enthusiastically. “Darling, over here. I've spoken with catering and the juice stations are all set.”
“Wow,” the waiter exclaimed. “Your daughter looks just like you!”
“Of course,” Patricia declared breezily. Melanie rolled her eyes. She didn't look like her mother any more than a yellow buttercup resembled a yellow rose.
“Are you harassing the help?” she asked her mom.
“Absolutely. Charlie here was just pouring me a drink. Orange juice. Straight up. I figured that would keep the room buzzing. ‘Does she have vodka in that or doesn't she?' ‘Does she/doesn't she?' You know I love to be the life of the party.”
Melanie squeezed her mother's hand. “You're doing fine.”
Patricia merely smiled. She knew people still whispered such things as
They found her first daughter murdered. Just four years old and her head was cut off. Isn't that horrible? Can you imagine
?
And these days they were adding
Her son just announced he was gay. You know he's always been, well, troubled. And get this — she's started drinking again. That's right. Fresh out of rehab
…
“Everything looks great,” Patricia said too cheerfully. Two women walked by, then whispered to each other furiously. Patricia's grip on her crystal glass grew tight.
“They'll get over it,” Melanie said gently. “Remember, the first public outing is the worst.”
“It was my own fault.” More hesitation now, genuine remorse.
“It's okay, Mom. It's okay.”
“I shouldn't have been so weak. Fifteen years of being sober. Sometimes I don't know myself…”
“Mom—”
“I miss Brian.”
“I know,” Melanie murmured. “I know.”
Patricia pinched the bridge of her nose. She had worked herself up to the point of tears, and Patricia Stokes did not cry in public. She turned, giving the room her back until the worst passed.
The waiter looked reproachfully at Melanie, as if she should be doing something. Melanie would love to do something. Unfortunately the rift between her father and brother was old, and there was little she or her mother could do. Harper looked in good spirits tonight, so maybe the end would soon be near.
“I'm …I'm better now,” Patricia was saying. She had pulled herself together, adopting that firm smile she'd learned in some finishing school umpteen years earlier.
“You can go up anytime you want,” Melanie said.
“Nonsense. I just need to get through the first hour. You're right — the first public outing is always the hardest. Well, let the windbags talk. I've certainly heard worse.”
“It's going to be okay, Mom.”
“Of course, it is.” Patricia was back to her overbright smiles, but then she leaned over and gave her daughter a genuine hug. Her arms were strong around Melanie, the scent of Chanel No. 5 and Lancôme face cream comforting. Melanie looped her arms around her mother's too-thin waist the way she had been doing since she was nine and let the embrace last for as long as her mom needed it to.
When they drew back, they were both smiling.
“I have to get to the kitchen,” Melanie said.
“Do you need help? I'm really not doing much.”
“Nope. This show is on the road.” She was already stepping away, but then her mom caught her hand. She looked intent.
“William coming?”
Melanie shrugged. “He
is
dad's favorite anesthesiologist.”
“Nervous?”
“Never. What's one ex-fiancé among three hundred people?”
“William's a jerk,” her mom said loyally.
“And you are the best.” Melanie gave her mother's hand a squeeze, then plunged into the crowd.
A sudden movement caught her eye. She turned just in time to see the flapping tail of a brown overcoat disappear into the kitchen. That was odd. Who would be running around in a soiled overcoat?
She was about to follow up, when she heard a commotion from outside. The valets were fighting over whose turn it was to park a Porsche. By the time Melanie sorted it all out, the matter of the out-of-place overcoat
Dan Gediman, Mary Jo Gediman, John Gregory
Linda Pohring, Anne Dewberry