Page 75 of My Lucky Star
My cheeks flamed, but I bit my tongue for Mom’s sake. She looked like she might well die of shame and worry if I kept provoking him.
She would have been so relieved to find out our guest didn’t understand a word of Turkish. She might have even wanted to know the amazing woman that Aria really was. But I felt Emir’s menacing eyes on me, demanding that I stick to the script.
My father folded his napkin and resumed eating. Despite the scathing words, I could see his mouth twitching behind his dark beard – a tell I’d known since childhood of doubts entering his mind. Everyone knew my acting income had kept the antique shop from going under. Dad didn’t wish for me to work in his shop. He felt sorry for himself for whatever comments our busybody neighbors and extended family had made about my photos.
Staring at his hunched frame, my anger fizzled out, replaced by shame. I didn’t want to cause my family pain, yet here I was, the crux of the worst scandal they’d ever been part of.
Yet, as I leaned into the shame, I noticed a sense of distance. There was nothing I could do to fix my mistake or argue it away. I had to accept the blame and the fallout.
I almost felt grateful for failing. Failing so spectacularly that I could look at my life like it wasn’t mine, but a farce played by actors. For years, I’d tried so hard to make things okay, showering them with gifts, as if to make up for Dad’s disappointment, or for my absence as the overwhelming production schedule ate up my weeks.
I’d never even considered the alternative – accepting Dad’s disappointment as one of life’s mysterious constants and living on my own terms.
I’d done the worst, yet here we still sat around the same dining table, my mother’s fingers wrapped around her evil eye pendant as she read my father’s moods, and my father staring back at us, his eyebrows drawn together into one dark and angry ridge. The weather in my house never changed.
I could see them both gearing up with reframed arguments and held up my hand. “I’m sorry. I should have considered my fame and I didn’t. I’m glad you sent me to New Zealand. It was the right thing to do.”
That shut them up. The silence that fell over the table was so palpable even Aria perked up. She whipped her head from side to side, trying to figure out why everyone was staring at me with their mouths open.
Then I noticed her gaze lowering down to her lap and I shifted a little closer to see what she was looking at. I saw the lines of text on her phone screen. The translator! She’d been translating our conversation.
Chapter 27
Aria
MY APP ONLY CAUGHTbaffling snippets of dialogue.
Gee, change your attitude.
...treated and prolonged its lifespan.
Put himself on the agenda.
...send me to New Zealand. Gee!
Lost in translation, I shifted my focus back to eating, something I usually excelled at. But it turned out my appetite was no match for Turkish hospitality.
