He continues to watch as a caterer, a lanky red-haired kid in a coat two sizes too big, offers Eloise and her siblings glasses of champagne. Paul reaches for one, but Eloise bats his hand away.
Despite his frustrations with Alice, despite all the confusion she causes him, he knows that Eloise’s relationship with her brother and sister is infinitely more complicated. He tells himself that this complication is normal, and that as an only child he’s in no position to understand it. His parents had done a remarkable job shielding him from the uglier parts of familial life—he never did know what his father had actually been doing in Rwanda, or why his mother often spent her nights holed up alone in her room—and for this he was both thankful and scornful: on one hand they facilitated, indeed helped craft his formidable and unwavering bliss; on the other hand, they’ve left him feeling terribly isolated from the anxiety Eloise feels toward Paul and Alice. She speaks of them—she’s always spoken of them—with the same mash-up of conflicting claims: they are the only people who understand her, and the people who understand her the least; she needs to speak with them immediately, and she’d be lucky to never speak with them again; she craves their affirmation—more than anything in the world—but once she gets it, she doesn’t know what to do with it.
Straightening his tie, he begins to pick his way through the crowd over to them. He stops, though, when he sees that Eloise has beckoned his parents over; Jane and the Admiral haven’t spent much time with Paul or Alice, and he wants them to be able to know one another—to like one another—before the ceremony tomorrow.
Within moments, though, his hopes are dashed: Paul says something, and Jane looks down.
Eloise grabs her brother’s arm and begins dragging him toward the kitchen.
*
He arrives just in time to see her push Paul against a cupboard and yell, “What the actual fuck.”
The caterers scatter to the far corners of the kitchen and busy themselves by rearranging rows of gougères on their trays. Ollie considers intercepting Eloise (and saving Paul), but stops himself just short of doing so; he doesn’t know the language of familial discontent. Instead, he hangs back and watches, uncomfortable with his own presence but unable to pull himself away.
“The, uh…” Paul sounds sauced. Contrite and apologetic, but sauced. “I guess I overshared.”
Ollie pictures a puppy, its tail hidden between its trembling legs.
“You guess? You guess!?” Ollie shudders. Rarely has he found himself the target of Eloise’s ire, though that doesn’t stop him from sympathizing with those who did.
“I’m … I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” Paul says.
“I can’t imagine why you think you might’ve embarrassed me, Paul. Could it be because you opted to tell the story of your first threesome to my future in-laws? To actually use the phrase ‘fucked from behind’ with a woman who hasn’t had sex since Thatcher was prime minister? Or, I don’t know, is it because you thought it wise to condemn the entire institution of marriage on the eve of my wedding? Or, wait, wait, I’ve got another total shot in the dark: maybe it’s because—”
Ollie tries not to think of Paul in sexually compromising positions, which only leads him to think of his mother in equally lurid ways. He stifles a laugh—Eloise hasn’t seen him yet.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Sorry because you’ve turned my wedding into some horrible movie? Sorry because—”
“Please stop, Eloise.”
Hearing Paul’s voice crack, Ollie winces.
“You’re a selfish prick, Paul,” says Eloise. “You’ve always been a selfish prick.”
“Oh, I’m the selfish prick.” Paul’s voice picks up, and Ollie once again considers stepping in. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t the one who cited some bullshit work excuse when my own sister had a miscarriage and needed me.”
“I can’t believe you’re still lording that over me.”
“I’m not lording anything over you, Eloise. It’s the goddamned truth. You’ve always acted like you’re too good for us, like you haven’t got time for us. I mean, fucking hell—you sit on a trust fund that you’re literally doing nothing with while Alice goes twenty thousand dollars into debt.”
“What, I’m supposed to bail her out? I’m supposed to feel guilty and charitable because Alice can’t act like a responsible adult? Ollie got her a fucking job opportunity in London, and she threw it back in my face.”
“My GOD! You just don’t get it, do you?”
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS THAT I’M SUPPOSED TO FUCKING GET! YOU’RE BLAMING ME FOR THINGS I CAN’T CONTROL!” Suddenly conscious of the people around her, the caterers pretending to ignore her, she lowers her voice. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
“Because you make it too goddamned hard. You’ve never understood us,” her brother says. “You’ve never even tried to understand us. You were our holiday sister. We called you that, you know? Our holiday sister. The whole school year, while we were fighting over who got to drive Mom’s Volvo to the movies on a Saturday, you were … Christ, I don’t know … eating fondue in the Swiss Alps. And okay, sure, you were around for Christmas, and sometimes Thanksgiving, and maybe a few weeks at the end of summer, but that’s it. That’s all we’d ever see of you. We’d just be getting back from Tampa, and you’d fucking waltz in from Saint-Tropez. And the whole time—the whole goddamned time—you’d try to act like we were all exactly the same.”
“Who understood you, then, Paul? Tell me. Because at this point, that’s looking like a pretty impossible task.”
There’s a pause, and then Paul says: “Dad. My dad understood me. While Mom was too busy worrying about all the shit she gave up when she left Henrique, Dad was there for me. He got me.”
“Dad.”
“Yeah. Dad.”
One of the caterers uses the brief silence to escape the kitchen. The door swings open, letting the rest of the party in, then slams shut.
“All right, Paul, how about this: your father, who you worshipped, whose opinion meant everything to you, died hating you.”
Ollie closes his eyes.
“You’re a fucking cunt, Eloise.”
“Maybe,” she says. “But that doesn’t change the fact that the one person who you claim understood you went to his grave never wanting to see you again. No—don’t turn away from me. Don’t you fucking turn away from me. He hated you, Paul. You told him you were gay, and he hated you. Said he didn’t want to see you again until you changed. Until you stopped becoming yourself.”
“Yeah? Then why’d he never tell me that?” Paul’s crying now.
“Because Mom didn’t let him,” Eloise says. “I’m telling you right now, kid, if you roll your eyes at me one more goddamned time, I’m going to rip ’em square out of your face.”