I was forced to come down for lunch today. We had visitors, Senator Hartley, James, Alana, and her father. Apparently, it was a meeting to discuss how to hard-launch my relationship with James. A relationship I barely had any say in. One would think that these men were discussing the wedding of a random stranger, not a grown woman right in front of them.
"What about the backstory for the relationship?" Alana's father asks.
Senator Hartley leans forward. "Let's go with childhood sweethearts. We can release a vague detail and the press will build the whole story themselves."
"Absolutely." My father eagerly sets his knife down.
"James did the Langford summer program in Connecticut." Senator Hartley glances at me. "Nathalie, did you do anything like that? Camps, programs, anything like that?"
"She spent summers in the Hamptons," my father says, not looking at me. "Every year."
"Even better." Senator Hartley clicks his fingers.
"Neighboring families, they crossed paths every summer."
I reach for my water. Across the table Alana is eating with great concentration, her eyes moving between her plate and her father and nowhere else. She has had that carefulness about her since our last encounter and a pallor sitting under her foundation that no amount of makeup has resolved. She hasn't looked at James once.
James eats and smiles, entirely unbothered. He knew that video I had of them making out in the hotel bathroom might be enough to subdue Alana, but it wasn't enough to get me out of this entanglement with him. My father couldn't care less, best case scenario, he would be scolded and Alana would be punished, but nothing would change.
He coughs, setting his cutlery down and addressing both fathers with the ease of someone accustomed to being listened to. "Nathalie and I will have dinner tonight at a very upscale dinner, naturally people might get curious seeing us together, just for a start."
I don't want to have dinner with him. I can't stand him.
"Smart." My father points at him immediately. "That's smart thinking."
"Good lad." Senator Hartley grins at him and then at my father the way men grin at each other when something has confirmed what they already believed. "I told you, he is proactive."
"You did," my father says warmly. "You absolutely did."
My father turns to Alana.
"As they do this," he says, and the warmth drops out of his voice completely, "stay close to her." He still doesn't look at me. The edge underneath it is quiet but it is there, his opinion of me folded into a single instruction because he doesn't want to handle it directly. "I don't want any hiccups."
Alana's smile is robotic. "Of course, Uncle Phillip."
She still doesn't look at James.
I watch my father turn back to Senator Hartley and resume the conversation about polling numbers and regional press. I sit with the quiet detachment that has replaced most of what I used to feel in rooms like this one. I note that my father has not once looked at me during this entire meal.
A month ago that would have produced the familiar ache.
Now I just finish my water and set the glass down.
The older men leave after dessert with unhurried satisfaction. Their afternoon went exactly as planned.
There is handshaking and back patting and Senator Hartley tells my father something low that makes them both laugh and Alana's father laughs too. Alana stands up and leaves almost immediately and it's just James and me.
I put my napkin on the table and stand.
"Tonight," James says, his hand closing around my wrist before I have taken a full step.
I look at his hand, then at his face.
"Wear something sexy," he says. "For our dinner."
I look at his hand on my wrist for one more second, I remove it, walk upstairs and I close my door.
Luca
