Page 69 of Gift Horse

A terrible lump lodges somewhere between my chest and my throat, as if I’ve swallowed a ball of dread and it’s gotten stuck. Dottie is kicking me out when I was banking on her closing ranks around me. Does that mean—?

“There’s something else…” She holds up a print edition ofThe Daily Buzz. Splashed across the front pages is one of the series of pictures of Mariano driving the Jag, the top of my head visible and imminently recognizable to the woman who saw me drive off in that very same car. And in lurid giant type, the headline: MARIANO ARIAS & FRIEND COME TO BLOWS.

“Oh, God. I thought it was only online—”

“Sit!” At her order, I drop into the nearest chair. Dottie pours a cup of tea, adds milk and sugar just the way I like, then pushes the saucer toward me. I take a sip, if only to stop from having to explain.

“Only online! And here I was, hoping it was only in print, so only old fuddy-duddies would be seeing it and tittering over their tea.” There’s an edge to Aunt Dottie’s voice, one I’ve only heard her use in hushed conversations with Mummy back when Dottie first came to the Dower House. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

The last thing I want is to tell her about it. My mouth opens, then closes. Finally I settle on, “There are lots more pics. Or there were. Pippa—you remember Pippa from your tea? She was going to get her people to take everything down. And… I don’t know for sure, but I think they already have? From the internet, anyway. But if it’s in print, or if anyone else took screenshots”— I hold out my phone, tapping on the photos app— “I took a bunch, but… Aunt Dottie”— My face flushes with heat and my voice goes warbly. “There were so many. And Mariano—he’s been with so many other women, and he didn’t tell me about—helied.” I start crying in earnest when it’s the last thing I want to do.

There’s a loud pounding on Dottie’s front door. My eyes fly to her face.

“Did anyone see you come here? The damned paparazzi?” Dottie pushes away from the table, a ferociously grim mask descending over her face.

I shake my head. “Just… Oh, god, it’s Mariano.”

“Let me take care of this.” She flings the tail of her scarf over her shoulder and throws back her shoulders, every inch of her the haughty aristocratic English woman. “Stay here.”

I hide in the doorway while Mr. Wiggins comes to lie across my cold, bare feet and Dottie goes to the hall and yanks open the door. “Mariano, darling! Whatever do I owe the pleasure?” She’s using her how-the-fuck-do-you-dare-stop-by-unannounced tone.

“I must speak with Lolly. Charlotte Benoit. You remember her? She was at your tea party the other—” At the sound of Mariano’s voice, Mr. Wiggins lets out a low growl.

“Of course I remember her, but she’s not—”

“Then you must let me into your garden. She is in there. I saw her go in, and I—” At that exact moment, the moment the door swings wider, as if Mariano is trying to push his way inside, Mr. Wiggins bolts. He is a terrier-sized growling and barking blur, and like an idiot I cry out to try to stop him.

Several things happen at once.

Mariano shouts, “Lolly! Please! I must talk with—”

Mr. Wiggins dashes outside and there is a yelp—a human one—of pain. Wiggins has gone for Mariano’s ankle, I’m sure.

“She is here, no?”

Dottie doesn’t answer. She has bent down, and though I can’t see, I can only guess she’s trying to detach Mr. Wiggin’s from Mariano’s pants leg.

Somehow, some other sound reaches my ears above all the commotion. Music notes. Tinny, as if from some small speaker. A phone. At first, I can’t make out any melody at all, and then it hits me. It’sPor Una Cabeza. Our first tango.

“I do not care about the dog or his terrifying display. He is small. Please. Leave him.”

Dottie straightens, evidently giving up on controlling Mr. Wiggins, and Mariano keeps talking. I’m locked onto his words and the music and everything else fades. “Lolly. I know you are in there, and I am here, begging you. Please. You must listen to this song, and you must remember how it is between us.Thatis what is real. Not those photos. Juliette, the woman with my name on her chest—these are not lovers to me. They were never anything at all. It is only you who has meaning for me.” The music swells and I remember his hand on my back, the give and take between us, the way he knew what would most thrill me and I him, the place we found where two minds became one impulse—all of that seemed so real. Tears stream down my cheeks again, but I am unmoved. He lied to me. And we got caught. And the two things are impossibly tangled in my brain. “Por favor, Lolly. You must listen to me.”

“Mariano.” Aunt Dottie’s voice has gone soft. The music and the pleading may not have worked on me or Mr. Wiggins, but it seems to have defrosted Dottie. “You have to leave now. Everyone within a quarter mile has heard what you have to say, I can guarantee. But you’re making a scene and it’s only going to make all of this worse.”

The music stops. “I apologize for the disturbance.” Mariano’s voice has gone flat, dull. It pinches something in my heart, and I think of what Alicia said, that I haven’t even told Mariano who I am. He has no idea that it’s my aunt he is speaking to. Except he’s apparently done speaking. If he says another word, I don’t hear it. Mr. Wiggins comes trotting back through the door with one last huffy bark over his shoulder before darting to me and jumping up, asking to be held.

I oblige him as Dottie gently presses the door closed. When she turns to me, one hand to her chest, I could swear her eyes are shimmering with unspilled tears. “Go to the table. Sit. We need to talk.”

I do as she says.

She follows me, sits back in her seat, arranges her napkin, straightens her spoon, and takes a sip of tea. Finally she breathes out through her nose, as if setting her resolve. “There is something about me I think you don’t know.”

But I do know. Mummy Dearest has told me the story, many times, in fact. At first ‘what happened to Aunt Dottie’ was a cautionary tale, a morality lesson. But later, when I was fifteen and Daddy was out of the picture and I came home drunk and disheveled—not unlike my current status—Dottie’s past became more of a threat, issued to stop me from any further shenanigans, to put an end to my “wild hair,” to put it mildly. “Mummy told me.”

Aunt Dottie lets out a bark of a laugh. “Oh, did she?”

“Yes. About you being called terrible names and coming to live here to escape…”

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