Denise, who'd been quiet for the past few minutes in the way she sometimes was when everyone else was talking, looked up from her phone and said: "What does it look like, though? The thing you'll know when you see it."
Sophia thought about it honestly.
She'd been in this conversation in various forms for the past three years, with various configurations of these same women on various boats and balconies and restaurant patios, and she'd never quite been able to give the answer that would satisfy anyone. Not because she didn't have one, but because the honest answer was the kind of thing that sounded like a romantic comedy and she'd always been slightly suspicious of her own romanticisms.
"Someone who doesn't need me to perform," she said. "Someone who's actually there in the room when we're talking, not planning what he's going to say next." She turned her wine glass. "Someone who asks a question and waits for the answer. Who reads things - actually reads them, not just knows about them." She paused. "Someone I could sit in a room with and say nothing and it wouldn't be uncomfortable."
Jenny stared at her. "That is not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Taller? More jaw?"
"The jaw is an optional component."
"Thomas Whitfield has excellent jaw."
"Thomas Whitfield also has forty-seven minutes of car content," Flora said, from the stern. "You have to weigh these things."
"I've been weighing them." Sophia leaned back into the cushions. The bay was doing that thing it did in late afternoon, where the light on the water went from blue to a kind of burning gold, and the city skyline behind the masts of the marina had the quality of something that was too beautiful to be a practical place for human activity. "I'm twenty-four. I defended my thesis three weeks ago. I have a yacht and a garden and an apartment and the specific pleasure of knowing that I did what I set out to do and I don't owe anyone an explanation for any of it." She looked at the sky. "I have time."
"You sound like your mother," Pamela said.
"Thank you."
"I meant it as a concern."
"I know."
Vanessa came down from the upper deck with a bottle of sparkling water and sat beside Sophia with her knees pulled to her chest. She was quieter than usual. Sophia noticed - Vanessa was always quieter than usual when she was working herself up to saying something.
"How's your mum?" Vanessa asked, which wasn't what she wanted to say.
"Fine. Busy. She's been reorganizing the office - which means she's anxious about something and channeling it into labeled file folders." Sophia glanced at her. "Why?"
"No reason."
"Ness."
Vanessa turned the water bottle in her hands. "My dad mentioned something at dinner last week. About Vale Enterprises. He heard it from a contact in his firm - I don't know the details, I don't even know if it's true. But he said something about your brother."