The Secret Life of Violet Grant by Beatriz Williams Page A

“Trust me, Mums. Is Aunt Julie here today?”
    â€œNo, she’s having lunch with the Greenwalds.” Out came the moue, just like that.
    â€œOoh, and how are our darling Jewish cousins doing these days? Has Kiki had her baby yet?” I watched her consternation with delight. Poor old Mums never could quite accustom herself to what she was pleased to call the Hebrew stain in the Schuyler blood. Of which, more later.
    Mums made a triumphant little cluck of her tongue. “Not yet. I hear she’s as big as a house.”
    â€œOh, maybe it’s twins! Wouldn’t that be lovely!” I pitched that one over my shoulder on the way to the living room, where my father wallowed on a sofa with my sister to his left and a fresh pair of trickling gimlets lined up to his right. (The vodka gimlet was one of the few pointsof agreement between my parents.) He staggered to his feet at the sight of me.
    â€œDadums! Handsome as ever, I see.” I kissed his cheek, right between two converging red capillaries.
    â€œYou look like a tramp in that dress.” He returned the kiss and crashed back down.
    â€œThat’s the point, Dad. Two guesses whether it did the trick.”
    â€œDon’t listen to him, Vivs. You look gorgeous.” Pepper pulled me down next to her for a cuddle. “A little creased, though,” she added in a whisper.
    â€œImagine that,” I whispered back. We linked arms. Pepper was my favorite sister by a ladies’ mile. Neither of us could politely stand Tiny, who had by the grace of God married her Harvard mark last June and now lived in a respectably shabby house in the Back Bay with a little Boston bean in her righteous oven. God only knew how it got there.
    â€œI want details,” said Pepper.
    â€œTake a number, sister.”
    Mums appeared in the doorway with her cigarette poised in its holder. She marched straight to the drinks tray. “Charles, tell your daughter what a man thinks of a girl who jumps into bed with him right away.”
    He watched her clink away with ice and glass. “Obviously, I have no idea,” he drawled.
    Pepper jumped to her feet and slapped her hands over her ears. “Not another word. Really. Stop.”
    Mums turned. The stopper dangled from one hand, the cigarette holder from the other. So very Mumsy. “What are you suggesting, Charles?”
    â€œDad was only celebrating your renowned virtue, Mums. As do we all.”
    She turned back to her mixology. “Fine. Do as you like. I’d just like to point out that among the three of you, only Tiny’s found a husband.”
    â€œMums, I’d rather die a virgin than marry Franklin Hardcastle,” said I.
    â€œNo chance of that,” muttered Pepper.
    â€œPot, meet kettle,” I muttered back.
    Mums was crying. “I miss her.”
    â€œNow, now,” I said. “No use weeping over spilled milk. Especially when the milk took so excruciatingly long to get spilled.”
    â€œAt least one of my daughters has a sense of female decorum.” Sniff, sip, cigarette.
    â€œI can’t imagine where she got it from,” said Pepper. God, I loved Pepper. We were simpatico, Pepper and me, perhaps because we’d arrived an unseemly twelve months apart. As a teenager, I’d once spent an entire morning smuggling through Mums’s old letters to discover whether we were half sisters or full. I’d have to concede full, given the genetic evidence. Tiny, I’m not so sure.
    â€œApparently not from our great-aunt Violet.” I piped the words cheerfully.
    Next to me, Dad exploded into a fit of coughing.
    Mums’s red eyes peeped over her poisons. “Are you all right, Charles?”
    â€œWho’s Aunt Violet?” asked Pepper.
    â€œOh, this isn’t about that package, is it?” said Mums.
    I pounded Dad’s broad back. The hacking was beginning to break up, thank goodness, just as his face shifted from