Being honest, a grim satisfaction came with admitting to her that the stitches came from washing old dishes in an even older house. She hadn’t come right out and said it, but her thoughts were plain on her face—that could have been one of your feet!
Too bad it wasn’t.
To add to my irritation, Charlotte had decided to join us. My sister fed off any power trip that somehow included me as the victim. Despite that, I should have detected the ambush was near when, after my appointment, we pulled up to a secluded area along the Cane River.
My mother instructed me to take a seat at a picnic table situated before its waters. She stood and my sister sat across from me, grinning from ear to ear.
I ate the canary! it screamed in triumph.
You would, you sadistic bird killer. I hoped the look I wore on my face conveyed that sentiment in return.
“We need to talk,” my mother said.
I waved my hand in a go right ahead gesture. She had brought me out here for a reason. It’s not like I had much of a choice in the matter.
She stuck her chin up, steeling herself against whatever it was she had to speak to me about. “I’ve accepted the offer on your behalf.”
I sat up straighter, my eyes narrowed to slits. “Which one?”
“Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris.”
“The Paris Opera Ballet,” Charlotte said, adding nothing new to the conversation.
“You didn’t give me the choice.” I looked down at my hands, at the grains in the wooden table, at the water, at Charlotte, who couldn’t hide her smirk, and then at my mother. I met her eyes. “You refuse to give me a say in my own life.”
“Nonsense.” She waved a hand, dismissing this. “I gave you an ample amount of time. You decided to squander it playing house with Brando Fausti.”
“And here we are.” I shoved a hand outward. “That’s what this is about. You want me to leave. To separate from him.”
This topic shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It didn’t, but how long it took for her to air it out in the open had. I had been waiting for this, for our heads to clash over the unmovable. The fact that I loved Brando Fausti and I made no qualms in denying the truth was bound to cause strife at some point. But there would be no reasoning when it came to him.
After he had brought me home from the hospital, he hovered, a worried look still on his face. Tension radiated in the air around him, so thick that it tasted bitter on my tongue. Eunice and my mother had come into the room, my mother asking questions, Eunice assuring him that she’d take care of me.
A look had passed between Brando and Pnina, one that still had me attempting to figure out what it had meant. Not long after, my mother left. Eunice disappeared not long after her. He kissed me, long and hard, on the forehead and then followed in their footsteps.
I got the feeling he had followed Pnina into her office and the two were talking behind my back. After the day I had had, I was too tired to be curious enough to get up and find out.
During the week of what Violet had dubbed “finger recovery,” he was still on edge, occasionally staring at the cut with a solemn look on his face, and generally being quieter than normal, which for him, meant close to silent. When my mother insisted she be the one to take me to get the stitches removed, the look increased to brooding, but he said nothing, keeping in line with the stoic behavior.
Charlotte chuckled, earning a scalding look from me. “You have to be ‘together’ to separate, chicken. Brando Fausti is never with just one girl. Watch. That ring is going to turn your finger an awful color soon. It’s not real. Just like the ‘relationship’ isn’t real.”
I hated when she called me chicken and sometimes mouse. Loathed both.
“When?” I asked, taking grim satisfaction in this moment too.
She looked between my mother and me. “Pardon?”
“Cut the crap, hen.” I’d be lying if I said Violet’s voice in my head didn’t push that one out. I had the strong urge to call her Sandy, but I decided I didn’t want to insult myself. “When did he turn you down?” I egged even further.