CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My opinion of Brandon plummets once I see him enter the restaurant. Because he’s with someone predictable. A statuesque woman who’s almost as tall as he is, in heels she doesn’t need like I do. She stunning in such an obvious way. She has small features, a wide smile that’s not all teeth like mine, bow-like lips, and eyes that are narrow, upturned at the ends, shaped like almonds. Brown hair that shines. The kind that doesn’t get split ends.
I touch my own hair. Then I look down at this ridiculous red dress Dad more or less commanded me to wear. I thought it looked mature and maybe even elegant before I’d left, and even let a few thoughts of what Brandon might think enter my head. But who am I kidding? I bought it before I left for school. From Phoebe, in fact. And right now, I just want to head back and return it, even though it’s been almost five years, because I bought it for the wrong person. I’d thought it was sexy at the time. Now I see that it’s juvenile.
The girl on Brandon’s arm is wearing her own dress so much better. I can’t tell from the table, but it’s either very dark green or blue. Maybe black. Like almost everyone else in here. Some of the men are in tuxes; most are in suits. Brandon wore a tie, but the maître d’ holds up a house coat for him to wear because a tie isn’t enough here. Of course it still manages to fit him perfectly — and what’s more, it manages to look great beside the tall brunette.
I don’t want to stand because I’ve suddenly realized how I must look. If the maître d’ could have given me a house coat, I imagine he would have. Because some airheaded little girl came in with her daddy wearing a homecoming dress. Maybe later, everyone’s probably thinking, she’ll do a few of those wedding line dances.
As they come closer, I can barely stop myself from staring at his date. She wore her hair better than I did. She wore a more fashionable dress. She’s already tall, and yet she’s enough of a bitch to go out of her way to make me look even shorter. If anyone needs heels like hers, it’s me. And yet I kept my shoes kind of low, because this is half business.
Dammit. Brandon brought a beautiful woman. And I brought my father.
Brandon shakes his hand. I watch him do it, surprised to see that he must have done something to his beard since I saw him last, because it no longer strikes me as unprofessional. Now it seems to somehow fit.
I see movement from the corner of my eye. I look over to see the beautiful brunette holding her hand out for me to shake.
Presumptuous.
Arrogant.
She didn’t say a damned thing. She just held out her hand, like I’m supposed to bow and kiss her ring.
I force a smile and take her hand. Her pretty mouth moves. She barely exhales, but she’s said something I can’t hear. Because she’s going to play this like a diva.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Brandon looks over and puts his hand on the woman’s shoulder. “This is my sister, Bridget.”
Something inside me snaps. I feel my smile widen … apparently because I’ve been dying to meet Bridget? Phoebe knows her, I guess.
Bridget nods with a little smile. Then, incongruous in the posh club, she smacks Brandon’s shoulder hard with the back of her hand.
“Sorry again.” To both me and Dad, he adds, “Bridget just had vocal cord surgery. She can’t talk.”
“I can kind of whisper,” she manages to say. Then she flinches, and her hand moves automatically to her throat. Seeing her hand is all it takes to shatter my illusions. Her nails are painted, but they’re trimmed, maybe chewed. They’re not the hands of a debutante like I’d thought. They’re the hands of a worker — of someone who’s come by beauty accidentally rather than having manufactured it.
“She can kind of whisper,” Brandon says, giving her a look, “but she’s not supposed to.”
The remaining introductions circle our small table, but the rest of us know each other already. We all sit, and Brandon looks at me in a way that sizzles something inside me. It occurs to me that half of me wishes Bridget had turned out to be someone else — a date, say. Because now I feel odd in a different way. It’s like Brandon can see through me because of what I did the other day. And now there’s now no proof, here at the table, of why I shouldn’t feel embarrassed.
It’s one thing to have done something dumb and personal in front of an attached guy whom I happen to work with.
It’s another to have exposed myself so intimately to someone who …
Well, I’d rather not think about that.
We settle in and order drinks then an appetizer. Bridget makes for an odd dinner companion because she can’t order for herself, but she has some sort of sibling language worked out with Brandon that lets him act as her mouthpiece.
Watching them together makes me wish I had a brother or a sister. I know plenty of people who don’t get along with their siblings, but what I see across the table is so sweet it almost feels magical. Brandon has always struck me as standoffish, and the last time I saw him he seemed flat-out jerky — but this is a different side. It’s a Brandon I haven’t seen. One I wouldn’t have known even existed.
She touches his arm. He leans in, first watching her face and any gestures she tries to make, then turns his ear to her for a whisper if necessary. She orders by pointing to the menu — for Brandon rather than the waiter. He does the speaking.
He barely smiles. Or pays attention to me. This is all either business or family-personal, and when he’s not chatting to my father about Life of Riley and the future, he’s communicating in his cute underground way with Bridget. She’s not subtle when she wants his attention. She’s tapped his arm, nudged his shoulder, and flicked his ear. It should be annoying but isn’t, and Dad laughs every time.
I can tell Bridget would be formidable if she had her voice. Phoebe told me as much. But seeing her here, now, missing her primary weapon, makes her kind of helpless. She’s in strange company with people she doesn’t know, in a setting that clearly neither of them is used to. And though she keeps a strong front, she also keeps her hand on Brandon’s sleeve more often than not. And he could ignore her. He could focus on my father. He could have left her at home. But he brought her instead. And even though I can tell she’s weaker than she’d like to be, Brandon is giving her strength.
I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. My eyes keep flicking to his, but he’ll barely look at me. And when I catch his eye, I’ll look at Bridget’s hand on his — a platonic partnership, like a ward and her protector. But Brandon doesn’t get what I’m asking — or what I’m commenting on without saying a word. To him, this isn’t noble. To Brandon, it’s all so of-course.
He came out of the foster system. He began with us as a construction worker. I don’t know without prying, but I can’t imagine he has much money right now … though that will change if he gets the promotion Dad told me he’s inches from handing over. I guess I’m more prejudiced than I thought because his innate nobility surprises me. Part of me expects him to be a brute, even though I know better.
But he watches over his sister.
Before I can stop myself, I wonder what it would be like for him to watch over me.
I look up in time to see Dad and Brandon chatting … and Bridget staring right at me. Her eyes are blue green, and a thin circle of dark eyeliner makes them pop.
It feels like if she’s been watching me watching Brandon for a while.
Have I been? I don’t know. I tried to follow their discussion for a while, but it’s only business in the vaguest way. Mostly, I’ve heard my father’s history, the company’s origins (including the original name, Mason and Crystal — two building materials representing my parents’ names), and more chatter that qualifies as idle rather than informational. Most of the time, I’ve wondered why I came, though I don’t regret or resent it. I’m surely not learning anything about operations.
Mostly, I’ve been watching the others.
And because Bridget is passive and my father is right beside me, the others is mainly Brandon.
She gives me a small smile, as if we’re sharing a secret. I smile back, but it’s a pale imitation of my usual tooth buster. I must look nervous. Docile. Like a little girl who has no business at the table with two titans and their slim, tall, beautiful sidekick.
She taps Brandon’s arm.
He turns to see what she wants, but that’s when my father’s head perks up.
“Ebon?” he says.
A man with dark hair and large eyebrows looks up from two tables over. He’s sitting across from a pretty woman with light-brown hair. The man’s eyes widen in recognition. He smiles and waves.
“That’s Ebon Shale,” Dad tells me. “Have I told you about Ebon?”
I shrug.
“We met on Aaron. The island, Aaron? As kids. When I had my summer job working the pier carnival.”
This sounds vaguely familiar, but it’s hard to concentrate. So I mumble something as he stands, making excuses to Brandon and Bridget.
I realize he’s about to leave the table to say hello — and judging by the way this Ebon guy is pulling out a chair and knowing my father’s tendency to chatter, he might be there for a while.
I’m about to be alone with Brandon and Bridget.
Bridget, who can’t talk.
And Brandon, whom I’m reluctant to talk to.
Bridget gives me another of those little smiles then stands to go. Probably to the powder room.
I start to rise, to say I’ll go with her, but she touches my shoulder for the first time.
And she’s gone.