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“Because she’s twenty-three and about as considerate of the needs of others as a particularly vacuous fruit fly?”
Lucy laughed. “I guess that must be it. Did she say . . . I mean, do you think things are okay between them?”
Arnie rolled his eyes. “Who the heck knows? She said they were ‘talking things through,’ whatever that means. You want some tiramisu?”
Lucy shouldn’t, not if she was going to get into her dress on Saturday. Then again the dessert trolley did look good. And she had had an exhausting afternoon.
“Oh, go on, then.” She winked at her husband. “You only live once.”
Summer lay in Michael’s arms feeling foolish. When the clueless Kingsmere PA, Sarah, had told her Michael had reservations at Bepe in Oxford at eight—a table for two—Summer was convinced he was meeting another woman. On a whim she’d jumped on the first train from Paddington intending to confront him, only to arrive at the restaurant and find Michael alone.
“Where’s your date?” she asked sarcastically.
“In the loo.”
“I see. You won’t mind if I wait, then? I’m dying to meet her.”
“You are?”
Michael had seemed more confused than panicked. When his companion returned from the bathroom, Summer could see why. She found herself being introduced to a perfectly charming Indian gentleman. Ajay Singh was in his early fifties, smelled faintly of turpentine, and was one of Michael and Tommy’s key suppliers.
“I thought I told you I had to work tonight,” Michael said later as the two of them walked back to his flat along the backs. It was a dreamy night in Oxford, warm and cloudless, with a blanket of stars twinkling over the river like fireflies. Undergraduate couples punted past them in the darkness, and in the near distance the bells of Christchurch Cathedral chimed midnight, as they had done every night for the last eight hundred years.
“You did.” Summer took Michael’s hand. “But I really wanted to see you. Aren’t you happy I came?”
“You haven’t come, yet.” Pulling her to him, he kissed her roughly on the mouth. It was a passion she hadn’t felt from him in months, that she’d feared was gone forever. “But you will.”
Michael was as good as his word. In bed later, their lovemaking was intense, wild and wonderful, the way it was last summer when they first got together back on Martha’s Vineyard. As soon as Michael touched her, Summer felt her tiredness lift and her misery of only a few hours ago evaporate like raindrops in the sun.
It was all in my head. There’s nothing wrong. He’s been working too hard and we’ve been living oceans apart. Everything will be fine now that we’re back together.
Stretching out a lazy arm, she stroked Michael’s bare back.
“Are you nervous about Saturday night?”
“Nervous? I’m terrified. Tommy came up with a great expression yesterday. He said he was ‘shitting porcupines.’ I’m about the same.”
Summer laughed, because it was funny, and because it was such a relief to be Summer and Michael again, and not the suspicious strangers they’d become.
“I’ll have to remember that one. Work it into a political piece at the Post: ‘Senator Brownlow “Shitting Porcupines” over Upcoming Iowa Primary.’ Yeah, I like it. I think it’s gonna catch on. How about your parents. Are they calm?”
“Mother is. Mother’s always calm.”
Was it Summer’s imagination, or had a slight edge crept into Michael’s voice?
“And Teddy?”
“In Dad’s mind, this party is all about family honor. Three hundred years of the De Veres at Kingsmere. That’s all he cares about. I don’t think it’s registered how much more than that it’s become, how much it means for Mummy’s career. I mean, it’s Mummy they’re all coming to see. No one gives a rat’s arse about the De Vere family tree.”
Without thinking, Summer blurted out, “I thought you were with someone else tonight. Another woman. I thought I’d catch you out.”
“Oh.” Michael frowned. “Is that why you came?”
Summer nodded, biting her lower lip and willing the tears not to flow. “I’m sorry. It’s just things have been so . . . so off between us lately. I’ve felt so distant from you.”
Michael put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Don’t let’s talk about it. I’m sorry too. I love you.”
They kissed again. Summer felt overwhelmed with relief, as if she’d been holding her breath for the last six months and had finally been allowed to exhale. When at last they pulled apart she said, “I don’t want us to have secrets from each other. I want us to know each other completely.”
