Chapter 8: Mother's Lunch

Avery's POV

Duncan's mother sat at the head of a table for eight with a menu in one hand and a squint.

"I can't read this," Duncan's mother said. "Is the print always this small, or did the chef do it to spite me?"

Nobody answered.

Duncan stood at her right shoulder, vibrating with hope, in a gray suit that matched the walls.

Lydia sat on my left in pale blue, hands folded, with her back an inch from the chair.

Beyond her, in the seat I had demanded, sat Nina in her orange jacket.

Nina reached into her pocket and handed Duncan's mother a pair of reading glasses.

"Try these," Nina said. "They're plus two. Everybody's grandmother has them."

His mother put them on and read the menu top to bottom.

Then she looked over the frames at Nina for a long time.

"Who are you?" Duncan's mother asked.

"Avery's friend," Nina said. "I'm the witness."

"To what?" Duncan's mother asked.

"Whatever happens at lunch," Nina said.

"Sit closer," Duncan's mother said. "I like her."

It was the first thing anyone had said all week that Duncan didn't write.

The soup arrived, and his mother set her spoon beside her bowl, folded her hands, and looked at us.

"Well," she said. "How did you two meet?"

I had a story ready, a tight, clean one with an ending.

"We met at the Beacon Hill charity auction," I said. "She bid against me for an indoor rowing machine, and I won."

"I met her at a recital," Lydia said at the same moment.

"I was playing the second movement, and she fell asleep in the third row," Lydia added.

We turned and looked at each other.

"The auction," I said.

"The recital," Lydia said.

"I wasn't at a recital," I said.

"You were," Lydia said. "You came in late, in burgundy, and you left your coat on a chair."

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