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holding martini glasses. Lucy’s dad’s face lit up, as if he hadn’t seen her in ages, and he came to her and kissed her cheek. “Hey, lovely.”
    “Lucy,” her grandfather said, in a volume that would have made more sense in a much bigger room – an auditorium, for instance – “I want you to meet Will R. Devi.”
    She extended her hand; Will shook it.
    He said her name again. Her full name. “Lucy Beck-Moreau.” Slowly. It meant something to him. “It’s a thrill.”
    If she hadn’t been so busy thinking about what to wear, she might have taken a moment to consider the obvious: Will Devi would know all about her. The party-crasher feeling disappeared, replaced with a crackle of excitement. Like how it used to be, her presence mattering.
    It didn’t feel bad.
    “Thank you. Nice to meet you, too.”
    “I’m Aruna,” his wife said. Her hand was warmer and smoother than Will’s. She had golden skin, perfectly shaped lips, perfectly shaped everything.
    Lucy’s mother excused herself to go check on the caterers, and Grandpa Beck blurted out, “Anyway, seventeen thousand dollars didn’t seem like too much to pay. This was twenty years ago, mind you. A lot of money at the time for that sort of thing.”
    Will laughed. “It still is.”
    Grandpa’s expression froze momentarily. Lucy caught her dad’s eye and suppressed a smile. No one had responded that way before, which meant Grandpa was off his script. Lucy mentally prompted him:
You consider yourself a curator of sorts
.
    “Well, I consider myself a curator of sorts. We wouldn’t want these things lost to history.” Then he stepped to the drinks tray. “Who’s ready for another?”
    Aruna went to him with her martini glass held out, and Lucy’s dad followed. Will, though, abandoned the other adults and said, “Hey, Gus, why don’t you come over and talk to Lucy and me?”
    He did, and Lucy could see from his body language and open expression that he already liked Will better than he’d ever liked Temnikova. “Will told Mom I should play more video games.”
    “He did not.” Lucy glanced at Will. “Did he?”
    “Yes, he did,” Will said. His smile, like everything else on his face, was crooked. “It’s actually good for the hands and for the brain, to take those kind of breaks.”
    “And after you told her that, you still have the job?”
    “It would seem.”
    One of the caterers came in to circulate a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “Vegan artichoke tarts,” he announced. Will took one, Lucy took two, and Gus shook his head.
    “So, Lucy.” Will turned his full attention to her. “I’m dying to ask. Do you still play?”
    She hesitated. Not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she hadn’t expected the question and should have. “No.”
    “For fun, I mean,” he said, as if she hadn’t understood. “For yourself.”
    “No.”
    He still seemed confused, raising his brows at her. She shrugged and put an entire artichoke tart in her mouth. “This is good,” she said, after swallowing, before Will could ask anything else about piano. “Considering it has no butter or cheese or anything.” She held the other tart up to Gus’s mouth. “Here, try it.”
    He mashed his lips together.
    Will gave Gus a nudge. “Go ahead. It won’t poison you.”
    “I don’t—” Lucy shoved the tart into his open mouth. He bugged out his eyes, making Lucy and Will laugh. “It
is
good,” Gus said, when he could speak.
    “See?” Will said. “You should listen to your sister.” He winked at her. She wished she’d worn the polka dots after all.
    “A toast.” Grandpa Beck clinked his butter knife against his wine glass, smug, happy, and a little red-faced. After the martinis, they’d finished off two bottles of wine throughout the meal, and the caterers had just brought out another. Lucy was pretty sure that she, Will, and Gus were the only sober ones at the table.
    “To Will,” her grandfather said. “And to