I waved my hand in ago right aheadgesture. 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.
My mother put her hands on her hips and her face pinched.
Charlotte’s mouth parted. She went to deny it but couldn’t. I could tell she was unsure of what he had told me. He didn’t mention it, but it was clear to see that not only did she harbor resentment against me for being able to dance, but because she must’ve been crushing on Brando once upon a time.
Her presence made total sense—she wanted to watch me react to the news that I’d have to leave. She always did. It gave her pleasure to watch me suffer.
“It was because of Elliott!” She threw her golden hair behind her shoulder in a huff. “Elliott didn’t want any of his friends dating his sister.”
“I see.” I grinned, and not nicely. “Did Brando tell you that? Or Elliott?”
“No!” She brought her hands up and they came down with a slap against the table. “It doesn’t matter now! It’s over and done with. Brando Fausti lost his chance with me.”
“Who told you that?” I pressed even harder, hoping to make her snap. “Cat got your tongue, hen?”
She started cursing at me in Spanish and I started cursing at her in French. War had been initiated.
“Dovolj!” My mother shouted in Slovenian.Enough!
All three of us became quiet, as still as the water. A lone jogger panted by, a small wave at us as he did so. The only time my mother spoke Slovenian out in public was when she didn’t want anyone else to hear her reprimanding. She could do it with a pleasant smile on her face too, even if the words were less than kind.
“Charlotte, go inside and tell your grandmother,” she continued in Slovenian. “She has been anticipating the news.”
Charlotte and I glared at each other until she had to look away. I grinned to myself, a moment of complete satisfaction when she tripped over a root hidden underneath a pile of leaves, her body giving a jerk before she righted herself.
