Convenient. The way you might describe a hobby that didn’t interfere with childcare. The word landed somewhere between almost real and not quite serious.
Before I could answer, a new brightness flooded the circle: Tessa, drawn as if by spotlight.
She slipped into the conversation with the ease of someone who’d never had to knock. Her hair fell in glossy waves, her makeup the kind that looks natural until you see it in a magazine and learn it cost more than your grocery bill. Her left hand was tilted just enough for her diamond to catch the light, sending sarcastic little comets around the room.
“Lena’s very independent,” she said, smiling for everyone else. “She prefers working alone.”
My mother laughed like this was charming, like it explained everything.
“Some people just aren’t built for corporate life,” one of my aunts added, her tone sweet as her lemon tart. “Nothing wrong with that at all, dear.”
Gentle as a pat on the head. There, there. Some people are cats, some people are dogs. Some people are real, some are…quirky.
I kept my face neutral. I’d heard this script for years, the lines that defined our family story. Tessa: the shining one. The star, the promise, the one who was going places. Me: the background hum. Functional, unremarkable, vaguely technical.
The jazz shifted to something slower. Glasses clinked. Somewhere across the room, Tessa’s fiancé, Grant—the Windsor heir himself—laughed at something a much older man said, his arm casually draped around his father’s shoulders. Golden boy and golden ticket.
“How long have you been single now, dear?” another aunt asked. Her voice was faux-casual, but her eyes were sharp. I could practically see the calculation happening behind them: thirty-five, no plus-one, no whispers of drama. What a waste. What a shame.
