Recently, though, she hadn’t been feeling much like a precious thing anymore.
The party was in full swing by the time they arrived. Gwen hadn’t told them that she lived in a brownstone when she’d invited the playgroup (which was still reeling from the departure of Joanna, the members all reminding themselves that they were six now, not seven), and Whitney tried hard not to gape. Her guilty pleasure was looking at houses. In another life, she would have ended up a Realtor in the suburbs.
Gwen’s living room was like all the best Christmas movies come to life, a far cry from the gaudiness of Whitney’s own childhood front yard. A Douglas fir scraped the ceiling, decorated with glowing colored orbs, along with an assortment of old-fashioned ornaments in painted wood, silver, and gold. The table was laid with hors d’oeuvres (baked Brie with jam conquering the air, but she wouldn’t eat it, no), and at a bar cart in the corner, a hired bartender poured Scotch for the men and champagne for the women.
Gwen came over to greet them with a smile on her face, a little red from the alcohol, tugging Christopher by the hand. “You made it!” she exclaimed, giving Whitney a brief hug. The physical intimacy surprised Whitney—Gwen was not particularly tactile, which was how Whitney could tell that she was drunk. “And you’ve met Christopher, right?” she asked, even as her gaze swept away from Whitney, scanning the party to make sure that everything was in place. Gwen was too uptight to be a natural hostess.
“Yes, my farmers market buddy!” Christopher said in a casual, friendly tone, reaching out to shake Whitney’s hand. But as he took her in, the look that came over his face was not so casual. He had noticed her dress.
A little girl with wet hair came running out, weaving among the guests, hurling herself against Christopher’s legs, trailed by a nanny with a look of horror on her face. “Rosie!” Gwen said. “What are you doing still up? You’re going to be so tired tomorrow!”
“It’s too dark!” Rosie wailed. The nanny began making apologies to Christopher, but he waved them off and knelt down to look his daughter in the eyes.
“Sounds like you need a story that lights your mind up nice and bright even when you close your eyes, huh?” Christopher asked her. Beside Whitney, Grant stifled a snort and took a big swig of his Scotch, but Whitney watched, riveted, as the little girl gave her father a solemn nod.
“I’ve got this,” Christopher said to Gwen, then turned to Whitney and Grant. “Excuse me. I have a very important story to tell.” He swung his daughter up to his shoulders and carried her off toward the stairs, the nanny following behind.
Whitney had been looking forward to talking with Amara and her husband, Daniel, a slightly nerdy man with a kind face and glasses, but they were already on their way out. “One drink and I’m exhausted, apparently,” Amara said to Gwen, who hugged Amara goodbye before rushing off to greet some new arrivals.
Amara leaned in close to Whitney, Scotch on her breath. “Don’t tell Gwen,” Amara said as Daniel grinned and ran his fingers down her arm, “but we’re leaving to go do something really wild.” She and Daniel shared a conspiratorial look. “We’re going to walk around in the dark, just the two of us.”
“You crazy kids,” Whitney said.
“You know it,” Daniel said. “Maybe we’ll even stop off at a late-night diner, if we get too cold. Who can say where the night will take us?”
“Endless possibilities,” Amara said, laughing. “As long as we get home by eleven P.M., because that’s when our babysitter has to leave.”
Whitney watched them go. When she turned back, Grant had started talking with some men he recognized from the hedge fund world. Whitney turned to one of them.
“What do you do?” she asked. He went on a monologue about mutual funds while she made pleasant, smiling exclamations. When he finished, he stared at her, waiting for her to ask him another question about himself. She was good at parties, good at talking to strangers and turning on the smile that made them feel endlessly fascinating. But the rigors of taking care of a baby had temporarily depleted her desire to make small talk. So she excused herself and plucked a champagne flute off a tray. Then she headed to the stairs, telling herself that she wanted to go exploring.
In college, Whitney had gone to open houses on the weekend. She scoured the paper for listings in the nice neighborhoods of Boston. Then she’d put on her most sophisticated outfit and some high heels and take the T to Beacon Hill’s tree-lined streets. If anyone asked, she’d pretend she was a wealthy twentysomething, looking for a place for her and her fiancé to start a family. It was best when the houses were still totally furnished so she could see what wealth looked like to take notes for her own future. She wanted that house’s kitchen, with its six-burner stove top, and that house’s mantle, with the family photos arranged with just the right amount of clutter.
And sometimes, even after she and Grant had gotten married, long after she’d acquired the enormous apartment, she’d go to open houses when he had to work on the weekends. She never told Grant. There was something . . . not classy about it. After all, people like him who were born rich didn’t need to go marvel at other people’s homes. But her interest wasn’t just covetousness—she loved to see the limitless ways that people made themselves a home. It was a reminder, coming upon her like a flash, that everyone had an inner life, one they attempted to translate into their own corner of the world.
Gwen’s house was particularly exciting to look at—a grand, old, nostalgic place like something out of Edith Wharton, with dark carpets and wallpaper. Whitney passed a few others who had sought refuge from the main hub of the party and peered into one room on the second floor, a library lit only by a lamp on the desk. Well, she thought, the door was open. She stepped inside. It smelled just like she’d hoped it would—leathery, mixed with that particular old book scent. A dark wood, wall-mounted ladder lay against one shelf, and she walked over to it, running her fingers over its smooth slats and then over the books on the shelf. Strange to imagine rigid Gwen’s inner life coming out like this. Maybe she’d been one of those little girls obsessed with Beauty and the Beast. Or maybe this was all Christopher.
“See anything worth reading?” he said from the doorway, as if she’d summoned him into being there.
“Oh!” she said, startling. “You caught me. I’m being a snoop. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” he said, stepping into the room with her, the door swinging closed behind him. “Frankly, I’m disappointed with anyone who doesn’t want to go snooping around this old place.”
She smiled and finished the champagne in her glass. It buzzed and pinged around inside her. “What happened in the bedtime story?”
“The usual. Princess meets prince. They invent a bunch of robots to fight the invading dinosaurs. Rosie’s a fan of genre mash-ups.”