“I like her morality,” Sam said. “It keeps me honest.” He bent over, kissed Evvie, and then rang the doorbell for her.
Claire checked out the two of them, and smiled. Evvie was the oldest of the four Sebastian sisters. Next came Thea, a total loss as far as Claire was concerned, and then, following Claire, Sybil. Sybil was the one Claire loved, but Evvie was a close second, and the more she knew Sam, the fonder Claire was of him. Evvie and Sam had been in love for four years, and in another two they’d be getting married. Claire hoped they’d have a small wedding. Otherwise Evvie would insist on all of her sisters being bridesmaids, and the color dresses that would look good with Thea and Sybil’s washed-out blond prettiness would be a total waste for her own dark beauty.
“Girls! Come in! Sam, it’s a pleasure to see you.”
Clark Bradford had opened the door himself, and Claire soon found herself embracing him. This was the man everyone had assumed would marry Margaret Winslow, Claire’s mother. Certainly Clark had felt that way, as had Megs’s aunt Grace, who was raising her. But then, when Megs was sixteen, she’d met Nick Sebastian, and they had fallen in love twenty seconds later, and after an interminable courtship, had eloped, had four daughters, and settled into a life best described as romantic. Not perhaps the word Claire would have used for it, but the socially acceptable one in the family.
Meanwhile poor Clark stayed unmarried, always on the sidelines of Megs’s life, there for birthday presents and graduation gifts, and that horrible Thanksgiving two years back. The one that had started as a family celebration, because Nicky was in the money that year and they actually owned the house they were living in, and had ended with Sybil’s being hit by a car. Things had certainly gone downhill from there.
“Have you heard from your parents?” Clark asked, as he escorted them into the living room. Claire glanced at the room, with its Chippendale furnishings, Revere silver, and matched set of John Singer Sargent portraits, and thought about the trade-off. If Megs had married Clark, all this would be Claire’s. On the other hand, she might look like Clark, mousy and brownish, instead of having pure black hair and emerald green eyes and a perfect bone structure. Silver could be pawned and never redeemed, Claire decided, but high cheekbones lasted forever. On that count at least Megs had made the right choice.
“Megs called this morning,” Evvie said. “To wish us a merry Christmas. Nicky was already with Sybil.”
“They’re running tests on Christmas?” Clark asked.
Evvie shook her head. “Sybil has the day off from that, thank goodness,” she replied. “But they wouldn’t release her, not even for the day. I guess because she was only admitted there a couple of days ago.”
The doorbell rang simultaneously with the appearance of a butler in the living room. A maid had taken their coats, Claire realized, and began questioning how high a value she should place on her looks. All they were good for was for acquiring wealth. With Clark as her father, that job would already have been accomplished.
“Tell Mycroft what you want to drink,” Clark said, “while I see who that is.”
“I’d like some wine,” Sam said. “I don’t suppose you have any Manischewitz.”
“Sam,” Evvie said. “We’d both like some wine,” she said to the butler.
“There’s mulled wine already made,” Clark called from the front hall. “Mycroft, bring in five glasses. Claire, you drink wine, don’t you?”
“Whenever possible,” Claire said. She would have preferred to be offered champagne. Her family had toasted many a new home with champagne offerings from Clark.
At the door Clark said, “Scotty, come on in. Welcome. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too, Cousin Clark.”
Scotty Hughes joined Claire, Evvie, and Sam in the living room. “Hello,” he said, smiling at Evvie. “Boy that smells good.”
“It’s mulled wine,” Evvie said. “Take a glass.”
So Scotty did, after exchanging kisses with Evvie. “I didn’t realize you’d be here,” he said. “Hello, Sam, it’s good to see you.”
“Good seeing you, too, Scotty,” Sam said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Likewise,” Scotty said. “Claire. You’re looking beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Claire said. She took a sip of the wine, and let its warm sweetness cheer her up.
“So what are you doing here?” Scotty asked.
“We could ask the same of you,” Evvie pointed out. “Why aren’t you home for Christmas?”
“My parents aren’t back yet from Egypt,” Scotty replied. “They’ll be home in a few days. Clark was kind enough to invite me for Christmas dinner.”
“And where’s Schyler?” Evvie said.
“You had to ask?” Sam said.
Scotty and Claire laughed. Schyler was Scotty’s older brother, and the only serious competition Sam had had for Evvie’s heart. Claire had never met him, but according to Evvie, he was gorgeous. Sam’s jealousy was pretense, or at least so Evvie claimed.
“Schyler is skiing at Aspen,” Scotty said. “He’ll come back East when Mom and Dad get home. They’ll be here before New Year’s.”
“Maybe we’ll see him then,” Evvie said.
“Maybe you will,” Sam said. “I’ll be on Long Island visiting my grandparents by then, remember.”
“Holidays are so complicated,” Evvie complained. “Ordinarily, I’d be back home for Christmas, and so would Sam, only this year his grandparents are on a cruise until right before New Year’s, so we’re together now, and then on New Year’s we’ll be apart.”
“Now I am confused,” Scotty said. “Sam, did your grandmother remarry?”
“What?” Sam said, and then he laughed. “All right, now I understand. Not those grandparents, my other ones, the Greenes. They’re the cruise takers.”
“Mrs. Steinmetz died last year,” Evvie said. “I thought you knew, Scotty.”
“No one told me,” Scotty said. “Sam, I’m sorry. I liked your grandmother.”
“I did, too,” Sam said. “Thank you, Scotty.”
Claire felt left out. Evvie had met Sam, Scotty, and Schyler one summer four years before, which Evvie had spent at Aunt Grace’s summer home in Eastgate. Sam had been there with his Steinmetz grandparents, and Schyler and Scotty had been staying with Clark, who was their father’s cousin. Claire had spent that summer in a horrible mess of a house, cleaning and scrubbing and feeling like Cinderella, only without any handsome prince as a payoff. And at that, the house they’d lived in that summer was a palace compared to the apartment they were staying in now.
“So that explains why you’re here,” Scotty said. “And, Evvie, I suppose you want to be here with Sam. But, Claire, I would have thought you’d be with the rest of your family. And where’s Thea?”
“We’re scattered this year,” Evvie said. “Thea’s in New York, spending Christmas on campus.”
“So she can be closer to Kip Dozier,” Claire said, to see what effect it would have on Scotty.
She wasn’t disappointed. Scotty’s smile disappeared as soon as Kip’s name was mentioned. Claire tried not to laugh out loud. Men were so predictable. Scotty had fallen in love with Thea that awful Thanksgiving two years back. Claire would never understand why, since Thea was a boring, whiny nothing, and Scotty, while not great, was rich and socially prominent, and had the potential to be good-looking. Meanwhile, Thea had fallen in love with Kip, who was poor and miserable, although admittedly handsome. What made the story especially delicious, though, was that Kip didn’t love Thea back. Claire could have had him, but it hadn’t been worth the effort just to annoy Thea. There were easier ways to do that. And since Kip wanted to be a sculptor, and might never have any money, Claire couldn’t see wasting her time making him fall in love with her.
“That surprises me,” Scotty said. “That Kip should stay in New York, rather than go home for the holidays.”
“Well, Kip doesn’t have any real family anymore,” Claire s
aid. “He hardly speaks to his mother, and Dani—you remember his sister Dani, Scotty?—she’s out in L.A. now making porno flicks.” Claire couldn’t resist a smile as she watched Scotty turn red. That Thanksgiving, apparently, Sam had walked in on Scotty and Dani going hot and heavy in the kitchen of all places. It had taken Claire a fair amount of eavesdropping to learn that little secret, and since she wasn’t supposed to know it, she had the option of saying all kinds of blithely tactless things. Claire loved a good secret.
“We don’t know that they’re porn,” Evvie said. “You remember Dani, Scotty. She was always dreaming of glory.”
“That’s one word for it,” Sam said. “Anyway, Thea’s in New York with him.”
“And Claire’s here because Nicky and Megs aren’t home for Christmas, either,” Evvie said. Claire loved the way Evvie could change the topic. All the girls were good at it. They’d learned how when they were young, in case anybody asked a potentially embarrassing question about Nicky’s finances, but Evvie was the best at it. “They’re with Sybil.”
“She’s at a new rehab place,” Claire said, and she was no longer joking, because Sybil’s health was the only really important thing in the Sebastian family as far as she was concerned.
“Sybil’s recovery hasn’t been going as swiftly as Nick might want,” Clark declared. “So when this new place was recommended to them, they decided to give it a try.”
“And this week was the first time the rehab center had an opening,” Claire said. “It’s in Oregon, so they’re in Oregon for Christmas. Nicky and Megs are staying at a motel nearby, and Sybil’s at the rehab center.”
“That doesn’t sound like much fun for anybody,” Scotty said. “How is Sybil doing, Evvie?”
“Claire knows best,” Evvie said. “She’s the one who’s still living at home.”
Claire thought about Sybil and wished she were in Oregon. The thought of spending the holidays cooped up in a ratty motel with her parents had nauseated her, and she’d leaped at Evvie’s invitation to visit with her through Christmas, but it hurt to be apart from Sybil. Especially when Sybil was being rammed through yet another battery of tests. The testing always hurt Sybil the most, not just the physical pain, but getting her hopes up, only to have them smashed again, and then living with Nicky’s disappointment afterward. The tests were inevitably Nicky’s idea. Why not. He wasn’t the one who suffered.
“Sometimes she uses a walker,” Claire said. “On her good days, she can get around with half crutches.”
“Oh,” Scotty said. “I would have thought she’d be further along by now. It’s been two years.”
“The damage to her legs was extensive,” Evvie said. “Don’t forget, at first the doctors didn’t think she’d walk at all.”
“This is the third rehab place Nicky’s taken her to,” Claire said. “I guess if this one is any good, we’ll be moving to Oregon.”
“Nick certainly is devoted to Sybil,” Clark said. “Of course, Meg is as well.”
“Nicky’s the one doing the pushing,” Evvie said. “For better or worse. Clark, this mulled wine is delicious. And dinner smells so tempting.”
“I hope you like goose,” Clark said. “I thought we’d have a traditional Christmas feast.”
“Just as I suspected,” Sam said. “My goose is cooked.”
“Not yet, I hope,” Clark said. “We’re having one more guest for Christmas.”
“Not Aunt Grace,” Evvie said. “Oh, Clark, please, not Aunt Grace.”
“Not Grace,” Clark replied. “Although you and Claire really should visit her.”
“I do,” Evvie said. “Once a year, I go to the mausoleum and check up on her.”
“Once a year is hardly enough,” Clark said. “You’re going to Harvard, Evvie. You live only twenty minutes away from Grace. She’s an old woman, and she enjoys your visits so.”
Evvie laughed. “She hates my guts,” she said. “And I’m not wild about hers. But you’re right, Clark, Claire and I should see her. We’ll go in a day or two.”
“Thanks for volunteering me,” Claire said. She had a fondness for Aunt Grace, based mostly on the fact that Aunt Grace couldn’t stand Nicky and neither could Claire. But Aunt Grace couldn’t stand Claire, either, because of her resemblance to Nicky.
“I wish you would be a bit kinder about her,” Clark said. “Grace Winslow is the only real family your mother has, except for Nick and you girls. And it isn’t as though Nick supplied her with any in-laws.”
“We’re family enough,” Evvie said. “Right, Claire?”
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “I think a bit more family could come in handy. Right, Sam?”
“Don’t look at me,” Sam replied. “I’m down to two grandparents and an aunt.”
“I have family,” Scotty said. “Parents and grandparents and a brother and aunts and uncles and cousins, and with all that, I’m spending Christmas here.”
“Thanks a lot, Scotty,” Clark said. “It’s flattering to be twelfth choice.”
Claire laughed, and then so did everybody else. Claire knew she had that power. If she’d wept, she suspected, everyone else in the room would have burst into tears. Scotty, she could see, was admiring her. She would never touch Sam, but Scotty was a different question. How would Thea react if Scotty fell out of love with her, and in love with Claire? Probably not well. Thea was a good deal more territorial than she cared to admit. Claire smiled at the thought. Something amusing might as well happen during Christmas. She was sixteen, and it was about time her life got interesting.
The doorbell rang, and Clark’s face lit up brighter than his ever-so-tasteful Christmas tree. “The final guest has arrived,” he said. “This is my wonderful surprise for all of you.”
Sybil? Claire thought, but she knew that was crazy. Sybil was three thousand miles away being pounded on by crazed orthopedic specialists. And not Aunt Grace, either. Perhaps the legendary Schyler Hughes had decided to forego skiing at Aspen to get one last chance at Evvie.
But it wasn’t Schyler at all.
“Thea!” Evvie cried, and the two sisters were hugging as though it had been years since they’d last seen each other. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in New York?”
“Kip’s drinking again,” Thea said, taking her coat off so she might hug Evvie again. “I told him I wasn’t going to put up with that, and if he wanted me there, he was just going to have to stop.”
“And what did he say?” Scotty asked from his chair in the living room.
“He poured himself another drink,” Thea admitted. “Oh, well. I called Clark in tears, and he told me to take the next shuttle out. So here I am. Clark, thank you. This is so sweet of you, to have us all here like this.”
“I couldn’t be happier,” Clark said, placing his right arm around Thea and his left around Evvie. “To have you and Evvie, and you too, Claire, here with me for Christmas.”
Claire glanced at Sam and realized he was looking at her with some strange expression—pity, maybe, or compassion—until he realized she was looking and grinned sardonically instead. “The eternal outsiders,” he whispered.
“I like being outside,” Claire whispered back. “It’s less suffocating.” She turned away from Sam and checked out Scotty. He had his traditional mushy-about-Thea look. The very sight of him made Claire smile. With Thea around, this was definitely a Christmas to make things interesting.
CHAPTER TWO
“I wish Sam would get here,” Evvie grumbled as she stared out the window of the apartment she shared with Sam.
“Relax,” Thea said. “He’ll be here on time.”
“I know,” Evvie said. “But he’s going to forget to buy the bread. I keep telling him to make a list and take it with him, but he claims he doesn’t need to, that he can remember what has to be bought. And then he always forgets.”
Claire laughed. “You sound like an old married couple,” she said.
“Nicky and Megs don’t sound that way,”
Thea declared.
“They don’t have to,” Claire replied. “There’s not enough grocery money for either of them to forget.”
“How bad are things?” Evvie asked. “I always get the feeling Megs is telling me half-truths, and Nicky, well, he isn’t even that close.”
“Nicky and Megs don’t lie,” Thea said. “They just don’t want us to worry.”
“They lie,” Evvie said. “Claire, what’s it like, really?”
Claire shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re not starving.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Evvie replied. “But I’d still like to know just how things are.”
Claire thought about it. Her family had had times when they were very rich, mostly when Claire was too young to appreciate it. They’d had times when they were one step away from disaster, with last-minute moves from state to state. They’d had times when Nicky’s deals were just starting to go through, and everything was full of promise, and they’d had times when Nicky’s deals fell through and everything was full of despair. From birth to age fourteen, Claire figured, she’d survived every financial situation imaginable. But the past two years were beyond any nightmare she could have imagined.
“Look,” she said. “Things are bad. You know that. You’ve seen the place we’re living in now. You saw what we had for Thanksgiving dinner. The money Clark and Aunt Grace send me for Christmas and my birthday goes to clothes, because otherwise I wouldn’t get anything new. I like clothes. I miss buying new shoes. I don’t remember the last time Megs got anything for herself, and even Nicky’s looking a little ratty. But it’s okay. It’s for Sybil.”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” Thea said. “Why aren’t you complaining, or blaming Nicky?”
“There’s no point in complaining,” Claire replied. “Besides, I don’t intend to be poor a minute longer than I have to. And sure, some of it is Nicky’s fault. He keeps pushing Sybil, moving us around the country, going from rehab center to rehab center, trying to find the one with the miracle cures. If he’d just pick one, so we could settle down, he might start making deals again, and maybe all of this would end. But none of them is good enough for him, so he keeps on hunting. Sybil hates it, but he’s doing it because he loves her. Even I know that. Sybil’s always been his favorite, and he wants her walking again, no crutches, no canes, no limps. So does Megs. So do I. So does Sybil. And maybe one of the places will be the miracle place, and it’ll all be worth it. What do you care? You have your scholarship, you have your life. What difference does it make to you?”