Page 51

One thing at a time.

Chapter 14

Theo

The house is the kind you earn over generations.

Not the kind of earning I know — the spreadsheet kind, the cold-transfer-on-the-first kind, the kind where you add the rows and hold the total and try not to let it change the way you breathe. This is the other kind. The kind where money has been in the walls so long it’s just air. The entry hall alone is wider than the landing outside my bedroom in the Raven House. The ceilings are high and white. There are cut flowers on a side table in a vase that wasn’t cheap. Everything is clean in the way things are clean when someone else does the cleaning, and the art on the walls is the kind that doesn’t need to announce itself.

I grew up in three rooms with my mom and a couch that folded out. I am a person who keeps a spreadsheet.

I don’t let any of this touch my face.

Margo leads me through the entry hall and I follow, taking stock the way I always do — exits, pressure points, where the weight in the room is sitting. The living room is off to the left: wide, coastal-furnished, easy and expensive, the Atlantic visible through French doors that open to the back porch. Caroline Ashby is already moving toward the kitchen to check on the caterer. Richard Ashby is in a chair with a glass of something amber, the posture of a man who has stopped pretending to be doing anything other than waiting.

And on the sofa, long legs stretched out, arm draped along the back like he owns the furniture, is the reason the BMW is in the driveway.

Michael Hartley is big in the way quarterbacks are big. Not my kind of big — I’m built for the gap, for stopping the thing that’s coming at me, for a position that doesn’t get highlights. He’s built for the throw, for the pocket, for the kind of game that gets the cameras. USC Gamecocks, fourth-year starter, the guy his team rallies around, the guy his coaches have been building a whole offense for. I know the type. I’ve played with the type. They walk into a room like the room is relieved to see them.

He stands when Margo comes in. That much, at least.

“Margo.” He says it with warmth. With the ease of someone who has decided there’s no reason for this to be uncomfortable and is relying on that decision to make it true. He opens his arms.

She doesn’t go into them. She stops just short — the half-step that looks almost natural if you don’t know her, a hand on his arm instead, a smile that’s warm enough on the surface to pass. “Michael,” she says. Neutral. Charleston-polished. The exact temperature of a woman who has been practicing this interaction in her head since Thursday night and is now performing it better than it deserves.

He recovers. Easy. Men like Michael always recover easily. “Good to see you.” Like it’s a normal thing to say. Like they’re cousins who don’t see each other enough.

I watch all of this from two feet away, and I see the exact moment the brightness goes up by one notch. The performance-Margo notch. The one she keeps for rooms that require the most management.

I’ve only known her a few months. I already know the difference.

I put my hand out when he turns to me. “Theo.” Clean. Direct.

His handshake is practiced. The handshake of a man who’s been coached on handshakes since he was twelve. He meets my eyes and gives me the once-over that athletes give each other — reading the build, the posture, what sport. I let him read. I give him nothing back. I can tell this mildly unsettles him. People usually give Michael Hartley something back.

“Good to meet you,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say.

One word. He waits for more. More doesn’t come. He smiles, easy, and turns to Margo, and I go back to reading the room.

Maddison Ashby comes in from the kitchen with a glass of sparkling water and her whole face already going.

I’ve been told about identical twins. I understand the concept. It doesn’t fully prepare you for the reality, which is standing in a room with a person who has Margo’s face and is entirely not Margo. The face is the same. The hair is down and loose where Margo keeps hers up and considered. The energy is turned up without calibration — Maddison moves through the room like a person who has never once thought about whether the room needs her to adjust. Margo reads every room she walks into and manages it before anyone knows they’ve been managed. Maddison walks in and lights up and expects the room to be glad.

Same face. Completely different operating system.

I don’t like her.

I register this and set it on a shelf where it can’t make noise. She’s Margo’s sister. This is Margo’s family. I am a guest in this house, and none of my opinions about Maddison Ashby are relevant to anyone in this room, least of all me. I keep doing the nothing-face and I watch Margo receive her, and I add the whole thing to the column.

And then there’s Michael, coming over with his glass of something amber, easy smile, the way he fills the room without appearing to try.

I know this type. I’ve played against this type — the guy who learned early that charm is a competitive advantage and has been running it ever since, so effectively that he’s stopped noticing he’s doing it. The natural state of Michael Hartley is performance. He’s just better at hiding the seams than most.

“So,” he says, to me. The easy opener of a man who is good at talking to strangers. “You play a sport.”

Not a question. He’s reading my build the way athletes do — top to bottom, half a second. I let him.