“Sure. And as part of my big plan, I threw myself at a car, hoping to be wounded enough to need his services, but not so wounded that I would… ya know… die. Don’t worry about context now.” I extend my hand. “My name is Rose. And you are…?”
A bell rings above the door of the bookshop, then a woman steps out.
“Oh my gosh!” Alana illuminates with unbridled joy. “Raquel? What the hell are you doing in town?”
“Raquel?” I swing my gaze back and gulp. My stomach drops out of my ass, and my heart simply stops. Dead. Deceased.Oh God.
“Raquel.” Raquel takes my hand and squeezes. “Nice to officially meet you, Rose. You’ve probably heard of me, huh?”
I need a paper bag. Stat.
ROUND THIRTY-FOUR
ROSE
“Afraid!?” Raquel helps herself to the dessert fridge inside Alana’s bookstore, sashaying her perfect self around the room like she owns the place and plating up a slice with a price tag in front of the rest—four dollars—but she doesn’t pay. “Lana! She was ready to fight me!” She laughs and gestures my way. “Everyone is all‘she’s so sweet and scared,’ and ‘don’t you dare call the house and demand to speak to her, because she’ll have a heart attack and freak out.’” She scoffs. “Bullllllshit! She’s got cojones and isn’t afraid to swing ‘em around.”
“I-I’m sorry.” I hover by a set of unused couches, a coffee table placed in the middle for cups and tea, and, probably, a harem of old women who enjoy sitting around and discussing their stories. “I thought you were looking to give me trouble. I didn’t know Ollie bailed on a date for Valentine’s Day, and you were… you…” I groan. “God. He bailed on a date on Valentine’s Day?”
“Oh, but I can see why.” She walks the plated cake across and sets it on the table, then she swings back again and heads to the complimentary coffee machine. “Oh, girlfriend, I see it now. You’re cuter than a baby bunny on a fresh spring morning. You didn’t even get your panties in a wad when I latched on and started questioning you.” She plops a paper cup beneath the coffee spout and mashes the buttons on the screen. “But I bring her beloved Doctor Darling up, and eeeeesh.” She looks at Alana, giggling. “She was ready to go to war.”
“Herbeloved Doctor Darling?” Alana brings her questioning gaze across to me. “Beloved?”
“No.” I stumble forward a step. “He’s just?—”
“It doesn’t matter what he is. Or what shesayshe is.” Raquel holds the coffee cup in one hand, and quickly taps out a message on her phone with the other. “I consider myself quite capable of reading people, especially since I spend thirty million hours a day stuck in my cell, studying amoebas.”
“You study… unicellular organisms? And that helps you read people?”
Smug, she hits send and slips the phone back into her pocket, then she peeks over her shoulder and pins me where I stand. “Smart,smartgirl, Rose DeWitt Bukater. And yes, I sit there day in, day out, dreaming of the outside world and what it must be like to, ya know, exist in it. And since I have all that time, I listen to podcasts about all sorts of whacky off-the-wall shit. It’s how I keep my sanity. I learned Mandarin for a minute there. And I got caught up in these crazy conspiracy theories about Hitler’s death in the bunker.” She pauses and makes a face. “He totally didn’t die in the bunker. But then, I also listen to podcasts about reading people’s body language and understanding what’snotbeing said. Which brings me to my point: you, my dear Rose, claim you and Doctor Darling are just friends. But it’s my professional and personal opinion that’s a big fat lie.”
“I didn’t say we were just friends.”
She spins, sloshing the coffee to the side, and pokes her finger in my direction. “Ah ha! Gotcha!”
“Good lord.” Alana leans against the front counter and crosses her ankles. “Dramatic much?”
“You’ve just walked willingly into my trap, Ms. Dawson. How does it feel to be so foolish?”
Is it too late to turn around and go back to the house? To lock the door and spend my day by the fire?
“I thought you lived away from here?” I turn on my heels and make a point of perusing Alana’s bookshelves, scouring the stacks and avoiding the bright blue eyes I damn well should’ve recognized immediately. All three Darling siblings have the same. “Did you fly out for an emergency save-your-brother adventure? Get the vagrant freak away from him before she causes trouble.”
“Oooh-wee. Vagrant freak, you say?” She wanders back to the couches and places the coffee beside the cake. Then she flips perfect blonde hair back over her shoulders and pins me with a knowing look. “Self-conscious, much? If my brother hadn’t been so obviously overcome with distraction last night, I could’ve told him I was flying in. Which leaves me to wonder… what had him so distracted?” She comes around the couches and into the row of books I try desperately to study, then she grabs my sleeve and yanks me back the way she came. “Was it his house guest he’s notjust friendswith?”
“What happened?” Alana does nothing to defend me as Raquel practically tosses me onto the couch. “You and Ollie are…?”
Complicated.
Private.
Hopeful!
“Did you and my brother touch each other’s naughty bits, Rose?”
The bookstore door swings open, the bell jingling wildly above. Then Eliza steps in and scowls. “I didnotjust hear what I think I heard, did I?”
“Oh my God.” I drop my face into my hands and groan. “Make it stop.”
