with a shrug. “If my father hadn’t died, I’d never have been allowed to compete. At this age, I’d be married and would probably have a couple of kids.”
“You’re Romany, right?”
I shot her a smirk. “Like you didn’t already know that.”
Everyone, despite how offensive it was, had been calling my run of success ‘Gypsy luck.’
Like there was even such a thing.
If anything, it worked the opposite way.
Cursed.
That was how I felt. But you couldn’t admit to that out loud when you’d just won six gold medals at the most important sporting event in the civilized world, could you?
“Your father died when you were young, didn’t he?” Renee asked carefully.
“Yes. My grandmother told me Mom killed herself soon after.”
She blinked at me. “You sound so matter of fact about it.”
“Would you prefer for me to start sobbing into my coffee?” My lips curved. “It was a long time ago. For many years, I used to think she was a fool.”
She jerked back at my words. “That’s not fair—”
Carefully, I described what I’d been told for most of my life, a story that had been sold to the press long ago by Robert, to stop them from hunting out the details—the truth. Somehow, I had a feeling that truth would be brought into the light now I’d made a name for myself…and that changed things.
It made me want to control how it was released to the world.
“My nanny told me about this great love story. She used to say that Momma couldn’t imagine a life without my father in it. But to me, that wasn’t romantic. It was just stupid. If she’d been depressed, I’d have understood it more. If she’d been sick, in need of psychological help, then suicide is terrible. I work with a lot of charities that aim to prevent suicide, especially in kids, by getting them to open up, to talk about their problems. But Momma? The way Nanny told it, killed herself because she couldn’t continue without Father.
“I guess that’s depression in a way, but to me it was a toxic dependency. Especially how my grandmother described it. Like it was a fairy tale. Like she accepted my mom’s suicide because it made sense.”
The server brought the cheesecake, and though my appetite had soured a little, I’d promised myself that as soon as the Games were over, I’d try this mofo of a dessert—it was why I’d picked this particular café in the first place.
So, drooling, I slipped my fork through the thick pudding, pricked it with the tines, then shoved it in my mouth after dragging it through the pot of coulis I’d been given.
It tasted odd. Good, but eggy. With the icing sugar and the fruit, though, it was great. The whole place was.
An entire café dedicated to cats.
I fucking loved it.
There were cats everywhere, and I’d been especially amused when one particular tabby had insisted on sitting on my knee for half of the photographer’s attempts at a portrait of me. I liked that the first photos of me, post-Olympics, would be that informal. I didn’t have a stick up my ass, and those images would reveal the true me.
If cats liked me, then I had to be a nice person, didn’t I?
The tabby was no longer stalking my lap, but she was definitely watching me. A table away, there was a bookshelf loaded with heavy books, and she was perched on a shelf. Her belly was big enough that I wondered if she was pregnant, and how she didn’t fall off the shelf was an engineering miracle peculiar to cats.
But it had felt good to have her on my knee, and I liked how she watched me now, so much so that it made me question if I could have one when I went back home. I didn’t have a life that involved me being in my apartment that much, but cats were independent, right? They spent a lot of time outdoors.
It wouldn’t be too cruel to have one with my busy schedule, would it?
“Thea?”
Renee reached over and gently patted my hand. “Are you okay? I know we’re talking about heavy subjects.”
I shrugged. “I was thinking about getting a cat.”
“A cat?” She frowned, and I got the feeling this interview was nowhere near what she’d expected.
Maybe she’d thought I’d be a cookie cutter athlete. Spouting about the American dream and my goal to win another twenty medals before I retired. But that wasn’t me.