The Fiancee - Kate White Page 0,3

to feel pressure to settle down?” Marcus is Nick’s fraternal twin, and he married a lovely woman named Keira last summer.

Claire shakes her head. “Nick? I think the only pressure he allows himself to feel these days is work-related.”

For the past several years, Nick has been involved in Ash’s real estate business.

“Or,” she adds smiling, “on the squash court. I just hope when he is inclined to marry, it’s to someone as terrific as you.”

“Oh, Claire, that’s so kind of you to say.” She’s warm and generous to all three of her daughters-in-law, but I know we have a special rapport. “And, of course, it’s entirely mutual. But I should have asked you before—can I help with anything?”

“No, Bonnie and I have it under control. Go start your vacation, dear.”

I head out to the patio, near where Henry’s already splashing around at one end of the kidney-shaped, black-bottom pool with Gabe and his grandfather. Blake, Gabe’s oldest brother, is swimming laps, while Marcus, Keira, and Blake’s wife, Wendy, are clustered by the beverage trolley. They wave me over.

“Great to see everyone,” I say, hugging them all. “We had dinner with these two just last week,” I tell Wendy, cocking my head at Marcus and Keira, “but it seems like ages since we’ve seen you and Blake.”

“I know, that’s the problem with moving to the burbs,” Wendy says, flicking a strand of her chin-length hair off her face. “Plus, we’ve both been crazed at work lately.”

“Everything good in the art world?”

“Definitely, but you can’t make some of this stuff up,” Wendy says. She’s an art dealer who now runs her own gallery. “I sold two very expensive candle sculptures to a collector in Texas a month ago, and his wife accidentally lit them at a party she gave. He ended up ordering two more.”

“Why would an artist bother making candles if he didn’t want anyone to light them?” Marcus asks.

Wendy smiles, unruffled. She’s been married to Blake for ten years, and she knows this is a typical response from Marcus. He’s the quietest of the brothers, but when he does have something to say, he cuts straight to the chase.

“Blake asked me the same thing. He thinks a lot of modern art is the emperor’s new clothes. But a good artist simply wants you to pause and stare and be provoked and maybe see things in a totally different way.”

“I guess the wife missed the point . . . . Speaking of Blake, I may take a dip, too.” Marcus glances at Keira. “You want to join me?”

“You go ahead,” she tells her husband. “I’m going to wait until tomorrow.” He nods and her eyes linger on him as he strides off toward the pool.

“I was just hearing about Keira’s wonderful new job,” Wendy says to me.

“Well, not wonderful yet,” my other sister-in-law insists, shaking her head. “I’m still trying to get my bearings.”

I don’t consider either Wendy or Keira to be close friends, but I get along well with both of them, as different as they are. Wendy’s outgoing and self-possessed, thirty-eight as of last month. Though she seems to favor mostly black designer clothes for work, on weekends she goes for more of that preppy-bohemian Tory Burch style of dressing, which fits well with her white-blond hair and blue-eyed good looks. I’ve seen her be snooty to waiters but never toward anyone in the family. It drives Gabe nuts that she talks with a faint British accent, even though she only lived in the UK for a year—and it was the year she was twenty-two. But if Madonna can be forgiven for doing it, so can Wendy, I suppose.

Keira is thirty-three like me, supersmart, and as of a few weeks ago, a relationship manager for an organization that guides philanthropists on where to donate. She’s attractive, with long brown hair, brown eyes, and flawless light brown skin, and though she dresses nicely enough, it’s a classic, fairly conservative style that suggests fashion didn’t make the cut on her list of major priorities. Mostly she’s friendly and thoughtful, though less self-assured than Wendy. Sometimes she can even be a little awkward in social situations, maybe due to anxiety. She’ll walk into a room and for no obvious reason will be wearing this worried frown that makes you wonder if she knows something you don’t about an approaching swarm of killer bees or a massive asteroid headed straight toward the earth.

“I hate to be a party pooper, but I have to