My Lady Lipstick

by Karin Kallmaker

  “Yet here you are.”

  “I had to come home for the wedding.” The lie in her voice was so obvious her mother didn’t even have to point it out. “Fine. I ran away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not the right person for her. She deserves the right person.”

  Her mother put down her teacup and added a little more milk. “She’s welcome here as long as she makes decent conversation. And she’s good to you.”

  Her mother didn’t elaborate but Diana would have been surprised if she hadn’t been thinking about Diana’s father, who hadn’t been good for either of them. “That wasn’t the reason. She’s plenty good enough for me.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “You had a great experience. She’s very good for you. Yet you prefer to suffer.” Her mother had taken on the most infuriating of her expressions, the one that said she could read Diana’s mind and saw through anything Diana might say.

  “You can’t fix it, Mum. It’s not going to work out.”

  “If you’ve made up your mind, then of course, it won’t work out.”

  “She has an anxiety disorder. Talking to me triggers her. She has this way of flexing her fingers that releases tension, so I know when it’s me making her uncomfortable. We can’t get through a conversation without me setting her off.”

  “Because conversations early in a relationship are notoriously easy for everyone.”

  “Mum.” Diana sighed. “She deserves someone who makes the world…easier. I don’t.”

  “How considerate of you to decide her limitations for her.”

  Diana swallowed the last bite of her sandwich as her mother’s words echoed in her head. “That’s not what I did.”

  “Of course not.” Her mother’s arch tone eased. “You know that Anwar’s parents don’t like me.”

  Diana nodded.

  Her mother removed her earrings and set them on the table, then unpinned her hair so that the coil of thick chestnut came loose. “They are always chillingly polite, just as they were tonight. I don’t know if it’s my skin being a different color than his, our different religions, that he was so rich and I was a hard-up divorcee with a child.” Her mother grimaced as a bobby pin tangled and refused to come out.

  “Let me do it, Mum.” Diana stood behind her mother’s chair and gently worked out the knot that had the bobby pin trapped, then found the last few pins to add to the pile on the table.

  “Thank you. I was going to sleep with them, but this is better.”

  “So how did you change your mind and say yes?”

  “He asked why I was turning him down and I told him the truth. I was going to cause him pain. It hurt him very badly when I said that. He said I must really not know or love him well enough to think that he was unable to judge for himself what the damage would be if we married. He knew and he was asking me anyway.” Her voice was soft with the memory. “I thought about it for several days, about where exactly the line fell between sacrifice and selfishness. I thought it would be too hard for him. Did I really mean it would be too hard for me to watch him suffer?”

  Diana’s hands stilled. “Was it hard?”

  “Yes. At times. He has suffered. He loves his parents and the gulf they will not cross hurts him. I do what I can to make it better, but it was his choice and I trust that he is capable of making his own choices.”

  “While his parents think you’re selfish for marrying him.”

  “That’s very true. However, I would rather be the woman Anwar loves than the woman his parents would love.”

  Lying awake in bed later, hearing all the sounds of the quiet old house settling while a night breeze ruffled at the window curtains, Diana replayed her mother’s words again and again.

  She’d told herself she was running because Paris was better off without her. Had she run because she didn’t want Paris to tell her so? But it was true—she didn’t want to be another shadow in Paris’s eyes. But was that all she could ever be to Paris—a dark energy? Had she nothing else to offer?

  That was the problem, wasn’t it? She’d thought she’d sorted out her life. Fun times acting and the thrill of liberating artifacts from the hands of the unsuspecting. She’d vaguely thought that someday a magic spark would happen and she would settle down into happy bliss of some kind. Somehow.

  It did feel like magic, the way she felt about Paris. It was inexplicably real and beyond common sense. But instead of a carpet of flowers spreading out at her feet, complete with birds chirping in three-part harmony and skies raining cherry blossoms, she stood on the edge of fear. Any move meant falling.

  She’d learned that falling always meant pain.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  It was a leap of logic—several in fact—to blame Lisa. Lisa had suggested Paris work in the bar. After a day of frustration at the keyboard that left Susannah still standing on a beach in Italy, Paris took herself to the fancy laptop store and walked out with a featherweight top-of-the-line model. It would work anywhere, they promised, and it talked to the shiny new phone she’d also acquired.

  It was hard to blame Lisa for what she decided to do after that, but Paris was going to try. She supposed that Lisa counted as her only friend, and if you couldn’t blame a friend for your decisions, what was the point of having one?

  New game, new rules. Five years ago she had erased nearly all anxiety triggers from her life, and anything that might lead to them. Knowing how a motivated hacker could trace digital footprints to their source had made her ruthlessly shut the online world out of her life. In the intervening years the twerps and vicious trolls had found new targets, no doubt. She could risk creating a new footprint with reasonable cautions. Still no social media, no gaming, but she could at least take advantage of twenty-first century conveniences.

  She could have a panic attack again if triggered—that hadn’t changed. What had happened to her would have derailed anyone, let alone someone with an anxiety disorder. She was the hiker who survived a bear attack by playing dead. Now she was finally raising her head to judge how safe it was to move again.

  Her passport had three years left on it, and there was no reason not to see if working somewhere else would break her out of the funk. Why not see the Italian Riviera with her own eyes? Writers traveled, or so she’d heard, and she was more fortunate than most to have built up quite a nest egg.

  Boss Anxiety was eager to tell her it wasn’t safe out there. There were still bears. Being a hermit was wise. She did her best to ignore that ever-present pulse and when necessary she used all her tricks. Deep breathing mode helped, as did the exertion of trundling her suitcase through Logan airport toward the international flights security line. Nothing she was doing was beyond what she could handle. Her name on a flight manifest wouldn’t bring death threats.

  Just like that she was on a red-eye. The darkened cabin eased her anxiety levels. She could get used to flying first class if that meant being able to sleep. She expected to feel as if she’d been in the air for days, but it seemed like no time at all from takeoff to landing.

  Aware that she looked as if she’d slept in her clothes—which she had—she changed her tired, rumpled sweatpants and T-shirt in favor of presentable slacks, shirt, and a tailored blazer. Over her shoulder she slung a slim knapsack she’d dubbed her Bag of Holding. Transformation complete, she felt well armored for this particular adventure. The phone was super handy for ordering a ride out of the airport. She spent the hour’s journey peering out the window at landscapes she’d only read about.

  The countryside grew lovelier as they drove south. There were trees in bloom and green-mounded hillsides striped with freshly turned earth. The crowded subdivisions near the airport gave way to larger, older houses behind ornate gates, and the farther apart the houses were the narrower the traffic lanes became. Thin trees with vivid green leaves lined the street on each side, their branches joined overhead.

  They had just passed a meadow carpet
ed with yellow flowers when the car turned into a long gravel driveway. For the first time since leaving the airport Paris felt a hard pang of anxiety. The place was much, much larger than she’d expected. The central building was square and solid, and two long wings spread out right and left, dotted with white-framed doors and dormers. The driver rolled to a stop in front of curving marble steps that led to tall double doors.

  All she had to do was walk up the stairs, give her name and take it from there.

  It had seemed very doable at home. A quest. It wasn’t what she expected, and she didn’t have to stay if she didn’t feel right.

  Another deep breath. She worried she might hyperventilate at this rate. Ignoring the driver’s curious gaze she squeezed her hands into fists and wrapped her arms tight around her, thinking of her mother. Count to ten. Her breathing eased and she finally got out of the car.

  She was about halfway up the steps when the left-hand door opened. The tall woman with reddish-brown hair seemed startled to find Paris on her doorstep, but quickly recovered. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her mouth was too dry to say more. She flexed her fingers and mentally counted to ten.

  The woman’s gaze had swept over Paris and returned to her face with sharp attention. Was that disapproval? Had she used the wrong form of address?

  “You must be Paris.”

  That was not the greeting she’d predicted. She cleared her throat, hoping to find her voice.

  “Come in.” The gesture was imperious and Paris quickly obeyed.

  A dark-haired teenager carrying a plate of toast and eggs emerged from what seemed like a breakfast room. She paused and looked inquiringly at Paris.

  “Florence, this is Paris.”

  “How—” was all Paris could manage.

  The teen’s eyebrows went all the way up. “So you’re Paris.”

  She nodded, trying to fathom how on earth these people could recognize her.

  The teen addressed herself to both of them. “Diana left.”

  Countess Weald—whose eyes were very like Diana’s—gave the teen a narrow look. “What do you mean she left?”

  “She’s on her way to America. Boston.” She glanced meaningfully at Paris. “Isn’t that where you’re from?”

  Paris’s brain finally unlocked words. “I decided yesterday to go to the Italian Riviera. For book research. Since I was coming to Europe…”

  The Countess’s expression softened. “You could hardly pass our doorstep without stopping to say hello.”

  “Yes,” Paris agreed, though it sounded absolutely idiotic. She flexed out her fingers.

  Diana’s mother was in person as formidable as she’d appeared in pictures. “Please take our guest in to breakfast. She must be famished.”

  “Just in here.” The young woman’s brown eyes were several shades darker than Diana’s. “Diana said you had a Zelda T-shirt—Link with the Ocarina of Time.”

  Paris redrew the mental map of the journey she’d undertaken. She’d fallen into some kind of alternate reality, but she didn’t know where. She hadn’t known what to expect when she showed up with her ridiculous cover story of “I was just passing by,” but it hadn’t been chatting about a gaming T-shirt in an oak paneled dining room that smelled comfortingly of fresh bread, roses, and furniture polish. “Yes, I have one.”

  “Me too. I adore Zelda. When my exams are over I’m going to binge Mask of Majora for a weekend. Have a seat. My brother and his new wife are off on their honeymoon, and my father is taking his parents to the airport. Would you like some eggs? The tomatoes are from our greenhouse. So delicious, and Cook makes super bread. I’m going to gain a stone if I keep this up.” She heaped a plate with food as she spoke and set it down at one of the place settings. “Please, do sit down.”

  “Thank you,” Paris said automatically. She carefully hung her Bag of Holding on the back of the chair. She could make out the rise and fall of the Countess’s voice, but the words were indistinct. “Did Diana mention me?”

  “Yes.” Florence opened her mouth to say more, but Diana’s mother came in, tucking her phone into her pocket.

  “I apologize for my abruptness earlier,” she said. “I needed to make a phone call. Is breakfast to your liking?”

  “Yes ma’am.” Paris had a bite of eggs to prove it.

  “Please call me Evelyn. I find that travel makes me ravenous. What takes you to Italy?”

  She didn’t know what Diana had told them about her. It didn’t matter, either. Out of the jumble of all the possibilities and foolish hope that somehow there could be a future she knew this was true: it couldn’t be based on lies. Lies crumbled and it was game over.

  “I’m a writer and I’m stuck on my current novel. New horizons, actually seeing places I write about seemed like a good idea.” The brown bread was fresh, as promised. She spread it with strawberry jam and it was possibly the best thing she’d ever had for breakfast that wasn’t the contents of a minibar with Diana to look at.

  “This is a perfect time of year to visit Italy. I recommend autumn as well. Might you go from there to France?”

  They chatted about must-see destinations. It wasn’t a surprise to learn that Evelyn had been everywhere. Florence chimed in with her favorite places. It sounded like she traveled to rock climb, a supposition supported by the whipcord muscles in Florence’s forearms.

  All the while Paris was wondering if this was politeness to someone who showed up unannounced to see a family member who wasn’t there. Would it become clear when her visit was over, and she should get back in the waiting car and go away? Another part of her mind was spinning the fact that Diana had told her sister she was going to Boston. She wanted to hope, desperately, that it meant something good. The phone in her pocket would surely be full of ways to get back to Boston ASAP.

  “Let me show you the gardens,” Evelyn said a short while later. “They’re in bloom right now, and I try to take a walk at this time of day.”

  Paris slung her knapsack on her shoulder and they toured the impressive greenhouse where the tomatoes from breakfast had been picked, and through an aromatic garden of herbs and lettuces. The meadow of yellow flowers was part of the estate’s grounds with several winding paths that led to a central gazebo. The morning was cool and slightly overcast, though sunlight poured through gaps in the clouds and warmed her face. It was so lovely that it was easy to quell the anxiety that nudged at her. Yes, she was in a foreign land and talking to Diana’s tall and intimidating mother, but she could handle it.

  “I’ve never thought our meadow could be an enchanted area,” Evelyn said in response to a comment from Paris.

  “Before books I wrote story lines for video games. The gazebo could hold healing potions or power flowers. The cowslips—that’s what you said these were?” At the nod of agreement Paris continued, “They could be home to vicious pixies.”

  Evelyn stepped into the shade of the gazebo. “And what kind of books do you write?”

  Paris inhaled deeply—the gazebo was covered in honeysuckle, her favorite scent. “Have you heard of Anita Topaz? That’s my pen name.”

  “I’m sorry, but I haven’t.”

  “If you’re not a romance novel fan, then you won’t have heard of me. Fame is contextual.”

  “That it is.” Evelyn smiled and Paris recognized the twist of the lips slightly to the right. Diana had her mother’s strong frame, but was eight or nine inches shorter. “Your books are popular, I take it.”

  “Popular enough, in the US. I like smart women who have dreams of their own.”

  The change that came over Evelyn was so subtle that Paris almost missed it. The intimidating distance and reserve faded away, and was replaced by humor and warmth. “You have excellent taste.”

  Paris’s cheeks flooded with heat. “I was talking about characters in my books.”

  “Of course. Excuse me a moment.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, flipped through a few screens and put it away. “The
re’s something I left in the house. I’ll be right back. Please enjoy the garden.”

  She watched Evelyn leave the meadow by the most direct path to the back of the house. Quiet descended. Paris fished her phone out of her knapsack to text the driver she could see leaning against his black sedan. He texted back that he could wait as long as she needed him to. That anxiety taken care of, she studied offers of flights back to Boston.

  A delivery van came into view as it turned off the road onto the long gravel driveway. A moment later a plain black sedan followed it and both disappeared around the house. A gardening truck eased onto the verge just outside the gate and moments later a leaf blower roared into use.

  There weren’t any flights leaving today, none that the app could find at least. She wasn’t going to change her flight to Italy tonight until she had a reason to. She wondered if Florence would give her Diana’s phone number—she ought to have thought of that earlier. Should she go back to the house to ask? Would that be rude? Sitting in a garden was pleasant enough, but it wasn’t getting her any closer to Diana.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Diana, this is your mother. Please come back with the car. Immediately.”

  Diana groaned loudly as she deleted the voice mail and thought hard about throwing her phone out the window of the car taking her to Heathrow.

  She could pretend she’d never heard the message—and now her phone was playing her mother’s ring tone again. “Mum, I’ll miss my flight.”

  “This is urgent, Diana. Come back.”

  “I’m going to kill Florence. All of you are very bad at keeping secrets.”

  “That can hardly be a character flaw on our part. Are you turning around?”

  “Mum!” But the call had already gone dead.

  So much for her hope that, taking into account the time difference, she’d be able to turn up at Mona Lisa’s bar somewhere around lunchtime today. She didn’t care if she had to wait every day for a month. Even if Paris couldn’t forgive her for leaving, at least she could say she was sorry in person and take her lumps. They could part more cleanly.