“Thanks. Even I need a break from all that, sometimes.” She nods toward the partygoers we left behind. “You’redoing amazingly, by the way. I don’t know how you manage it.”
“You don’t think I’m smart enough to talk to those people?” I ask, failing to keep my tongue in check.
Amy doesn’t get angry or defensive. She leans against the cedar railing and breathes in the ocean. “You were living in the woods two months ago. Sid threw you to the wolves here, but you’re killing it. I’m jealous. It took me thirty years to figure out how to talk to these people.”
“You don’t think of yourself as one of them?”
“Maybe I am. I don’t know. Tom—my uncle, I mean—he doesn’t like the Patterson crowd much. Finds this all… excessive.”
“Please, do not make me agree with your uncle on something. Shit! I mean…”
Amy only laughs. Sid did tell me she would understand if I said I disliked Tom. “So hehasbeen giving you the gears. I’m sorry.”
“Not like it’s your fault.”
“He means well, but he’s like a lot of old-timers. Shell-shocked. Convinced the world is going to end all over again if he doesn’t do something to stop it. I keep telling him to get a therapist, but you try having that conversation with a sixty-two-year-old man.”
“Hmmm.”
“You shouldn’t worry, though. From what I’ve seen, you and April are doing fine. And Tom will see that. He always does, eventually.”
“Thank you.” I’m sure Amy is being sincere, but she doesn’t know certain things about me that Tom does. To my annoyance, I have a flash of empathy for him. I showed up on his island and shot his friend. No wonder he wanted to string me up by the heels. Can I really pretend I wouldn’t have done the same in his position?
“Can I ask you something, Amy?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Sid seemed surprised Bradley followed through on his dinner invitation. Did you have a hand in that?” I ask both because I’m curious and because I don’t want to talk about Tom.
Amy shrugs. “Maybe. I might have reminded Bradley that Sid is good for his image.”
“Really? How?”
“Because everyone thinks the Pattersons are snobs.”
“Because they are.”
“Of course! But that’s terrible for politics. Bradley wants people to think he’s approachable. I told him that if he attacked Sid, it might come out that his younger sister was bullying a poor immigrant girl at high school—”
“Holy shit, you said that to him?”
“I don’t believe in mincing words behind closed doors.” She throws me a wink.
“Well… thank you. I mean it.” Amy might have done it just to protect her own political prospects, but the result is the same. Honestly, she’s done more to help me than her uncle has, and that’s hisjob.
“Speaking of not mincing words… back at the guild tour, your sister was really interested in the medical research. I talked to Maria, and she says April carries needles at school. She has diabetes, doesn’t she?”
Sid has told me Amy is smart and resourceful, but seeing it in action is a little terrifying. Beneath the frothy, bubbly exterior is hard, weathered stone.
“So?”
Amy shakes her head. “That’s why you came, isn’t it? To get her healthcare? Is it why you married Sid, too?”
“I love him,” I say without hesitation. “That’s why I married him.”
Amy nods. “Two things can be true at the same time.”
“What?” I expected an attack of some kind, but this was not it. Despite myself, I’m completely flustered. “No. I don’t—”
