Yearning for the stars won’t bring them to your fingertips.”
She had given up, but I refused to allow her dream to die.
* * *
* * *
Though I wasn’t needed at the store, I stayed and kept her company. The tension in our relationship was gone. No longer instructor and pupil, we were now just aunt and niece. However, tension had given way to a lingering sadness, which plagued my aunt. My tasting her teas brought her momentary joy, but she soon returned to her morose state.
I yearned to see the confident, strong woman I’d admired that fateful night at the restaurant. She had been resplendent then, challenging her old love with her presence and her words. Now, the fight had abandoned her, leaving exhaustion and resignation in its wake. Gone were the glorious golds: she now wore muted grays.
It wasn’t fair; I had what I wanted, she didn’t. We fell into an odd waltz: I dampened my happiness, she masked her sorrow.
The prospect of meeting Marc for dinner raised her spirits a little. I still hadn’t heard from him, aside from the drawing I carried in my purse. I missed him.
When the shop closed and Uncle Michael returned from his meetings, I retreated to my room upstairs in relief. My failed stint as a cheerleader left the bitter taste of disappointment on my tongue. I dialed Auntie Faye’s number.
“Hi, Auntie, did you send the picture?”
My aunt was in her salon. The ambient noise filled the background, making it hard for me to hear her. “Yes, it should arrive tomorrow morning. What’s the rush?”
I ignored the question. It would lead to too many follow-up demands. “Did you find anything else out?”
“Mr. Renaud has many admirers. So many desperate women. The worst is his close friend’s sister, Leticia Chirac. She has been after him for years. One time, she bribed the concierge of a hotel he was staying at in Zurich to get into his room. It caused a scandal. She was waiting for him on his bed, naked. Allegedly. One of the maids found her when he called to have someone check if he had left his briefcase in the room. Everyone involved was fired. He travels with his assistant now.”
“Creepy.” I shuddered. “Does this mean he has a bodyguard then?”
“You mean his driver and assistant. Mr. Leo Lieu. Ex-marine. Ninth-degree red belt in jujitsu. He’s a distant relative of Ning’s husband. I asked George, and he said they met once at a family reunion in upstate New York.”
I might be able to use this. Uncle George had always doted on me, and dropping his name on the bodyguard might give me access to Girard. Enlisting him in my matchmaking scheme was a stretch, but at minimum, I hoped that the vague family connection could grant me an audience before he put me in a chokehold.
“Linda wants to know when you’re calling. You know you don’t want to keep your mother waiting. Call her after you get off the phone with me.”
“I will. I promise.”
“How is Evelyn doing?”
Miserable and defeated. “She’s with Uncle Michael now. He’s visiting from Munich,” I said instead. “We’re going to have dinner soon.”
“Good. We’re worried about her.”
“You sound like you miss her.”
“I do. We all do. She’s one of us, even she can’t deny that.” There was a pause and a sigh. “Go call your mother.”
“Yes, Auntie. Thank you again.”
I hung up.
Before I could call Ma, I needed to figure out how to downplay the accident. She would worry regardless, yet I had to mitigate the damage as much as possible. The best-case scenario happened: I was alive and free of the curse. And I had a romantic prospect. If I could get her to focus on the latter, maybe she’d gloss over the former.
I dialed Ma’s number and crossed my fingers that she was in a meeting and I could leave a voice message.
No luck. My mother picked up. “Vanessa, why haven’t you called? Are you avoiding me?”
“It’s been busy here. I need you to do me a favor: please don’t freak out.” I then detailed what happened in a gush of words, an inundation of trivial facts in a shower of syllables. It was the preferred tactic of a guilty child caught in the act. “And I’m about to have dinner now with Uncle Michael and Aunt Evelyn. They’re going to meet Marc.”
Ma created a series of exasperated noises that made me thankful I was 5,571 miles away. “You almost died and you didn’t