Page 149 of Burn Bright
“Starting the night off with delusions, I see,” Charlie quips.
Audrey scoffs. “I amfarmore careful than Tom and Eliot. That is not adelusion. It is a fact.” She twists to me. “Isn’t that right, Ben?”
“Yeah,” I nod strongly. Hating the attention right now.
I want to smile, but her sleeve nearly catching fire really has me worked up. I can feel Beckett observing me in concern.Calm down.I need to calm the fuck down.
Back in her chair, Audrey sips her water and smooths the creases out of her blue dress. The style is apparently from the French Rococo era, she said, fitting perfectly with the likes ofThe Phantom of the Opera.She always plays into the dramatics of the night, even her voice carries an extra whimsical cadence.
I realize she’s stopped wearing funeral blacks. No longer mourning my move to New York. I think she’s more set on the idea of joining me there now.
Eliot blows another puff of smoke in the air. “I cannot promise a fireless evening, dear sister.”
Audrey lets out an annoyed breath. “Then I shall waft the smokeyourway.”
“I vote in favor of no smoke while Maeve is in attendance,” Jane says, tucking her baby into a highchair. Thatcher, her husband and the only non-Cobalt to ever grace a Wednesday Night Dinner, slips baby noise-cancelling headphones over Maeve’s little ears.
“I vote no infants at these dinners,” Charlie chimes in.
“You were already outvoted when she was born,” Jane reminds him casually.
It’s Audrey who pins a glare on him and says, “Sit in your defeat.”
“Yes, Charlie Keating, sit in your defeat,” Tom eggs on while he pours himself a deep red Merlot from an antique decanter. He tosses the scepter to Eliot, who catches it from across the table. And yeah, it was less than an inch from hitting the 1800s chandelier. Above us, crystal daggers and pendants hang from the twisted gilt-bronze branches. The crystal chandelier is a work of art, much like the oil paintings on the dark walls.
Charlie rolls his eyes. The warm glow from candlesticks casts a rich sheen over his emerald-green suit, the jacket unbuttoned with no shirt underneath. I check my watch. Really would love for Mom and Dad to show up any minute now.
I force my knees not to bounce.
“Somewhere you need to be, dear brother?” Eliot asks, capturing my gaze.
It’s strange how normal he looks wielding a scepter, smoking a pipe, and wearing an eight-grand designer tux. Every night this month he’s worn something different, and yet, I’d never call them costumes.
Costumes imply he’s putting on an act. With Eliot, the clothes are like another layer of skin.
“Just trying to figure out when Mom and Dad are coming,” I say into a deeper breath. “The food is getting cold.”
“Shall we invokehisname?” Tom asks with another wry grin.
“Not this,” Charlie puts a finger to his temple like he’s already getting a migraine.
“Invoke whose name?” Thatcher asks, sitting beside Jane with a hand on her back. He never comes to dinner in anything theatrical. Just a flannel and pants tonight. It’s not unusual for him to be asking questions. There’s so many traditions and lore between the seven of us that it’ll probably take a good decade to loop him in completely.
“Tom and Eliot have a ridiculous theory,” Charlie says.
“It’s only ridiculous to nonbelievers,” Eliot counters. “But no one has ever seen itnotsucceed.”
“That’s because you only do it when you know itwillsucceed.”
Eliot gasps. “Tom, is he saying we’re rigging it?”
Tom shakes his head in disappointment. “I think he is.”
“Pass the potatoes, Pip.” Beckett up-nods to me, and I hand over the bowl, careful not to knock a candle. We’re both usuallythe quietest during these dinners. I’m more of an observer and a “talk when spoken to” participant.
Audrey takes a dainty sip of water. “They believe that if you say Father’s name three times, he appears.”
Thatcher’s brows furrow. “Like Beetlejuice?”
