22. Evelyn
It had been hours, and when my cellphone vibrated, I jumped off the couch. The text was coming from an unknown number. An icy chill went down my spine.
Unknown Number
Belle I’m in trouble
Laszlo?
His kiss still tingled on my lips. The tenderness and passion had swallowed me up, and ever since he left, I’d been in a daze.
There was no response for a long time. I kept refreshing it, but I’d never owned a cellphone before. The learning curve was frustrating, and I kept closing the app, and having to reopen it.
Had I deleted the response? Missed it?
I paced the length of my library, and when that wasn’t enough, I walked circles around the kitchen island. Figure eights around the living room furniture, then back again.
When the phone vibrated again, I nearly dropped it.
Unknown Number
Roxy r u free? Can u come 2 my place?
How did you get my number?
Unknown Number
The goth
Only Roxy would call Laszlo that, and despite the fact that my best—only—friend was in trouble, there was a fast relief that Laszlo wasn’t in trouble.
As far as I knew.
He hadn’t texted, and he’d been gone for a long time.
He hadn’t specifically told me not to go out and though I didn’t want to upset him, I was driving myself wild imagining all the terrible scenarios that Laszlo could be in.
I needed a distraction, and I hadn’t been able to speak with Roxy in almost a month.
Since that night.
I’ll be right over. Send me your address.
She wasn’t far, a residential area on Walnut Street.
I called a car like Laszlo had shown me, requesting a female driver. I got changed into a pair of sneakers and grabbed one of his trench coats. It was comically large on me, but it gave me added bulk, took away some of my femininity, hid my hair.
I pulled on a wool cap and grabbed my purse.
Dressed incognito, the cool evening air turned my skin damp. The humidity was awful, even in the cold, and I hugged the trench coat around me more firmly. I got in the vehicle, my fingers wrapped around the taser.
The buildings turned from metal and glass into older heritage buildings.
The neighbourhood was eerie. Darkened windows seemed to follow me as we drove by them. Curtains fluttered back and forth, despite it being too late in the evening for the windows to be open.
It felt as if ghosts were watching me from old, brick colonial homes.
The driver let me out in front of Roxy’s house, and my fist was heavy as I knocked on the stained-glass inlaid door. It pulled open with a creak.
Gone was the glamour of Roxy at the club.
She had no makeup on. Her face was shrouded in shadow by her sweater’s hood. She had bags beneath her eyes, appearing as haunted as the neighbourhood.
Her red hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and for the first time, owing to my na?veté, I realized she had always worn fake lashes in the club. Now her eyes looked small, and the only thing familiar was the nervous, darting way she glanced behind me before ushering me in.
The moment I was in the foyer, I embraced her.
“Roxy, what’s wrong?” I asked as I shrugged the trench coat off. Roxy took it, hanging it on an old-fashioned wooden coat rack. The style of the place didn’t match her loud personality, and it seemed too sturdy for the woman that stood before me now.
She gestured for me to follow her into the living room. Those hands of hers, usually so elegant and steady, were jittery. One of her manicured nails had broken off, and she hadn’t gotten it replaced.
“You want anything?” she asked, avoiding the reason she’d invited me over.
“You’re worrying me, Roxy. I don’t need anything. We don’t have to talk, if you don’t want to.”
Seeing a woman who was strong and confident rendered into this small, trembling thing was a knife to the gut. She’d disappeared that night. I hadn’t heard from her since, but now I was here for her. Whatever that might look like.
“It might feel better to let it out, though,” I offered, touching her arm.
With a heave of a sigh, she slumped back into the big, brown leather sofa, running her hands through her hair, pushing the hood back.
“I feel like the world’s biggest idiot. My investments did great at first. Gorky was showing me making gains week after week,” she said, her hands unknotting, and resuming their fidgeting.
My tongue got stuck in my throat, and I hoped that my panic didn’t register on my expression. She was staring down at her busy hands, but the air changed between us. Grew thin. Sallow.
“What is it? You helped me when I needed it. Can you let me help you?”
For a long time, we sat there. Her breathing was shallow, raspy, then grew deeper, then shallow again. Her thoughts were racing, and I watched, letting her process it all in silence. A clock somewhere chimed ten. I hadn’t heard from Laszlo since he left at seven. I didn’t check my phone.
My attention was on Roxy, and slowly, her bloodshot eyes met mine.
“My boyfriend… Ex-boyfriend. He was dealing, and he put it in my bank account so he wouldn’t have a paper trail leading to him.
When he cheated on me, I put it into crypto so he couldn’t get it back.
That was before you got here. A couple weeks ago, Gorky told me Ty was pissed about it, but that he could help me. ”
I recognized the name. Ty was the man that Fiona had been arguing with in the alleyway.
Roxy couldn’t hold my gaze, and instead, she drifted away. She played with the edge of her frayed sweater cuff.
“Gorky found out I wanted to own the club. Said the guy, uh, Vasilyev something wouldn’t sell to a woman, but if I gave him the cash, he’d handle it. The Gilt and Gloam was gonna be mine. I’m so stupid.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, the strong woman broken by the slimeball of a man.
“No… no, you aren’t stupid. Our hopes and dreams convince us to be optimistic.”
She swiped her tears away, along with the thick concealer, and a shadow of a bruise appeared beneath her eye.
“Roxy,” I gasped, my brows pitched up in concern. I pulled her into a hug, and we held each other for a while before she spoke.
“It’s okay. It’s over between us.” She sniffled. “Did you really knee Gorky in the cock-and-balls?”
I nodded, and was surprised that it brought a smile to her lips.
I couldn’t help but mirror her expression.
After Roxy’s tears calmed, I made us some tea, and we sat on her sofa.
It was weight loss tea, and it tasted foul, but the heat was nice.
Rain battered the old-fashioned windows, angry and fierce.
I couldn’t wait for the weather to clear.
“Belle, is it true that you and Laszlo…” Roxy began, her words careful.
Shame burned hot in my face, remembering how many people had seen our intimate moment. That was one reason I left the Family. Even though I knew all consummations must be witnessed, and I’d been raised with that tradition, I was terrified of experiencing it myself.
There was a dark irony in fate’s humour.
“Yea. I’m living with him now.”
“I know I said he was a snake, but…” Roxy sighed. “That first night he came in, he pulled me aside before he left. He asked about you, what kind of things you liked. Then he told me to keep an eye on you, gave me a roll for it, and I failed.”
She reached out, a gentle hand on my leg. “I’m sorry, Belle. I should have been there for you. Ty came and pulled me away and…”
“You never came back.”
“Yea. I was messed up, and selfish. It wasn’t until today that I went in and asked for you that Mr. Cabot gave me Laszlo’s number. I guess Laszlo is paranoid about someone at the bar getting your number, considering he made me video call him before he’d tell me.”
“He has reasons to watch out for me.”
“I’m glad you have someone looking out for you,” she said sincerely.
“Me too.”
We sat there for a long while, listening to the rhythmic tick of the grandfather clock in the hall. Neither of us knew what to say, but there was a companionable warmth. At least we were together again.
“You’re going to think this is crazy, but you could use the distraction of someone else’s crazy life.”
Her attention was focused upon me with those magic words.
“The place I came from, home, well… I was supposed to be married to a man there. It was a divine arrangement, foretold to me when I turned twelve. On the first eclipse after my sixteenth birthday, I’d be married to Henry.
I ran away the night before my sixteenth birthday, not realizing that the next eclipse wouldn’t be for years. ”
“When you got hired you said you just left home… You’re not sixteen, are you?”
“Nineteen. My grandmother died a year after I ran away the first time, and I returned to the Mount. This is my second time running away.” My tea was cold, and I set it aside.
“That’s good. If Mr. Cabot was hiring kids, I’d have to cut his dick off. So, you grew up in a full-blown cult then, huh?”
The word roiled in my guts. I’d heard it a few times before, but never about the Children of Aer.
“I… I mean, not really. We did things differently. Together.” Roxy stared at me, not understanding the difference. Maybe I didn’t either. “On the bright side, there’s no divine foretold marriage for a harlot. I’m off the hook now.”
My tone was light and jovial, and I felt some of the levity, though the shock and confusion in Roxy’s face told me that joking about that wasn’t appropriate. Questions danced on her lips before falling away.
She pulled me into her on the couch, her arm wrapped around me. She grabbed a blanket and threw it over us, her hand stroking my long hair. The rain eased off.
“I’m sorry, Belle. I didn’t realize that was your first time.” Her voice was gentle. “Did you tell him?”
“Yea. He felt guilty, but he didn’t know.”
I couldn’t tell her about the bomb, about how Laszlo wanted to make me disappear.
About how I wanted him to, because I was terrified that I’d be trapped.
About how I wanted him to love me so much he couldn’t stand to send me away.
Roxy reached out, brushing a tear away.
“Hey. Don’t you dare cry over him. Over a boy,” she scolded, despite her own eyes being puffy with tears over Ty. I couldn’t help but laugh, and she hugged me.
“I don’t know what he sees in me. He’s sophisticated, and beautiful, and talented. He’s driven. I’m… nothing. My parents couldn’t even love me. Everything I did disappointed them. My father denied me, even though my mother was a virgin when they met.”
I sniffled, swallowing back hiccupped sobs. “I’m screwed up… Just like my mother. She was fifteen, and he was thirty-five, but is nineteen and thirty that different?”
Roxy rubbed my back, and I squirmed under the intensity of her pity. Or was it empathy?
“Well, yea. You’re not a kid for one. That’s a huge difference.” Roxy read something on my face, saw through me. “Has he tried anything since?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Damn, Belle. He must be down bad. Does he know about your upbringing and all that?”
“Some of it.”
Roxy frowned in thought. “Well, there’s your answer. He probably figured you were, like, saving yourself for marriage. That you hate him for… making you a harlot.” She was careful to use the same word I did.
My brow tightened, my lips thinning into a frown. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t he marry me?”
She snorted.
“These guys are allergic to commitment.” She held me close. “I’m glad you came over. To be honest, I don’t have many girl friends.”
“Me neither. We were always in competition back on Mount Aer.”
“Maybe your world wasn’t so different from ours, huh?”
Both of us startled at my sudden ringtone. I hurriedly answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Sorry for not calling sooner, Belle,” Laszlo pointedly used my club name, which meant others were within hearing range.
“Are you okay?” I was relieved to hear his smooth voice again.
“Yes. Are you at Roxy’s? Is it only her there?” The genuine worry in Laszlo’s voice stirred the butterflies in my stomach. How did he know where I was? Was he tracking me? I knew about the security in the penthouse, but there was something reassuring in knowing he was looking out for me.
“Yes, and yes. It’s just us. She’s having some issues with her investments and needed a friend.”
“I know. I gave her your number earlier today and forgot to tell you. I’ll pick you up in a few hours. Stay where you are. I mean it.”