So Close by Emma McLaughlin Read Free Book Online

stone patio, greeting the guests as they arrived.  “You look great,” she said.
                  “Thank you.  So do you.”  She was wearing a black version of the dress from this morning and swapped out her pearl studs for discrete diamonds. 
                  “Mom, this is Amanda Luker, Pax’s friend.”
                  Cricket turned and I instantly felt like a leaf with a gale force wind bearing down on me.  It wasn’t just that she was tall, easily six feet in heels, it was that she had an energy like a languorous cat on the plains—the kind that makes rabbits freeze in their tracks and stop breathing.   “Nice to meet you.”  She extended a hand and shook mine vigorously.  “Where is he?”
                  “Maybe helping James get ready,” Pym suggested.
                  “Uch,” Cricket said, “I told the nanny to put his clothes out for him, he shouldn’t have needed any help.”
                  “Younger brother?” I asked.
                  “He’s a little devil,” Cricket said looking over the crowd, fingertips to her sternum.  “He’ll be trying to steal the change from people’s pockets.”
                  “Isn’t that what we’re all doing?” Pax asked, coming up behind her.  “This is a fundraiser, right?”  Cricket smiled as he leaned over her shoulder to kiss her cheek and she slid a hand into his hair.  “Hey, you look awesome,” he said to me as he broke from her embrace. 
                  “Thanks.”  I could have returned the compliment.  He was wearing tight seersucker pants and a custom-fit white shirt.  Whoever designed his clothes could not have hoped for a better body than his to be taking them out in the world. 
                  “Pym, dear,” Cricket said, surveying the party, “I don’t like those hurricane lamps—can you have them swap them out?”
                  “Of course,” Pym said as she walked away the way I used to say of course to Kurt when I really meant, suck it. 
                  Cricket turned her full feline focus on her son.  “Have you seen the bore?” she asked, pulling the ruffled neckline of her cocktail dress slightly open.  I wondered which of their guests had earned this distinction.
                  “I think he’s hiding in his study.”
                  Cricket rolled her eyes.  “He is the most dreary man on God’s green earth.”  They laughed together.  “Alright, I better circulate.  Amanda, nice to meet you,” she tossed off, but as she left she threw a look to Pax that ordinarily I would have said meant, don’t forget you’re leaving with me.  
                  I had seen so many mothers like this at the hotel—single, travelling with only sons who had grown to resemble the ex-husbands who had broken their hearts.  Having never relaxed into the mom role because they were still aggressively on the market they flirted with their sons out of habit—who flirted back because it was all they knew.
    I didn’t want Billy to end up in that role.               
    “Who’s the bore?” I asked.
                  “My step-father—Taggart Westerbrook—yes, I took his name.  Raw bar?” Pax asked, extending a hand toward where the crowd thickened. 
                  “The magic is gone, huh?”
    He placed a hand lightly on my lower back to steer me.  “According to legend my father swept her off her feet, fireworks, the whole Cole Porter shebang with a good deal of drugs thrown in.  Then left her in Marakesh seven months pregnant.  I don’t think magic was what she was looking for on round two.  Let’s get some oysters.”
    We wove into the crowd toward the table laden with all matter of ocean creature and abutted with ice sculptures of the state flag.  Not knowing what to answer