Arla chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, indignant.
“You think I brought you here for a little burlesque and handcuffs? You think I’ve been hazing you for a membership to Medusa?” She leans back in the booth, her eyes coy.
“Well, haven’t you?”
“Look around. You have nothing in common with these people. They’ve more adventure in their fingernails than you have in your whole body. The things we’ve had to do to coax even the tiniest spark of magic out of you…” She rolls her beautiful eyes, which I can now see are a deep, pond-water hazel. “Besides,” she says, looking done with me, “you couldn’t afford Medusa.”
I bury my nose in my gin and juice, her dressing down cutting deeper than expected. But one thing gives me a small squelch of triumph—she doesn’t think I can afford this place without her. And frankly I can’t. But it means she doesn’t know about theinheritance in my old name. It can rot for all I care, but if she doesn’t know it exists, I’m keeping at least one secret. Arla isn’tall-knowing.
When I set my glass back down, I ask, “Why am I the one sitting here, then? Everyone looks like they’d give a digit to sit where I am now. Why am I the one beside you?”
“You know why,” she counters. Her eyes rove the clusters of people. “Despite their divine passions and succulent creativity, their exquisite taste and ample resources, they still don’t have the one thing you do, Jude. Even if you’re doing your damnedest to ignore it, to bury it so far down inside yourself that it withers to nothing in the dark center of your being. They have money and they have spirit, but they don’t havemagic.” Her face takes on a leering sort of sparkle at the word. “I can’t say I agree with the method of distribution. Were it up to me, it wouldn’t be squandered on wallflowers and do-gooders, those who can’t possibly appreciate it.”
“I’m not a do-gooder,” I argue pathetically. It comes out all the more defensive because it’s true.
She smirks, knowing she got under my skin. “Yes, well, there’ll be plenty of opportunities to prove that later.”
“I never asked for this,” I say resolutely. “I don’t use it because—”
“Because you’re afraid”—she cuts me off—“because deep down you don’t trust yourself with your own interests. Because someone, somewhere taught you that you weren’t worthy of it.”
It stings like salt on an abrasion. More accurate than I care to admit.
I see my mother standing at her bathroom mirror, stroking the mascara onto her lashes with a trembling hand, the clattering when she smudged it, dropped the wand, and had to start over. The lights were so bright they made her eyes glow, made her hair shine like a halo. They also made the red splotches across her face hard to miss, the purple marks on her neck striking. I was nearly eleven, and I lurked behind her, waiting for the harshword, the bark for me togo, get out of sight. But this time—thisonetime—it didn’t come. Instead, her eyes met mine in the mirror. “I’ve given up my very soul for you,” she whispered. “Be worthy of it.”
Instead, I ran from that room. How could I ever be equal to such a charge?
“And as for asking for it,” Arla says now, giving me a disdainful glance. “No one would ever accuse you of anything so aggressive, I’m sure. But privilege isn’t draped over the shoulders of the most eager or even the most deserving. It is simply leveled on those who found themselves standing in the right line at the right moment. It’s a lottery, kitten. And like it or not, you’ve won.”
My mouth gapes, wordless, but before I can muster a response, a familiar voice cuts through the din. “I knew we’d see each other again!”
I turn to find Brennan leaning against the railing of our booth, a black tuxedo shirt making him look every inch the well-groomed little boy, his eyes laughing more than his mouth.
“Brennan, pet,” Arla chimes, putting out a hand.
He kisses it and winks at her. “Your Majesty.”
It sounds part jest and part deference, but there’s something acute and acerbic behind it, like a beesting. “I didn’t know you were here,” I say to him.
He gives a nod to the stage where the woman is flogging the man with dramatic sweeps of her arm. “Oh, honey, I’m always here.”
“Brennan is my right hand,” Arla says to me. “I’d be simply lost without him.”
He smiles, angelic. “That’s her way of saying I’m in the dark like the rest of these poor fools. The right hand never knows what the left is doing.”
She laughs, coquettish and ringing with charm. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just sore because we didn’t take him to the cemetery.”
“Or because you didn’t even tell me you were going.” He crosseshis arms. “I had to find out from Cadence, who coincidentally you also didn’t tell.”
But Arla is unruffled by his accusations. “Secret ingredients make the sauce taste better,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Mm,” he says with a frown. “I’ll take it up with the cook, then.”
She grins like a macaque baring its teeth. “You can try.”
I’m caught in the cross fire of a cold war, bitter and fatigued as it rages half-heartedly on. But all the bullets are zinging over my head, leaving me uncertain who fired first, from where, and on whom.
