By four in the afternoon Christophe Davenant had decided the reunion would be the easy part of the day, which was the last correct decision he made.
He came down the outside stairs with two bags of ice and found the yard already arguing. Rigo was shouting at a speaker the size of a suitcase. Flavia was carrying bottles out in threes. Ianto had his camera up and would not be putting it down before midnight. Christophe set the ice on the counter, took a bottle, and did not open it, because somebody had to be sober in this circle and that had been the arrangement since college.
“Somebody tell him the speaker is not coming inside,”
he said, and went back out.
Maceo was on the terrace with his back to all of it and Constanza was standing too close to him, talking too quietly. Christophe reads faces eleven hours a day in a hospital. That one took no skill at all.
Then the engine, and Flavia stopped mid-sentence with her hands full.
He turned around with the bottle still closed in his hand and watched you step out of the car into the last of the light, one suitcase, no apology, and the yard went quiet in a way this yard had not been quiet once all afternoon.
“You really are here,”
he said. He laughed once, because everybody had turned to look at him saying it, and then he walked forward while the crowd rearranged itself around him without anybody deciding it.