Was I a terrible person for finding that funny?
After grace, people surged toward the buffet table. Neil and I had agonized over the menu, trying to find some happy balance between Christmas for my working-class family and the kind of food the rest of our guests wouldn’t sneer at. And there were vegan options, as usual; we’d never stopped designing celebrations that took Emma into account. I think we’d both noticed that by now, but neither of us wanted to be the one to suggest changing it.
On the table, my grandma’s potato salad sat in a crystal bowl beside glazed beets and candied walnuts. The roast ptarmigan sat side-by-side with a huge, glistening ham that could have been out of a 1950’s cookbook, complete with pineapple rings and cherries. I watched as my mother and Aunt Marie warily surveyed the bacon-wrapped dates.
Two sets of double doors led from the ballroom to the formal dining room, which had been reconfigured from its usual long table to several smaller ones. I saved a seat for Neil at one of them, then spotted him sitting with Valerie and Olivia and Rashida. He gave me an apologetic glance as my cousin Tim and his wife Sheila took the remaining two seats.
“Looking for someone to sit with you?” El-Mudad asked from behind me. I turned, relieved to see him there.
“Yes, apparently there isn’t room for me next to my husband,” I tried to observe evenly.
El-Mudad pulled a chair out for me just as Mom and Tony passed by with their plates.
“Are these taken?” Mom asked the two of us.
I realized I may have been leaning ever-so-slightly into El-Mudad’s side. “No, Mom. Take them.”
She glanced over our heads as she took her seat. “I see Neil found a friend to catch up with.”
“Mmhm.” It was so tempting to make a snide comment, but I was above that. Whenever it came to Valerie, it was like I had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, and both of them wanted to see how petty I could be.
“Not eating, Soph?” Tony asked, gesturing to my lack of a plate.
“I am. I just need to pop out and check my numbers.” I turned to El-Mudad. “Will you save me a seat?”
“I thought I would go with you,” he said, quickly adding, “So you could show me which potato salad was your grandmother’s. She insisted that I try it. And she assured me it was kosher.”
“Yikes,” I breathed. “She tried.”
Mom shook her head, “Jesus, Ma.”
“Go on, we’ll save your places,” Tony offered.
As I pushed back my chair, I tried not to think too hard about how much my future stepfather knew about us.
Neil looked up at El-Mudad and I as we passed his table, where Rashida tried to convince Olivia to try an anchovy. Neil gave us another weak smile as if to say, this wasn’t my fault, I merely got swept away from the two of you. Enjoy your Christmas dinner on your own.
As we passed under the doors to the ballroom, where the line at the buffet had thinned, El-Mudad said under his breath, “He seems to be quite close with his ex-girlfriend.”
A mean little thrill of vindication went through me. I forced it away. “Well, you know. They shared Emma. Now we share Olivia.”
I couldn’t help it. I pushed a little more.
“Why? Are you jealous?” I tried to make it sound like idle curiosity and not the desperate hope that it was. If El-Mudad was jealous, then I was normal. I wasn’t some mean girl stereotype fueled by internalized misogyny and fears of inadequacy.
“Not...jealous.” Oh, he was thoroughly jealous.
“Just so you know, Valerie is like, super duper in love with Laurence. We’re not supposed to tell Neil because it might ‘upset him,’ but they just eloped before the holiday.” I waited to see if El-Mudad’s reaction would be the same as mine.
He frowned. “Why would Neil be upset?”
“Exactly.” I sighed heavily and made for Joan, who awaited me by the staff entrance, smiling broadly. She held out my glucometer, test strips, and lancet device on a silver tray with some alcohol wipes. I picked one up. “Thank you, Joan. You don’t have to watch if it grosses you out.”
“Not at all, ma’am,” she assured me.
“Here, let me,” El-Mudad offered, taking the alcohol wipe I struggled with and carefully tearing the top open. He pulled the cloth out and took my hand. “Index finger?”
“Middle, this time. I’m giving Mr. Pointer a rest.” At his puzzled look, I explained, “It’s this song that we sang in elementary school. Every finger is mister something. It’s kind of sexist.”
“Women can be anything. Even fingers,” he agreed with mock solemnity, gently cleaning my skin. He picked up the lancet device and pressed the point to my fingertip. The button on the back, like a ballpoint pen, popped a spring and shot the blade into my skin. Though I’d been doing it for a year, it still took a minute to suck up my courage, so I appreciated El-Mudad’s willingness to help. The pen clicked, and the lancet poked my finger. I squeezed a drop of blood to the surface and wiped it on the test strip jutting from the glucometer.
“One hundred!,” I said, lifting my finger toward my mouth. “That’s awesome!”
“Hey, hey.” El-Mudad intercepted my hand before I could put it to my lips. He wrapped the alcohol wipe around the teeny wound. “There are germs in your mouth.”
“You never complain,” shot out before I realized I was saying it. And saying it in front of the housekeeper. “That was a joke, Joan.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said easily. “Do you need a plaster?”
“No, it’s slowing down. Thank you so much, by the way. You really don’t have to help with this. I can hire a nurse,” I told her for the thirtieth time.
“It’s no trouble at all,” she assured me, yet again. “Would you like anything else?”
I jerked my hand away from El-Mudad. The alcohol had finally gotten around to stinging. I dropped the wipe on the tray. “No, thank you. I think we’ll just get some food.”
She nodded and walked away, and I glance up at El-Mudad’s half-suppressed smile. “What?”
“You don’t need to panic. She already knows the three of us are fucking,” he whispered, and all the blood drained from my face.
“Okay, yeah, she knows, but you don’t have to say that.” I gave him a jab with my elbow. “Nobody else needs to overhear.”
“They won’t,” he promised. “And domestic staff keep secrets for their employers, no matter how many tell-all books get published about the royals.”
“We’re not as important as they are.” Thank god. “Oh, but we did get invited to the wedding!”
“I didn’t go,” El-Mudad said with a shrug. “Weddings are so long and exhausting. I sent them a very nice gift, though.”
I wondered if we’d sent a gift. Oh my gosh, if I’d committed a faux pas with the most important duchess...
This is my life. I can’t believe this is my life.
After dinner—and after El-Mudad had assured my grandmother that her potato salad was the best he’d ever eaten—everyone migrated back into the ballroom for presents. There were only a few gifts under the tree for Olivia, Amal, and Rashida; we planned to have a Christmas morning breakfast, just the six of us, and give the girls the bulk of their gifts, then. I’d been so overwhelmed by the idea of shopping for all of my family that I’d hired someone from a promotional company that routinely assembled goodie bags for major awards shows, given them a budget, and let them go wild. Everyone was walking out with iPads and fancy sausages, and god alone knew what else. But I’d bought one person a much more personal gift.
“Happy Christmas, Grandma,” I said, coming to sit beside her in one of the chairs that lined the room. I handed her a small box and an envelope. “Open the box first.”
She stuck the card under her arm and deftly untied the silk ribbon around the present. She caught the sprig of holly that had been tied up in it. “Is that real, do you think, or should I keep it?”
“I think it’s real.” I picked it up to smel
l it. “Yeah, it’s all...plant-smelly.”
“I wonder if you could dry them.” She slid her fingernail under the green lid and lifted it off. Inside, on a bed of black velvet, rested a rosary with beads of Connemara marble.
“The stone comes from Ireland,” I informed her. She had always been so proud of our supposed Irish ancestry, though my Aunt Marie’s Ancestry.com test had pretty thoroughly disproven it.
“Oh, isn’t that beautiful,” she said, touching the beads reverently. “You know, I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland?”
I did know. “Open the card.”
There was no fancy seal on the envelope. I hadn’t even licked it to close it but folded the flap inside. This was too important to have handed it over to someone else. She pulled the card free and opened it. I watched her face eagerly as she read the words inside.
She held her hand to her heart, her eyes lighting up. But then she forced her growing smile away. “Oh, no, Sophie, I couldn’t. This is too much.”
“Grandma. Look around. This is my house.” I waved an arm to indicate the towering tree and frescoed ceiling. “Believe me. I can afford this.”
“Afford what?” My Great Aunt Deb asked, looking up from her goodie bag.
“Sophie and Neil are sending me on a trip to Ireland!” Grandma opened the card and turned it to face Deb like it was a picture book.
“Oh jeez. Becky, did you see this?” Deb called to Mom.
Mom looked up. “Oh, Ireland. Yeah. Ma, I’m going with you, so you don’t have to worry about getting around alone.”
“Take as many people as you want,” I blurted. Then again, maybe Neil didn’t want me to spend several million dollars sending my family on a single vacation. “Or, you know. Just the two of you. Either way. We’re going to send you on our jet, put you up in some amazing castles—“
“Castles?” Grandma wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know if I’d go across the road for that.”
“A cottage, then,” I revised. “With a thatched roof like in The Quiet Man.”
“Are you sure this isn’t going to be too much?” Grandma asked again. “I don’t want you to spend all your husband’s money.”
I took my grandmother’s frail, wrinkled hand in mine. “I promise you. There is no way I could ever possibly spend all my husband’s money.”
I noted Neil and his brothers standing off in a cluster by themselves, discussing something very seriously. Or maybe it was nothing serious; it was difficult to tell since they all had some degree of resting bitch face. When Neil and I had met, I’d thought he was so mysterious and exciting because of it. In our early days of dating, I’d gotten up the courage to ask him what he was thinking about since he’d looked so intense and thoughtful.
He’d blinked at me in surprise and said, “I’m not.”
“You can tell you really love him,” my Grandma said, uncharacteristically emotional.
“I do,” I confirmed. “Very much.”
“He’s lucky that you love him. Some women would marry him just for his money, even if they didn’t care for him.”
She didn’t have to tell me. He’d had such a horrible experience with his marriage, it was a wonder he’d ever trusted me enough to get close at all.
“And I’m lucky, too,” I added. “Because true love doesn’t usually come with all these other perks.”
“Your friend El-Mudad is nice,” Grandma observed. “You know, we have a visiting priest who grew up in Afghanistan.”
“Oh. That’s...cool.” That had absolutely no connection to El-Mudad, but again, she was trying.
Neil broke away from his brothers and crossed the room to us. He gave my grandma a smile and said, “Grandmother, I hope you like your gift.”
“It’s too much. Don’t send me if you can’t afford it,” she warned him.
He got a strange look on his face and opened his mouth as though he wasn’t sure how to argue with her.
“I already told her,” I said with a helpless shrug.
“Ah.” He cleared his throat. “Will you let me steal my wife for a moment?”
“Go ahead. I’m going to go see if they need help washing dishes.” Grandma pushed herself to her feet and bustled past Neil before he could argue.
“Let her go,” I said quietly. “There’s never been a dish clean enough for her. What did you need to talk to me about?”
“I know we...had plans for New Year’s Eve,” Neil began uncertainly.
I focused on one particular word. “Had? I think we have plans.”
“Yes, well...” He glanced over at his brothers. “Runólf and Geir thought perhaps we might spend New Year’s at my lodge, just the three of us. You know, reconnect in our old age and all.”
“You’re fifty-four.” The “old age” excuse was not going to fly with me. “You want to go hunting with your brothers.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” he said, a touch defensively. “I’m merely asking if you would mind going to Venice with El-Mudad, just the two of you.”
“Go to your vacation home without you? In the city I’ve been wanting you to take me to forever?” I countered, my disappointment growing tighter around my ribs.
“There’s no reason we couldn’t all go together at another time,” he said, maddeningly reasonable.
“There’s no reason you couldn’t go to your lodge at another time,” I pointed out. “You know, a time when you weren’t ditching us for other plans!”
I realized I’d raised my voice a little. There was nothing I wanted less on Christmas Eve than a big fight with my husband in a room full of my family, who would immediately assume it was because he didn’t want them there.
“Can we go talk about this somewhere else?” Neil asked, echoing my discomfort.
I nodded. “Yes. And I think we should involve El-Mudad in it, too.”
“Fine. We can go to the salon off the East Gallery. That’s not too far.” Neil strode off to find El-Mudad. I watched them confer a moment before El-Mudad gave one of my uncles an apologetic “excuse me,” and left with Neil.
It was easy to slip away in all the commotion. I held it together until we got past the music room, but once we stepped into the long, spooky gallery, I marched ahead of them, my heels making angry clunks with every stomp.
“Sophie, wait,” El-Mudad called behind me. He jogged a little to catch up. “You’re upset about something.”
I turned the corner into a room decked out in hideous shades of frothy pink. It was like walking into a wedding cake. All of the Empire-era furniture was upholstered in Pepto Bismol-hued satin, and the white walls sported gold-leaf molding. It looked like Liberace’s grandmother’s bathroom.
I would let the horrific decor fuel my anger.
“Yeah, I’m upset,” I snapped as Neil closed the door behind us. “He’s ditching us for our Venice trip.”
“What?” El-Mudad turned to Neil. “Why wouldn’t you go to Venice with us?”
“It isn’t final. I thought we could discuss it together, the three of us.” Neil added a pointed, “Calmly.”
Oh, I would absolutely explode by the end of this. I just knew it.
Neil explained the situation briefly. “In a rare stroke of fate, my brothers both have time off during this next week. They wondered if I might accompany them to my lodge for some hunting and...brotherly bonding.”
“Don’t you want to throw in a dig at your mortality, too?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest. “He tried the ‘in my old age’ bullshit to justify it to me.”
“You don’t want to spend New Year’s with us?” El-Mudad asked, puzzled more than hurt. “The fireworks are spectacular.”
“I would love to,” Neil said, helpless. “But I rarely get to see my brothers, let alone have time together, just the three of us. Sophie, you know this. I truly don’t understand where this opposition is coming from.”
I knew. With clarity I really didn’t like at all. But I wouldn’t admit to the real reason. “I
t’s coming from the fact that the three of us are finally all together, and you want to run off immediately.”
“But we’ll be together when we return to New York,” El-Mudad said. “I will be disappointed to spend the holiday apart, but it isn’t as though we’ll be separated forever.”
“Oh, so you’re on his side?” I demanded. And it wasn’t like I had any right to feel hurt or betrayed like that. El-Mudad wasn’t privy to the weird, overly-emotional web of complex insecurities that had been driving me for the last few months.
El-Mudad shrugged. “Yes. I don’t see the harm in the two of us going to Venice and enjoying ourselves. If Neil misses out—“
“It’s not a question of missing out!” I snapped. I dropped onto an antique chaise that I very much hoped wouldn’t collapse or something from age. It was surprisingly sturdy.
Neil sat beside me. “Then what’s troubling you? This isn’t like you, at all.”
“It’s very much like me,” I argued. “I’m a spoiled brat.”
El-Mudad laughed, and at a sharp look from me, fell serious again. “I’m sorry. But did you expect me to argue with you?”
“You’re not helping,” Neil warned him. Gentler, he asked, “If I could understand your reason for being upset, maybe I could reassure you in some way?”
“So you’d get to go on your trip, without us.” I blinked back tears and directed my gaze to the mess of crystals in the chandelier. “Okay. Just let me say what I’m going to say and don’t patronize me.”
“I swear,” he promised.
I took a deep breath. “You bought the place in Venice for your ex-wife. And we’ve been talking about going for a long, long time. Even when you were considering selling it, the thing that held us back was that we wanted to go there together. I thought if we did that...”
“You’d be able to replace my memories of Venice with Elizabeth with Venice with Sophie,” Neil finished for me. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where is this coming from, all of a sudden? You’ve never been jealous of Elizabeth. I don’t even have contact with her anymore.”
The Boyfriend Page 13