social lubricant. The common ground of the Sands preserve gave way to casual, amusing anecdotes, like the time five-year-old Olly burst into tears at the London Zoo because he’d thought all the animals were under arrest, or Nick’s subsequent embarrassment that he technically owned one of the elephants there (a birthday gift), or the admission that we all lived for watching Cotswolds Coroner and that Freddie had screamed when the bell ringer had been butter-churned to death. By the time we were rubbing our full bellies, I was feeling misty and proud. Finally, a plan of mine had worked.
“That was shockingly not terrible, Killer,” Freddie teased, nibbling on one last piece of turkey. “I might even survive the night.”
“Wow,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve gotten higher praise than that for anything I’ve ever cooked.”
“I have to admit, I had some concerns coming over here tonight,” Olly said. “Lacey once microwaved a Pot Noodle without the water in it.”
“Mom and Dad loved cooking,” I said. “So we kind of…let them do it.”
“That was doing them a favor,” Lacey said.
I retrieved two Tiffany-blue paper boxes from the old rolltop in the corner, which was working as a de facto sideboard. The most amazing smell of apple and sugar and cinnamon wafted out of one of them, and the other held a stunning array of macarons artfully arranged in ROYGBIV order.
“Speaking of favors,” I said, clearing some space on the table and placing the boxes on it. “Please thank your father, Olly. These are gorgeous.”
Nick peeked at the lid of the box. “Macaron and Cheese,” he read. “I suspect I’m going to like your parents.” He bit into a white one crusted in pink salt crystals. “White truffle,” he announced. “Don’t tell Gaz but these are the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
Olly smiled. “My father says they were the hardest thing to perfect,” he said. “His parents wanted him to run their hotel in Lagos, but then he went to France and fell in love with pastry cream, and that was that.”
“Please do not let me have more than two of these, or else my official portrait is going to end up with a giant zit in it,” I said.
“Isn’t the whole point of a portrait that you can gloss over certain bits?” Freddie asked. “Although for some reason Edwin’s still makes him look like a walrus.”
“I can’t wait until you’re hanging in a museum,” Lacey said to me. “Imagine having generations of people visiting you on their vacations, buying postcards of your face.”
“They already do,” Freddie said. “Go to any souvenir stand. I walked past one the other day and someone had stuck a wad of gum on Bex’s nose.”
“For some reason those postcards don’t feel as over-the-top to me as a commissioned portrait,” I said. “But I guess it’s part of the job.”
I hadn’t noticed that Nick was noodling with his phone until he plonked it on the table with a plasticky thud. “Yes, right, the portrait. How is that going? Any better?”
Richard, himself an artist, had handpicked for my portrait a British painter who’d spent most of his life memorializing wildlife in South Africa; they’d met once on a royal tour of the country and had a fulfilling discussion about pencils. At our first meeting, the guy circled me for fifteen minutes before saying, “Hmm.” He then snapped photographs from a variety of angles and sketched frantically. Three of these sessions had come and gone. Number four was scheduled for Tuesday.
“He seems uninspired by my face,” I said.
“Then he’s clearly a fool,” Freddie said chivalrously.
“Father seems keen,” Nick said. “He showed me loads of the man’s work yesterday.”
“He did?” Freddie asked. “I thought he was swamped this week.”
“He was,” Nick said. “With me.”
“Okay, well, we just ate a Thanksgiving meal, so let’s do some traditional giving of thanks,” Lacey jumped in, and I tried to send her a psychic message of my own gratitude for changing the subject. “I’ll start. I’m thankful that the turkey wasn’t raw.”
“I’m thankful for my metabolism,” Freddie said, popping another macaron into his mouth.
“I’m thankful Gran is still with us,” Nick said.
“Boo! Too earnest,” Freddie said around the cookie. “I’m thankful Father hasn’t called about work.”
“Lucky you. He’s texted me at least four times,” Nick said, glancing down at his phone.
Freddie absorbed this. “No rest for the wicked,” he said airily.
“My turn,” I said. “I’m thankful we are starting these damn renovations. Goodbye, floral bedrooms.”
“I’m thankful dating colleagues isn’t frowned upon at my work,” Olly said.
“I’m thankful I got the chance to go to Kenya,” Lacey said. “It’s changed me for the better. Who knows what would’ve happened if I hadn’t had to get away from—ahh, um.”
“Yes, I’m a bit less thankful for that, if you’ll forgive me,” Nick said.
There was a terrible pause.
“I’m thankful for uncomfortable silences,” I joked.
No one laughed.
“Well, no family holiday is, um, uncomplicated, but I’m thankful we’re here together,” I finished lamely.
“Indeed,”
