Chapter 17 Rosalie
Chapter 17
Rosalie
No, Rosalie isn’t going on any hike with her mother. She has plans. Plans that don’t include Cassidy. And even though she feels a smidgen of guilt as she watches the others board the van, Rosalie has lived with the torment of her mother for years. Now she’s taking matters into her own hands.
Last night wasn’t terrible—well, the parts that didn’t involve Cassidy, anyway. She loved cooking, and Jean-Paul was a great teacher. Simone was nice, and they watched an episode of The Bear and talked for a bit after dinner.
“It must be cool living here. Meeting so many people.”
“I love it,” Simone said.
She asked Rosalie about school and her life in Chicago. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I’m not exactly my mother,” she quipped.
“A girlfriend? It’s an equal-opportunity question.”
“No girlfriend. I like boys.”
Simone slid back on the sofa as Jeremy Allen White dominated the screen with his piercing blue eyes. “I had the biggest crush on Leo Shay when I was a little kid,” Simone said.
“Ew. He’s so old .”
“Tell that to my five-year-old self. I mean, he was in movies, on billboards!”
“What’s the big deal about them being here?”
Simone eyed Rosalie suspiciously. “It’s all over the news. You couldn’t have missed it.”
Rosalie stared at her blankly.
“Leo and Penny got married here. Tante Renée told me that on their wedding day, they promised each other to come back on their twenty-fifth anniversary, which is this week. Here’s the thing: Leo recently got caught cheating with his costar—you know, Claire Leonardo? The pictures of them holding hands and kissing are all over the internet. The trolls are buzzing about it because Penny picked up and moved her and the kids to Miami last August, and no one knew why. So there’s speculation about a divorce ... an affair ... all this drama.”
Rosalie had no idea. “I don’t really pay much attention to celebrity news.”
“I’m sure you have more important things to think about,” Simone says thoughtfully.
That’s when Rosalie took her eyes off the screen and studied Simone. “How’d you end up here? Where are your parents?”
“It’s just my mum. She’s in London. Detests the States. My dad ...” Her voice lowers. “He died when I was three. It’s been me and Mum ever since, but I never loved London. Too rainy. Too noisy. Summers spent here were the highlight of my year. So as soon as I could, I moved here. It was supposed to be temporary, but I like it. And my aunt and uncle—he’s Mum’s brother—they’ve been—”
Simone stopped, because that’s what people did when the subjects of fathers and family came up. They were careful and cautious about saying the wrong thing to Rosalie, but Rosalie pressed her to go on.
“ Tante and Oncle are great. They’re helping with my photography. At some point, I’m going to make a career out of it, but it’s hard to leave this place. My uncle has been a dad to me in a lot of ways. And Tante Renée’s a bonus mom.”
Rosalie marveled at the girl’s resiliency. Her luck.
“Do you have any sisters or brothers?” Rosalie asks.
“Just me.” She smiled. “What about you?”
“No siblings. No pets. No dad.”
Simone’s eyes were kind. “I’m sorry. When did you lose him?”
Lose him, Rosalie had thought. Such an ambiguous term. It was probably too much to lay on a complete stranger. My mother had a one-night stand. I don’t know my father. Rosalie chose her words carefully. “He doesn’t know about me.”
“Ohhhhh. I’m sorry. That’s hard.”
Rosalie brightened her expression, as she often did when trying to make the best of her mother. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Yeah. Your mom seems cool.”
Simone was being nice. Cassidy Banks wasn’t the easiest, or the most approachable (or likable) of mothers. Rosalie overheard how kids in their town talked about her. They commented on the low-cut blouses that showed off her fake boobs, and how Wendy Sweeney once riffled through Cassidy’s medicine cabinet during a sleepover and reported on the boxes of Ex-Lax. They gossiped about how her mother overslept, leaving Rosalie to fend for herself—breakfast, a ride to school—and how if Cassidy did show up to car pool, she showed up frazzled.
Rosalie found relief that the whispers centered on their differences. The vanity gene was lost on Rosalie, and she liked her weight, which she called “just right.” And she especially appreciated the individuality of her hair and makeup. The girls at St. Andrews looked like replicas of one another in Dyson waves and rolled-up skirts, an assembly line of mediocrity.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist—or a table comprised of a therapist, a famous actor, and an astronomer—to figure out that Rosalie was rebelling. She knew. She had railed against Cassidy early on, and their differences only amplified as Rosalie assumed the role of the responsible adult and Cassidy the selfish child.
The last straw was when Cassidy admitted to lying about her father. Gene, her high school boyfriend turned husband, hadn’t died as Cassidy professed. As quickly as that stupid story had materialized, it dissolved. Rosalie thought back to the day she’d written his sister a letter. And as if concocting the death story hadn’t been enough, Cassidy had followed it up with the news that Rosalie was the result of a one-night stand. A one-night stand. If she hadn’t felt awkward and different before, she certainly did now.
Which explains why they’re here.
Rosalie is finally going to tell her mother her news. Imagine her face.
Jean-Paul interrupts the memory, dropping bags of flour and sugar on the counter. He’s kind and patient, which gives her a boost of confidence. She knew from an early age that she wanted to work in a kitchen and surround herself in food and flavors. She could have never guessed she’d have this alone time with a professional, and for the first time in a while, she feels like she belongs. With the ways he describes his methods and how he brings his dishes to life, they speak a similar language. Though she has a propensity to measure out quantities, she’s always instinctively known the right ingredients to spice up an omelet or enhance the flavor of a boring grilled cheese sandwich.
She asks Jean-Paul every single question she can think of. She’s even written up a list, but she’s too embarrassed to whip it out. When they finish preparing the beignet dough, he lets her assist with the marinade for tomorrow night’s pork. “Some prep is behind the scenes, Rosalie. I don’t give away all my secrets.”
She studies how he shakes seasoning into a pan, measuring spoons nowhere in sight, and she wonders if his intuitiveness might rub off on her.
“Try it.” He hands her a spatula. “What do you think it needs?”
She hesitantly takes it. “I might mess up dinner.”
He doesn’t reply, just watches as she raises the utensil to her lips.
“You’re thinking.”
“That’s what people do.”
“Trust your senses. Close your eyes, take in the flavor, the consistency, the smell.”
She breathes it in. Takes another taste. Shuts her eyes. She sees the kids teasing her, broadcasting Cassidy’s mishaps. She chases them away and focuses on impressing Jean-Paul. Her fingers tremble as she shakes more seasoning into the pan. When he takes a taste, he clucks his tongue and shakes his head.
“You’re not trusting yourself, Rosalie.”
She can’t tell him that trust has never come easily. Not when she has a mother with a penchant for drama and an arsenal of lies. It was her mother’s dishonesty that had ultimately led Rosalie to do what she did—her mother, and Diane Rodriguez, a classmate whose aunt’s best friend’s uncle had located a long-lost cousin on the internet. At first, Diane’s story hadn’t interested Rosalie. But once she realized she could use the same means to similarly track down long-lost relatives, the story interested her very much.
She wasn’t scared when she signed up for the Ancestry site, lying about her age and using a fake email with the password findmyfather . She was ready to understand where she came from. Ready to find out why she and Cassidy were so unequivocally unmatched. She’d begun the search out of boredom, a way to pass the time, and then it turned into something obsessive and unstoppable. What did he look like? What was his profession? Was he married? Did Rosalie have a sister or a brother?
It was all she could think about.
She almost told Simone last night—she’s been dying to tell someone—but she couldn’t. She has to tell Cassidy first. She owes her that much.
Doesn’t she?
This time she closes her eyes and breathes in the flavors. She loves creating; she loves playing with ingredients. A pinch here. A pinch there. And when Jean-Paul tries the marinade for a second time, she knows she’s nailed it.