“I phoned to cancel, but his agent was adamant that Justice wanted to see me. So we had a beer together at Pulvermacher’s. He’d like to meet you.”
“He said that?”
“I’m not sure how he found out you’d been staying with me, but he had. He asked me to tell you.”
Allie inspected Justin on the screen. She thought it was possible his mouth looked a little bit like hers, and also his ears.
This information felt neutral, and mostly okay. He wasn’t her dad, but he’d had something to do with the making of her, just as her mom had something to do with the making of him, and of all of this.
“I’ll put it on the list,” she said.
Eventually the crowd quieted enough for Justice to resume speaking. He thanked everyone for coming, introduced the piece, and gave credit to his sponsors and to various city and harbor authorities for cooperating with the project, which he said had been over ten years in the making.
Then he said, “There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to. She’s not someone whose name you know, but she’s inspired me for a long time. Nancy, would you come up?”
He was looking off the camera, and Allie scanned the terrace. For a minute nothing happened. A woman walked out, whispered something in Justice’s ear, and disappeared.
Then, at last, Allie’s mom walked onto the terrace.
She wore the same suit she’d bought for Allie’s wedding, but she looked different on the big screen—brisk, efficient in her movement, powerfully self-possessed.
“This is Nancy,” Justice said to the crowd, rather than to her mother. “She’s been in town helping me get this all ready for you, just like she’s helped me many times before.” Her mother gave a tight smile. The crowd had gotten loud again, not as interested in listening if Justice was only thanking underlings.
Allie realized her mouth was as tight as her mother’s.
An assistant handed Justice a small box, which he opened. “In recognition of thirty years of service, we’d like to present you with this token,” he said.
Allie couldn’t see what he was holding until the camera zoomed in and she caught a view of it on the big screen: it was a watch.
A gold watch. The Harry Winston.
Allie watched her mother’s body knife itself into the posture she used when she and May were doing something she didn’t approve of, and she knew Justice had fucked up. She felt it in her body.
A gold watch for thirty years of service. Introducing her as “Nancy,” his helper. As though she was a railroad employee and he was the railroad.
A few more monosyllables drifted into the mic, the crowds closest to the stage made some confused murmuring, and her mother shook her head sharply, put her hand over Justice’s and pushed the watch away.
No one in the crowd could have understood what had happened.
“Oh my God.” May appeared at her side. “Mom is sooo pissed.”
Allie looked at her mother, smart and fierce, her hair huge in the humidity, and instead of feeling sorry for Justice, she felt anger boil up inside her, too. She wanted to stamp her feet. Push through the crowd around the stage and grab the mic and set history straight. Kick Justice and every single arty hipster in the crowd in the shins.
Winston was rubbing a soothing circle on her back, and her anger was such that she wanted to smack his hand away.
This should be her mother’s moment.
Then there was a scuffle in the crowd, and she watched as Bea and a group of other college kids elbowed their way toward the ropes. Bea held her camera high and was shouting something.
Shouting and pointing her arms, signaling to a scrum of people around one of the cameras.
Allie watched as the ruckus got her mom’s attention, got Justice’s attention. He looked sad and pouting. Beatrice was close enough now to grab Nancy by the elbow and pull her into close conversation.
Allie watched her mom nod and smile, looking up at the screen.
Allie looked, too. Beatrice’s face had appeared there, a hundred times larger than life. Rainbow hair, sun-kissed cheeks, perfect straight English teeth. She beamed. “Are we live?”
“Bloody hell,” Winston said. “She’s—what’s she done?”