“It’s great to finally meet the living legend,” I manage to say, each word taking extreme concentration to get out of my mouth. Graham used to talk about Lorraine the way someone would talk about their mother or a doting aunt. She started her tenure as the Walker house manager when Graham was two years old, and didn’t retire until he was in college. I’d only heard about her, but Graham always implied they’d lost touch after she was replaced by Oskar and she stopped serving a purpose. Growing up in a household that was cold, where family dinners were more like mandatory business transactions, Graham cites Lorraine as the only person who ever showed him affection; the only person who wanted to hear about the boys’ day and learn what they did in school. Once, in the early morning hours on a Saturday when we first started dating, when we’d wake up and fuck and then lie on the terrace watching the late sunrise in a carnal daze, Graham said he wished Lorraine was his mother.

She stretches her hands out, palms up, and I rest mine inside them, feeling her cold and dry fingers coil around mine. “You’re going to be the most beautiful bride,” she says with a smile that, maybe I imagine this, seems to fade and turn into something else as she drops my hands and looks behind us, at the driver unloading our luggage from the trunk to the front door.

She faces Graham, doting on him like he’s her own son. “Your mother’s at her facialist, your father’s in his office. Your brother and Veronica took Henry into town. Everyone will be here for supper in two hours.” She glances down at her watch—a gold Cartier I wasn’t expecting to see twisted on her dimpled wrist. “One and a half hours,” she corrects.

She looks at me one more time—as if she wants to memorize my face—and I smile politely, pretending I’m not bothered by any of this, like I have no idea who she is, nor she, I. She shakes her head, like she’s pushing away the same memory I am, and, without another word, I watch her turn and disappear into the house.

Fuck.

This was not part of the plan.

Part Two

PART TWO

TWELVE

“Name.”

The woman behind the boxy glass desk didn’t look at me when she asked. Instead, she stared behind me, toward the double doors that opened gracefully onto Madison Avenue, as if she was waiting for someone more important to show up.

“Eliza Bennet,” I responded, forcing from her, finally, eye contact.

“Like—”