“No, we can’t,” she declared. “We are here for a reason. To show everyone that Max Wilder was well and truly over his ex.” She stopped, searching my face. “Unless you aren’t.”
I moved closer. “I was over her long before we broke up, Frankie. I’m only here for my mother.” I stopped, knowing she wouldn’t believe what I was about to say. “And to show you off.”
That made her laugh. “Really? You’re here to show your family that you’ve fallen in love with a girl who works at a hardware store and looks like me?”
“That’s enough,” I ordered. “You’re a beautiful woman, Frankie.”
She turned, heading for the door. “We better get going.”
Downstairs, the terrace came into view through the glass doors. I felt Frankie slow just slightly, just one beat, taking in the scene — the white linens, the up swept hairdos, the women in silk and linen like they’d coordinated their outfits. Which they probably had. Tiffany was at the head of the table in white, pearl earrings catching the morning light, every inch of her assembled and intentional.
Frankie looked at all of it for exactly two seconds. Then she turned to me and said, low and dry, “Should’ve packed the tiara.”
I didn’t laugh. I looked at her — the yellow dress, the gold earrings, the total absence of apology on her face — and said, “You look fine.”
It came out wrong. Too flat. Not what I meant at all.
She raised an eyebrow. “High praise, Max.”
“Frankie.” I caught her elbow before she could turn for the door and waited until she looked at me. “I should have told you what these things look like. That’s on me.”
She studied my face for a second, reading something there she didn’t comment on. Then she shrugged, easy and unbothered. “I’ve been underdressed in nicer places than this.” She patted my arm once. “Come on. Your family’s waiting.”
She pushed through the glass door ahead of me.
My mother was on her feet before we reached the table. She was a small woman, my mother, which had always seemed like a biological joke given what she’d produced. She had the particular brand of warmth that people found immediately comforting. She took Frankie’s hands in both of hers and looked at her the way she looked at things she’d decided she liked.
“Frankie,” she said. “I’m so glad he brought you. I’ve been after him for months to bring someone home.” She shot me a look over Frankie’s shoulder that contained several years of accumulated maternal frustration. “He never listens.”
“He listens,” Frankie said. “He just responds on a delay.”
My mother laughed, genuine and surprised. She tucked Frankie’s arm through hers and steered her toward our end of the table, which put as much distance as the terrace allowed between us and Leo’s contingent. I followed, watching Frankie work through the introductions — my aunt Ruth, my cousin Dale, Ruth’s husband, whose name I always forgot, two cousins from my mother’s side who had come because my mother asked them to and for no other reason. They were good people. They had no interest in being here. That made all of us even.
The food came. The conversation on the end of our table stayed easy. Dale asked Frankie about the hardware store with genuine curiosity, which turned into a ten-minute exchange about a deck he was building, which turned into Frankie pulling up a photo on her phone and telling him he’d used the wrong joist hangers, and she could order him the right ones on Monday.
Tiffany sat at the far end with the look of a woman who had arranged the seating chart and was already aware it hadn’t gone the way she’d planned.
She waited until there was a lull.
“Frankie,” she said, her voice pitched to carry without appearing to try. “I have to ask — how do you manage, working in a, um, store like that? It must be such long days. On your feet the whole time. Lifting. Carrying things. Sweating.”
“It’s not bad,” Frankie said. “I like keeping busy.”
“Of course you do.” Tiffany’s smile adjusted itself. “It’s just — it’s such physical work, isn’t it? I couldn’t imagine.” She glanced at the table generally, extending the observation to whoever wanted to pick it up. “I always think it takes a certain kind of person. Very salt of the earth.”
Frankie reached for her coffee and smiled at me. “Oh, I don’t know, it has its advantages.”
Tiffany’s smile held. She was good at this. She’d done it when we were dating. That spiteful little dig that most didn’t catch. Frankie had.
The mimosas kept arriving. The relatives on my side of the table were doing what they’d come to do — showing up, holding the line, having my back. But Tiffany had to make one more pass. I saw it coming before she opened her mouth.
“I’ll admit,” she said, looking between Frankie and me, “I didn’t entirely believe it when I heard. You two just seem so—” she searched for the word with theatrical care— “different. How long have you actually been seeing each other?”
“Tiffany, that’s enough.” My fist clenched on the table. I wanted to grab Frankie and leave.
Frankie put her hand over mine. I immediately turned it over and entwined our fingers. She didn’t look at me, which was the right call because I would have given something away. She looked at Tiffany with a steady gaze.
“It’s been about six months. He asked me out the second time he came in, but I didn’t agree.”
