Chapter Forty-Seven
The next morning my work schedule is interrupted by a visit from Zeliá.
It was only a matter of time before the drop-ins started.
I’m going to have to set firm boundaries about this, because otherwise this will become the norm and soon the aunties will join in and then the cousins and I’ll never wrench control back.
‘You reunited your friend with his lost dog?’ Zeliá asks, as she sips her tea, looking every inch a part of the family as if she regularly stops by to visit. ‘Tiago was telling me all about it.’
‘Yes, what a strange bit of luck. Now I’ve got to get back to—’
‘Sorry, darling, I know you’ve got work but I was in the area. And I wanted to ask, how are things going with you and Tiago? Like really going?’ She narrows her gaze, it’s quite unsettling.
I frown. ‘Going?’
‘Well, I can’t help but hope that a summer wedding is on the cards. If we want to secure the cathedral for next year we have to get in quick.’
I wish for the ground to open up beneath me. To avoid all this unnecessary wedding malarky. ‘Zeliá, I will not be getting married in the foreseeable, or maybe ever. I’d like to keep my autonomy and—’
‘What?’ She clutches her heart and skitters backward in her seat. It’s all rather theatrical and expected. ‘NEVER?’
I have told her this, I made my feelings about matrimony and its exorbitant costs known.
Bad investment, no two ways about it. ‘Does marriage really matter in the scheme of things?’ As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret them.
This will not go down well, not with my mother either, when it eventually feeds back to her.
‘Does marriage really matter? MARRIAGE.’
I can’t help but hear her speak in capitals which makes me shrink inside myself. ‘It’s still very early on to be thinking about nuptials. Far too early.’
‘But Tiago told me he knew he loved you the moment he saw you. That he had sat at that little pastelaria trying desperately to think of a way to approach you. All he could come up with was the book angle.’
I double blink. ‘What?’
Surely, I have misunderstood. ‘The book angle’ sounds a little conniving.
Zeliá lets out a fluttery little laugh. ‘Oh, you must have heard this a million times by now.’ She grins and pats my leg.
‘But he said something about pretending to have read the book you were reading. Isn’t that so sweet?
I almost died when he told me. He’s such a romantic at heart.
Didn’t get that from his dad, that’s for sure.
Anyway, he raced out to find the book that you’d recommended so he could bring it the following week when he met up with you again.
Isn’t that just melt your heart romantic?
To go to that length? I raised that boy right.
’ She’s busy giving herself invisible pats on the back while I’m spiralling at this news.
My brain spits and fizzes and it goes into overdrive as I try to make sense of the revelation.
All I can compute is that Tiago lied to me.
I cycle back in my mind to that day, grateful that I have such good recall.
Tiago had approached my table and said, ‘The Vanishing at Whispering Willows, eh? Absolutely love that book.’
And I’d replied, ‘You’ve read The Quill Chronicles?’
‘Ah – yes, all three.’
All three! How did I not pick up on that?
And when I’d asked him who his favourite detective of all time was he’d said ‘that one right there’.
I missed another glaring clue that he had no idea what her name was.
Does it matter in the scheme of things? My chest tightens.
It matters to me. He lied, plain and simple.
He lied to get my attention that day. What else has he lied about? What else will he lie about?
‘Thank you for stopping by, Zeliá, but I really must work now.’
‘Sure, sure, darling. I hope we’ll see you for dinner soon, yes? Just with close family and friends.’
I close the door behind her and rest my head against the wood. Tiago lied? One lie leads to two and then soon you have a pattern of behaviour. I’ve seen it firsthand. I burst into messy tears, devastated he’s not who I thought he was.