23. Lavender Lemonade
LAVENDER LEMONADE
*herbs release maximum flavor when muddled.
“ H ey! We’re in here!”
I stepped out of the elevator into the penthouse flat in the center of Mayfair, where my sister and her husband, the Duke of Kendal, kept a home when they weren’t at their family seat in the country.
The apartment, like every other part of Frankie and Xavier’s life, was stunning. Large and open with panoramic views of London, a chef’s kitchen that was bigger than my rooms at Prideview, plus a dining room and living area that could have fit twenty people easily.
And yet, it was clear that my bookworm sister lived here, not some high and mighty madame who’d never done a day’s work in her life.
Instead of priceless art, one wall was filled with photographs of Frankie and Xavier’s family, while another had been dedicated to shelf after shelf of the paperbacks Frankie had been collecting since she was old enough to read.
While the furniture probably cost more than my life savings, it was comfortable and clearly lived in.
Children’s toys were scattered over Persian rugs, my niece’s clumsy artwork was pinned all over one wall, and the kitchen still had things like a milk warmer and a drying rack full of baby bottles cluttering its pristine countertops.
Not that I noticed any of it.
I was too busy shaking to appreciate my surroundings.
“Oh my God, Marie, are you okay?”
My sister jogged over from the kitchen, where she had been feeding Lucy, the newest edition to their family, and pulled me in for a tight hug—the same kind that I would have gotten from Nonna after a scraped knee.
Frankie wasn’t Nonna. She wasn’t even one of the older Zola kids capable of being de facto parents in a pinch. But she had the same loving touch we’d all learned in that house, having to lean on each other through hard times.
I burst into the tears I’d been holding back all morning.
“Hey!” Frankie gripped me tight. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.”
“I don’t—” I choked on the words. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She kept holding me, even rocking me a little against her small shoulder. Frankie wasn’t a big person, only a few inches taller than me, but she was still more solid than anything I’d felt since seeing that note.
“I thought I could handle it. Traveling. New experiences. Lucas’s—” I cut myself off with another sob. “I’ve been trying so hard to step out, you know?”
Frankie nodded and hushed me, petting back my hair like I was one of her kids. She didn’t know much, of course. We hadn’t talked beyond a few FaceTimes for months, and she’d moved to England with Xavier more than a year ago now.
“But after what happened in the room…and then he just left without saying anything. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t stay, not after—” I shook my head. “I just had to move. So I took the train, thinking I could find my way here.”
My sister had the good sense not to ask me what the hell I was talking about. Probably because her girls were in the room with us, but also because another detail had caught her attention. “ You ? Went on the Tube alone ?”
I nodded as I straightened and wiped my eyes.
No doubt my mascara made me look like a raccoon.
I still wasn’t used to wearing the stuff all the time, even though I liked the way it made me look.
“I got lost. And it was loud, and there were so many signs, and none of them made sense, and everyone just knew what they were doing except me, and I couldn’t catch my breath, and?—”
“Whoa. It’s okay, Marie. You’re safe. You’re here, and you’re safe now.”
I took a second to get a good look at her.
At twenty-nine, Frankie was still young, but marriage and a second child had given her a serenity and maybe some wisdom she’d never had when she was raising Sofia alone.
She was wearing a matching cashmere set—the kind of expensive loungewear that somehow looked both effortless and elegant.
A far cry from the T-shirts and jeans she used to wear as a third-grade teacher and single mom.
“Is Zia Marie okay?”
My six-year-old niece, Sofia, had slid off her stool at the massive marble counter and run over to me, her curly black ponytail dancing down her back.
“Hey, sweetie.” I sucked back the rest of my tears and turned to her with a plastered-on smile. “I’m fine, yeah. Sorry, I just got a little scared there.”
Sofia seemed to think about that for a moment. “Do you need another hug? I know Mama just gave you one, but I got lots more.”
My smile turned authentic. “I’ll always take a hug from one of my favorite girls.”
Her little arms wrapped around my neck, giving Frankie the space to get up and help baby Lucy, who was yammering away in her highchair near the counter and playing with Cheerios.
“You look really different,” Sofia declared in the no-nonsense way of all the Zolas and six-year-olds alike as we went to join them. “Your hair is shorter now. And I like your lipstick.”
She hadn’t grown out of her tendency to pronounce her r ’s like w ’s. I had been “Zia Muh-WEE” since she was able to talk, and I sort of loved it.
“Thanks, kiddo.” I smiled and touched my mouth after helping her back up onto her stool, then turned to give my other niece a silly face and a kiss on the cheek that left a red imprint on her soft skin. “Hi, muffin. I haven’t seen you since you first showed up.”
The baby—Lucy—had grown into her face since I’d come to London just after her birth. She had the same shiny black hair as her sister and dad, along with Frankie’s green eyes and delicate features. She gurgled happily when she saw me, reaching out chubby fingers to grab my earrings.
I offered a Cheerio instead, which she promptly stuffed into her mouth.
“I miss you guys,” I told Sofia. “We need you and Lucy back in New York to even out the boy-girl ratio. Right now, your cousins are running the show.”
Sofia nodded, as if the gender balance between her family and Lea’s kids was an extremely important matter. “Yeah. I actually kind of miss those bozos.”
I glanced at Frankie, who just shrugged. “She heard Mattie call them that once and never let it go.”
Maybe it was the hugs. Maybe it was getting lost on the subway. But at the mention of my brother, of all our family, the sudden wave of homesickness was so strong that I almost started crying all over again.
The Zolas were imperfect, overbearing, and without much to share.
But we’d also grown up in a house full of love.
For the first time, I really missed bickering at the Sunday Masses at Our Redeemer and the loud and long family dinners at Nonna’s.
I missed being pestered by my sisters and scolded by my brother.
Now, almost everyone had moved on from Belmont.
Those family gatherings were a thing of the past.
And I felt more unmoored than ever.
“I know you just got in from the big bad city,” Frankie said as an unfamiliar woman entered the kitchen carrying a basket of laundry. “But do you want to go for a walk? Clara here can take over.”
Clara, who appeared to be the nanny/housekeeper, nodded a head full of curly gray hair and set the laundry on the couch in the adjoining living room. “We’ll be just fine, won’t we, my girls? Sofia’s promised to help me learn the alphabet.”
Frankie offered me a smile. “I’ll hold your hand if you need me.”
“Mama does that for me too,” Sofia added. “It works when you’re scared, I promise.”
“For what it’s worth, you do look fantastic,” Frankie said twenty minutes later, after we had just crossed a busy intersection to enter Hyde Park.
It was then that I realized I hadn’t needed to take the train at all. The hotel I’d escaped just hours earlier was on the other side of the park. If I’d taken more time to look at a map than freak out, I could have literally walked to Frankie’s in twenty minutes.
“Joni mentioned you got a makeover in Paris,” Frankie continued. “But holy smoke show, Batman. You look incredible.”
“It’s just the contacts.” I brushed away the compliment. “And a haircut.”
“No, it’s more than that.”
I looked down at my practical black pants, the cropped shirt that brushed my navel, and my red Adidas court shoes that were the same color as my lips.
It wasn’t as nice as the walking boots and light jacket Frankie now wore, but I looked cute enough, even if it was the same basic uniform I wore most days now.
The thing was, I was still as much a creature of habit as I’d ever been. I had just traded one uniform for another.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling a little brittle.
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get used to the reaction people had when they saw the “new” me. At first, it had been fun, seeing their reactions. But now, part of me just wished they’d say nothing and act like I’d been this way the whole time.
Part of me certainly felt like I had.
Lucas never says anything , a little voice reminded me.
That’s because Lucas barely says anything at all , I snapped back at it.
I had to admit, Hyde Park was worth the hype. Acres of green were dotted with trees just beginning to turn color, all ordered around bridges and statues that bespoke England’s history. I felt like I was on a promenade from some period TV show, not on a casual walk with my sister.
At the very least, the effect loosened my shoulders and took the edge out of my voice.
“How are you adjusting here?” I asked, not quite ready to dive into the drama I knew Frankie was waiting for. “To all this?”
I gestured toward the expensive neighborhood beyond the park’s boundaries, the kind of wealth that seemed as natural as breathing to the people who possessed it. The kind she and our brother both had now. Joni was well on her way.
Frankie watched a group of children feeding ducks at the edge of a manmade lake. “Some days it still feels surreal. Like I’m playing house or stuck in one of my Austen books.” She smiled ruefully. “I keep expecting someone to realize I don’t belong here and ask me to leave.”