Chương 4
“You didn’t tell me he was blue-collar.”
She whispered it as if Miles had disappeared.
He had not. He was six feet away, admiring a framed map.
“I told you his name,” I said.
“A name is not information.”
“He can hear you.”
“Then perhaps you should have prepared him.”
Miles turned from the map. “The coastline is mislabeled.”
My mother stared.
“It’s a reproduction,” she said.
“I assumed.”
He smiled pleasantly.
She walked ahead.
The backyard had been arranged like a magazine spread about tasteful abundance. White umbrellas shaded linen-covered tables. Hydrangeas bordered the terrace. Beyond the lawn, a string quartet played beneath an oak tree while children chased each other around a sculpture my mother claimed not to like and had placed where everyone could see it.
Lois stood near the bar in a champagne-colored dress with a slit high enough to make sitting a technical problem. Her blond hair was pinned at the nape of her neck. She saw us before my father did.
Her eyes moved from my face to Miles’s boots.
Then she smiled.
“There she is.”
She kissed the air beside my cheek.
“I was worried you’d cancel,” she said.
“You sent three reminders.”
“I know you.”
Her attention shifted to Miles. “And you brought someone.”
“Miles, this is my sister, Lois Hart.”
He offered his hand.
She took only his fingers.
“Miles,” she said. “Just Miles?”
“For now.”
She laughed as though he had performed on command.
“What do you do, Miles?”
“Today?”
“In life.”
“A little of everything.”
“That must be freeing.”
“It makes taxes interesting.”
She looked at me, pleased. “How did you two meet?”
“At the museum,” we said together.
Lois clapped once. “Adorable.”
My father approached carrying a glass of white wine. His face had softened with age, but not enough to hide the quick calculation when he saw Miles.
“Dad,” I said, “happy birthday.”
He hugged me with one arm. “You made it.”
Then he turned to Miles and offered two fingers from around the stem of his glass.
“Bill Ellison.”
“Miles.”
“Serena says you work in operations.”
“I hadn’t said that,” I told him.
My father ignored me. “Warehouse?”
“Among other places.”
“Nothing wrong with honest work.”
“No,” Miles said. “There isn’t.”
My father nodded as if agreement had been requested. “Enjoy yourself. Food starts at two.”
He left to greet a couple from the tennis club.
Miles watched him go. “That handshake was efficient.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“All of it.”
“We’ve been here four minutes.”
“Exactly.”
Lois had not left. “You know, Serena used to date a tax attorney.”
“Lois.”
“What? I’m giving context.”
Miles looked at her. “Did he have a full name?”
She hesitated. “Daniel.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It wasn’t.”
The words landed exactly where she placed them.
I reached for a passing tray and took a glass of wine.
Miles took sparkling water.
Lois noticed. “You don’t drink?”
“I do.”
“But not here?”
“Not yet.”
Her smile tightened.
A woman in a wide straw hat called Lois’s name. Lois touched my arm before turning away.
“Four o’clock,” she said. “Don’t wander off. I need the family together.”
“What happens at four?”
Her eyes brightened. “You’ll see.”
When she left, Miles leaned toward me.
“Your sister speaks like she has a camera crew.”
“She’s been practicing since birth.”
“Does she always mention Daniel?”
“Only when I seem stable.”
He took a drink. “You’ve got thirty-seven minutes before someone asks whether I own health insurance.”
It took nine.
Uncle Gary found us beside the rose garden. He wore a pink linen shirt, loafers without socks, and the expression of a man who believed every conversation improved when he arrived.
“Serena,” he said. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Miles.”
Gary shook his hand with enough force to make the tendons stand out in his wrist.
“Working man,” Gary said, eyeing the boots. “I can tell.”
Miles looked down. “They do make a lot of noise.”
Gary laughed harder than the sentence required.
“What field?”
“Operational work.”
“There’s no such field.”
“That explains the paperwork.”
Gary turned to me. “He’s funny.”
“I noticed.”
“Operations where?” Gary asked.
“Manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, whatever’s failing loudly enough.”
Gary’s smile paused.
He ran a regional packaging company inherited from his wife’s father and spoke about it as if he had invented cardboard.
“Supply chain,” he said. “Everybody uses that phrase now.”
“They do.”
“Mostly people moving boxes.”
“Boxes matter.”
Gary took a long drink from a glass that smelled like whiskey despite the lemon wedge. “You ever run a warehouse?”
“A few.”
“What size?”
“Depends which one.”
“Let’s say two hundred thousand square feet.”
“Then the square footage probably isn’t the problem.”
Gary rocked slightly on his heels. “What is?”
“Could be inventory accuracy. Could be slotting. Could be labor scheduling. Could be the sales team promising lead times the building can’t support. Could be management treating overtime as capacity.”
Gary’s eyebrows rose.
Miles continued, still mild. “Could be forecasting centralized too far from the regions. Could be old software nobody wants to replace because the person who chose it is still in the building.”
Gary looked down at his drink.
“My system is fine.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“We did twelve percent growth last year.”
“Congratulations.”
“The market was down.”
“That’s even better.”
The exchange should have ended there. Gary seemed unable to leave without recovering ground.
“You union?” he asked.
“Not personally.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m one person.”
I covered my mouth with my wineglass.
Gary stared at him, then laughed because another couple had joined us and not laughing would have admitted something.
“Serena brought a philosopher,” he said.
He excused himself to get another drink while still holding most of the first.
Miles watched him cross the terrace.
“He’s going to search my shoes online,” he said.
May you like
“He’ll ask someone else to.”
A breeze moved through the hydrangeas. For a few seconds, nobody spoke to us. The quartet shifted into a song I recognized from a car commercial.
