Chapter 12 Rose #2
I’ve just stepped out of the bathroom, towel still in my hand, when there’s a knock at the door. Logan. He came. I grin and wrap the towel back around myself instead of getting dressed.
But when I open the door, my smile falls.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” Pearl snaps. She shoulders past me into the room, tosses a fabric garment bag on my bed, and looks around with her nose turned up like she smells something bad.
“No, please, come in.”
“Here’s the bridesmaid dress. Hopefully, you brought something tasteful for the rehearsal dinner tonight.” She flicks her eyes down my body, finding me lacking. I’m used to this.
She’s in a fitted white pencil dress, hair falling in a perfect sheet down her back, not a single strand out of place.
She looks elegant and expensive. I can’t even say she looks veneered.
It’s her personality that’s fake. Physically, she’s lovely.
Thin and delicate in a way that makes people feel protective, want to take care of her.
“What time is dinner? I lost my phone in the crash, so I haven’t been able to check the itinerary.”
She studies my face, clinically picking me apart. “Seven. In the restaurant. Daddy expects you there.”
“I will be. Obviously,” I gesture about the room, as if to say, I’m here, I made it.
“Forgive me for not trusting you’ll make it, since you blew off everything else to do with this wedding.”
“I didn’t blow anything off—”
“The engagement party.”
“Which you didn’t invite me to, remember?”
“Oh, so it’s my fault you didn’t show up? Dad was heartbroken. If you were actually part of this family, you’d have known about it.”
“Pearl, when you throw a party, you tell people. The date. The address. Basic things. Aren’t you running an event planning business?”
“You could have called and asked about the date.”
“I didn’t know there was anything to call about—” I swallow it down.
I already had this exact fight with my father.
Jo and Dad had been together for about a year, but once they got engaged, the wedding planning moved fast. But after my falling out with Dad, I stopped calling as much.
I figured I’d hear from someone when there was something to hear.
I didn’t. Dad called me from the party—while it was happening—to ask where I was.
I’d been on the couch under a blanket with Easton and his most recent fling, laughing at a horror movie, me in sweatpants with chocolate on my shirt.
The party was almost over, Dad said. He just wanted to know why I hadn’t come.
“That bruise,” Pearl says, stepping closer and tilting her head, “is hideous. You’ll need to cover it for the pictures.”
“I don’t have any makeup that would cover this. And the cut is still too raw to put anything on it—”
She presses it with her finger. I wince and knock her hand away. “What the hell?”
“You couldn’t have kept yourself together for one week? You’re a mess.”
She has a talent for making me feel about two inches tall. It doesn’t help that she is actually so much taller than me. I argue, “I was in a plane crash.”
“What plane crash?”
I shake my head in disbelief. Logan told me he’d given her and my dad some version of what happened, but I’m not interested in sparing her nerves. Steeling myself, I say, “Logan’s plane went down. In a cornfield. I was on it.”
“Logan wasn’t in a plane crash.”
“Uh, yes, he was. I was there.”
“He would have told me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, believe what you want. You always do.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.” I snap. Jesus, I’m in her presence for five minutes, and we’re fighting like schoolgirls.
Pearl’s gaze sharpens at my defensiveness, and for a moment, it almost feels as if she can tell what happened between Logan and me.
That I had sex with him. Like she can see straight through me, can see the way my feelings for the man I’ve always claimed to despise have slowly morphed into something significantly more dangerous.
I’m unsettled when her lips curl in smug satisfaction.
“I don’t care how you got the cut,” she says, voice clipped.
“Just cover it up.” She smooths the front of her dress.
“And I want you to leave Logan alone. He had to put up with you for three days straight. He can’t stand you, and pretending to have a headache is a transparent, desperate excuse to make him feel sorry for you and drive you across three states.
” She tilts her head, almost sympathetically.
“He’s a doctor, Rose. An amazing man. He would have done the same for anyone.
Please don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re friends. It’s embarrassing.”
I fold my arms self-consciously, feeling very small and vulnerable in just a towel. “I’m not going to leave him alone just because you say so.” My voice sounds weak to my ears, and I argue softly, “We are friends now.”
Pearl’s smirk deepens, triumphant. She makes a dramatic point of lifting her phone, the screen illuminating her face, then she turns it toward me, displaying a series of messages.
Pearl: I am so sorry. Is there anything I can do? Just leave her, she can get a bus.
Logan: She says she has a headache. Can’t exactly leave her to drive alone, it would be irresponsible. She is a lot, though. Never stops complaining, it’s annoying the fuck out of me.
Pearl: Seriously, are you sure there isn’t something I can do?
Logan: I’ll survive. See you soon.
Pearl: You’re a saint.
Logan: Don’t know about that. Genuinely can’t stand her. And there’s this weird smell coming off her, like a bad combination of menthol, garlic and BO. Can’t breathe in here, she fucking stinks. It’s practically hailing out, but I’m ready to crack a window.
Pearl: I’m so sorry. You’re amazing. I’ll make it up to you
Logan: You’d better. I’m counting the miles
She jerks the phone away before I can check the timestamps. The backs of my eyelids sting, while the little butterflies in my stomach turn to stone.
Yesterday, I might have said the same things to Easton, complained about him. Made fun of him. The difference is that I wouldn’t have meant it. I don’t think I would have meant it.
Do I smell? I resist the urge to sniff myself.
The arnica balm is strong, I know that, and I’ve been putting it on constantly.
But BO? I wear deodorant. I don’t wear Chanel No.
5 like Pearl, who is always perfectly polished, and yes, I use natural products, lavender, herbs, things that probably smell like a health food store to someone like him.
But I don’t stink. At least, I didn’t think I did.
And what does he want, exactly—someone like Pearl, who reeks like a department store, who praises him and tells him he’s amazing, calls him a saint for being a decent human being?
Suddenly, I’m ten years old again, at school, pulling bacalhau à brás out of my lunchbox while the kids around me unwrap ham and cheese sandwiches, normal food, laughing and fake-vomiting because the codfish stinks, and they’ve never eaten an olive before.
I went home that day and threw it in the trash, screamed at mom for making me take gross food to school.
I still remember the look on her face. She was horrified.
You don’t throw food away in her house. She called me wasteful, said I didn’t appreciate my culture.
As punishment, the next Saturday she woke me up early and put me to work in the kitchen—soaking the salted filets, shredding them apart with my fingers, frying them into balls until my hair and clothes, the curtains and the walls all smelled like salt, fish and hot oil.
But… it was fun, actually. And they tasted good. We made so many bolinhos de bacalhau, they filled the freezer, and I took them as a snack for school the rest of the year.
It was one of those turning point moments in my life that I realized I didn’t care what the other kids thought of me. I was okay being a little different.
Somewhere under my ribs, it feels like the point of Pearl’s heel is grinding into me. But I’m used to that, aren’t I? I’m used to Logan being right there beside her, too.
More softly, as if she’s doing me a favor, she says, “Leave him alone, Rose. You aren’t friends. You aren’t anything. He’s not for you. Understand?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer, she just turns and leaves, the door clicking shut behind her, and I sink down onto the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under me. I stare at the carpet.
He stayed with me out of obligation. Because he’s a doctor, and he thought I was injured.
He would have done it for anyone—he said so himself.
He also thinks I’m annoying, complain too much, and, apparently, that I smell bad.
I sit with that for a moment, trying to internalize the embarrassment, hating that it’s so easy for me to feel this way.
I glance at the clock on the bedside table. It’s only 2PM. I have hours before the rehearsal dinner.
I look around the room, deciding I really don’t care how small it is. The bed looks inviting enough, and I’m transported back to three days ago, in my own bedroom, when I felt like hibernating was the only solution to my problem.
The difference is, this time, I’m thinking about a boy instead of the downfall of my professional life. I’m not sure if this is better or worse.
Not wanting to wallow, I get up and get dressed, throwing on a clean pair of leggings and an oversized t-shirt, making a mental note to find laundry services before the week is out, since I didn’t pack much.
I leave the room and find Marco at the front desk. He smiles when he sees me coming.
“Rosaria. How may I help you this afternoon?”
“Hey, I was just wondering if you could tell me what room Roger Vega is staying in? I lost my phone and haven’t been able to text him.”