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“What about that guy who runs the Paris office?” Cassiel suggested. “He’s cute.”
“Then you date him. Seriously, what is the deal with you and Elias?” she asked, trying not to slam her refrigerator door and splash cucumber water all over the place.
“Um, apart from the fact that he arrested you, and I’m pretty sure he molested you in the woods—”
“He did not!”
“—I think I just don’t like him because I can tell he’s lying to us about something,” Cassiel said.
“And what would that be?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Cassiel replied pensively. “But I’m going to figure it out.”
Bianca thought of a dozen things she wanted to ask Elias over the course of the day, but she felt strange calling or texting the number he had given her. She didn’t know whether or not it was a work number or if it was for his personal use, and she still didn’t know what the rules were between them. Was she allowed to call him?
The more she thought about calling him and didn’t, the more upset she became. Twice, a blocked caller number appeared on her screen, but she hesitated, wondering if it was Ben Goh. Whoever called her didn’t leave a message.
Late in the afternoon, she got a text from her Uncle Gabriel. Is said simply,Get in the car.
When she looked out her window, she saw his Cadillac SUV pull up outside her brownstone. She looked down at what she was wearing—a cute, chunky sweater, and cashmere sweatpants—and decided she could just throw a long coat over it. She shoved her feet into some warm and puffy boots and scuffed out into the frigid November air. Her Uncle Gabriel rolled down the back window of the SUV as she trudged up to it.
“We should go for dinner. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to talk,” he said.
“Okay but it’s gotta be a Quincy Market pizza place or maybe the chowder house because I’m not wearing underwear and I can’t do fancy while going commando,” she said, getting in when he opened the door.
He laughed like she knew he would. Bianca loved to tease her prudish uncle with her slightly off-color humor. She knew it was torture for him, but he was usually a good sport about it and went along with her odd sense of humor even if he didn’t always understand it.
“Quincy Market it is,” he agreed, sighing. “Let’s get some chowda.”
“Chowda! Chowda!” she said like a chant, getting into the spirit. When the car was in motion, she turned to her uncle. “Are you totally freaking out that I’m dating a fed?”
He regarded her fondly, smiling and shaking his head. “You have never done what anyone thought you would. You march to your own drumbeat, kid. You always have,” he replied. “You know, in a lot of ways, the fact that you’re dating someone who is in service to the government is a good thing for the family.” He pursed his lips, reconsidering. “It’s a good thing for me. Or it could be. It could also be very bad. I’m being very selfish here, and I know it. I’m seeing everything through the lens of what I want my future to be.”
Bianca frowned, because she didn’t think that was the truth, or at least not all of it. “Do you really want to run for office?” she asked.
He sat back, crossing his arms. “Do I really want to run for office? That’s a good question.”
Her Uncle Gabriel always spoke in a measured, thoughtful way, and he often played devil’s advocate with himself, like he could see both sides to any argument. He had a law degree, and Bianca always wondered if the law was what he wanted to do with his life before her father had died and he’d had to take over the day-to-day running of the Loring family company with her eldest brother, Rafe.
“It would be good for the family if we had more political clout,” he continued. “My attaining office might give us that. But do Iwantto run?” He turned over his hands. “I think it’s going to be very uncomfortable for me.”
“Why, then?” she asked, concerned for him.
“Because it would be good for the family,” he replied, avoiding her eyes.
For as long as she could remember, her Uncle Gabriel had done what the company needed him to do, what her mom needed him to do, or what Rafe needed him to do. She honestly couldn’t think of the last time she’d seen her uncle enjoy something that was not centered around the Loring family and what it needed. Just because they shared his last name didn’t mean that he belonged to them, but sometimes it seemed to Bianca that everyone acted as if he did.
And all because their father had died in a boating accident ten years ago, and Gabriel had lived on in his big brother’s shadow, now made impossibly long by an early and tragic death.
“You can do things for yourself, you know,” she said, reaching across the seat to take his hand. “You don’t have to make up for us losing our dad forever.”
He smiled sadly at her, squeezing her hand reassuringly. “Believe me. I know I could never do that,” he said cryptically, then he let her go. “You can pull over up here,” he said, raising his voice to direct their driver.
She wanted to tell him that he had the wrong end of the stick, that he was fantastic, and that he deserved to live his own life, but he changed the subject back to her, like the master of redirection that he was.
As they walked into the long, covered warehouse-like market space that made up both Faneuil Hall and the later addition of Quincy Market, they passed up on all kinds of shops and food kiosks. They walked down the row, smelling the candied apples and the soft pretzels, the noodle shops, and the oven-fresh pizza. They even managed to pass up on a thousand different kinds of chocolate fudge and headed right for the clam chowder kiosk. They ordered theirs New England style, of course. None of the red, tomato-based clam chowder as they did in New York would be tolerated by the Loring family.
“Elias has an impressive record at the bureau,” Gabriel said as they brought their chowder to a lamp-lit table under a heater in the outdoor dining space. “He’s intuitive, relentless, and he’s just as adept with the digital as he is with the physical aspect of his work.” Gabriel paused, chuckling. “I wish he worked for us, and so would Cassiel, if he could see past his protectiveness for you.”
