“The sooner you accept that you’re not one of them, the better off you will be.” I spoke low, rising from my chair and leaning over the table. “Even in mystate, as you enjoy pointing out, I will always be born in a different class than you. They would rather accept me at my most tarnished than you at your finest. Because you will never be one of them.Thatis the game my mother plays. There is no prize. You will always be the second choice.”
“You only say this because your mother chosemeover you.” Lorelei swallowed, her eyes shifting the closer I got.
“You don’t know anything in the slightest.” I looked down at her, and for once, she almost looked pitiful. Such blind optimism. “You wouldn’t know a phantom from a cheap illusion, even if the mirrors were in full view.”
“You are being cruel!”
“I am theonlyone being honest with you.”
“It seems unlikely that all but one are secretly my enemy. I knew you were pessimistic, but now I truly do think this is a bout of envy.”
“A child’s school of thought.”
“Says the one throwing a tantrum!”
“That’s the problem with you.” I laughed, pointing a finger at her. “You are young. You don’t have to do any of this to get far—”
“I’m farther than you ever got! You are just mad you quit early!”
“No”—I shook my head—“you joined late. You weren’t there for the worst of it. Yet here you are, jumping headfirst before the ink dries on the new catalog.” I slammed my fist on the table again. “You could have made it out! You almost were!”
“Maybe I don’t want to get out!” she screamed back at me, standing from her chair. “What if I don’t want to leave? Not everyone has to feel shame, to feel like this is a burden. I’m a woman in my own right and can choose for myself!”
Even though we had only been exchanging words, our breathing, our posture, my fatigue on the subject made it into a long and weary battle.
This was it. This was the end of us, our friendship. It was clear she would never understand, and she wasn’t going anywhere useful. Maybe it was best that it ended now before I got to see them ruin her.
Leaning against the table, a sharp sting. I flinched away, my blood on the tip of the letter opener resting among a pile of opened letters, the crimson pooling on my finger in a singular drop.
“You know, I thought you would understand.” Her voice was uncertain, like she was struggling to sort her thoughts before she spoke. “Now I realize you’ve hated me this whole time. A by-product of jealousy or otherwise, I do not know.”
The tension in my jaw made each pulse of blood through my temples throb, an ache so strong I thought it would burst through my forehead and sprout horns of a raging bull.
“Poor Petre, sohardto love! Not your mother, not your friends, quite possibly not even your husband! You are lucky he is poor, or Ifear he may have run for the hills the minute your personality cameshiningthough. Yet you still think it is the fault of all those around you? Years of complaining about the same hardships in relationships, and you still never wondered if it was no coincidence that the common denominator wasyou.”
“Stop it,” I demanded. “Stop it now.”
“And the one man who was obsessed with you has suddenly disappeared. Not a trace! By God, I thought once upon a time that Mr. Carlisle wassoobsessed, so taken with you, that you would have to kill this man if you ever wanted to be rid of him!” She paused, biting her cheek as she laughed with teary eyes, fiddling with the sparrow brooch on her collar.
My fingers curled around the letter opener, crumpling an old love letter under it within an iron grasp.
One last look to keep her in mind like a picture, unbruised by experience, unsoiled by the desires of man.
I would be free of her.
Then she would be free ofthem.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Artisan
The house was so cluttered that it could probably compete with my studio.
Rugs, drapes, silverware, every home accessory you could think of. A barely used candelabra that was entirely too fancy for Petre’s current decor, drape ties, used cookware, and miscellaneous china with incomplete sets.
“I like the rug.” I smoothed a wrinkle out of the hallway runner with the heel of my shoe.
“I’m happy to hear.” She lifted a pile of linens to the table. “You can help me decide where the other five will go.”
