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It already felt as though they’d fallen into perfect synchronicity, as though their hearts beat as one.
But by the time six-forty-five rolled around, Brad was out of bed and moving around the space, searching for his clothes in the darkness. Maya flipped on the lamp and asked him groggily, “When is your last day of school again?”
“Friday the 15th,” Brad told her. “Just three days away.”
“Maybe we can spend all of your Christmas break in bed,” Maya suggested.
“We’ll have to trade off who cooks.”
“It looks like you’re the better cook of the two of us.”
“You’re just trying to get away with never leaving bed again,” Brad said, dropping down to kiss her. “I’ll call you after school today, okay?”
Maya couldn’t fall back asleep after Brad left. Instead, she sat up in bed with her laptop on her thighs and wrote the first draft of a blog for “A Taste About The Rest.” In it, she divulged how beautiful it had been when Brad had cooked for her last night. She spoke of his tremendous use of spices and the way being fed by someone who really cared for you nourished you even more.
“What I realized, as I ate Brad’s chicken cacciatore, is that for the past few years, I haven’t felt properly nourished by my chef boyfriend’s cooking,” she wrote. “A bell went off in my head. It was suddenly so obvious that I’ve been allowing myself a second-rate love— when I should have been here, eating chicken cacciatore.”
The blog still needed a bit of editing, which Maya decided to do later, after coffee and breakfast. She padded downstairs, brewed a pot of coffee, and inspected what she had in the fridge. Every now and again, her mind returned to what she’d learned about her mother and the adoption— but she was beginning to get used to the idea. It was horrific; it altered the way she thought of herself and her life. But Brad was right. There was nothing she could do about it right now. She had to wait till Aunt Veronica was ready for visitors. Then, she would get to the bottom of it.
But as Maya settled in the library with a good book, a second cup of coffee, and a bowl of oatmeal with peanut butter, a text dinged in. It was Phoebe.
PHOEBE: Mom? Have you seen the news?
MAYA: No?
Phoebe sent a link, which Maya clicked on immediately. She assumed it was a story about a celebrity they both liked; maybe it was news that Jennifer Aniston had a new boyfriend or Norah Jones was coming out with an album.
She never could have imagined this.
The first image that came up was of Olivia, Rainey’s best friend. Maya blinked with alarm at that face, remembering the last time she’d seen it— in the foyer of the Albright mansion with her camera bag on her shoulder. That had been less than a week ago.
The headline read:
Woman Recounts Terror of Being Ostracized By Rich New York Family
And that’s when Maya realized that in the photograph, Olivia was wearing the heirloom necklace. It was impossible.
“What?” Maya said aloud, nearly spilling her coffee. She quickly put the mug to the side and read the article, feeling frantic.
Olivia recounted her history to a reporter:
“I was put up for adoption just a few months after I was born. My adoptive parents took me in and raised me as their own until I was fifteen. At that time, my adoptive parents divorced. And in a fit of rage, my adoptive father admitted the truth— that the Albright family had paid them a significant amount to take me off their hands. After that, he left me alone with my raging alcoholic mother, lost with confusion.
“I begged my mother for answers. But my mother said a stipulation of taking the money from the Albright family was that we would never contact them again. I was flabbergasted. I was a member of one of the richest families in New York, but they wanted nothing to do with me. Worse than that, they were just a few towns away from me, in Hollygrove. I’d passed by their mansion numerous times on drives with my friends. I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t wanted me. I just can’t understand why they hadn’t wanted their royal line to continue.
“It recently came to my attention that another ‘Albright’ is about to receive a sizeable inheritance. I don’t know how to sit with that. Shouldn’t fifty percent of that inheritance belong to me? Or am I forever ‘out’ just because I wasn’t wanted back in 1971?
“Right before my adoptive mother died, she showed me this heirloom necklace, which had been passed along with me during the adoption. It’s my final link to the Albright family and proof that I am every bit an Albright.”
Maya scanned back to the top of the article, genuinely flabbergasted. There, she stared at the photograph of Olivia, remembering what she’d first thought when she’d seen her in the crowd at the festival.
She’d seen a resemblance. She’d seen herself reflected back in Olivia’s big eyes and dark hair. But she hadn’t known to make anything of it. Plenty of women around her age looked similar to her. But not this similar, she realized now. This was uncanny.
A week and a half ago, Maya had met her sister. And she hadn’t even known it.
But, she now realized, Olivia had been fully aware of their dynamic. And she hadn’t said anything.
Phoebe was calling. Maya answered it but didn’t say anything.
