Always Read online

  Anika tended to dress in drab office wear more befitting the daughter of an accountant than a designer. She kept her hair in a perpetual ponytail, and with her long work hours, she looked as exhausted as she felt. Worst of all—in her father and sister’s eyes—Anika stopped dancing, running, and playing tennis, causing her to gain fifteen pounds. It might as well have been fifty. Excess flesh was unbearably plebeian, intolerable to the fashionable Knights. Bennet frequently remarked that it was a good thing Anika had no interest in fashion, as she would never have fit into his sample sizes.

  Anika’s job was the only thing that interested her now.

  In the initial flush of success of Bennet Knight, in the happier early days of their marriage, Eleanor had convinced Bennet to start the Red Line, a line of casual separates with the proceeds supporting a charity to pay the tuition costs for underprivileged college students. At the time of her death, the Red Line had put over three thousand students through school. That number stagnated in the wake of her passing, as Bennet couldn’t be bothered to hire a new director and Stella wanted nothing to do with, as she put it, “the Gap knock-offs for the indigent.”

  Since Anika had taken over, she had more than tripled the number of funded students, passing ten thousand that spring. She had to admit that the upcoming move to the city would make her work hours more efficient—while she had handled things fairly well from the satellite office, it would be better to work out of the main office on Eighth Avenue.

  Even the timing was good. In a month they would hold their annual fundraising gala, an event that provided the bulk of the funds for the charity’s administration costs, since Bennet generally neglected the Red Line, only designing a new collection when Anika’s nagging reached intolerable levels.

  Last year’s gala hadn’t raised as much money as Anika had hoped. It was crucial that the guest list be full this year. Aunt Molly had promised to help—she was the other board member. While she didn’t leave her house often enough to be a formidable force on the socialite scene, she had at least a dozen close, loyal, and thankfully wealthy friends.

  Bennet and Stella went ahead to the penthouse, leaving Anika to oversee the packing. Much was made of the favor they were doing her, giving her more time in the house, while they did all the work of preparing their new home for full-time residence. Anika knew what they would really be up to. Stella had already commented on the hideousness of the dining set (that she herself had selected two years earlier). She would spend her time redecorating. Bennet had a vision for a new club-wear inspired line, so he was planning his evenings out for “research.”

  Even if it hadn’t been their preference to leave, Anika would have had to insist. As painful as it was to go through her mother’s belongings once more, she couldn’t have trusted anyone else to pack up what was most precious for storage: Eleanor’s collection of vintage silk scarves, her cabinet of vinyls, her first-edition gothic novels. The furniture, the decor, the pots and pans and other household goods—all that would remain so the estate could be rented furnished.

  Before the job was even done, helpful Aunt Molly accomplished what the harried estate agent could not: she found an acceptable tenant.

  “She’s found some old man,” Bennet told Anika over the phone. “Some dot com millionaire, made all his money in the nineties and then worked as a professor since—god knows why. Now he wants to retire out here, where his family is. He’s related to the Sullenbergers somehow—you remember them, that have the gray Phantom Rolls Royce. His wife died, but they do have grandchildren. Stella won’t like that if they come to visit. We won’t tell her that part.”

  Liam Doyle was sixty-four, five years older than Bennet Knight, though possibly Bennet could be forgiven for applying the moniker of “old man” since Mr. Doyle’s hair was entirely white, and he was rather shockingly thin. Aunt Molly said he ate some kind of juice diet, the sort of nonsense she considered utterly typical for Californians, especially those from Silicon Valley. She had known Mr. Doyle’s wife years before, and she assured Anika that he was an intelligent and respectful person who would treat their house with the greatest care.

  “I mostly called him because he loves horses,” Aunt Molly said. “He’ll keep Tom on to care for them.”

  Anika wondered if Aunt Molly had more than a friendly interest in Mr. Doyle herself. He might not be a handsome celebrity, but he impressed Anika when they met. He struck her as keenly clever, and full of energy despite looking as if a stiff wind would blow him away. He took both her hands between his and shook them vigorously, complimenting her on the double row of lilac trees at the front of the house, asking her if she had ever found a five-petaled lilac before.

  “The English think they’re lucky,” he said, “like the four-leafed clover.”

  “I haven’t,” Anika said, “and indeed, I wouldn’t say I’m very lucky.”

  “Ah!” he laughed. “Proof!”

  Before Anika had shown Mr. Doyle a tenth of the house, he agreed to take it, on generous terms. He was much more interested in the grounds, praising Eleanor’s rose garden, the herb greenhouse, and especially the stables and paddocks.

  There was no end date to the lease—that was what hurt Anika’s heart the most. Mr. Doyle obviously intended to make a home here. While conceptually the renting of the estate was meant to be a temporary measure, Anika couldn’t imagine a time when her father and sister’s spending would improve enough to allow them to take possession again. She could not really believe that she would come back as anything but Mr. Doyle’s visitor.

  With irrational dread, she finished packing her own few boxes of books and clothes, marking them to be shipped to the apartment in the city.

  Patrick offered to drive her, though technically his last day as their chauffeur had been Tuesday.

  “I can take the train,” Anika said, “I know you want to get home to your daughter.”

  “It’s the least I can do,” Patrick said, loading Anika’s duffel bag in the trunk of the car.

  Gently and firmly, he took her arm, steering her into the back seat.

  Anika turned her face to the window so he wouldn’t see the tears running down her cheeks. She knew he would think it was her sadness having a last look at the house, but really it was his obvious pity that made her cry.

  3

  There wasn’t much for Anika to do to get settled in the penthouse. As she had expected, her father and sister hadn’t bothered to order any food for the kitchen—though the liquor cabinet had been well stocked—and there was a lot of mess in the main living areas as the housekeeper wasn’t coming until Friday.

  There was no need for her to select her own room. Bennet and Stella had kindly filled the four largest with their boxes, leaving the smallest and most distant for Anika. This type of slight was too common to be unexpected. In truth, Anika preferred the quiet of that room, and the pretty blue wallpaper that had escaped Stella’s improving hand.

  Her bedroom had its own bathroom, a reasonable-sized closet, and a view. Not of Central Park of course—that side had been claimed by Bennet after a bitter argument with Stella. He declared it utterly integral to his creative process that both his bedroom and office look out over the park.

  Anika’s one large window faced the Art Deco building next to theirs, festooned with statuary: a winged woman, several eagles, and a monumental helmeted head. When night fell, the sunset colored the white stone every shade of scarlet, pink, and orange. Having majored in Art History, Anika found this quite as lovely to look at as lawns and treetops.

  Anika had visited the apartment before, but never actually lived there. It was odd to be in such close quarters with her father and sister. In the massive space of the Hamptons estate, they were more like neighbors than roommates. Here they crossed paths too closely in the hallways in their dressing gowns, and actually bumped into each other in the kitchen at the espresso machine. Bennet played his music so loudly that Stella hammered on her wall with a shoe, and both Bennet and Stella
were infuriated with Anika when her alarm woke them in the morning.

  Within a week, Anika wondered if it was time to get her own apartment. She had lived in the Hamptons house so long out of a desire to feel close to her mother, but she actually didn’t spend much time with Bennet and Stella, and she doubted they would put up resistance to the idea of her moving out. In fact, Stella had already hinted that if their adjoining wall was removed, Anika’s room would make a convenient walk-in closet.

  She didn’t have time to find a new place at the moment, however, as things were very busy at work.

  The Red Line office was located a block from the main Bennet Knight building in the Garment District. It was a small space, a little drab, but convenient to the subway station. Anika had four staff members working under her: Angela Davis in the satellite office, and then Calvin Peterson and Gwen and Hannah Fletchley in the main office.

  Calvin was an irritable and efficient former student who had stayed with them four years past the end of his internship. He was tall and prematurely balding, with glasses and a penchant for striped shirts. When the shirts coincided with scarf weather, he looked like Where’s Waldo.

  Gwen and Hannah were sisters. In their early twenties, they had the requisite idealism to work at a non-profit. Gwen, the older by a year, was a slightly sarcastic brunette with hipster glasses and a few well-placed piercings. She balanced the books and handled the HR duties. Hannah—strawberry-blonde, daintily feminine, and relentlessly cheerful—was in charge of sifting through applications to select students for their program. They both made Anika feel about a hundred years old.

  Calvin surprised Anika by offering to help her clear the piles of paper and random oddments out of her old office. The reason for his cooperation was soon clear—he had months of resentments against the Fletchley girls to air, and apparently hoped to enlist her against the attacks of Gwen and Hannah, who were always ganging up on him on matters like the Red Line website and what kind of coffee should be stocked in the break room.

  “You need to tell them that emojis are not an acceptable part of website copy,” Calvin complained as they carried stacks of old newsletters out to the recycling bin. “And also maybe you could make some kind of rule that only six or seven squirts of body spray are allowed per day, because Hannah is reapplying literally every time she comes back from the bathroom, which considering the amount of Red Bull she drinks, is a lot of times.”

  Anika had already been inveigled by the sisters to please tell Calvin to stop posting gloomy statistics about education levels amongst the prison population on the weekly blog, and also to tell him that absolutely, under no circumstances, should one ever reheat fish in the communal microwave.

  Anika did her best to smooth over everyone’s irritations, promising to order lunch for them all on what Gwen called “Fishy Fridays” and placing a small screen of plants between Hannah and Calvin’s desks to absorb the brunt of the chemical warfare.

  The website issues would have to wait—they needed to get to work on their plans for the benefit gala. They all spent a few hours together in the conference room, brainstorming themes.

  Calvin suggested “Superheroes” or “Star Trek,” but was shouted down by Gwen and Hannah. Gwen wanted something grand—“Like the Met Gala,” she said. “They did a Catholic theme last year and everyone wore brocades, and gold, and those big pope hats.”

  “Not religion!” Calvin complained. “That’s offensive to me, as an atheist.”

  “Oh, are you an atheist?” Gwen said. “I must have forgotten the eight hundred other times you mentioned that.”

  “It’s for education,” Hannah said. “What about school-themed, like with apple martinis and waitresses in plaid skirts and school desks where you check in...”

  “That might not be quite fancy enough,” Anika said gently.

  Calvin suggested an “Under the Sea” theme, “Very kitschy, like in Back to the Future.”

  To prove her fanciness, Hannah advocated for a theme of “Gold” or “Diamonds,” but Anika pointed out that might not be in the best taste considering the poverty of most of their students.

  A Night in China?

  Too racist.

  Guys and Dolls?

  Too sexist.

  Thinking of the Art Deco building out her window, Anika said, “What about a Great Gatsby theme?”

  “Hmm,” Gwen mused. “It’s not completely original.”

  “But it would be gorgeous,” Hannah admitted.

  They all looked at Calvin, who gave a sullen shrug. He was annoyed that no one had taken his Cowboy theme seriously.

  “I still think if it was a very cool, very urban cowboy style...”

  “No!” Hannah shouted. “Great Gatsby it is.”

  Later that afternoon, Calvin retaliated by tagging Hannah in a highly unflattering photo from the office Christmas party. Anika was too pleased to have settled on a theme to care about their petty squabbling. She always felt better when a plan was decided so she could launch herself into the work.

  She forwarded the details of their plan to Aunt Molly via email.

  “I am a little concerned how we’re going to cover the up-front expenses,” she wrote. “We’re short on funds at the moment.”

  She was surprised when Aunt Molly emailed back only a few hours later—her aunt was far from glued to her computer.

  My dearest favorite niece (but don’t tell Stella), it read, Don’t worry your darling self one bit about the money - I have fantastic news. I’ve been spending time with Mr. Doyle-

  “I bet you have,” Anika chuckled to herself.

  And I’ve been telling him all about your mother’s charity.

  Anika blessed her aunt for still calling it that—sometimes it seemed like Bennet and Stella would do anything to avoid mentioning Eleanor.

  He was very impressed with the whole thing, and he’s agreed to make a sizable donation. Best of all, he says he has a friend, a younger fellow he used to work with. I think he was something of a mentor to him. Anyway, he says this young man is coming to New York, next week actually, and he feels certain that he would also like to help. This wunderkind just sold his company, and he’s flush with cash. What do you think of that, for once your old aunt is actually fulfilling her duties as head of fundraising! I’ll send you the details when I have them. Much love.

  As happy as she was about the donation, Anika felt even more pleased that Aunt Molly, after many years of pickiness, seemed to have found someone worth “spending time with.”

  “What do you know?” Anika said aloud. “Perhaps it’s never too late for love.”

  4

  The following week proved Mr. Doyle’s affection for Aunt Molly—a sizable donation was indeed deposited to the Red Line account, and Anika was free to begin making plans for the gala in earnest.

  Her first step was to book the venue. The Chatway might have been perfect: with its 1930s decor, they would hardly have to decorate. But unfortunately its largest room held only 120 guests, less than half as many as they hoped to attract. Tavern on the Green was lovely, but Anika couldn’t handle the uncertainty of the weather for an outdoor event. At last she settled on the Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts. It had the grandiosity Gwen craved, the open space they needed, and it fell within their budget.

  Calvin—who was, as he reminded them once more, an atheist—did not appreciate its origins as a synagogue, but he consoled himself by saying that “Jews were better than Christians at least.”

  As was so apt to happen, Anika’s success at work had its unpleasant counterbalance in her father and sister’s obnoxiousness at home. She arrived home on Friday to find the apartment a complete mess, despite the presence of Danita, their housekeeper. Both Danita and Stella were out on the balcony, Danita trying to operate Stella’s phone to her boss’s specifications.

  Stella was sprawled out on a patio chair in what could charitably be called a bikini—it comprised six square inches of material on artfully engineere
d strings.

  “No, no, no!” Stella cried, checking Danita’s photos. “I don’t want a picture of the cat. I want you to take a flattering picture of me that seems to be a picture of the cat. The point is to show the eight hundred hours I’ve spent in spin class this year—do I have to spell it out for you? But it can’t be gratuitous. And make sure the flowers are in the frame too.”

  Anika took the phone from Danita, mouthing “sorry” as Danita scurried back to the piles of discarded clothes and magazines in the living room.

  “Don’t use Portrait Mode,” Stella said.

  “I know, I know.” Anika waved off Stella’s instructions. In a few snaps, she had captured the gray Persian crouched on the tabletop, the bowl of lilies on the unfurled yoga mat, and the full globes of Stella’s bottom, artfully illuminated by the golden rays of the setting sun.

  “Happy?” she asked, showing the pictures to her sister.

  “Yes,” Stella said, extremely satisfied, but not so overawed as to actually say thank you.

  As her sister opened her Instagram account to post her pic, Anika couldn’t help but notice the first picture displayed was Marco Moretti. He was paddle-boarding down some canal. The text was too small for Anika to read the location tag.

  Anika had met Marco once when she was twelve or thirteen. This was before Eleanor had died, when her mother had forced Bennet to take Anika to one of his shows. Bennet had immediately abandoned her in the front row with Dominic Moretti.

  Luckily, Dominic was kinder than her father and better with children. He passed the time whispering amusing gossip about the models (“That one there, she’s got a Tweety-Bird tattoo on her bottom. No, I won’t tell you how I know that. That one got in a fight with her roommate last week—the roommate wore her favorite dress to a party, and when she came home, the model had dyed her cat’s fur pink. Oh, the cat’s fine, don’t worry, he loved the new color. That one over there, the redhead, she just booked a Maybelline campaign. Did you know how Maybelline came to be? There was this boy, Thomas Williams. He saw his sister putting Vaseline and coal dust on her eyelashes. So he mixed that up and made the first mascara—he called it Maybelline after his sister Mabel and, of course, the Vaseline.”)