Page 2 of High Season
“Gin!” she had announced, spotting the forgotten bottle abandoned on the countertop. “It always makes me a bit loopy, but I never learn. I’ve got tonic in my groceries somewhere, if you want to do a trade?”
It was one of the things that had drawn Nina to her. Claire seemed like someone who was completely unfazeable.
“Ryan’s flat isincredible,” Claire continues. “How much did he pay for this place again?”
Nina doesn’t remind her that it isn’t Ryan’s flat. Not anymore. It’stheirflat now. Has been since Nina moved in eight months ago. But Claire’s mistake is understandable. There’s so little of Nina in the swathes of marble, the engineered-wood floors, the way the entire flat is rigged up with gadgets—speakers and smart systems running through the walls like veins. Nina makes a mental note to put up some pictures before Claire comes round again. She should ask Blake what happened to all of the art that their mother had in storage. Perhaps she could find something a little more like Nina.
“It needed work. He got a good deal,” Nina says, even though it’s not exactly true. She hates talking money. Wants to avoid getting into a discussion about how Ryan is technically letting her live here for free, an agreement that started when Nina was job hunting and which has yet to lapse. She’s offered to pay rent, of course, but Ryan said that it wouldn’t be fair when only his name was on the mortgage.
“Hey, your brother is lookinggoodtonight,” Claire says, lowering her voice. “Did you say that he broke up with… what’s her name?”
“Jazmin?”
“That was it. Jazmin. Because I kind of got a vibe from him over dinner. Did you notice?”
Nina turns away to hide her smile. She’s used to people being this way around her brother. She had barely even got a chance to know Jazmin before Blake mentioned, in passing, that he had a date with a girl he’d met at an art gallery opening.
“What about Jazmin?” she had asked.
“Oh,Jazmin,” Blake had said, as if Nina was bringing up a long-lostacquaintance rather than the girl they’d all been out to dinner with the week prior. “Well, we wanted different things.”
As usual, Nina had wanted to say. Blake is in his late thirties, but he seems so far from settling down that Nina sometimes feels embarrassed by how early she herself has fallen into long-term coupledom. She has become used to meeting a new girlfriend of Blake’s every few months, some sweet and beautiful woman who seems completely besotted with her brother.
“You know Blake,” Nina says. “He can turn on the charm when he wants to. Don’t read too much into it.”
“Right,” says Claire. “Oh well. My turn eventually.”
She bumps her hip against Nina’s to show that she’s joking.
“Hey, your phone was going off, by the way. Want me to grab it for you?”
“It can wait,” says Nina. She pulls the plug from the sink so the water can drain, disappearing in a swirl. She is here. She is with all of the people that she cares about the most. “Whoever it is, I’m sure they can wait.”
Claire sways slightly on her feet, wraps her arm around Nina and pulls her close.
“I’m so proud of you, babe,” she says. “You’re killing it.”
And somehow, Nina can’t quite bring herself to point out Claire’s poor choice of words.
TWO
2024
Nina had told Ryan what happened to her sister on their second date.
He had been sitting across from her, pouring her a glass of red wine.
“So,” he had said. “Do you have any siblings?”
The restaurant hummed around them, as if Ryan hadn’t asked Nina the question that she had spent most of her life dreading.
“It’s a bit complicated,” she had said.
And it had all begun there.
Nina had met Ryan two weeks earlier at a recruitment fair in a drafty university hall. Ryan ran a technology start-up that had a stand, and even though Nina didn’t have the slightest interest in data programming she lingered, picking up a leaflet and pretending to read. He had asked her if she was considering a career in the tech sector, and when she admitted that she was already signed up to do a psychology master’s next year and had only come along to keep her best friend Claire company, he had grinned.
“A master’s in psychology?” he said. “Well, clearly you’re too smart to work for us.”
