Chapter 1
Jen
Sunday brunch at my mother’s house is usually a lively affair, but today there’s an undercurrent of tension running through us all. No wonder. My father is bringing his new girlfriend over for the first time.
The only person who’s relaxed is my mother. She introduced her own new partner a few years ago and the world didn’t end. That her partner is Nora Levine, arguably the biggest sitcom star of the last twenty years, didn’t hurt either. That sort of thing tends to go down better with the offspring than waltzing in with a woman almost thirty years your junior.
Dad’s new girlfriend was born the same year as me. How cliché can you get?
“Dad’s been a mess since Abby left him,” Austin, my younger brother, says. “He’s not been himself.”
“It’s been tough,” Heather, my twin, confirms. “We should give him some credit.”
“He can have all the credit he wants, but must he also have such a young girlfriend?” I chime in.
“You’re just annoyed, Jen,” Lauren, my other sister, says. “Because Dad found himself a new girlfriend in no time and you’re still single at forty-two.”
“Oh, sure. That must be it.” I used to call myself self-partnered, but after my last relationship ended, I can’t quite call myself that anymore. “I’m the bitter single sister and the only person in the family who can see this younger woman for who she really is. Probably some gold digger or something.”
“Dad’s not that rich,” Austin says matter-of-factly. “Mom’s the one with all the money.”
“Rich enough for some opportunistic dancer to get her claws into him.” Damn. I do sound rather harsh. “Why else would she go out with Dad?”
“You haven’t even met her yet,” Mom says. “Give her a chance before you judge her. Or at least before calling her a gold digger.”
“I googled her,” I say. “Did you know she did one season of Dancing with the Stars?”
“Ooh.” My brother’s boyfriend Juan’s eyes grow wide. “I adore that show.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “What’s her name?”
“Clancy Estevez,” I say on a sigh that could also be construed as bitter.
“Really?” Nora asks. “Clancy Estevez?”
“Here she is.” Juan shows Nora his phone. I catch a glimpse of the photo. I’ve already seen it and so already know that Clancy Estevez is a hot forty-two-year-old woman with a dancer’s body. The thought of her being with my father simply doesn’t compute in my head.
“Oh, yeah,” Nora says. “I met her once at Stella’s.”
“And?” Heather asks, while all of us fix our gaze on Nora.
“She was lovely, as far as I can remember,” Nora says.
“Lovely,” Juan repeats. “That’s high praise coming from Nora.”
“How the hell does someone like that end up with Dad?” Heather asks. At last, another sibling expressing some doubt about this relationship.
“It was an app, wasn’t it?” Lauren says.
I can’t help but roll my eyes. The mere notion of my seventy-year-old father on a dating app is, somehow, excruciating.
“Your father’s a handsome man,” Mom says. “He’s never been short of female attention.”
“Way of the world.” Juan leans back in his chair. “An older man with a much younger woman. They’re by no means the first couple like that and they will most certainly not be the last.” Juan is eighteen years older than my brother, so of course he would say that—and they’re two men. But eighteen years is not twenty-eight. Still, I also know he’s right. It’s a tale as old as time.
“Amen to that,” Nora says.
“I understand it’s an adjustment,” Mom, always the peacekeeper, says. “Abby was much more age-appropriate, but in the end, don’t we all just want your father to be happy?”
“How happy can a woman the same age as his oldest daughters make him?” I ask.
“Extremely happy,” Juan, wiggling his eyebrows, is quick to say.
“Ugh.” Austin makes the exact barf sound I want to make as well.
“That’s not a question for us to answer,” Heather says, to my dismay. We usually agree on everything, despite our lives being so different. She has two young kids and a husband. “Only Dad knows that.”
The bell rings and the energy shifts. Mom gets up to open the door to her ex-husband. Their marriage was hardly a textbook one, but they’ve remained close, hence him introducing us to Clancy at her house—maybe he considers it neutral territory.
I take a few deep breaths. I can be against this relationship all I want, but he’s still my dad and, in the end, my opinion won’t matter all that much. I hear footsteps as they approach, accompanied by upbeat chatter.
My father walks in, hand in hand with a woman whose pictures on the internet don’t do her justice whatsoever. Her complexion is a soft golden-brown that catches the light in all the right ways, her body sculpted by years of dancing, her shoulders deliciously broad.
Hot damn.
“Kids,” Dad says. “Please, meet Clancy. Be nice to her. No funny business, please.” This is also my dad, of course. The parent who could defuse an argument between his children with just a few choice words and a targeted look. He was never overly strict, but he oozes a sort of charming kindness that’s impossible to ignore. Eric St James is, very simply, a warm, decent guy down to his bones. It’s hard to hold anything against him. And it was even harder to watch him fall apart after his second wife left him.
The advantage of having three siblings who are all in relationships is that it makes it easy to hide in the small crowd gathered at my mother’s table. Austin pulls out the chair next to his for Clancy. Lauren pours her some coffee while her husband can barely keep his eyes from popping out of their sockets. Juan does his Juan-thing that wins everyone over in a matter of seconds—we’ve had many discussions about it at this very table but none of us can quite explain what it is he does exactly; only conclude that it works.
Then, we’re all sitting around the table, chattering away as if it’s any other Sunday, which, in my view, it’s decidedly not. I’m clearly outnumbered by my siblings when it comes to feeling resentful about this situation. My dad sits there beaming as though he’s just won the lottery instead of having separated from a woman he loved for twenty years. I would too, if that breathtaking person was my new girlfriend. With those high cheekbones and that sharp jawline, she should be intimidating, but Clancy Estevez is all warmth and gregariousness. She’s striking and pleasant—that becomes clear after only fifteen minutes at the table with us.
How am I going to hate her now?
