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I look like my mom. Walt looks more like Dad. We were a real family and as flawed as they come. To see a patchwork family like the Owens and feel none of the tension present at my own family’s breakfast table is…strange.
Maybe Nate was right, and the Owens are good people.
“Nate tells us you’re an inspector,” Will says conversationally as he spreads his napkin in his lap.
“Not yet,” I answer.
“But she tried to shut you down,” Archer interjects.
Enter: turmoil. I bristle in expectation.
“She did,” Nate replies easily. The shouting I anticipated doesn’t come. “The day I took down the drywall with a sledgehammer.”
“Well, no wonder you fell for him,” Lainey says as light as you please.
I jerk my head at Nate, who takes his gaze from the menu to offer me a wink. “She didn’t flinch. Which is why I asked her to dinner.”
A waiter silently delivers a round of mimosas before leaving.
“He was looking for a friend at the bureau. Little did he know he was wooing the one with the least amount of power,” I say, joining the banter.
“I was wooing you?” Nate turns his head and my cheeks grow warm.
“An eight-course chef’s menu,” I mutter under my breath, but his mother hears me.
“We taught you well, son.”
“Yes,” Nate says, giving her a look of unfiltered gratitude. “You did.”
“I’m looking at Miami next,” Archer interrupts, evidently tired of the drippy sentimentalism. From there the conversation shifts to business, despite Lainey’s request of “no business talk during meals.” Will and Benji rationalize they’re in public, not at home, and LaVera’s is a neutral space.
Contrarily, every meal at the Steele household revolved around business. We might as well have eaten at a boardroom table. The private plans of Walter Steele never came up, but everything else was fair game. My mother usually stared at her plate forlornly, shut off from the family and halfway into a bottle of wine. I wasn’t sympathetic of her plight then. I regret that now. When I was very young, eight or nine, she was present. A year or so later, she developed a habit of foisting her children off on the house staff. By the time I reached my twenties, I decided she was the most selfish person alive. That was before we found out about Dad.
In the quiet darkness of my heart I wonder if she was incapable of reaching out. If the grief that ultimately consumed her left no room for my brother or me. In that case, her having us cared for was admirable. She couldn’t be there for us so she found people who could.
Even with my grievances, I had an easier childhood than Nate.
He’s talking animatedly with his hands about Grand Marin. He’s proud. One glance around the table and I can tell the Owens are proud of him. He’s so alive in this moment. I envy him, and the passion he has for his work. I used to be passionate about my father’s company too. Look what I ended up being a part of.
I’m halfway through my eggs Benedict when Benji turns to me. “Are you coming to the grand opening of Club Nine, Vivian?”
“Um…”
“I haven’t invited her yet, Benji, but thanks,” Nate grumbles.
“I can tell by her hesitation and your deer-in-the-headlights reaction. No pressure,” Benji tells me, and he seems sincere.
“Every time we finish a project there’s a party,” Nate informs me.
“We celebrate often,” Will says. “More work is always around the corner. It’s tempting to move on to the next project without first paying homage to the one you finished.”
“It’s a bad habit,” Lainey says. “You have to be grateful for what you’ve accomplished. Don’t you agree, Vivian?”
I don’t like lying. I rarely do, save fudging my identity for the sake of not becoming the town pariah. I don’t agree. I’m not grateful for the role I played in my former life. How can I be when it led to so many others losing their livelihoods, their savings, their homes? It led to me losing my boyfriend and half my family. The house staff that helped raise me turned on me as easily as they did my father.
Karma, as they say, is a bitch.
“I don’t like to look back.” Hopefully my response is vague enough to be acceptable. Lainey waits for me to expound. I don’t. She doesn’t call me on it, which I appreciate.
