Page 105 of Roses, Pearls, and Hot Summer Nights
“Call Mayer. He’s in town for the party. Get him to the station. I want him there before the kids arrive. You aren’t bringing my kids down in your car. I’ll drive them,” Kit spoke aloud.
Eric nodded. “On it.”
Julian stared at Jeremy, but he almost looked amused. Did he think it was funny? It absolutely wasn’t. My palms ran slick with sweat. Barrett turned around, expression bored, and nothing like my personal panic.
Phoenix rose. “I don’t sell drugs. I never have. I have seventeen million dollars or more in a trust fund with my name on it, so why would I sell drugs? He got them somewhere else, and he’s blaming me, because he is a jealous, scared fuck.”
“Phoenix,” Kit said as he sternly stared at him. “Stop talking.Now.” The one they called Dad in public extended his hand. “Let’s get going. Everything will be okay.” That last part seemed to be addressed toward Rosalind.
Jeremy shook his head. “I didn’t do anything,” he muttered to the room. “Maybe I should start doing shit, if I’m going to keep getting hauled to the police station anyway.”
“We’ll get pie tomorrow.” Barrett smiled at me as he walked around me to the door.
My heart raced, but none of them even looked a little nervous. Phoenix squeezed my arm. “Sell drugs. What a preposterous idea. Hey, today is the day of my kidnapping. Does anyone want to talk about that?” He shouted the last part as Julian nudged him out the door.
Eric and Daniel ran out after them, leaving Stephen behind. “Are you going to be okay? I would like to go, too.” His question was addressed to Rosalind, who didn’t seem to hear him. Her gaze seemed locked blindly out the window, as if the plain black cars hypnotized her.
“Can you stay here with her?” Stephen asked me. “I’m the calm one. It will go better if I’m there.”
I nodded. “Sure, I’ll stay.”
“Thank you.” He vanished quickly out the door.
Rosalind had gone as white as a ghost. She turned fast then rushed at me, grabbing my shoulders in her hands. My phone flew out of my pocket, slamming onto the floor face down. I pulled free of her embrace to pick it up only to find the screen smashed, utterly destroyed.
She grabbed it from me then threw it into the other room in annoyance. “It’s broken. It’s gone. Everything breaks eventually. Today?” Her accent changed, becoming a thicker drawl, less gentile sounding. I wasn’t even sure she really saw me right then. “C’est une date maudite. It’s cursed. Today is cursed. They took my baby and we were all destroyed. You need to go. You don’t belong here. You can’t be part of this. You aren’t with us. You are something else.”
She took me by the arm tightly, her fingers pinching against my skin. “Maria,” she shouted, and a maid appeared. “They have taken the boys. They’re gone.”
“I think they’ll be back,” I pointed out.Won’t they?Stephen had asked me to stay with her, but I didn’t understand what was happening.
“Pack her up. All of her things! I want her out of here in ten minutes. Call for a car. I mean it. No more people. We are closing the shades, and we are hiding. I can’t have it again. If they come back, we are staying hidden. There are too many things, too many people.”
Rosalind lost it, clearly,andshe was throwing me out. I didn’t know what to do as I watched Maria scamper from the room.
I tried, “It might be better, Rosalind, if I waited for the boys. If you still want me to leave, I’ll leave then.”
“No.” She shook me roughly, her eyes wild and not focused on me at all. “You aren’t welcome here anymore. You have togo. Now.”
Some of my numbness returned, because it wasn’t the first time I heard it, and wasn’t I expecting it from the start?I’m not welcome. I have to go again.At least the routine became familiar with repetition. No one ever wanted me. I couldn’t call for help, despite her obvious crisis. I would be thrown out, and that was it.
When they came back, they would close ranks. I might never hear from them again. I proved too much of a risk. They didn’t take me with them, ergo I wasn’t welcome.
I watched as bags got loaded into a waiting car, capturing a notebook and some pens before my belongings all ended up slammed into the trunk.
“I don’t want to go,” I told her honestly. “I want to stay here with you. I want to be with them when they get back.”
She shook her head wildly, her pupils dilated. “No. It’s better, you’ll see.”
“I am Dina’s companion.” Maybe the words would break through her daze.
Her laugh bordered on hysterical. “She isn’t one of us, either. She doesn’t understand. Any time I let myself forget, when I stop being afraid, it all blows up again. It’s for the best. Go. Now.” She practically shoved me into the car.
I couldn’t even text them.
The limo skidded down the driveway, somehow way too big with me alone in it.
We are supposed to be getting pie.
