Sigmund grabbed a beer from the fridge. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to set the table, Leo.”
He was right. I should’ve at least offered to do that. I’d been a little distracted.
Felicity put her glass on the counter. “I can help.”
“No, you’re the guest. You’ll do no such thing,” I said.
She wouldn’t listen and began rummaging through the cabinets for plates. We ended up setting the table together.
After we’d laid everything out and settled into our seats, Felicity looked around, as if we were missing something.
“Do you have…bibs?”
My cousin looked horrified. “Bibs? As in a baby bib? No. Afraid not.”
“Yes. Lobster can be quite messy.” She stood and disappeared into the kitchen before returning with three dishtowels.
She came around to my side of the table and tucked one of the towels into the top of my shirt before patting her hand over it gently. That simple touch stirred something in me.
She then handed the other towel to Sigmund, neglecting to place it on him. That pleased me to no end. My cousin ignored the towel and started eating without it.
A few minutes into dinner, it was clear Felicity was no stranger to cracking open lobster with precision, and she was certainly unafraid to make a mess.
She sucked juice out of one of the shells. “This is amazing. Thank you. It’s not every day I get to have lobster. This is a special treat.”
“I would’ve thought you got to have it all of the time, considering it’s a local delicacy,” I said.
She shook her head. “Mrs. Angelini is allergic to seafood. Which is incredibly ironic, since her husband owned a chain of seafood restaurants before he died. But we never have lobster, and I don’t typically get it when I’m on my own, since it’s quite expensive.”
Her words were a wake-up call. Not everyone could afford the luxury of eating whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You idiot, Leo. She probably saw me as coming from another planet.
“I’m sorry. That was stupid of me to say. Of course, lobster is expensive.”
“Not stupid at all. Mrs. Angelini is wealthy. She would buy me lobster anytime I wanted, if I asked. But I wouldn’t enjoy having it in front of her. I also try not to take advantage of her generosity. She tries to give me money for school, but I don’t feel like she should have to pay for that. I’ve always insisted on paying my own way. It makes me feel more secure, knowing I can.”
I nodded. “I’m sure most people would take advantage.”
“I don’t get too comfortable anywhere. Once you start depending on someone and they’re gone—then what? You need to be able to fend for yourself.”
My chest felt tight as I realized the deeper meaning behind her not wanting to accept help. The helpers in her life had always left her. That was what she was used to, and the reason she was so strong.
The mood soon lightened when a deluge of lobster juice shot out of Sigmund’s shell and onto his three-hundred-dollar shirt.
“Bollocks!” He shouted as he looked down at himself.
“I’m not gonna say I told you so.” Felicity laughed.
He pretended not to care, but the grumpy look on his face told me he regretted not covering up.
I spent the rest of dinner asking Felicity things I was curious about, such as what life was like at Harvard. I learned she’d been a member of the extreme Frisbee team there. She talked more about her plans to become a lawyer so she could use that opportunity to help people. She knew what she wanted and exactly how she was going to get there. I admired her desire for independence, but also realized her apparent need for no one else came from a place of self-protection.
I cringed when she turned the tables on me.
“So, enough about me,” she said. “Tell me more about your situation back home in England. What’s it like where you live?”
“The countryside is beautiful, but I escape to London a fair amount on the weekends. Before I left to come here, my days were spent shadowing my father, for the most part.”
“You went to college, right?”
Sigmund snorted, all too amused by her question. “I can see how you might have doubted that.”
She turned to him. “I didn’t mean that to be an insult. He just never mentioned it, and I didn’t want to assume.”
“Yes, I did go to university.” I glared at Sigmund. “Despite the fact that many things are handed to someone in my position, I got my master’s degree from London Business School.”
“Nice.” She tilted her head. “How many properties does your father own?”
“Too many to count, honestly.”
“Half of England is owned by less than one percent of the population,” Sigmund explained.
“God, that’s a tremendous amount of responsibility, and a lot of pressure, I’m sure.”