“What kind of party is this by the way?” I asked.
She handed me a dress, red with a low top, knee-length, and no sleeves. I tossed it onto the ottoman, a little too cocktail hour, not really party appropriate.
“It's a birthday party.”
“A birthday party? Whose? Do I know them?” As much as I had agreed to go, I was less keen on going to a party for someone that I didn't know.
“Oh yeah, you do. It's Dirk. Dirk Baker. Do you remember him?”
I started laughing immediately. Dirk, Missy and I had all gone to the same boarding school. She had had an enormous crush on him.
“I didn't realize the two of you were still in contact. Wait, do you still... no, you couldn't possibly.”
“It was Missy's turn to blush. Well, why do you think we have to look phenomenal tonight?”
I laughed again. “Missy, you look amazing in everything, it's going to be fine.”
“It's been years, do you realize how important it is to look good? I don't want to look like I let myself go.”
“You couldn't look like that if you tried,” I said, trying to calm her down. She was pulling dress after dress out of the rack and tossing each one down frustratedly. “Slow down. How do you think you're going to get a dress if you're not even looking properly?”
“Are you here to help me or just make me more stressed?” she asked. She stalked over to the still unpacked shopping bags that we had brought in with us after today’s spree and started pulling the clothes from them. It was so rare to see the posed, sophisticated Missy in this state that I couldn’t help but rub her nose in it.
“Oh, I am definitely telling Dirk about this.”
Her mouth fell open. “You wouldn't.”
“If you don't calm down, I will.”
She pursed her lips and walked back to the rack of clothes she had been savaging previously.
“Well? What did I ask you to come here for? Help me,” she said. I laughed silently and looked over her rejected picks, glad that I was no longer the target of her teasing. Maybe tonight would be fun after all.
7
Niall
“Niall, how are you, man?”
I looked at the man who had just addressed me. His hand was held out for me to shake so I did. This was his house after all and being here I was technically representing the Bridges family. Didn’t want to embarrass the clan more than I already did. The bare minimum, Niall, I thought. It’s the least you can do, literally. It wasn’t his fault you’re here.
“Dirk. You look terrible,” I said over the live music playing. Dirk laughed.
“Another year under the belt, what can I say?” he said. I nodded, forming my mouth into my best estimation of a smile. He was a grown man. We were the same age, him maybe a little older and here he was having a birthday party like a seven-year-old. That was what it was though, wasn’t it, with this crowd? Any excuse to celebrate. Any excuse to get all their rich friends in one place to blow their money and rub shoulders. We were in Dirk’s modern townhouse, the entire lower floor filled with people milling about, socializing, snacking on the food that uniformed waiters were handing around. Getting steadily drunker courtesy of the open bar. I knew a number of the people in attendance but few had come to say hi, not that I had offered the same courtesy. I could think of one hundred places off the top of my head where I would rather be.
“Well watch out, they're catching up to you,” I said.
“I could say the same about you. New York putting you through the wringer?” he asked. If I was looking a little worse for wear, it was because I was here. In New York, I was a veritable beacon of good health and vitality. My spirits were perennially high when I was Stateside. Here, my mood matched the weather. It was never anything particularly good that brought me home so my mood matched.
One night, man. Turn the fake charm on for one night. It’s almost over.
“I don’t know why I ever come back, to be honest,” I said.
“I was shocked when your father told me to expect you here,” he said. I was too. It wasn’t my idea. Coming to London hadn’t been my idea. I had tried to think what the family obligation my father wanted me for actually was, but hadn’t been able to come up with anything. I had seen my father earlier that day which was partly why my mood was so dark. Taking a cab to the family mansion was something I hadn’t done in so long, it made me physically sick. He was waiting for me in his grand old study when I showed up.
He pretended to care about what I was doing over in New York and didn’t bother to hide his disappointment when I told him that it was nothing but my usual. Then the lecture began. He started with his grandfather, my great grandfather and all the sacrifices that he had made for the family, and then went to his father, then himself, and then he started on me.
“I figured if you wanted to talk about that we could have done it over the phone,” I said.
“How long will it take you to learn? This is a matter of legacy, Niall.”
“Oh, here we go.” I got myself ready for the usual the usual lecture. The one I had been hearing since I was a child about how my life was not mine to live. It belonged to an old,
