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Is that all it takes these days?“Cool. Guess she has a good sense of style.”

“Oh, my God,so good.She’s always so carefully put together andalwayswears pastels. They’re, like, her signature palette.” Rebecca didn’t know if Cecelia had always sounded so “teenage American girl” but it shone through now that she had been in school for six weeks. “I didn’t know anyone could get away with wearing pastels at Winchester Academy, but she does it! It’ssoooo subtle, too. Oh, my God, she has this baby pink headband that she pairs with her dark crimson turtleneck and plaid skirt…”

Rebecca struggled to pay attention, but if Cecelia was happy to keep prattling on, then good for her. She’d pretend to listen while texting Caitlyn, who had sent some photos of her lakeside property.At least that’s gorgeous in the fall.Becca was due to head to Iowa around Halloween, but until then, she lived vicariously through photos and descriptions of pumpkin pie and apple cider in the air.Ugh. So jealous.Since Caitlyn’s departure, it had been up to Becca to get the apartment ready for fall so Cecelia could properly enjoy her first Halloween season in America, but she was nowhere near as good as the original Ms. American Midwest.

“By the way…” Cecelia wrinkled her nose and knotted her hands together, something she always did when she struggled to think of how to say something. Whether in English orat all.“Don’t tell my aunt yet, because IpromiseI will tonight, but I have a date for homecoming.”

Well, if anything was to break Rebecca’s concentration on the phone in front of her, it was that. “Really? Who?”Opal Meyer?Rebecca would explode into a righteous sapphic dance if that turned out to be the case, but she knew better than to think those genes ranthat hardin the Wong family. Just because Jane was gay and Lilian was bi…

“His name is Perry.” Cecelia bit her lip. “Perry Merryweather.” She concentrated on saying his last name without missing a single syllable. “He’s one of Opal’s friends in junior year. He asked me yesterday. That’s why I haven’t said anything yet.”

“Oh. Nice. Is he cute?” Becca didn’t know what else to say.

“Sure!”

“Do you have a picture?”

“Oh, no, not yet. But I think he wants to pick me up at the apartment to take me to the dance. I think that’s the tradition?”

Becca nodded. “If memory serves me, he will bring a corsage, take some pictures, and whisk you away while your guardian threatens his manhood if you’re not back by midnight.”

“I could see Auntie Jane doing that.”

Me too.Except she’d do it in a few quips peppered with Britishisms that would probably fly right over an American boy’s head.And she would be all bark, no bite.Jane knew she had nowhere to talk. By the time she was her niece’s age, she had already broken at least one heart.I was as bad…Becca wouldn’t bring up that she always had dates for homecoming and prom. And they usually wanted something from her in exchange for a corsage and car ride.

She would have to be the one to give Ceceliathe talk,wouldn’t she? Great.

“If you like him, and he seems respectful enough, then whatever, right?” Becca relaxed into the circular sofa spectators like her had to occupy when helping a lucky woman shop at The Crimson Dove. She had turned down the complimentary Champagne and instead nursed a bottle of Perrier via a chilled glass, but that wasn’t the only thing to distract her. Gertrude had returned, and she bore with her five different dresses that were perfect for an evening at one of Winchester Academy’s many social functions.

Becca only half paid attention while she mulled over Cecelia’s announcement that she was dating a local boy.Time to tuck his name away for later.The first thing Jane would want to know was his background. Second? His family’s. But unlike her own family, who would care about these things as a way to possibly set up their children’s marital future, Jane wanted assurance that she wasn’t fucking up having a ward under her roof. It would be Becca’s job to do the digging as soon as they were home.

Perry Merryweather.Yup, that sounded like a rich boy’s name.

“Can you believe it? Already some boy has the gonads to ask her out!” Jane flopped onto her side of the bed after she emerged from her shower. It was almost ten. Cecelia was locked up in her room for the rest of the evening, probably texting with Perry, and Becca had agreed to sleep with Jane that weekend.So much for having Caitlyn’s big bed all to myself.It had been a good run for the first few days Cait was away. “I don’t know anything about these ‘Merryweathers.’ What a silly name. Can you imagine the weather beingmerry?It sounds so English, yet that is the last place you expect happy weather!”

Becca gave up finishing the book she had started eight weeks ago. As she set it aside, she got under the covers and said, “I don’t know anything about them either. All that came up in my Google-fuing was that his father runs a regional transportation company and his mother is a trust fund daughter, maiden name Kleinschmidt.”

“How brilliantly German.”

“Think your sister will live if she finds out?”

“Oh, I doubt Lilian cares as long as she is not a grandmother before sixty-five when it will be fashionable for her to dote on a tyke. Now,mymother will do that thing where she wrinkles her nose and hitches her breath in her throat because he is not even Asian, let alone of Chinese descent. But she will not say a bloody thing because it’s her daughter’s daughter, and quite frankly, Willow Wong is done playing matchmaker if you ask me. All of her get are married once again. She can die happy!”

Becca turned off her light and rolled toward Jane, who still wasn’t beneath the covers. “Maybe I should talk to her about the culture around school dances. Let alone entitled boys from wealthy private schools…”

“Oh, please, if anyone is talking to her about the birds and the bees, it better not be me.”

“Way ahead of you, Jane.”

“But I am sure it will be fine. I will have a chat with the bloke before he runs off with our Cece.” Something about Jane’s self-assured laughter wasn’t cutting the muster.Countdown in three… two…“Let him know that Cecelia comes from two very powerful families in Hong Kong. Anyone who owns an estate in Hong Kong is powerful, you know. Us Wongs with White Fir and the Lams with Cypress Ridge. He will not live past the age of eighteen if my mother catches wind that some American kid has made her oldest granddaughter cry.Thatis when Willow Wong gets involved!”

There it is.

“But let’s not talk about that.” Jane pushed herself against Rebecca, clamping a hand against the small of her back and nuzzling her nose right into her girlfriend’s neck. “Let’s talk about how much I have been thinking about youallday, Becca.”

She gently shoved Jane away with a solid hand to the chest. “I started my period tonight. I would rather stab myself in the gut than have sex, sorry.”

Groaning, Jane flung herself back onto her pillow, legs still twisted in Rebecca’s direction. “Just my bloody luck. Caitlyn’s gone, you’re bitten by the evil little sister, and I’m here probably ovulating based on howbadlyI want to shag something.Wa!Kill me. My mid-40s are so callous.”