Elle
Libellule’s feels like a phantom of its former self as I ease into the dimly lit club with my key. It’s a Friday night, so why are we closed? Especially when the social media hype had been high even after Gant’s stunt with the hose.
“Hale?” I call, my soft boots dragging across the floorboards. “Rie Rie?”
No answer.
The golden balcony railings shimmer in the wisps of silvery moonlight drifting through the windows, and suddenly, a vision of Gant free-falling over the banister shoots to the forefront of my brain.
Gant.
I check the time on my phone, and I’m bathed in a bright blue. Two sixteen. He’d be at the penthouse soon. That gave me less than an hour to get back, although I don’t know why I care to be back on time.
My heart thunders as I wonder where he is. We said no secrets… It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the money, so why isn’t Libellule making any tonight?
I’m about to call out again when I hear a female voice and spot a light in one of the back rooms. Hale’s room. I creep into the hallway and spy through the crack in the door, expecting to see Stassi, but the woman in front of me is too short, her long jet-black hair hanging past her hips.
It’s the same woman Gant had dragged me past on the night of the twins’ party. I remember her loud aesthetic of heavy smokey makeup, glimmering bangles, and so many necklaces that, despite the deep plunge of her corset, her breasts aren’t visible.
Her voice, clearly fuelled by anger, is mingling with Hale’s equally fierce words. The foggy night air from moments before is still fogging my mind because it takes me a second to realise that I can’t understand what they’re saying. Not because I’m not close enough. Not because they’re whispering but because they’re not speaking English.
Not just that, but I can’t even identify the language itself. It doesn’t sound like anything I’d heard of. It’s beautiful, with its intonations and inflections.
I don’t know why it surprises me that Hale’s, at the very least, bilingual. It should be a crime for people as wealthy as the one per cent and their children to never learn a second language, especially when they travel the globe constantly.
Children. Heirs…
Did Gant speak multiple other languages? Insecurity trickles down my spine at the thought. Whatever languages my partner is fluent in, I want to be fluent too, so there’s never a barrier between us. Little digs of side conversations I can’t understand because I’m too lazy to learn.
But is it laziness? Languages are hard as an adult, and what if he spoke three or more? Then, logic settles into me. There are far more barriers between Gant and me than foreign languages. Like him trying to ruin my dance career. Like the fact that we’re from two extremely different worlds that I’m about to shift closer together by a fraction with my earnings. Still, we’re on different planets.
The jingle of the woman’s bangles brings me back to the present as she points a long fingernail at Hale accusingly. The gold is engraved with intricate carvings all around.
Despite the foreignness of the language, the angry undertones and cadence aren’t lost on me. I don’t need to know exactly what she’s saying to understand that she isn’t happy with Hale.
I peel my eyes away from the pair and notice all the boxes stacked up in the corner of the hallway. They’re all labelled in a slanting script with little accents over the tops of a few letters. Had he finally moved out of his mother’s home?
I catch a glimpse of Hale, who looks flustered, sad, but most of all tired.
The sound of clicking chunky heels scares me, and I tiptoe out of the hall and to the bar, where I slip beside Rie Rie, who’s just appeared. Or was she hiding and ignoring me the whole time to eavesdrop? Because when I watch what she’s doing, it’s clear she’s only pretending to dust the liquor bottles on the bottom shelf. She’s so busy listening that she doesn’t even notice that her feather duster isn’t making contact.
Immediately, she puts a finger to her lips.
“You understand that language?” I can’t help but whisper back despite her signal to shut up.
She shakes her head. “No, why?”
“Because — ” and then I realise it’s useless to explain. Instead, I slice open the nearest box of alcohol to seem busy. A few near-empty bottles lining the shelves need to be replaced. I pull down a bourbon and pour me and Rie Rie the dregs into shot glasses. As soon as we shoot it back, the woman’s voice lifts to a crescendo before her heels stomp across the floor, straight past us like we don’t exist and then out the front doors.
“Damn, his mother is really hurt,” Rie Rie whispers.
I nearly drop the box cutter and my shot glass. “His mother?”
“Don’t open any more boxes,” Hale says above us, and this time, I do drop my shot glass. It rattles onto the bar top with three clacks before I catch it from falling. “They have to stay protected during the skylight repairs. Hand me that box cutter, will you?”
“I thought you said don’t open any more boxes,” I say even as I slide it over the bar top and watch as he examines the boxes in the hallway before sinking the blade into one.
“She really meant it,” he mutters, as I slowly follow Rie Rie around the counter. “I wanted to check that they weren’t empty like last time.”
Last time?
“She’s rejecting me before she thinks I can reject her first…” he trails, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and seemingly oblivious to the blade still in his grip. “It’s always been her biggest fear ever since I was a kid.”
I take the box cutter from him gingerly. “Why would your mother fear you rejecting her as a kid?”
“Because I can.”
That takes both me and Rie Rie aback.
“Just look at me.”
We both do, though I doubt Rie can see past her hand. I take in his pale skin, baby-blue eyes, and chestnut gold hair. Then I remember his mother’s dark skin, a deeper bronze than Rie’s.
“I can pass . I can get a get-out-of-jail-free card. I don’t have to endure what she does when people just glance at her and see that she’s Romani.”
“You’re Romani?” I blurt, remembering the woman’s engraved bangles. I knew they had to be cultural.
He nods. “Do you know how my people are treated here in èze? And all over the world for that matter?”
Actually, I had a pretty big clue. I’d seen the signs. Heard the slurs. Watched a documentary or two.
“Like shit?” Rie offers.
“ Worse .” He shakes his head. “I think she’s scared that I’ll betray her at any moment and deny my heritage for the bluebloods' favour, even though I’ve told her a million times I’d never do that. It’s not being Romani I’m ashamed of. It’s Pierrot's!”
“But you said Pierrot’s is her identity too,” Rie says gently.
“And that’s the problem. No one takes her seriously as a businesswoman. No one respects her besides her workers, and so her work has become who she is. She insists it wouldn’t matter if Pierrot’s were a luxury handbag line like Aria’s mother owns or if she were a six-figure watchmaker like Etienne’s father. Or a prima ballerina like Gant’s mother. She doesn’t come from money, so her money, no matter how much it grows, is worthless to them. She’s worthless to them, and it’s like she’s stubbornly embodying this outcast they’ve pegged her as. She’s proud of it.”
“And she wants you to be proud of it, too?” I ask.
“I am proud of our culture, our language, and traditions. I’m proud of where she’s come from and the fact that she’s a millionaire now. That isn’t the problem. Pierrot’s is. I just don’t want to entangle my identity with…a fucking menagerie, okay? It won’t ever be acceptable to them.”
To them.
“The Beaumonts?” I ask tentatively.
His eyes fall on the box. “Stassi Beaumont isn’t just a girl you can be with, even if she wants you to. It isn’t that simple.”
“Because of her family?” Rie Rie asks. “Because you’re not in their circle?”
“Alistair Beaumont doesn’t like me for his daughter. A dickhead to keep his son company until he grows up and ditches me for other blues, sure.”
“Does he prefer jazz?” Rie Rie asks, her lenses flashing.
“He means blue bloods, Rie. People like Gant and Aria,” I mutter.
Aria…
“Does Stassi know about her father’s disapproval?” I ask. “She seemed angry the other night.”
“It’s not that Stassi doesn’t know. She just doesn’t understand how important it is for her father to accept it. She wants fun.”
“And you want forever?” I ask, my heart fluttering madly.
“How can you be so sure of someone you’ve never even dated?” Rie asks. “I dated my last husband for five whole weeks, and it still didn’t work out.”
“I’ve known Stassi since I was seven. I’m as sure of her as my mother is sure that I won’t ever be accepted, no matter how hard I try. She would know.”
“So it’s not just about class.” Rie Rie nods sadly. “But pass or no pass, the Beaumonts undoubtedly know your backgrounds, ethnically, and the strip club, and they won’t stand for it.”
His mother wants him to give up on where he’ll never fit in. Hadn’t I had the same thoughts about Gant? Hadn’t Delphine and Silas both confirmed it?
The difference between Hale and me is that I know my place, and I’m not trying to shift out of it, for some stuffy bitches' approval. But that’s because I know marrying Gant is never going to happen. But Hale…he’s really trying for Stassi. Just to have a plausible shot…
My heart twinges at his uphill climb yet swells that he’s climbing rather than taking Stassi out of her comfort zone. She’s a powdered princess, and he wants to keep her as one by meeting her on her level rather than bringing her ‘down’ to his. But these ‘levels’ aren’t real, and why should the opinions of people who wouldn’t like anyone unless their great-grandfathers were white millionaires, too, matter? Is it really worth it to lose the family that does accept you, while trying to earn another family’s approval in the process?
Judging from the boxes, Stassi is worth the shot. Then again, Hale doesn’t have a shot at all. If the Beaumonts are racist and prejudiced, there’s nothing Hale can do to win them over. Their minds, just like Jaime’s when it comes to Jarett, are set in concrete.
Hale looks up at the skylight as a miserable laugh leaves his lips. “When she came on opening night and saw the water, she literally laughed at me. She said it was worse than Pierrot’s, that I was trying so hard to get away from. My efforts, all of it, was funny to her. Just like hers was funny to them.”
I gaze up guiltily at the damp, marked ceiling. “Hale, I’m so sorry. Gant — ”
Hale shakes his head. “I knew what I was doing by taking you on, . I’m not slow. I’ve known Gant since forever. I knew how he’d react, and I didn’t care because I wanted the money, and I felt like the horsemen had abandoned me. Now my mother has too.”
“We’re here,” I say. “If that matters.”
“It does,” he says softly.
Rie Rie strokes his back as he peers into the box of framed documents.
His mother may be angry with him, but it’s obvious she cares. Jarett would’ve let his blunts out on my certificates. I eye one for a reading competition Hale had won in second grade, the golden-embossed paper raised behind the layer of glass.
“My mother says I’m just like her. A hustler. Beaulieu says I’m a ladies’ man. The horsemen say I’m everyone’s man.”
“What do you say?” Rie asks as Hale peers into the glass, clearly eyeing his reflection and not the award.
“I don’t know. But I know what I want to be.”
“What?” I ask with baited breath because I know what he’s going to say. It’s what I felt I lacked when I first strolled into Delphine’s home and Gant’s penthouse.
“Worthy.”
“You are worthy,” Rie tries to assure him.
He shakes his head. “Not to whom it concerns.” He tosses the award into the box and heads for the bar for another shot.
Rie Rie picks it up carefully. “You should hang these in your new room.”
“I can’t. Not yet. The roof’s getting repaired. Today.”
“Today?” I ask. “How? I came here to offer you another investment — ”
He throws up his hands. “I don’t know how you got more money, and I don’t want to get involved. Besides, it’s already paid for. Gant sent me a check by carrier pigeon with no explanation other than ‘roof’ scribbled on it.”
I gawk. “That’s it, he sends you a check and all is forgiven?”
“It’s not just a check.”
“Really? Because it sounds like he’s throwing money at the problem.”
“It’s his way of….”
“Apologizing?”
Hale shakes his head. “Everything Gant does is purposeful, calculated.”
Calculated… The scholarship to Beaulieu. Jarrett’s return. Luring me back into his arms. What’s next? I shiver at the thought.
“He’s already weighed the risk and the reward, already anticipated the consequences. The money is an amendment, not an apology, because he’s unrepentant even if it acknowledges it was wrong. The only person I think he’d ever apologise to would be his mother, even though he has nothing to be sorry about.” He eyes me. “And maybe he’s say it to the only person left on earth that he loves, and that’s not his father, Bart.”
I swallow the butterflies trying to escape my throat because Gant had told me sorry. Twice.