Still

by Camilla Monk

  She sighed and wrenched her hands. “It’s been a little harder than I thought,” she managed. “At first, I just loved having this connection to him—working with his notes, living here.” I let her go on, my gaze set on her pale fingers. “But I think . . . being here, it started to bring up memories. I was so young when my mom died. I didn’t remember her, and Dad didn’t want to talk about her. But Grandpa would tell me about her all the time, and he was . . .” Her voice cracked. “He was my bond to her, in so many ways, and he meant so much to me. And I wanted to do this; I still want to be here and finish this for him.” She looked up, and her eyes were glassy. “But it’s just been hard.”

  I swallowed, thinking of my father, of the abysmal void that mere stranger had left in me. The same void Lily’s grandpa had left when choosing to leave her. “I get it,” I said tightly. “But I don’t think living and breathing Katharos is helping you. You know, you could try renting a place elsewhere in Rome. I mean . . .” I waved at the gilded ceiling. “None of this is worth it if you don’t feel right.”

  I honestly thought she’d burst into tears, but she straightened and shook her head instead, brushing a finger over her eyelids to dry them. “No. I’m right where I need to be.” Her gaze hardened as it swiped around at my bedroom’s paneled walls. “I needed to start over where it ended.”

  My chest constricted. “What do you mean?”

  She clasped white-knuckled fingers on her lap. “He had an apartment at the Residenza. He always stayed there whenever he was in Rome.” Her lips pressed bitterly. “One of the perks of working for Katharos.”

  I digested the news with a shudder. “Was it—”

  “No,” Lily reassured me, reading the question as it formed on my lips. “He didn’t die in your bedroom.”

  “Please tell me it wasn’t yours either,” I breathed. This whole situation was fucked up. And it seemed to get worse with every detail I learned. I stared down at the bottle of water still resting in my hands. My Facebook invite drama and ugly duckling complex suddenly seemed almost trivial compared to the amount of grief Lily had been through, and I couldn’t shake a pang of shame that I’d been too selfish to truly care until today.

  She tipped her head to the ceiling. “It’s on the third floor.”

  “You’ve been inside?”

  “Yes. I thought . . . it might help me understand.”

  “Did it?” I probed, already knowing the answer.

  But again, she surprised me. “Yes. It helped me see the path I needed to follow.”

  I took a slow sip of water to soothe the unpleasant dryness in my mouth. “Find the table and complete his work.”

  “It’s the same for you,” she replied, lightening up all of a sudden. I waited for the rest with a cautious frown. Her voice was softer as she added, “You’re not wandering aimlessly.”

  Wandering. The first image her word conjured up was a vision of myself, a year ago, sitting on a sidewalk and watching Apple ads play on a flat screen in the windows of a Best Buy. I’d seen the same iPhone ad over and over until I was braindead. I forced a chuckle and rolled my eyes. “Of course, I’m not . . . wandering.”

  She shook her head, grinning. “I didn’t mean it literally. It’s more like a metaphor. Do you know the story of the three fates?” I shook my head, casting her a doubtful look. “It’s a myth the Greeks and Romans shared, a metaphor for destiny. The fates are three women who respectively spin, measure, and eventually cut the thread symbolizing each person’s life—mortal or immortal. They knew the beginning and the end of one’s life and . . .” She waved her hands as if she were trying to turn the concept around in them. “Dante would explain it so much better than me, but the idea is that this thread—this path—shows you that no matter what happens, there’s a fate written for you; you’re going somewhere, and you’ll influence other lives on your way. Things can happen a thousand different ways, you can make a thousand different choices, but eventually, they’ll always lead you where your path is taking you.”

  I ran a tongue over my lips and gulped some more water, absorbing this information under her bright, expectant gaze. She didn’t see what it could mean for someone like me. To her, it was probably a poetic way to say that even she’d lost her grandpa, and it couldn’t have been avoided. It was also in her cards to meet Dante and experience this huge love, like in Disney movies and Fifty Shades of Grey. The real deal that made your knees weak and melted every brain cell of an otherwise healthy college student.

  To me, it was like looking down at a frayed thread knowing it’d never get better than this; that no matter what choices I’d have made, my mother wouldn’t have wanted me, and my father wouldn’t have stayed. If that path Lily was rambling about existed, mine led to Tuna Town at best, or out on the street. I ground my molars together. Fuck that. She could believe whatever she wanted. I chose to believe that it was bullshit and that I didn’t walk around with a thread tied around my ankle.

  “Sorry,” I said tartly. “I’m not into that kind of spiritual stuff.”

  Her lips parted to reply, only to be interrupted by a soft rap across the room. Dante’s voice came muffled through the door. “Lady Montecito has arrived.”

  Lily sprang up from the couch with a blissful smile. Jesus, all it took was hearing his voice, and I could already see her brain oozing fast through her ears. “Yes, we’ll be there in a minute.”

  I followed her to the door, but once she was standing in front of it, her hand paused on the handle. She turned around, her gaze searching mine, always so clear, so open. I had this thought that she’d always get hurt badly someday if she didn’t learn to shield herself better.

  “Em . . .”

  I raised an eyebrow to indicate she had my full attention.

  “I should have said something.” The words escaped her in a strangled sigh like she was confessing a triple homicide. “Every time she compared us or when she hit you, I knew it wasn’t normal, but I never said anything. I was afraid she’d hate me too . . . that she’d leave Dad. I think it was the same for him too.” She balled her fists. “We looked the other way. It wasn’t right, and I’m so sorry—for everything.”

  At first, I just stood there, my mouth hanging open dumbly. It didn’t last. My auxiliary system took over, and I waved her apology off with a flick of my wrist. “Fair’s fair. I was a toxic little piece of shit.”

  “It’s not true,” Lily insisted. “Families stick together, and we messed up. I just wish I’d been stronger back then.”

  My eyes were prickling a little, and with it came a wave of shame. Because I still couldn’t get rid of those old bruises inside, because Lily had not only taken the love my mother couldn’t give me, but she had it in her to pity me on top of that. I mustered a superior smile and rolled my eyes. “I got over it.”

  She gave a shy nod. “Okay. I guess it helped, reconnecting with your father, right?”

  I mumbled a vague, “Yeah.” Lies; they pile up so fast.

  Lily took my hands and squeezed them. I let her. “I’m just glad we can have a second chance.”

  Her words registered almost like a foreign language in my brain. I turned them over, dissected them. A second chance? More like a slew of sketchy coincidences and my usual gift for finding trouble faster than it could find me. And yet . . . Lily and I were here, talking, sharing more than we ever had when we were living under the same roof. Maybe she was right, and there was a second chance squeezed at the bottom of that barrel of lemons.

  When I was sixteen, before Mom sent me to Saint-Henry, I got myself fired from this other school which had a wilderness program called “Young Wings.” The whole idea was that we were birds who hadn’t yet learned to fly and dropping our asses in the middle of the woods with military rations in our backpacks and psychotic vets to shepherd us would somehow work wonders. One of the kids tried to hang himself from a tree.

  I didn’t do that. I took off while the adults were busy cutting the rope. I made it to the roa
d and hitched a ride to the next gas station from a fifty-something biker—a true gentledude, who not only bought me a bud light, but rescinded his offer to take me to a nearby motel when I told him I was underage, and therefore jailbait. Decent guy overall: 10/10, would hitch again.

  Anyway, I got caught and ended up being lectured by the undersheriff of Hamilton County, sandwiched between my mom and Richard. Now, I’d like to stress that all of this—the undersheriff warning me that I could have been raped by that biker and gotten pregnant; my mom feigning outrage and swearing to the guy that she had no idea I drank alcohol; Richard staring vacantly at a pair of moose antlers on the wall—all of this went better than my second evening at the Residenza.

  Sitting stiffly on a long brocade couch next to Lily and Dante, I watched Alfredo pour two fingers of scotch over the ices cubes in my glass. I could feel Lily’s mildly alarmed gaze on me as I brought the drink to my lips. Apparently, I should have asked for a glass of prosecco like everyone else in the room. She seemed to shrink under the weight of Dante’s hand on her shoulder when I swallowed the first gulp with a contented hiss. Nice burn.

  In the couch opposite ours, Lady Montecito watched me down my scotch and toasted me with an impenetrable smile. Lucius stood behind her, his back to a tall window showcasing the palazzo’s darkened courtyard.

  “Is the whiskey to your liking, Emma?” Montecito asked suavely.

  I pursed my lips in approval. “Yeah. Really nice and smoky.”

  “Nothing better than a heavily peated malt,” she concurred, dipping her red lips in the light golden prosecco in her glass. Her eyes gauged me over the crystal rim. “I’m so glad you decided to stay with us after all.”

  “I love it here,” I replied, my face deadpan.

  “And we love having you.” Her voice had grown cool, an echo of my own. My unease dialed down a bit at the realization that we were playing the same game. She saw me for who I was—a bitch—and I saw her for who she was—see above.

  “So, Em, what did you think of the foundation’s private gallery?” Lily’s unsteady voice broke through my staring match with Montecito, her eyes pleading with me to shelve the brass knuckles and be a considerate guest.

  I didn’t look away—it was a matter of honor—but I said, “It was beautiful, and I had a great guide too.”

  Montecito’s mouth twitched, and she turned to Lily. “Emma was very interested in our marble of Faustus.” She set down her glass on the colorful tangle of vine and flowers of an inlaid stone coffee table. “I think she was moved by the poor man’s plight.”

  Lily gave a timid nod while Dante sipped his wine, a silent spectator to the tension sizzling between the three of us. “My grandfather told me this story,” she acquiesced. “He even used it to open one of his conferences about Pagan concepts of immortality during the Empire.” A genuine smile stirred her cheeks. “He said that in our modern world where we trust that money will someday buy immortality, he liked the idea that the only man Chronos gifted it to was a blind beggar.”

  “A lesson in humility to all of us,” Montecito murmured, her gaze drifting to me. “Speaking of beggars, Emma, there’s something Lucius and I have been meaning to ask you—and I hope you’ll forgive our curiosity . . .”

  I went rigid, save for a tremor in my wrist that made the ice cubes in my empty glass tinkle softly. Alfredo glided my way without a word to take it from me. I let him, my eyes set on Lucius. For the first time since we’d entered the salon, he was coming alive, his shoulders rolling ever so slightly under the dark, shiny fabric of his suit. The low hum of his baritone echoed in the salon. “As you already know, Emma, Chronos’s Table is an invaluable archeological discovery. Security and confidentiality are therefore our utmost priorities.”

  I cocked my head at him, mustering a laid-back sneer when my armpits were, in fact, getting damp from a cold sweat. “And . . .?”

  He leaned forward to rest his large hands on the back of the couch where Lady Montecito sat. “We had an intrusion on the Palatine two days ago.” His eyes narrowed briefly. “Concomitant with your visit.”

  Faust . . . who probably thought his disappearing act and his cats made him some sort of discount Batman. Flash update: he sucked at covert ops, and Katharos had him in their crosshair because when you waltz around completely wasted, people fucking notice.

  Lily shot me an anxious look while Dante’s arm snaked around her waist—to comfort her or hold her in place? I wasn’t sure.

  Keep it cool, Em. I shrugged. “I know. It was just a bum though . . .”

  Montecito’s features softened in a parody of compassion. “Indeed. Lucius told me what happened. He praised your display of kindness.” I raised an eyebrow at the interested party. That sounded almost as credible as, Lucius volunteers to rescue orphaned kittens in his free time. She went on, her voice suddenly cutting. “But some people can abuse that kindness.”

  Lily’s lips formed my name, but Lucius cut her question with his own. “Has this man tried to contact you again, Emma?”

  It was as if my heart had stopped for a suspended second while I processed his question. They’re trying to keep an eye on you. I braced my hands on my knees to stay focused. Calm, even as my pulse roared in my eardrums. “Why are you asking me that?” I snapped.

  Lucius walked around the couch. I registered the rustle of his suit, the whiff of woodsy cologne as he moved to stand a couple feet away from me. His lips stirred. I avoided his gaze and locked on his hands instead, oddly smooth, and with perfectly clean and trimmed nails, like he’d never done a single second of manual work in his life. “I believe you met him again, Emma,” he said, his voice a notch softer.

  Oh shit! They knew about that too. Had Lucius sent someone to tail me? Or was it Faust he’d been watching? I balled my fists, seconds ticking in the salon as I walled myself in cautious silence.

  Meanwhile, Lily managed to free herself from Dante’s embrace and snapped out of her stupor. “Em, who’s that man he’s talking about?”

  I hated to see that expression of betrayal on her face, a look that seemed to say, “How could you? I gave you a chance, and you completely fucked up, like you always do.” The fear pounding in my temples became anger at myself, but also at her for dragging me here at the Residenza in the first place and starting all this. I shot up from the couch and glared at the four of them. “Look, I’m out of here. I don’t give a shit about your table.” My eyes set on Lily, and I loathed the tremor in my voice as I added, “and I don’t give a shit about any of you.” I turned to Lucius and Montecito. “All I know is that you’re a pack of creeps breathing down people’s necks for whatever reason, and I don’t want any part of that.”

  “Emma, I’d like you to sit down and talk to us,” Lucius replied, taking a threatening step forward.

  I circled away from the couches and toward the salon’s doors, my arms outstretched challengingly. By then, it was my adrenaline doing all the talk. “Make me, cocksucker! Give me a good reason to press charges!”

  Lily’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and that shifty cunt Dante clasped a hand over his mouth in an obvious attempt to conceal a smirk. Through it all, Lady Montecito remained perfectly still, her hands laced on her lap. “Dante,” she eventually said. “Please take Lily upstairs.”

  It was Lily’s time to rise when she heard this. “Lady Montecito, I’m absolutely sorry. I think Emma has had a little too much to drink, and she didn’t mean—”

  Montecito’s voice was a smooth blade cutting through her blubbering tirade. “It’s all right, Lily. No one here intends to hold Emma against her will.”

  I drew a furious breath through my nostrils. “You better not. I’m getting my backpack, and I’m seriously out of this freak show.”

  Across the room, I noticed Alfredo opening the doors for me. The wave of relief that followed came laced with guilt and shame as my eyes met Lily’s, glistening with disappointment. What else was new? I saw her throat move, but she wouldn’t s
peak. She never had in the past either. She never judged, never compared us. There was no need to. Actions spoke louder than words.

  I felt too shitty to even apologize, so I just bulleted past her and ran up the stairs to go get my stuff, without another look for Montecito and Lucius either. After I’d slammed my apartment door behind me and returned to the lobby, the four of them were still here, Montecito and Lucius, as impassive as ever, Dante, feigning some sort of concern. And Lily, who wouldn’t lie, wouldn’t try to hide her regret.

  “Won’t you just talk to me?” she murmured, watching me as I tightened the straps of my backpack.

  “No. I shouldn’t be here,” I snapped before my shoulders sagged helplessly. She’d just think I was crazy if I told her about Faust, but the knot in my stomach wouldn’t ease. Something wasn’t right in Katharos’s heavenly bubble, and I felt shitty for running away like that. I forced myself to look her in the eye, purposely ignoring Dante standing next to her. “I just want to say . . . that you should keep your distance.” I waved in Lady Montecito and Lucius’s general direction, who gave no sign they had noticed—or that they minded my warning. “They’re weird,” I concluded lamely.

  Her eyes darted to her employers. Apologetic. She shook her head at me. “Em, I don’t understand, and I can’t help you if you just storm off.”

  I did what I knew best. I shrugged and walked past them. Lily went after me in the courtyard. “Em! Where are you going to spend the night?”

  My legs nearly missed a step, but I caught myself. I waved her concern off without turning back, ignoring the sudden weight in my chest. “Don’t worry; I’ll find myself a room somewhere.”

  The clerk who cashed me out in that tiny supermarket near Piazza Cardelli gave me a weird look. Her puffy eyes snapped from my shuttered expression and messy blue hair to the cheap snack cakes and Pepsi bottle sitting on the conveyor belt. Didn’t help that I kept looking over my shoulder and through the shop’s windows, expecting to find Lucius’s conspicuous gorillas following me, hiding behind sunglasses at 10 pm and keeping a finger taped to their earpiece. I guess she must have thought I was a junkie tweaking out and going on a sugar binge to tide herself over until her next fix.