Hard Sell (Page 32)

Maureen turns her head slightly toward a hallway on her right. “Gary! Your son’s here!”

A masculine voice replies immediately. “Matt! Get in here a sec—I want to show you something.”

Matt gives me an apologetic look. “He has a new laptop. Ten bucks says he doesn’t want to show me anything, just ask me how to use it, all while pretending he’s teaching me.”

I smile to reassure him I’ll be fine with his mother. “Hopefully you’re better with computers than history.”

Maureen lets out a laugh as Matt makes a ha-ha face and heads down the hall to wherever his father is.

“Told you about that, did he?” Maureen says as she motions for me to follow her. “I’d forgotten all about that. It was the funniest thing seeing his face when he realized he’d gotten a C in British history. I thought he was going to pass out.”

“His first C?”

She rolls her eyes. “First anything that wasn’t an A plus. Though he always had to work a bit harder on anything that wasn’t numbers. He’s like his dad that way. Calculator for a brain, but when it comes to reading and writing, he’s merely average.”

“Heard that!” Matt calls from somewhere.

“Sit, sit,” his mom says, ignoring her son as she leads me into a fussily decorated living room. “What can I get you to drink? Wine, cocktail, soda?”

“White wine would be great,” I say, setting my purse on a bench by the door. “You have a beautiful home.”

I say it to be polite more than anything. It’s not that the Cannon home isn’t beautiful, it’s just . . . intense.

The floor in the entryway is white marble, the chandelier the size of a small car. And maybe I’ve just grown used to the minimalist decor of most New York apartments, but there seems to be stuff everywhere. Pretty stuff—gorgeous centerpieces, tall vases, fresh flowers, ornate boxes, gold-framed art on the walls.

But still . . . stuff.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call the home stifling, but I can’t imagine living here. Hell, for that matter, I can’t imagine Matt living here. I haven’t put much thought into Matt’s background before, but I definitely wouldn’t have pictured this. Not the lavishness, and certainly not the apparently open nature of his parents’ marriage.

It provides a little glimpse into the man that I haven’t seen before, and I’m not at all sure what to do with the new information. I know only that the tense man who picked me up this evening is nothing like the devil-may-care charmer I’ve known for years. I can’t help but wonder which is the real Matt.

I wonder if he even knows.

It’s hard to believe the guy’s turned out as normal as he has, though I suppose his parents’ choices did leave a lasting mark: his wariness of all things relationships and marriage.

“So, I hear from Matt you guys met through a mutual friend,” Maureen says, coming back with a glass of white wine for each of us and patting the seat next to her on a white-and-gold love seat.

I sit beside her and cross my legs. “Yes. I grew up with one of his coworkers.”

“Ian, right?”

I nod.

“He’s a handsome one. Well, so is that Kennedy, though his parents are somewhat standoffish. Especially his mother. Did you know, we were at the same fund-raiser as they were a couple years ago, and I thought it would be nice if we got to know each other. But let me tell you, that woman . . .”

I tune her out as she prattles on about the evils of Kennedy’s mother, interjecting only the occasional nod and “mm-hmm.”

It’s not that Maureen Cannon is a bad woman. She’s friendly and seems to truly adore her son. But she’s also self-absorbed, a bit gossipy, and, even though it’s none of my business, I just can’t fully embrace a woman who cheats on her husband.

Even if he cheats on her as well.

Poor Matt. I wonder how long he’s known. He mentioned his mom sleeping with his Little League coach, and I can only hope he learned about it long after the fact. It’d be a hell of a thing for a kid to grow up with.

My mother slept around plenty as well, but at least she had the good sense never to get married.

“I’m sorry, I just hijacked our entire conversation,” Maureen says, touching my arm. “Tell me about you. I confess I looked you up, but I didn’t learn much about your people.”

My people?

My tolerance for Maureen Cannon dips a tiny bit lower. I suppose on some level, I should be relieved that she’s bought the facade I’ve built for myself. That she sees me as one of them.

I’m not surprised. I’ve made darn sure people see exactly what I want them to see: a polished, poised, successful woman who wears the right clothes, knows the right people, makes the right small talk.

Still, tonight, the whole thing feels vaguely distasteful. Perhaps because I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t be nearly as welcoming if she knew my real background.

“I’m from Philadelphia.” I take a sip of my wine.

“Oh, Philly!” she says with fake delight. “Do you go back often?”

“No.”

“So your family . . . Are they no longer—”

“Mom.”

I look up in relief as Matt steps into the room, along with Felicia and an older man who’s obviously his father.

If Matt got his mom’s eyes, he got his dad’s everything else. Gary Cannon is the spitting image of what I imagine Matt’ll look like in thirty or so years.

I stand to greet him, and he gives me a firm handshake. “Welcome.”

“Thanks for having me, Mr. Cannon.”

“Gary, please.” He says it with a smile, but my first impression is that he has all of Matt’s looks but none of his son’s charms. There’s a wooden, tired quality about him.

Who knows, perhaps it’s decades’ worth of stress from sleeping with one woman while being married to another?

Matt pours himself a drink from the sideboard as Felicia and Maureen make small talk about Felicia’s daughter’s wedding. The conversation is so sugary sweet my teeth ache.

Matt catches my gaze and rolls his eyes. I give him a quick smile in return. Weird and unexpected as the whole situation is, there’s something oddly nice about being Matt’s partner in all of this.

Not to mention it’s surprisingly comforting to realize I’m not the only one with a background that isn’t Leave It to Beaver perfect.

“Maureen,” Gary says, interrupting his wife’s assessment of the perils of Felicia’s daughter not offering a gluten-free meal option at the wedding. “When are we eating?”

Maureen doesn’t miss a beat at her husband’s rudeness, but her smile is as wide as it is brittle. “They’ve only just gotten here, Gary. I’m sure they didn’t drive an hour and a half to be rushed out of here.”

Matt’s expression indicates he’d like nothing better, but he says nothing as he sips his drink.

“I thought we’d have hors d’oeuvres on the patio. The fire pit’s going, and we just had those new heaters installed. I’ve got a nice baked brie—”

“That’s fine,” Gary interrupts, heading toward the door.

Felicia follows him, patting Matt’s arm affectionately, almost motherly, as she does so.

I glance at Maureen to see if she minds her husband’s mistress acting like a second mother to her only son, but she merely smiles at me. “More wine, dear?”