“It costs more if you’re running late and I have to sit here,” he informed me.
“Then you can’t possibly care how long it takes her to say goodbye. You’re getting paid,” Zelda snapped, manhandling my suitcase into the trunk. She looked at me, and for half a moment I thought we might actually hug. But I had never really hugged my sister; she had never hugged me. She knew I didn’t like to be touched. And we couldn’t ever touch again, not without that memory resurfacing. We just gazed at each other for a moment, and then I slid into the warm leather of the backseat. I put my earbuds in as the taxi pulled out of the driveway, and without looking back, I knew Zelda had gone into the house, and wasn’t watching me leave.
—
Remembering that scene makes my stomach clench with renewed frustration and helplessness. My mother had been right, of course: I was trying to get away from feelings, from my family. I feared intimacy, deep in my marrow. It was why I had held Wyatt at arm’s length all those years. Why my grandmother made me flinch. Why I had been so completely unable to forgive Zelda for calling my bluff: She was the only person I had ever shared true intimacy with, and she had used it against me in one of her games, trying to force my hand.
I sigh, knowing where she wants me to go. I put another caftan on, and it clings to my humid flesh. I wipe the fragile skin under my eyes with a forceful scoop of my index fingers, trying to clean myself up. Outside, I leave the truck parked in front of the trailer, and I walk up the hill, heading to the house and our mother’s bedroom, wondering what Zelda has left for me there.
10
Just entering the house is a relief after the temperature outdoors, but it’s muggy, even downstairs. Marlon is nowhere to be seen, nor is Opal, and I wonder what they’re getting up to. I’m briefly annoyed that they’ve left Mom alone in the house, but I decide that this is probably just a case of introjection. I’ve internalized her accusations that I’ve abandoned her, neglected my duties, and the whole time I spent in France I’d been feeling the guilt. It’s supposed to be me here, holding down the fort, being responsible, being sensible. Me, with my practical, easily justified B.A. from the Ag school, major in viticulture and enology, conscientiously maintaining the quaint family enterprise while Zelda screwed around, while my father sucked down excellent Pinot Noir in California, while my mother lost her mind. But I took off for Paris, of all the irresponsible places. I broke the rules, and now I’m being punished.
My phone starts vibrating inside the fringed bag I’ve borrowed from Zelda’s trailer, and I claw it open in a panic, hoping, fearing, certain that it’s Zelda, that she’s somehow been watching me and knows that I’m headed upstairs to my mother’s room. But Zelda’s phone is black, shiny, and lifeless, just a cool piece of glass and metal in my hand, radiating my sister’s presence like an alien doppelg?nger. I realize with a slight lag that it’s my own phone ringing, and I set Zelda’s down on the counter.
It’s Nico. I jump with a guilty start, realizing how thoroughly he’s been pushed out of my mind. This man, whom I wake up next to nearly every day, whom I’ve said I love, has been eclipsed by just a few days with the Antipovas. And by Wyatt, a nasty little voice suggests, and I think it sounds like Zelda. I dither with my finger above the answer icon. I don’t want to answer the phone, I realize. But that’s the old me. Not the Paris me.
“Nico, salut!”
“Ava, is that you?” Nico says in his thick French accent. I love that accent. It sounds like a caricature. Even though I’m capable enough in French for us to communicate well, I always prefer to speak English with Nico, to hear his silly Gallic pronunciations. A cruel part of me has occasionally wondered if I like having the upper hand linguistically, if what I enjoy is actually being able to supply tricky vocabulary terms and to correct grammatical slips. Growing up between hyperverbal Zelda and sharp-tongued Nadine has made me hungry for linguistic supremacy in any arena. But who doesn’t like to be on top of the conversation? To win?
“Yes. It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“I thought you would call when you debarked the plane, but I didn’t hear….” There is a tiny hint of recrimination in this, and I realize that I had promised to call on my arrival. It was one of the last things I said after kissing him on the brow, while he lay sleepily on the foldout couch in my tiny apartment.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry! Things have been a little disorganized here—I’ve really had my hands full.”
“I thought that. Are you all right?”
“I’m…yeah, I’m okay. It’s all a little crazy at the moment, but I’m trying to get a handle on what needs to be done.”
“Your sister…she is…?” Nico trails off delicately.
“Well, there’s still some official confusion—the cops have to confirm everything,” I say vaguely. I can hardly tell him that I think Zelda is alive and well, laughing at all the mayhem she’s created from a safe distance. I would sound crazy.
“And your father? He came for you?”
“Yeah, he picked me up. He’s…the same as ever,” I answer with a shake of my head.
“Your mom? How is she?”
“Just okay, I think. She’s been really disoriented. Thinks I’m Zelda half the time.”
“That…must be difficult,” Nico says after a pause. I realize I’m making him do all the conversational work; I’ve clammed up and am now just politely responding to questions. I hate the phone.
“It must be really late there—are you okay?” I ask, trying to redeem myself.
“Oh, not so late. I had a few glasses of wine after work,” he says. I can hear a smile in his voice.
“Tell me where you went,” I say eagerly. I want to be back in Paris, meeting him at one of our cafés for an Armagnac.
“We went to Le Compas. Your favorite,” he says, still smiling. I groan in envy.
“Oh, c’mon! You’re forbidden to go without me!” I immediately regret this; I’ve never given him rules before, never consciously tried to control his comings and goings. I’m not the same Ava there; I’ve changed. But he doesn’t seem to notice. He just chuckles.
“It wasn’t the same without you. I kept looking for you in the corner, anytime a girl with black hair walked by. I saw someone I thought to be you. She resembled you.”
“I miss you,” I gush, comforted and absurdly touched by this recognition of my absence.
“You are missing me,” he answers in a favorite play with French grammar. I smile at the old game.
“Tu me manques. Is it hot there?”