Page 2 of New Year's Day

It’s coming down in buckets.

There are candles lit everywhere and music plays from the speakers that are placed discreetly throughout the house. Right now, it’s a gentle piano playing a familiar tune, but later on they’ll put on the more current hits, when everyone drinks champagne and dances with big smiles on their faces.

Someday I will be doing the same thing with my cousins and I can’t wait.

“Look at her dress,” Iris breathes, pressing her face between the spindles, her gaze stuck on her Aunt Sylvie, who is wearing a formfitting dress covered in iridescent sequins. “I love it.”

“It’s beautiful,” I agree but I’m not ready to think it’s my favorite of the night. I need to see everyone else first.

We’ve done this for the last couple of years on New Year’s Eve. The parents put us to bed—but they know none of us actually go to sleep. Eventually we’ll make our way down the stairs and sneak into the kitchen where Marta the housekeeper will serve us some appetizers and desserts from the party that she saved just for us. We’ll drink sparkling cider in the special glasses used for champagne only and say cheers to each other. We pretend we’re at the party too until we eventually head back upstairs and watch them some more.

It’s all very glamorous and exciting to us girls. The boys claim they don’t care about any of it, but they never manage to find something else to do on this night so I think secretly they must like it.

I know I love it. Someday I’ll be with the adults at the party, and a new generation of children will be watching. Maybe even my children.

A sigh leaves me and I wonder if I’ll ever be a mother. I’ll have to fall in love first I suppose, but what if I don’t? I can still be a mother. I could adopt.

But I want to fall in love. Seeing my parents together and how much they love each other is inspiring. My father is just as romantic as my mother, maybe even more so and that is just the sweetest.

Now, I do have crushes on boys all the time, but my mind is constantly changing. I can’t stick with just one boy long enough to develop any real feelings, but my mom says I’m too young and I shouldn’t focus on any one boy anyway.

I guess she’s right and besides, it’s kind of fun to focus on a variety of boys…

“Your mom looks beautiful,” Iris murmurs, nudging her shoulder against mine.

I smile, admiring how gorgeous she is in the red dress she already showed me earlier. She does look beautiful. People say I look like her, but I just don’t see it. Doesn’t help that I’ve got braces on my teeth and I’m flat-chested. Wren Lancaster is the farthest thing from flat-chested and she’s just so elegant in everything she wears. It’s how she carries herself too. I’d give anything to truly look like her someday. “She does.”

“My mom does too.” The despair on my cousin’s face is almost alarming. “I will never look like her. I don’t care what my father says.”

“You already do.” I pat her knee, trying to reassure her. “And I was just having the same thought. I don’t look anything like my mother.”

The two glamorous women are standing in the foyer, talking to the butler in low murmurs, their brows drawing together in matching expressions of concern.

“Crew,” Mom calls, her voice full of alarm. “Could you come here, please?”

My father appears seconds later, standing at my mother’s side, his hand settled low on her back. He’s listening to the butler I assume repeat what he said to Mom and Summer, and Iris and I both have our heads tilted forward, hoping to catch what is being said.

But all I can hear is the dumb piano tinkling.

Whit appears seconds later, demanding to know what’s happening and the butler fills him in as well.

“Something is going on,” Iris tells me, her voice hushed and her Lancaster blue eyes extra wide. “You realize no guests have shown up yet.”

Iris is right. No one has arrived and that’s unusual considering the time. “Do you think it’s because of the snow?”

“Probably.” Iris nods, her expression now crestfallen. “I hope they don’t cancel the party.”

“I hope they do. It’s so boring.” August makes snoring noises and Row laughs. A little too loudly, which of course catches the attention of both sets of parents.

Oh no.

They all four glance up at the landing at the same time, our mothers exchanging a knowing smile with each other before Summer starts heading up the stairs.

She’s not my aunt but she feels like one—Whit is Daddy’s cousin. Our parents are all so close and I love it. My dad is close to his siblings as well but not all of them are here tonight. My uncle Grant and his wife are currently in Switzerland and Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Perry are in the city, spending the holiday with their immediate family.

Summer pauses at the top of the stairs, her hand resting on the railing. The light catches on the massive diamond on her finger and I wonder if it’s new. I’ve never seen it before.

“What are you children doing?” Her tone is teasing and we all know she isn’t angry.

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