“Excuse me,” she said.
The noise absorbed it without acknowledgment. She moved two more steps in.
“Excuse me,” she said again, with slightly more weight in the words.
A few heads turned.
And then Megan appeared from the kitchen doorway, already smiling, moving through the room with the ease of someone who had been hostessing in this space long enough to have forgotten it was not hers.
“Oh, Eleanor! You’re early.”
Eleanor let the word sit between them for a moment.
“I live here,” she said.
Megan laughed, not unkindly but with the particular lightness of someone managing a minor awkwardness, and waved a hand as if smoothing the surface of something.
“Yes, of course, but Robert mentioned tomorrow, so we hadn’t expected you just yet. Since we’re all already here, I’m sure you don’t mind. It’s just family and a few close friends. We thought we’d make use of the place rather than let it sit empty again.”
