Macarons at Midnight (2 page)

“I’ve only been out front for five minutes! How’d you already manage to turn your kitchen into a coke raid?”

He snorted out a frustrated laugh. “I was trying to get ahead for once, mix the dough for the Schwartz bat mitzvah cookies tonight so I only had to bake and decorate them tomorrow, but instead of getting ahead, I have a half an hour of cleaning to do, no dough, and I’m already running late for dinner at my parents’ place.”

“When are you supposed to be there?”

Henry gave Millie a sheepish smile. “Twenty minutes.” Not a chance he was going to make it. Punctuality had never been Henry’s strong suit.

Millie shook her head. “Someday you’ll be on time to something that doesn’t have to do with this damn bakery.”

“Probably not.”

“Shoo with you, then.” She waved him off. “I don’t have any plans. I’ll clean it up.” She cocked an eyebrow. “But this is coming out of your holiday bonus.”

Henry grinned at her. He might be the owner of Honeyfly Cakes and Cookies, but they both knew who was really in charge. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, though. I owe you.”

“Give Trix a kiss for me,” she said. Despite never quite understanding each other’s lives, Millie and his real sister had always gotten along. Sometimes, when they ganged up on him especially, Henry regretted introducing them. It was a disaster when they got together and decided what was best for him. Like James. Or that lavender V-neck sweater from Dsquared2 that made him feel like the Easter bunny. Still, he was glad he had both of them. And sometimes glad they had each other.

“I’ll tell her. You do have a phone, though.”

Millie snorted. “Why bother when she’s in here all the time? Besides, it looks like I have some work cut out for me with all this.” She gestured at the piles of freshly sifted flour all over the floor. Henry winced.

“Okay, I’m out.”

H
ENRY
HAD
walked to work that morning instead of taking his bike since the early predawn had been so warm and lovely, slowly turning from black to a blushy lavender and coating the West Village with a rosy glow. It was his favorite part of living in the neighborhood, and Henry hadn’t wanted to miss it. Of course, nothing was quite as picturesque while jogging in long pants, with his heavy messenger bag hitting him on the back in sweltering six o’clock late-summer heat. He needed a long, cold shower, but that was going to have to wait until he got home from dinner.

He barely had time to change, but somehow didn’t think his mom would appreciate Converse, a T-shirt, and some ratty old jeans with a sticky dusting of flour and sweat. At least he had an excuse not to stay long. That dough wasn’t going to mix itself, and he had a two-hundred-cookie special order to get out the door by the time the shop closed tomorrow. Henry had a super early morning in his near future. Like the kind that started after he got home from dinner and took a two- or three-hour nap.

He rinsed off quickly when he finally made it, sweaty and still coated with flour, to his fourth-floor apartment. More thorough showering could wait, but he had to look like a human, at least, and not the abominable snowman. Or Pablo Escobar. He dressed in loafers and khakis, a pale blue button-up, and a summer-weight jacket before he shoved his wallet in his pocket and grabbed his keys. Good enough? Probably not, since he’d gotten it at Banana Republic and not right off the runway. Too bad. It had to be.

A large black vintage Rolls Royce Phantom was waiting on the street when he pulled open the front door to his building. Henry rolled his eyes but smiled. Of course. His dad had a thing for the old cars, and the Phantom was one of his favorites. He typically had Ollie get it out when he had a point to make—like how much Henry was missing by living downtown instead of where he belonged. Henry usually ignored his father’s rather heavy-handed points. Pointedly.

“Hey, Ollie,” Henry said. He felt his face split with a genuine smile.

The family’s driver had been with them since Henry was a little boy. He
was
family to Henry, who’d spent more time with him on the trips back and forth to school than he’d ever spent with his actual parents growing up. Ollie’s hair had slowly turned from black to salt-and-pepper to nearly white, and his skin sagged a bit around the edges, but other than that, nothing had changed. He was familiar and comforting.

Ollie opened the back door for Henry. “Your father thought you might need a car,” Ollie told him.

The same thing happened every time. Henry had been planning to take the subway like he did whenever he wanted to get anywhere and walking or biking wouldn’t work, but his parents weren’t fans of the thought of him getting on the train. When had the subway ever been good enough for a Livingston? According to them, never. Besides, if he got to their house on his own steam, how would they have the chance to remind him of what he was missing so dearly?

“Thanks, Ollie. It will be nice not to have to go down into the subways. It’s hot today.” Henry slid into the cool, dark interior of his father’s favorite toy.

Ollie smiled and closed the door behind him.

Henry did whatever it was people always did when they girded their loins. He put his armor on, got his witty banter ready and his excuses for the last few dinners he’d missed. Loins were girded. Henry was ready. Dinner with the folks. Always relaxing.

O
LLIE
PULLED
up to the front entrance of Henry’s family home, a stuffy sandstone townhouse on east Eighty-Second Street. He’d never liked it there, even when he was little. He’d spent hours in his bedroom that he’d plastered with band posters and travel photographs to try to make it look like home and not like the rest of the stuffy stone monsters that marched up and down the street. He’d escaped to the park and the museums when he was old enough to go alone. His sister had blended perfectly into Upper East Side life, into society and the right clothes at the best events, but it had never been for him. He’d been ecstatic when he was finally old enough to move away other than a visit or two a month.

Ollie got out and opened the door for Henry.

“Have a good night, sir,” Ollie said.

“Ollie. It’s Henry. I’m really not ‘sir’ material.” He’d always hated being called “sir” instead of his name. It’d started somewhere around his eighteenth birthday, and he’d been trying to get Ollie to knock it off ever since.

“Of course. Have a good night.”

The door opened as soon as Henry put his first foot on the stairs that lead to a thick-windowed oak door.

“Evening, sir.” His parents’ butler guided Henry into the foyer.
Here we go again.
It was silent as usual. Heavy in its pristine quiet. Thick Persian carpet covered the marble-tiled floor. The walls were tall covered in heavy floral wallpaper and dark cherry-stained wainscoting. Stiff. Formal. Cold.

Welcome home.

“Hey, Hudson.” Henry knew it drove Hudson insane when he was so casual, just like Ollie refused to call him by his name. It was part of the reason why he did it. He smiled to himself. The little rebellions felt so good, and really, everyone needed to loosen the hell up.

It had been weeks since Henry had made it back to his family’s house. He’d grown good at excuse making, and the old place made him itch. He started toward the sitting room, where his family was sure to be enjoying heavily poured before-dinner cocktails, before Hudson had a chance to close the door and lead him in. It was another tiny rebellion. It felt as good as the first one.

“Sir, if you’ll follow me,” Hudson said, walking quickly to get in the appropriate and proper position to escort Henry to the sitting room. They’d probably all been waiting for him for at least half an hour. He did feel a little guilty about that.

Henry succumbed to politeness and let Hudson do his job, even if Henry’d lived in this house until he turned eighteen and he knew damn well where he was going. He found his family exactly where he’d expected them to be, seated with cocktails in the peacock blue sitting room, waiting for their perpetually late and infuriatingly quirky son. Their words. Not his.

“Sorry I’m late, guys. Bit of a disaster at the bakery.”

He saw his mother flinch when he used the word “guys.” Henry smiled. His mother and sister got up to hug him. They’d both long since learned there was no point in trying to get him to close the bakery and move back uptown where he “belonged.” Veiled reminders aside, they no longer put much effort into trying.

“Hello, darling. You look well.” His mother’s voice was welcoming. Social. Not exactly maternal. They liked each other in small to medium doses, and he supposed they loved each other as well, in a way, but he didn’t know his mother much better than he knew any of the other socialites in her circle. He might as well have been greeting any of them. She was dressed immaculately, as usual. Champagne-colored Chanel pantsuit, beige patent pumps, gold jewelry, chignon without a single flyaway strand. Perfect.

“Hey, Mom.” Henry leaned forward and kissed her cheek. He was pretty sure he didn’t imagine her momentary flash of distaste for the use of “hey.” It was probably similar to “guys.” Once he’d asked his mother “What’s up?” and she’d nearly passed out. Henry had to hold back a grin. It wasn’t that he hated it here; he just had fun trying to loosen them up a little. They could use it.

Well, except for his sister, of course. Trixie came bounding over when he was finished with his mother and smacked a cheery kiss on his cheek. “What happened? Is Millie going to kill you when she finds out? Did this have to do with a
boy
?”

“No. No boy.” Henry rolled his eyes. “And someday, the two of you are finally going to realize she works for me, not the other way around. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to come to terms with that.”

Trixie rolled her own eyes just as hard as Henry. Even if it weren’t for the dark hair and matching big, dark eyes, there was not a single question they were siblings. “So what was this big disaster?”

“A bag of flour fell and exploded all over the kitchen. But it’s okay. Millie offered to clean it for me.”

“That’s not going to come for free.” Trixie laughed. She tossed her hair over her shoulder in a perfectly lovely, perfectly practiced move. On the surface, he and Trixie could nearly be twins, even though she was five years older than he and far more acceptably groomed and dressed in the right upscale clothing. Below that, they weren’t very much alike, other than a few odd mannerisms. Still, they somehow managed to be really close friends. Henry was glad he had her.

“I know it’s not going to come free. It never does with Millie.” Henry gave her a knowing and rueful smile. “Gotta love her.”

Henry’s father stood then and shook Henry’s hand. Bradford Livingston the third. He lived up to that honker of a name. Even Henry was a bit intimidated by his steely hair and stern demeanor.

“Hi, Dad.”

“It’s nice to see you, son.” He nodded at Hudson. “Let’s go eat dinner so Hudson doesn’t miss his show. You know he hates that.”

“What’s Hudson addicted to now?” Henry asked.

Trixie giggled. “
The Voice
. He’ll lie if you try to get him to admit it, though.”

Henry looked back. He thought Hudson might have cracked a smile. He’d always loved Trixie, even when he was helping to drag her in the door from one sloshy society party or another all through her teens and twenties.

They trailed into the dining room after the butler and took their habitual seats. Sometime, Henry thought he might sit at Trixie’s spot and shake things up a little. Then he thought that would probably be too much. He didn’t want to make their world come tumbling down. Better not.

Henry let his family’s polite chatter wash over him through the soup course while he stared at the ornate floral wallpaper and tried to count the pink-and-red roses. He’d never bought in to their whirlwind social scene, no more than he’d had to, at least. It’d actually been almost a relief when he’d come out to his mother when he was seventeen. That had been the end of his enforced presence at all her social functions. Why bother dragging him along when there was no hope of finding him the perfect Park Avenue princess to dangle on his arm like some shiny exclusive Birkin bag in human form?

“Oh, H. Babe. I have great news for you.” Trixie reached over and swatted his arm.

“
Christina
,” his mother admonished.

“What?” Trixie gave their mother her patented cherubic smile. It worked on nearly everyone. “It’s just the family. We don’t have to be so formal.”

Ophelia Livingston knew better than to fall for Trixie’s charms. “It’s not proper, dear.”

“Okay, Mom. Won’t happen again.” Henry thought he saw Trixie rolling her eyes. Clearly she’d spent too much time downtown with him. “Anyway, I have a fun job for you, brother. She said she’d give you a call in a few days.”

Another big job? Henry didn’t know whether to be ecstatic or horrified. Trixie had been dragging more and more of her upscale friends into his shop to bump up business. Henry was fairly sure he didn’t need her help. Or the pressure. “Who? What is this job?”

Trixie waved him off. “Oh, I can’t ever remember those things for more than ten seconds. But it’s Cherish’s cousin Poppy’s daughter’s thirteenth birthday or something. You know how those things go. She wanted the best in the city. I told her
you
were the best. You know Poppy, right? She’s up from Kentucky for the fall.”