Chapter 1
*Samantha*
I opened the piece of mail in my hand and discovered it was a wedding invitation. To my
own wedding.
Wait. Let me back up for a second.
It was just after midnight and I’d walked home from the lab, ducking under awnings and
construction scaffolding and thinking that New York City must manufacture wind for the
sole purpose of making my life difficult. Kaitlyn, my former roommate from undergrad
and the only person who would pick up my call at this hour, kept me company as I
dodged puddles. Collectively we were dissecting whether or not the TV show Friends
had ever actually been funny.
“It’s not that I think Chandler wasn’t funny,” Kaitlyn said, and I could hear the telltale
babbling of her baby in the background as I unlocked the three dead bolts of my front
door, “but he definitely pioneered the whole ‘man-child who can’t communicate with
women’ genre. And I resent him for that.”
“Are you suggesting,” I said, twisting my wrist, “that sitcoms bear some responsibility for
Martin’s emotional constipation?” Martin Sandeke was her husband and basically a
bully to everyone but her as far as I was concerned.
She snorted. “Martin’s emotional constipation was definitely present in utero. Don’t
slander Chandler Bing like that.”
“You named your baby after a sitcom character, and you expect me to not make the
connection.”
Kaitlyn paused, possibly switching boobs, possibly weighing the threat of my mockery.
“We named him Joey because it was the only name we both didn’t hate. And Joey is
short for Joseph, which is a perfectly reasonable name. If you don’t like the name, that’s
on you, Sam. You never suggested anything better.”
I had, in fact, suggested at least a dozen better names, including but not limited to:
Bartholomew, Snape, and Dr. Indiana Jones. Kaitlyn had summarily rejected them all. I
suspected that when the baby reached object permanence, he’d resent her for it.
“You could have named him after me. Samantha’s a perfect name for any child if you
say it with confidence.”
The baby made a squelching sound like he’d inhaled a portion of his mother’s areola.
“Okay, ‘Sam,’ I have to finish feeding your godson. Text me if you get home alive.”
“I’m already home, and”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“you have to admit that the
pivot scene was funny.”
“That was one scene! One scene in a million seasons.”
“Good night, mamma,” I whispered.
“Good night, gorgeous friend,” she whispered.
The call ended and I was left with the warmth of Kaitlyn’s concern to guide me into the
dark hallway. My calves were still burning from the four flights of stairs as I used my cell
phone’s flashlight and tiptoed to my shared bedroom.
Both bedrooms were silent, but I recalled something about my roommate Diya being on
a long hospital shift. Kendra, who shared the other bedroom with Nakita, was probably
sleeping at her boyfriend’s studio apartment, which was even smaller than ours but had
the benefit of being a five-minute walk from her job at the Lower East Side’s only vegan
barbeque restaurant.
My stomach rumbled, so I padded into the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, and
stared into the fridge with the vague, quixotic hope that some new form of nutrition
would have materialized in the past twelve hours. It hadn’t. But a bag of expired
shredded cheese glared back at me from the top shelf, accusatory and possibly
sentient.
Abandoning hope of finding sustenance in the fridge, I quickly scarfed down a protein
bar and washed it down with a glass of water. After flossing and brushing and doing the
bare minimum of my skincare routine, I finally made it to my room. I’d left the overhead
light off, but the lamp atop my nightstand was on. A stack of mail sat on the center of my
bed, presumably Kendra’s passive-aggressive way of reminding me that I hadn’t
touched my basket of mail by the front door for the last two weeks.
That’s when I spotted the envelope.
It was large, not quite cream colored, with elaborate calligraphy. There was gold foil.
There was an actual wax seal. The front read, “Miss Samantha Jarlston” and had my
address. I frowned, guessing it was an invitation to a wedding but wracking my brain
trying to figure out who might be getting hitched. Slitting it open with the nearest sharp
object, which happened to be my lab ID badge, inside I found the world’s most
excessive wedding invitation. The kind you had to hold with both hands, as substantive
as an Amex Platinum card.
The honor of your presence
is requested
for the marriage of
Andreas Kristiansen
to
Samantha Jarlston
Saturday, June 19th, 7:00 PM
The Oslo Opera House
Oslo, Norway
Dinner & Dancing to Follow
I stared at it for a long, dumb second, then glanced around as if someone were filming
my reaction. This was so random and weird.
I had not agreed to marry Andreas Kristiansen. I hadn’t even spoken to him in over a
decade. Actually, fifteen years and one month to be precise. The last time we saw each
other, I’d been thirteen and numb. He’d been eleven, wearing an ill-fitting black suit, and
crying into a bowl of fruit salad at my father’s funeral.
This had to be a prank. Or maybe he was marrying someone with exactly my name?
But then, why send me an invite? Or, more likely, this was a mind-game maneuver by
the Kristiansen family to force me into a position where I would have to publicly
acknowledge them or some such nonsense. I still received requests for interviews about
the events surrounding my father’s disgraceful downfall and death, even now, and even
though I’d never given a single one.
The Kristiansens were shady as a forest, but they had more money than the devil. I
wasn’t stupid. As much as I wanted to see them all burn in hell, I wasn’t going to cross
them without equivalent financial backing, or rock-solid evidence, or both. Realistically,
the closest I would ever get to revenge against that family would be to ignore their
existence, let them think I might someday give an interview that would tank their
company’s stock, and live as well as possible.
Basically, I didn’t want anything to do with them unless it meant reading their obituaries.
I tossed the invitation into the trash and, for the second time that night, reached for my
phone. There was a text from Diya (“I’ll be home in the morning”) and a missed call from
a New York City area code I didn’t recognize. I ignored both and started to compose a
ranting text message to Kaitlyn, only to stare at the screen for two minutes, and then
delete it. There were limits to our friendship. She had a baby who she’d purposefully
named Joey. Clearly, she was dealing with a lot right now. I didn’t want to bother her
with this nonsense.
Crawling under the covers fully clothed, I tried to sleep but my brain performed an
elaborate postmortem on every interaction I’d ever had with Andreas Kristiansen.
Andreas was two years younger than me, and he was the kind of child prodigy that
other prodigies resented on principle. He was fluent in three languages by eight—but, to
be fair, his mother was Italian, his father Norwegian, and he spent summers in the
USA—and the kid played chess like he’d been born with every possible opening, middle
game, and ending hardcoded in his DNA.
His father, Oskar, had been my dad’s business partner and, eventually, one of the
people who’d bankrupted and then destroyed my family (according to my mother). I
don’t want to dwell on that part—if you spend fourteen years in therapy, you learn to
summarize childhood trauma in one sentence or less—but suffice it to say, I had zero
interest in sharing my last name with anyone in the Kristiansen bloodline. The invitation
was absolute nonsense. Like, Mad Hatter nonsense.
Still, Andreas had always been . . . different. And not in a bad way. Not at all.
I’d spent my childhood summers at his family’s Hamptons house, where the two older
Kristiansen boys ignored me in favor of their wild-oats sowing. However, Andreas
followed me around with the intensity of a golden retriever, always asking questions,
always eager to play. He was sweet and curious, once getting so invested in building a
blanket fort that he convinced their housekeeper to sew custom curtains for the
windows. When he was nine, he found a dead baby bird in their garden and wept for a
full hour, insisting on holding a proper funeral with eulogies and everything.
I was the officiant, naturally. Because I’m eloquent and look fabulous in robes.
He was lean and pale and had this thick, chaotic mop of dark hair that made him look
like an extra from a Tim Burton movie. And, if you weren’t used to it, his gaze was
intense and intimidating. There was something about the color of his olive-green irises
and the shape of his large eyes, something about how his lids naturally drooped when
he was in a state of concentration, listening, or rest that made him appear both bored
and belligerent, like he was just about to give you a judgmental, unimpressed slow blink.
Almost ten years ago, while doomscrolling, I’d stumbled across a news article about
him. According to a reputable British newspaper, he’d become a six-foot-two chess
demigod and the second youngest grand master in Europe’s history. Also, he was a
vegan at sixteen. Which, to be clear, is not an insult at all, but I was generally suspicious
of anyone who forgoes cheese by choice. That’s an inhuman amount of self-control.
There’d also been a relatively famous meme about him and his intimidating stare. It was
a photo of a teenage Andreas looking at an opponent across a chessboard, and in bold
white text outlined in black it read, “My mouth may not say it, but my face definitely will.”
That was the last I’d heard of Andreas Kristiansen until, suddenly, out of absolutely
nowhere, and after not hearing from him for years, he reached out to me last month.
I didn’t hear from him personally. He reached out through his assistant. But of course.
I’d been ignoring the emails from his personal assistant since the first one arrived thirty
days ago. They always contained the same message, just with slightly different wording.
Mr. Kristiansen requests a half hour of your time to discuss a private matter.
Mr. Kristiansen requests that I reach out to arrange a brief meeting.
Mr. Kristiansen is in town and would like to meet you for a half hour to discuss
something urgent and sensitive in nature.
At first, I suspected that he wanted to make amends for our parents’ war, but the more I
thought about it, the less I cared. He might’ve been something like a best friend to me
when we were younger, but he’d grown up as a Kristiansen. Since I had no power or
means to annihilate them, my life was just fine without reopening that chapter. Better to
pretend they—all of them—didn’t exist.
Then, two weeks ago, I was leaving the building where my lab was housed, and a
stranger approached me with a slim manila envelope and a practiced smile. He
introduced himself as “the personal assistant to Mr. Kristiansen” and asked if I could
open my calendar to schedule a mutually agreeable meeting time. I told him the only
arrangement I was interested in was a restraining order, and then I walked directly to
the nearest pizza shop and stress-ate two slices of mushroom, cheese, and extra
pepperoni.
But now, side-eying the invitation in my trash can, I realized that the situation had
mutated. What began as passive pursuit was now full-tilt campaign. The Kristiansens
had upped the ante. There was a calligraphed RSVP card with gold leaf embossed
detail. There were flight vouchers. There was a slip of paper printed with a New York
City phone number, and underneath it, two sentences:
Samantha, please give me half an hour of your time. If you don’t want to talk or see me
again after that, then I’ll leave you alone. —Andreas
I wanted to crumple the card, burn it, toss it out the window into the East River.
My phone vibrated with a new text, pulling me out of my violent musings.
Kaitlyn: Did you think of any other funny episodes or scenes?
I typed back: “Not yet. But if I’m kidnapped, it’s the Norwegians. Will explain later.”
I placed the phone on the nightstand, turned off the light, and rolled onto my back,
letting the city’s ambient glow seep through the window and bathe my face in blue.
Outside, a siren wailed, insistent and urgent.
I lay there for a long time, thinking about the last time I held a wedding invitation in my
hands. Grandpa’s second marriage. The memory made my stomach hurt.
I wondered if there was any universe in which I could RSVP no to my own arranged
marriage. Probably not since I hadn’t even been proposed to.
Eventually, I got up, fished the card from the trash, and ran my thumb over the
embossed letters. I didn’t recognize the font, but I liked how it looped, the swirls, the
softness. Then, I studied the note from Andreas, presumably in his own handwriting. His
cursive was sharp and tidy. It was nice, but it was aggressive, like a handshake from a
man who thinks handshakes are tests of strength.
And as I stared at the points and lines of the black ink script on the thick ecru card, I
couldn’t help but think, What the hell kind of person does something like this? ...
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