by Anbara Salam
“I am sorry,” I said again.
She flicked her ash toward the tree. Then she sighed. “Does Cousin Rhona at least have a glamorous background? Black widow?”
“Knock yourself out,” I said wearily, laying my head back against the trunk of the palm tree. It was straggly and coarse, but my head was heavy for my body.
“And can you get them to stop asking me about sailing? Say I have amnesia or something—I can’t fake any more enthusiasm about boats.”
“Sure,” I said. I should have been grateful she was helping me. That she was even still talking to me. That she hadn’t told Mama or Granny. I tried to summon a flicker of gratitude. “Thanks,” I said eventually.
Rhona began talking about the logistics of traveling to Rome, and the map of the catacombs she had picked up from the tourist office in Milan. I allowed myself the daydream that at any moment, I would see Isabella’s dark hair flashing through the blousy trees in the orchard. “Didn’t think I’d miss out, Briddie, did you?” she’d say. Across the courtyard, Greta and Sally tipped their heads back and laughed at a shared joke.
“Well?” Rhona was saying, watching me.
“Whatever you think makes the most sense,” I said meekly.
Greta’s mother delivered a card to Sally with a shy underhand, and after Sally opened the envelope, there was more laughter and hugging.
Greta peeled away from the embrace and caught my eye across the courtyard. She raised her hands and yelled, “Secret’s out!”
Sally turned her tearful face toward me. She mouthed, “Thank you.” Her happiness, her gratitude for the nothing I had done, was sharp on my tongue. I nodded at them.
Rhona stabbed the cigarette out on the bench. “Between you and Ralphy I don’t know who’s more heartbroken.”
“Ralph?” My stomach jittered. “What about him? Has he heard from her?”
Rhona tutted to mean “no.” It was such a Mama gesture that for a moment it disarmed me. There, somewhere in the corner of her mouth, was the faintest trace of Mama. How had I not seen it until now?
“I forgot he was tutoring you,” I said. In fact I hadn’t known at all until Isabella had told me. “Isn’t he at Yale Law, anyhow? What could he possibly teach you, Miss 4.0?”
“Greek,” she said.
“What does Ralph know about Greek? Other than Greek drinking societies.”
She folded the cigarette butt neatly in a napkin and stowed it in her handbag. I opened my mouth to tease her about it and stopped myself. I had lost all rights to poke fun at anything.
“Once you get to know Ralph, he’s not so bad. Sort of sweet, really. A goofball.”
I watched the defensive line of her nostril, the guarded way she snapped her jaw. “Jeez. Not you too with that guy? I’ll never understand the appeal.”
She raised her eyebrows at me. She had lined them, and the angle made her look unusually haughty. “I could ask you the same question.”
I stared off into the corner of the courtyard. Katherine was gesturing for me to join a photo with Sylvia. I shook my head, trying to smile and failing.
Rhona sat upright on the bench. “I think Ralph’s got the right idea, actually,” she said meaningfully.
“Oh?” I said, anticipating a trap.
“Well, for one thing, he’s not wasting his time longing for Isabella.”
“Don’t,” I said.
“He’s not lying awake, mourning.”
“Don’t,” I said again. And all at once I began to cry. It was a slow, bitter cry, as if the tears were made from sludgy ice. It hurt me to cry like this, like walking across splinters of glass in bare feet. I didn’t even care that across the courtyard, Sally looked over, and Ruth, and Ruth’s sister, and Patricia, and Patricia’s parents. “Please don’t.”
“OK,” Rhona said, embracing me. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Truce?”
“Truce,” I said, wiping my eyes. I put my head limply on her shoulder.
She patted the side of my face. “Now let’s get drunk and go sunbathing. I need to work on my tan before fall.”
I laughed, wiping a dribble of tears from my top lip. “Ease up about the tan, will you?”
“You can’t talk—you’re a milk pudding.” She pinched my arm, quite hard.
I swatted her away, but a rush of affection for her swirled through my insides like a stream of amber.
* * *
After three glasses of prosecco, Rhona became dizzy and demanded a siesta. She dozed off straightaway, one arm over her eyes. I was restless and uncomfortable. The sugar from the wine had given me a headache, and after twenty minutes, I left Rhona to sleep and paced aimlessly into the common room. Since Isabella had gone, it had surprised even me, the extent of my banal catalog of our time in the academy. I kept snagging on memories too trivial to share: when Isabella dropped her pen down the back of the armchair, when she stubbed her toe on the corner of the rug. I found a soft packet of Pall Malls abandoned on the fireplace, which I claimed for my own. I smoked one sitting on the windowsill overlooking the hill down to La Pentola. I couldn’t bear to look at the spa.
I spotted the corner of a familiar brochure lying facedown underneath one of the armchairs. I climbed down from the sill and pulled out the German recipe booklet. It had evidently been lying there for some time, since it left a trail in the dust. Had I dropped it there so carelessly? It was more likely that one of the girls had tossed it aside after leafing through it in my room. I looked at it for a long time, hardly daring to open it, to see if the illustrations would bring me peace as they once had done. I perched back on the windowsill and wiped the cover on my sleeve. I flicked open the booklet and there they were. Cozy little pies, stout and round. And something that I’d thought was lost fluttered back to life. I wished that I could jump through the page and live in the picture. I saw myself making the pies, standing at a marble counter, tucking and folding and clipping and crimping. But that wasn’t enough. Somehow I also wanted to be one of the pies, actually inside one, nestled and snug. It was so ridiculous I heard myself laughing, and the ache in my chest relaxed, just a bit. I clasped the booklet closer to me.
* * *
That evening Rhona and I lay on the twin beds in my room, sweating into the sheets. The evening had grown even warmer, a quaggy, humid heat with the coppery taint of anticipated thunder. Cicadas quavered in the hills. An owl called out from the orchard.
“Isabella,” Rhona said, out of nowhere.
My pulse shot into my temples. For a wild moment I thought she had been reading my thoughts. I cleared my throat. “What about her?”
“Do you think she’s made a mistake?”
I pictured the space between Isabella and Rosaria the last time I saw them in the spa. How they were standing, apart, but oriented toward each other. All the carefulness and potential of that empty space, the risks they were taking to cross it. I pressed my fingernails into my palms and then released them.
“No,” I said at last.
“Good,” Rhona said pointedly. “It’s good that she’s happy.”
My temples throbbed. Isabella was happy. Without me. With Rosaria. Their happiness was so unfair I felt quivering in every muscle. Like I had built a house that someone else had come to live in. Their happiness was just beginning. And I had nothing. It was the same sunken feeling from the trip to Rome, the day I had watched smiling families eating pasta and I had stood on the street, unnoticed.
“And in the fall. What will you do?” Rhona said.
“What do you mean?”
“When I’m at Wellesley. You don’t want to study anymore, do you?”
“No.”
“So what’s next, then?”
My eyes prickled. “I don’t know,” I said. I searched myself for a grain of promise, but I was empty. My soul was too limp to even cry properly. “I don’t care
about anything.”
Rhona reached across in the dark and took my hand. Her grip was weak, her skin cold. “Bridget,” she said, “that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
Despite myself, I smiled. Tears rolled along my cheeks and into the bedding.
“Let’s just focus on having a good summer,” she said. “You can do that at least?”
I pictured us on the porch of a summerhouse. Sitting side by side on matching Adirondack chairs, a salty breeze ruffling the pages of our magazines. Rhona passing me a pack of cigarettes. It was peaceful, kind. It was safe. “OK,” I said.
“This might be my last vacation for a while,” she said, as if the thought pleased her. “I’ll have to work really hard next semester.”
I recognized that she was trying to talk about herself. Maybe even to confess her nerves about school or studying. But I wasn’t ready to relinquish the conversation to her hopes or dreams. “I worked hard,” I said churlishly.
“Well, I’m sure you did,” she said.
“I tried really hard,” I said, my throat aching. “This year.”
“At school?” she said, turning onto her side and searching my face. “Oh,” she said. She put her other hand over mine as well. Her fingers were still cold, but I gripped them gratefully.
“I tried really hard,” I said again.
“With Isabella?” she said quietly.
I nodded, wiping my cheeks with the sheets.
“Oh, Budgie,” Rhona exhaled. She squeezed my hand. “Setting your heart on something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. No matter how much you want it.”
“But—” I swallowed. “What more could I have done?” I braced myself for an acerbic analysis of my faults. I was ready for her criticism. Whatever she said, I deserved it.
“I don’t know,” Rhona said. I felt her shrugging. “Maybe you should have used your time together better. Talked to her about—about things.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“Did you?” she said. “Talk to her, I mean. Did you make plans?”
“No,” I said. “Not exactly. But we did have plans. We had— There were plans. I had ideas. I have so much to offer.”
“Do you?” Rhona said, so doubtfully the comment flew at me like a dart. “What?”
The barb landed in my throat, hard and sour as a bee sting. I swallowed against it. “Love,” I said.
After a moment, Rhona said, “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
“That can’t be true,” I said. What did she know? I thought bitterly. What did she know about love? About wanting and waiting and trying and loving? “That can’t be true. What else is there? After love?”
Rhona sighed. “Bridget, if you have so much love to offer, you need to be more responsible about who you give it to.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off. “Make sure at least they know how to receive it.”
“I do. She—”
“And love doesn’t automatically make someone a good person. Lover or—” She broke off. “What’s the opposite of ‘lover’?”
“‘Beloved.’”
“Lover or beloved,” she said. “And—”
“She is a good person,” I interrupted. After a moment I said, “And so am I,” even though that didn’t feel true anymore. “I am a good person.” My voice was hollow and shaky.
“Are you going to let me finish?” Rhona said tartly.
“Sorry.”
Rhona took a deep breath. Along the hallway, I could hear the swirl of water, the bathroom door swinging. Greta and Sally were whispering in the corridor, laughing. Someone creaked open a window overlooking the courtyard, and the whir of cicadas grew louder.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Keep going.”
Rhona pressed her palm against mine. “Bridget, you’ll just have to trust me on this. It’s totally possible to keep on loving someone”—she squeezed my hand—“even if you don’t like them very much.”
Acknowledgments
First, to my agent, Hattie, thank you for your boundless confidence and camaraderie. Thank you for your tireless support of this book during the long process of adjusting the recipe for uncooked cake mix.
Turning a manuscript into a book is the work of so many people, and I want to thank everyone on the team at Blake Friedmann for all the behind-the-scenes support it took to get to the finish line. Thank you also to the team at my new home at The Blair Partnership.
Thank you to my editor Juliet Annan for your wisdom and wit. I’m so grateful for your encouragement and confidence; it’s genuinely an honor to be part of Fig Tree. A huge thank-you also to Assallah—your input has been essential at every step.
A big thank-you to Shân Morley Jones for your copyediting skills, and to Holly Ovenden for the beautiful UK cover.
To Catherine Drayton at InkWell Management, so many thanks for believing in Belladonna and finding it a home in the US.
Thank you to my editor Amanda Bergeron at Berkley. Our editorial meetings have been a true pleasure and challenged me in the most unexpected ways. Thank you for your insights and your trust. I am so lucky.
For my gorgeous US cover, thank you to Emily Osborne. Thank you also to Sareer Khader and to Eileen Chetti for my copyedits.
Thank you to my first reader, Maria, my incredible partner-in-pd.
Thank you to my family: my parents, Marion and Ahmad, and to Walid, Hussein, Alya, and Yasmin.
To Struan—you’ve been living with this book since the beginning, and your support, kindness, love, and patience have made it possible. I can’t thank you enough.
Belladonna
Anbara Salam
Questions for Discussion
During the novel, Bridget tells a series of lies; why do you think she does this? Have you ever told a lie on impulse that you regretted immediately?
How do you feel about the way that Isabella treats Bridget? Does she owe her anything?
When we leave the characters it’s approaching the end of the 1950s. How do you imagine their lives might change in the 1960s?
Do you agree with the expression “All is fair in love and war”?
Both Rhona and Isabella struggle with illness during the novel. How does Bridget’s attitude toward their illnesses differ, and why?
In what ways are the different characters dealing with self-destruction? To what extent do you think that’s a result of being young?
At the end of the novel, Rhona says, “Sometimes love isn’t enough.” Do you agree?
How do the academy girls treat Sister Teresa? Why do you think that is?
How does Bridget feel about her background? What privileges does she take for granted?
What different versions of sisterhood do we see in the book?
Do you think Isabella and Bridget are true friends? Have you ever had a “frenemy”?
Do you need to like someone to empathize with them?
About the Author
Anbara Salam is half-Palestinian and half-Scottish and grew up in London. She has a PhD in Theology and is now living and working in Oxford.
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