And in the morning, their father called their rooms to make sure they were awake, and reminded them that they were meeting Rachel and her sons in the dining room downstairs at ten o'clock.
“I can hardly wait,” Meg said, feeling as though she was hung over. And Wim looked as though he felt worse. He looked sick.
“Do we really have to do this?” he asked as they went down in the elevator. Meg was wearing brown suede pants and a sweater of her mother's. And Wim was dismissively casual, wearing a UCB sweatshirt and jeans. It was all he had brought with him, and he found himself hoping they'd throw him out of the dining room, but they didn't. Their father and a very attractive young woman were already waiting for them at a large round table, and two little towheaded boys were squirming in their seats. And Meg noticed as soon as they got there that Rachel looked like a taller, younger, sexier version of their mother. The resemblance was striking. It was as though her father had turned back the clock and cheated time, with a woman who was a younger version of his soon-to-be-ex-wife. It was a compliment of sorts, but the irony of it somehow made it all seem that much worse. Why couldn't he have just resigned himself to getting older with their mother, and left things as they had been? And Wim realized as he looked at her, that Rachel was the girl his father had introduced him to casually in his office months before. Seeing her again now made Wim curious about how and when she had come into his father's life, and if they had already been involved back then.
Peter introduced both of his children to Rachel, and to Jason and Tommy. And Rachel made a considerable effort with both Meg and Wim. And finally at the end of breakfast, she looked at both of them and spoke cautiously to them about the wedding. She had disagreed violently with Peter about telling them so late, and was well aware of how hard it was going to be on them. But she wasn't willing to postpone it either. As far as she was concerned, she had waited long enough. She just thought Peter should have told them a lot sooner than he did. His idea about letting the dust settle after he left their mother seemed more than foolish to her. The one thing she had done before the fateful breakfast was to warn Jason and Tommy not to say that Peter was living with them, and they had agreed.
“I know it must be hard for both of you to know that we're getting married,” she said slowly. “I know this has been a big change for you, and probably comes as a shock. But I really love your father, and I want to make him happy. And I want you both to know that you're welcome in our home anytime. I want you to feel it's your home too.” He had bought a beautiful co-op on Fifth Avenue, with a splendid view of the park, and two guest rooms for them. And there were three rooms for the boys and a nanny. Rachel had said that if they had a baby, which she hoped they would, the boys could share a room.
“Thank you,” Meg said in a choked voice after Rachel's little speech. After that they talked about the wedding. And at eleven-thirty, after never speaking once during the entire breakfast, Wim looked at his sister and said they had to catch the train.
They both hugged their father before they left, and they seemed in a great hurry to leave. Peter reminded Wim that the wedding was black tie, and he nodded, and with rapid strides, they were out of the hotel and into a cab after a hasty good-bye to Rachel and the boys. Wim didn't say a word to his sister, he just stared out the window, and she held his hand. New Year's Eve was going to be a killer, they both knew, not only for them, but for their mother too. And they still had to break the news. But Meg wanted to do it, she didn't want her father upsetting her again. She'd been through enough.
“How do you think it went?” Peter asked Rachel as he paid the check, and she helped the boys put on their coats. They'd been very well behaved, although neither of Peter's children had said a word to them until they left.
“I think they both look like they're in shock. That's a big bite for them to swallow all at once. Me, the boys, the wedding. I'd be pretty shocked too.” And she had been when her own father had done the same thing. He had married one of her classmates from Stanford the year she'd gotten out of school. And she hadn't spoken to him for three years, and very little since. It had created a permanent rift between them, particularly when her mother died five years later, officially of cancer, but presumably of grief. It was a familiar story to her, but hadn't dissuaded her from what she was doing with Peter. She was desperately in love with him. “When are you going to tell Paris?” she asked, as they walked out onto the street and hailed a cab, to go back to the apartment on Fifth Avenue.
“I'm not. Meg said she would. I think that's best,” he said, succumbing to cowardice, but nonetheless grateful he didn't have to do it himself.
