Major mixed a plethora of cocktails that might appeal to his nephew’s sour palate, and a gin rickey with two limes ended up being Kennet’s preferred splash. He now brought two of them over to the little table tucked into a window alcove, where Astrid sat. When she reached for a cigarette, he had a match at the ready. He held the flame still, then shook it to the side and waved the smoke away.

“Skål,” she said, raising her glass.

“Skål.” They clinked and drank.

“I don’t want my mother to come to Clayton,” Astrid says. “I’m terrible, I know.”

“You are berries.”

“I want this place to myself. I want this to be my memory alone.” She leaned to looked out the window. “If I lived here, I’d never want to leave.”

“Could you?” he asked. “Stay, I mean. If not here, then somewhere else?”

She shook her head.

“If I can be blunt, is your family broke?”

She nodded.

“What’s going to happen when you go home? If the financial situation is as bad as you say, how will you and your mother survive?”

“Marry rich,” she said quietly. “It’s an old trope. But effective.”

Kennet’s stomach tightened but said nothing, only gave a curt nod and lit his own cigarette, thinking he should’ve known the past couple weeks were too good to be true.

“When Mor gets here,” Astrid said, “she’s going to speak as if I’m engaged to be married. I am not. At least, not officially.”

Now Kennet’s chest caved into his shoes. He wanted to slam the rest of his drink in one go, but managed to sip slowly with another cool nod.

“Why don’t you buy another round?” she said quietly. So he did, and brought back a little bowl of salted nuts to go with the liquid courage.

“You look so troubled, I can’t stand it,” he said, sitting down. He put out his cupped palms to her. “Tell me everything. I’ll hold what I can.”

“I told you when my father died, I was…” Her hand turned over in the air. “What’s the English slang for being disgraced?”

“You were in the doghouse.”

She exhaled a plume of smoke. “Well, whatever the expression, long story short, I did something stupid. My father pulled me out of the boarding school I loved in São Paolo, and sent me to that miserable Catholic school in Rio, where I could mend the error of my ways and find a suitable husband. Then my father died, so I was expected to find a rich, suitable husband.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s such a cliché. Honestly.”

“Tell me about him. What’s his name?”