“Aphrodite,” she says, in that deep, booming, jokey radio DJ voice I haven’t heard her use in years, “with Botticelli’s tumbling curls, batting her lashes at her lovers—the Paris campaign of 1994.” She turns and points to another campaign while I fight a smile. “Artemis, peeking through ivy in pursuit of prey, a band of leather encircling her neck, circa 1999. Athena, 2003, appraising the audience come to worship with quiet wisdom.”

“Shut up,” I whisper, elbowing her in the side. “Don’t make me crack my lipstick. You never get champagne again.”

I comb the crowd for faces we know. Plenty of well-coiffed strangers, clinking glasses and laughing. I stop a caterer passing mini seafood spoonfuls and slip one in my mouth as fortification—the briny slime of sea urchin slips down my throat, and I almost gag. Of course, that’s when the swell clears, and I spot them.

“Look,” I whisper to Noni, gripping her hand.

The suited and tuxedoed men with slicked-back hair and permanent smug grins, which are familiar, in the worst way: My gooey decade-softened memory and my irresponsible heart tell me they’re safe, but my brain paints them in neon caution colors.

Hero Pharm colleagues of Dad’s, laughing and chatting openly. A huddle of them by the bar, ten years older but identical, in that infuriating Brad-Pitt-doesn’t-age way.

One of them bandaged my knee after I scraped it during a Children’s Day festival, green scalloped streamers rustling from the trees over our sweaty brows.

Another found me at the end of the drive, where I was collecting stones in the shapes of animals, and asked me where Dad was—when I answered that I wasn’t allowed to speak to strangers in sassy Vilosh, he told me I was smart. I replied, Duh. He brought me a stone in the shape of a bird the next time he saw me.

“I’m surprised so many of them ponied up the euro to pay their respects to the woman they said ruined Dad,” Noni whispers to me. It didn’t help that Dad never had a Ladyx-level medical breakthrough after he married Mama. Most of these men fought for Dad to stop focusing on the free educational programs Mama pushed for at Hero Pharm.

I shoot her a look. “It’s a gossip-collection fee.”

“Fair enough. Well, I hope he’s not here,” Noni whispers back. And I know she means Nítuchí, the worst of them all.

“How drunk are you? I mean, he’s the cochair; of course he’ll be here,” I whisper back. “We’re screwed.”

The space before me opens, and cold, appraising eyes fall on us, mouths shutting. For better and for worse, we look a lot like Mama, so it’s as if a much more gorgeous version of our mugshots hangs over all of us a hundred times over. The mess of businessmen parts to accommodate us both.