The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [90]
Niko likes her because Miri was married briefly to one of the most famous stage magicians in the world, and learned during this time to do sleight of hand, a skill that fascinates him. She claimed that the man was as stupid as one of his hat rabbits, and if he could make things disappear so could she. She’s pretty good at it, for it is generally hard to attract Niko’s attention, and this she can do nearly as well as Amalie or Lourdes. Also she burns with love for them; she can’t have children of her own apparently and so aunting is one of her chief joys.
The laughter died away as I entered the room. They all looked at me, each in their different ways, except for Niko, who hardly ever looks at me. He was still staring at my sister’s hands, which semiconsciously twirled and vanished several small colored sponge balls. My daughter’s look challenged me to be something I was not, a perfect father to complement her own perfection, and my sister’s was, as usual, ironic and tolerant. She is no longer the most beautiful woman in the city, but she is still pretty rare and has the means to preserve and enhance her looks to the fullest extent medicine and fashion allow. She was wearing black Dior head to toe and glittered with chunky jewels. As for Amalie, she can never help herself, she always smiles at me with love in her eyes, before she recalls the situation and retreats behind her formal Swiss persona. Still a lovely woman, Amalie, if no longer exactly the one I fell in love with. Two kids and the strain of marriage to me have added soft flesh on the body and lines on the face. I could not help thinking of Miranda at that moment, and the long-sought second chance.
I kissed them all on both cheeks in the European fashion that has long been our family custom (Niko flinching slightly as usual) and presented my orchid. Polite thanks from Amalie, eye-roll from Imogen and Miri (and it is exactly the same expression of amused contempt on both lovely faces; is it genetic or was it taught?) and from Niko a brief recitation in his curiously robotic voice of the taxonomic position of this particular species, and the details of blossom morphology that make this obvious. Niko is interested in orchids, as he is in nearly any complex subject requiring memory and a minimum of human relationship.
I asked Miri what they had all been laughing about when I came in and she retold the story of the world-famous actress and the woman famous for breasts-and-appearing-on-talk-shows and how they were getting face packs at the same high-end salon when their tiny dogs got into a dogfight, and it was a fairly amusing story about dripping mud and flying fur and screaming homosexuals, and she continued it as we went down to the dining room and sat around the oval teak and glass table. Amalie had cooked our dinner herself, a kind of cassoulet made with chicken sausage, lamb, and white beans, one of my favorite meals as it happens, with an artichoke salad and a bottle of Hermitage. Given what her time was worth nowadays, it was probably among the most expensive meals on earth. Niko had his bowl of Cheerios, which foodstuff comprises 90 percent of his diet.
During dinner, Amalie and I struggle to keep the conversation flowing, and some of what we talk about is business. My wife, despite her disdain for making money (or perhaps because of it), is a financial whiz. She publishes an on-line report called Mishkin’s Arbitrage Letter, in which she tells her fifteen hundred or so subscribers where the currency markets are going during the next week. Naturally, the smart players