Page 40 of Twelve
I stared at her, waiting for the punch line.
There was no punch line.
“You came here expecting me to say yes.” I didn’t phrase that sentence as a question, because it wasn’t one.
“I suppose that I did,” Lillian allowed.
“Why?”
I wanted her to actually say that she’d assumed that I could be bought. I wanted to hear her admit that she thought so little of me—and so little of my mom—that there had been no doubt in her mind that I’d jump at the chance to take her devil of a deal.
“I suppose,” Lillian said finally, “that you remind me a bit of myself. And were I in your position, sweet girl…” She laid a hand on my cheek. “I would surely jump at the chance to identify and locate my biological father.”
My mom—in between alternating bouts of pretending that I’d been immaculately conceived, cursing the male of the species, and getting tipsy and nostalgic about her first time—had told me exactly three things about my mystery father.
She’d only slept with him once.
He hated fish.
He wasn’t looking for a scandal.
And that was it. When I was eleven, I’d found a picture she’d hidden away, a portrait of twenty-four teenage boys in long-tailed tuxedos, standing beneath a marble arch.
Symphony Squires.
The caption had been embossed onto the picture in silver script. The year—and several of the faces—had been scratched out.
Money isn’t something we talk about,I thought hours after Lillian had left. I mentally mimicked her tone as I continued.And the fact that the man who knocked your mother up is almost certainly a scion of high society isn’t something I’ll come right out andsay, but…
I picked the contract up again. This time, I read it from start to finish. Lillian had conveniently forgotten to mention some of the terms.
Like the fact that she would choose my wardrobe.
Like the mandatory manicure I’d have once a week.
Like the way she expected me to attend private school alongside my cousins.
I hadn’t even realized Ihadcousins. Trick’s grandkids had cousins. Half of the members of my elementary school Girl Scout troop had cousinsin that troop. But me?
I had an encyclopedia of medieval torture techniques.
Pushing myself to finish the contract, I arrived at the icing on the cake.I agree to participate in the annual Symphony Ball and all Symphony Deb events leading up to my presentation to society next spring.
Deb. As indebutante.
Half a million dollars wasn’t enough.
And yet, the thought of those hypothetical cousins lingered in my mind. One of my less random childhood obsessions had been genetics. Cousins shared roughly one-eighth of their DNA.
Half siblings share a fourth.I found myself going to my mother’s bedroom, opening the bottom drawer of her dresser, and feeling for the photograph she’d taped to the back.
Twenty-four teenage boys.
Twenty-four possible producers of the sperm that had impregnated my mother.
Twenty-four Symphony Squires.
When my phone buzzed, I forced myself to shut the drawer and look down at the text my mom had just sent me.
