Lily rushed in, her bagful of books smacking against her legs with each step. "Sorry I'm late," she said, dropping into the last empty chair. Her bag landed on the floor with a loud thwonk. "I was—" Her eyes widened. He actually brought her? Dylan had been hinting for weeks about bringing Eva to meet their parents, but each time he mentioned it, she warned him not to.
"Why shouldn't I?" he said the last time. "You think they won't like her?"
"It isn't that. She—"
"You like her, don't you? You introduced us!"
"I know I did. She's a wonderful person, but Dylan, she—"
"No. That's it. You said it all right there. I don't want to hear anymore."
He doesn't know what he's doing, she thought. But he didn't want to listen. I tried.
"What were you saying?" Rose asked. She could tell something was wrong from the way Lily had cut herself off. She touched Jack's knee under the table. Tell me.
He squeezed her hand. I will when I know.
They couldn't hear each other's thoughts, but sometimes it seemed like they could. Where once they had used looks and body cues, now they used touch and vocal inflection to say what couldn't be said outright.
Jack studied Lily's face. Her eyes kept flicking from Eva to Dylan. "I was just saying that I lost track of time in the library," she said, forcing herself to look at Rose. "That's why I'm late."
Rose just nodded. Her voice wasn't normal. It was a little too high, as though she had seen something that startled her.
"Lily, you know Eva," Dylan said. There was a smirk in his tone.
"Yes, I know her," Lily said, biting off the ends of her words.
Rose couldn't see the looks that crossed their faces, but she could feel the tension building.
Jack, on the other hand, saw it all. What the hell is going on? he wondered.
"Tell us about yourself, Eva," Rose said, smiling graciously.
Eva hesitated, her confidence evaporating in the light of Rose's smile. There was something about the older woman that made her feel both drab and overdressed at the same time. It was annoying. She had always been the most elegant woman in the room; all eyes, male and female, immediately turned to her. Her clothes were the envy of every girl at Wellesley. They all wondered how she did it. Where did she get the money? It never occurred to any of them that she might have been not just prettier than them, but also smarter—in some ways, at least, the ways that counted. She had to be. And now, here was this woman she had barely met destroying her entire sense of self without lifting one of those perfect hands. A lady's hands. Now she knew what they reminded her of. She has a lady's hands. But that didn't make sense. Not if what she had been told about—oh, God. She blushed hotly. Everyone was looking at her. "I—I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm afraid my nerves are a bit rattled tonight." She lowered her eyes.
Rose nudged Jack under the table. He laid his hand, palm up, on her knee. She traced the word lie with her fingertip. He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand.
"I know," he said, placing a slight emphasis on the words, "how difficult things must be right now." He shot a smile at Lily. "Lily doesn't seem to sit still at all anymore."
"She's a busy young woman," Eva said. "I could never have her energy."
"She's like her mother." Jack raised Rose's hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
Rose fought the urge to blush under his gaze. She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew exactly what was in them. Lily and Dylan didn't seem to notice that anything was going on, but Eva couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Well, she certainly looks like her," she said. "And Dylan looks quite a lot like you."
"Oh, no, no, no," Jack said quickly. "It's just the hair. He looks like Rose. They both do."
"Don't get him started," Dylan said. "Change the subject now, or he'll never stop."
"What? It's true. You have her eyes and—" Rose leaned toward him. "Jack, why don't you describe something we all haven't seen and that won't frighten away this charming young woman? Or…" she added, smiling slightly, "…just something I haven't seen?"
Why would…Eva took a second look at Rose's eyes. Dylan did have her eyes; they were virtually the same except for one thing. She can't see! How could she have missed something like that? But she doesn't seem blind. She isn't wearing glasses like other blind people. And no one else seems to notice. Except now that she looked closer, she realized Jack hadn't stopped touching her once. He didn't just look at her when he talked, he moved closer to her. And Rose hadn't been looking at any of them; she had been listening to them.
"What do you want to see, Miss?" Jack asked.
Rose raised an eyebrow. "We're doing that again, are we?"
"Doing what—"
"Someone tell a story now," Lily said. "They'll go on like this all night otherwise."
*****
Eva's cheeks hurt from laughing. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. "You—you—" She couldn't get the words out. "You really did that?" she asked finally.
Jack grinned proudly. "Yes, she did." He kissed Rose's cheek. "That's not the least of what she's done."
"You're not telling that story!" Rose said.
"Why not, Rose Petal?"
"As if you have to ask." She turned to Eva. "You must be bored by now, I'm afraid."
Eva shook her head. "Oh, no! Not at all!" In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she had been so interested in anything. "Now I understand what Dylan meant when he said he hadn't really grown up anywhere."
"We weren't much for settling in anywhere," Rose said. "We still aren't, really," she added with a quick laugh.
"And you just came back from Morocco?" Eva asked.
Rose nodded. "After two years. I don't think we ever stayed anywhere else that long. Did we, Jack?"
A shadow crossed his face. "We stayed in Santa Monica for three years," he said slowly. "When we went back the second time."
Rose pressed her hand against his. "We did, didn't we?" she asked quietly.
Lily and Dylan exchanged glances. Eva knew they were all thinking the same thing, but no one seemed willing—or able—to say whatever it was.
"Tell a story, Eva," Dylan said finally. "You've heard all about us for an hour now."
"Oh, I couldn't. There's nothing to tell," she protested.
"She shouldn't have to tell stories," Lily said. "She's supposed to be your guest."
Dylan shot her a puzzled look. Why the sudden interest in keeping Eva quiet? "She doesn't have to if she doesn't want to," he said, keeping his eyes on Lily, "but we shouldn't discourage it."
Jack's grin made Eva momentarily forget where she was. She had been noticing his good looks more and more as the evening progressed, and now that he was looking straight at her with those blue eyes, it was almost too much. It was like the way Dylan looked at her sometimes, only intensified. A lock of sandy blond hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away. His hands are…perfect. They weren't like Rose's, but instead had a beauty all their own. His skin was tanned. His well-defined arms and chest were obvious even through his shirt. Dylan had told her he was forty, but he looked closer to thirty. If that, she thought. Rose was supposed to be thirty-seven, but Eva couldn't see how. They're both so—so beautiful, she thought, amazed. Her parents weren't unattractive, but the years hung on them, especially her father, in a way she doubted they ever would on Jack and Rose.
"Don't listen to them," Jack said. "Just do what you want."
"Well, what would you like to know?" Eva asked.
"Whatever you'd like to tell," Rose said kindly. "What is your family like?"
"There are just three of us—my mother and father and myself. I'm afraid we aren't nearly as interesting as you. My parents traveled when I was a child, but I seldom went along. We lived in the same place until I was fourteen, and then we moved here."
"What do your parents do now?" Rose asked.
"Well—" My mother isn't really a person anymore, and my father's best friend is a bottle of brandy. I think he may have gone a little insane in '29, but then again, I didn't see him enough before then to really know. "I suppose you could say they're retired from life these days." There. That sounded good. It wasn't quite true, but it wasn't quite a lie, either. Somehow, she managed to keep the picture of her family within those lines for the rest of dinner. Everything seemed to be going perfectly until they stood up to leave.
"That's more books than your mother makes me carry, Water-Lily," Jack said as Lily hoisted her bag over her shoulder.
"It's not so many," she said.
"And I carry my own books. You just read them for me," Rose said.
Jack put an arm around her waist. "You won't let me carry them."
"That's an interesting name," Eva said. "Water-Lily."
"It's her real name," Dylan said. "They named her after a painting."
"Yeah, well, they named you after the guy that painted it," Lily said. "His middle name," she explained, turning to Eva, "is Monet."
"Dylan Monet Dawson." Eva said it slowly, letting the letters slide over her tongue. "And Water-Lily Dawson…I like it. Both of your names sound better than mine."
"What's wrong with Eva?" Dylan asked. "I like it."
"You haven't heard the whole thing. It's Eva Nicolette Hockley."
A whole box of pins could have been dropped and no one but Eva would have noticed.