On Thursday, while I was out grocery shopping, Aunt Mary took a phone call. Helen Swan, calling to ask if I’d come to dinner with her at Lillian Vanderveer Linworth’s palace. Mary said she knew I’d be delighted, and asked what I should wear.
To say that she then forced me to go would be unjust. I didn’t really want to see Helen at a party at some Lady Bountiful’s mansion, but I surrendered when Mary told me she had decided I must accept the invitation. I knew what sort of contest of wills I was in for if I resisted Mary, and at that moment I didn’t have that much fight left in me.
Helen greeted me warmly when I picked her up at her home. It was the first time I had been there since Jack had died, and I found I could feel his presence-or maybe the lack of it. She talked cheerily as she gathered up her purse and turned off lights, but I found myself staring at an old chair, thinking of Jack Corrigan telling a story at one of the parties they had held for the staff of the college paper.
We stayed only long enough for her to grab her keys and lock up the house. That we didn’t linger was okay with me.
On the way to the Linworth mansion, she stressed that no matter what happened or what I heard, we were at a social event at the invitation of one of her good friends, and writing about it was strictly forbidden.
As soon as Lillian Linworth’s decrepit butler opened the door to the royal library, I saw O’Connor. I almost turned on my heel and went right back out. The only thing that kept me from doing so was seeing that he was as shocked as I. We both looked at Helen. She was smiling and saying, “Conn, what a pleasant surprise…”
His brows lowered, and his mouth made a flat line. Then he said, “I doubt it is either a surprise to you or pleasant for Ms. Kelly to find me here.”
Mrs. Linworth seemed deaf to all of that, and introduced herself to me as Lily.
I was supposed to call her majesty by her nickname?
Then she said, “Conn, would you please serve as bartender this evening? What will you have, Ms. Kelly?”
I asked for a vodka and soda on the light side. I thanked O’Connor when he handed my drink to me, sipped it and found that it was about four times as strong as I would have made it myself.
He was drinking scotch on the rocks. While Helen and Lillian chatted across the room, he stood next to me in awkward silence. He made the ice in his glass swirl rhythmically with a slight motion of his wrist, and studied the cubes as if they might roll over like the goodie inside an eight-ball toy, the answer to some problem printed on one side. There was something in his face that either hadn’t been there before or which I hadn’t perceived. Not anger or frustration…I had seen plenty of each of those in the last few weeks. Sadness, maybe? Maybe he was missing Jack.
I found myself feeling guilty for continually snubbing him, and thinking that I ought to apologize to him for being such a pain in the ass, but before I could say anything to him, three more people were ushered into the room, and O’Connor moved forward to greet them.
We were introduced to Auburn Sheffield, Warren Ducane, and Kyle Yeager. I went straight toward the one who interested me most: Auburn Sheffield.
Not that the others weren’t interesting. Kyle Yeager was cute in a Clark Kent kind of way, and Warren Ducane struck me as one of those men who find themselves adrift in their middle age. But Auburn-not every day you get a chance to talk to a guy like him.
I had grown up hearing the story of his rebellion against his family. His home was named in honor of it, after all. In fact, there was a scenic turnoff in the road leading up to Auburn’s Stand that was known to anyone who had spent his or her adolescence in Las Piernas. Local make-out hot spot. Not that anybody ever took this Catholic girl up there.
Within a few moments, Auburn was regaling me with little-known facts about Las Piernas history, including plenty of great dirt on the Sheffields-his uncle Hector was apparently a dangerous lunatic. The Sheffield name was on a street, a subdivision, a library, an elementary school, and a number of buildings downtown. They had made a fortune selling ice cream, and, he said, stayed cold and rich ever since. Auburn had to be seventy or eighty years old, but I’ve encountered plenty of people half his age with less life in them.
Warren Ducane was deep in conversation with O’Connor, who was making drinks for the new arrivals, and Helen was talking to Lily, so it wasn’t too surprising that Kyle Yeager joined us. Auburn pulled him into the conversation.
“Kyle just graduated from Dartmouth, Irene,” Auburn said, with so much pride, I thought maybe this was his godson.
“Congratulations,” I said. “What did you major in?”
I heard a familiar voice say, “Now, that’s an original question.”
O’Connor had brought their drinks over, and handed them off as he said this.
I felt my face turn red.
“But a natural question,” Kyle Yeager said quickly. He smiled at me. “I’ll answer it, even though you’re going to think I’m a nerd when I tell you. I majored in computer science, with a minor in geography. If it had been up to me…”
“He’s being modest,” Auburn said. “He didn’t tell you that he has also been accepted into Dartmouth’s prestigious business school, Tuck.”
“Must make your old man proud, Kyle,” O’Connor said, in a tone I’d never heard him use before. “Preparing to take the reins of Yeager Enterprises?”
I saw a quick flash of anger on Kyle’s face, then he smiled. “I’m surprised to discover a man in your profession who knows so little town gossip,” he said to O’Connor-calmly, if you ignored a certain martial light in his eyes. “I’m a bastard, so I have no idea if my ‘old man’ would be proud, ashamed, or even if he’s alive to hear what’s become of me.”
“I meant no offense-”
“Of course you meant offense,” Kyle said, his tone just as pleasant as before. “As did I. Although I’m a little better informed than you, it seems-I know you’re a reporter for the Express, and that you’ve never liked my adoptive father much. But just in case you are preparing a story-ownership of Yeager Enterprises will be handed over to Mitch Yeager’s own children, not to me.”
O’Connor smiled, too, more genuinely than Kyle had, I thought. “Well, now, that only proves that Mitch is as big a fool as I’ve always thought him. No, no-no need to get fired up again. Ms. Kelly is already angry at me, and I can’t take on the whole of your generation. But just so you know, tonight is off the record-Helen’s retired, and Irene and I have promised our hostess that neither of us will be writing about anything we hear this evening, Mr. Yeager.” He then excused himself and moved over to where the others were standing.
Helen was staring at Kyle with an odd look on her face, Warren looked as if he were about to be ill, and Lily seemed bemused. When I glanced at Auburn, I thought the two of them might be in on some private joke. This seemed even more likely when he said, “Excuse me, I need to speak to our hostess,” and moved away.
Next to me, Kyle said, “I’m sorry-I didn’t know you were a reporter.”
“According to some people here, I’m not much of one,” I murmured.
“Who? O’Connor?” he said. “Well, why should his opinion matter so much? It doesn’t to me.”
I should have felt comforted by this ready championship, but I heard some echo of my own indignation in his words and found I didn’t really like the way it sounded.
I glanced over at Helen, who seemed to be watching us more than listening to those who stood near her.
“You know what, Kyle? I shouldn’t have said that. The truth is, it does matter to me. He’s a great reporter, someone I’ve admired forever. I guess that’s why it bothered me when he criticized my work. But I deserved a lot of what he said, and he’s apologized more than once, so I suppose I shouldn’t keep harping on it. I need to move on, let it go.”
“That’s not always easy.”
“No,” I laughed. “But I’m making an enemy out of him for no real reason. I’m sorry if he’s written something negative about your dad-”
“Don’t be. Since we’re being honest about things, I’m not my dad’s biggest fan. And O’Connor never wrote anything untruthful about him, as far as I can tell. Listen-is it true that you aren’t here as a reporter?”
“Yes.”
He seemed to brood over something.
