Beneath the Glitter: A Novel (Sophia and Ava London) (26 page)

“This is beautiful,” Sophia said.

Giovanni stood with his hands on his hips and gazed around, as though trying to see it as she did. “It has some charms,” he acknowledged. “The feel of unplanned, accidental. For you I would think that is troubling.”

Sophia shrugged. “Not right now. Right now I think it’s peaceful. Serene.” She sat down at one end of the swing.

Giovanni sat down at the other, facing her. “I think perhaps you should tell me a bit about your day.”

Sophia ran her finger over the dragon embroidered next to her on the seat cushion of the swing. She didn’t know where to start. Telling a stranger that she’d escaped from her dream was fine, but with Giovanni—

“The other day I saw my reflection in a window and I didn’t recognize myself.”

“Perhaps he is not a very clean window.”

Sophia shook her head. “Afterward I looked at videos of myself. Old ones. Recent ones. And it was the same, or almost. I felt like I didn’t know who that girl was anymore. And that—” Her voice got thicker. Like it was being pulled out of a secret place inside of her. “If I didn’t know myself, how could I know anything? How could I trust myself if I didn’t even know who myself was?”

She cupped her hands around her elbows like she was cold, and closed her eyes. But the tears she was trying to hold back trickled out anyway. They had been waiting there, as she ran away, in the taxi, waiting until she was somewhere safe. Waiting, she realized, even longer than that: since her breakup with Clay, since her first fight with Ava, maybe even since that day, so many years earlier, when she’d tried to fly. Hovering there, the loss of control they signaled always a warning not to take risks, not to venture too far, not to try something she might not be good at. Now, as though the restraining gates had been lifted from a reservoir, she couldn’t hold them back.

Giovanni slid toward her, put an arm around her, and pulled her head onto his shoulder as she wept. Not in wracking sobs but silently, face pressed against his chest, as rivers of tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving glitter streaks on his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Sophia said many minutes later, pulling away slightly. “I’ve ruined your shirt.”

Giovanni shook his head. “It is the opposite.
Stella,
do you not know that the tears of the mermaid, they are magic? From today this will be my lucky shirt. I know it.”

Sophia gave him a sad, appreciative smile. “I must look horrible.”

“Of course not. Dramatic,” he said. “Like a woman who has had an experience.”

He pulled his arm out from under her head and sat forward and only then did Sophia really realize how intimately together their bodies had been. He could have leaned over and kissed her but he didn’t and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

“Close your eyes,” he said. Like he was seeing into her thoughts, he said, “Do not be concerned, I am not proposing to kiss you.”

“I wasn’t—”

His finger rested on her lips. “
Shhh
. Close your eyes.”

She closed them, and felt the swing move as he got up. “Do not cheat,” he admonished and she heard his footsteps cross the courtyard. A door opened and closed. She leaned her head back, picking up the faint note of a jasmine plant somewhere, the sound of a dog barking. Then the door opened and his footsteps crossed back to her.

The swing squeaked as he sat back down. She moved to open her eyes and he said, “No, keep closing the eyes. And now present your hands, please.”

She held them out, and taking one in each of his, he pressed her fingers to her face. “This is you,” he said.

She felt the planes of her eyes, her cheeks, her chin, her fingertips beneath his. She felt prickly and strange and curious about where this was going. Slipping back into her accustomed patterns when dealing with something that made her feel uneasy or unskilled, she applied herself to mastering the task as quickly as possible and then ending it. After a minute she dropped her hands. “Yes, okay, I understand that is—”

“Tshup!”
he said, silencing her. She felt him spread something over the skirt of her dress then he took her hands and put something wet into them.

She frowned, trying to figure out— “Is this clay?”

“Sí,”
Giovanni said. “Now you use that to duplicate what you felt with your fingers. A portrait of you. Eyes shut!” he added when she tried to open them.

“But that’s ridiculous! How will I—”

“You are afraid,” he said, his voice low, soothing. “Is okay. Do it anyway. There is no one here but you and a waiter.”

Her hands stopped moving. “I’m so sorry about—”

“Yes,” Giovanni agreed. “You will be sorry if you do not start making a face.”

She picked up the ball of clay. “Can I feel my face again?” she asked. “Or is there a better way to do this?”

“You can do it however you want. You are in the charge. Whatever you do will be right.”

A voice in her head started to protest, saying this was stupid, what kind of childish game was this, whatever she made probably wouldn’t be any good. She would make a mistake and get it wrong and Giovanni would think she was stupid. This was pointless, she should just thank him and leave—

“The only way you can go wrong,” he said, in that unnerving way he had of seeming to read her mind, “is not to try.”

She took a deep breath and let her fingers dig into the clay. She didn’t know how long she worked on it. It was soothing, sort of entrancing. Finally, after what could have been two minutes or two hours had passed, she held it out and said, “I’m finished.”

“Look at it.”

She opened her eyes and stared down at the little head in her hands. It didn’t look anything like her, and yet she immediately recognized it as herself. More than the face in the mirror. Somehow she’d captured something of herself, an expression, an air.

Giovanni, who had been studying it too, said, “Stubborn. That is the face.”

“I’m not stubborn,” she objected, then laughed at the lie. She said, “But it’s missing something,” and tilting it in her palm, used her nail to put a scar on the chin.

“Yes, now is perfect,” Giovanni said.

“No,” Sophia corrected. “It’s better. It’s imperfect. I don’t want to have to hide from things. I’m tired of being perfect.”

“You alone expected that of yourself.”

Sophia shook her head and said, a little softly, “Ava did.”

“You believe this? Really?” Giovanni was incredulous.

But Sophia was too busy looking at the sculpture in her hand to respond. Because as soon as she’d said Ava’s name, she realized that the sculpture wasn’t her face, it was Ava’s. Or maybe both of theirs, combined.

That was why she stopped recognizing herself. It wasn’t because of Clay, because of the breakup. It was because Ava was missing. Sophia always thought she was responsible for protecting Ava, but with astonishing clarity she now saw that she had also been using Ava for her own protection.

To avoid ever having to chose for herself because she was always choosing for someone else.

No wonder Ava felt babied. Sophia had acted like she didn’t trust her when really that had just been to cover up the fact that it was herself Sophia was afraid to trust. Herself she’d been afraid to look at too closely.

When she gazed at the window, the face looking back seemed strange because Sophia no longer knew who she was. It was because, for the very first time, she was seeing who she had always been.

“I—I have to find my sister,” she said, getting up full of purpose.

Giovanni bowed and held out his arm. “My chariot awaits.”

LonDOs

Letting go of your illusions

Taxis that show up at just the right time

The unexpected

Playing with clay

Trusting

LuxeLife Message in a Bottle ultra-waterproof shadow in “Before the Storm”

Eating Giovanni’s mother’s special biscotti with cappuccino while riding in a convertible

Learning to use your eyes

Pevonia Myoxy-Caviar Timeless Repair Cream

LonDON’Ts

Fear

Overprotection

Waiting until the worst possible moment to have revelations

Having two-and-a-half-foot-tall hair while riding in a car

Sisters who don’t answer their cell phones

Making your entire line waterproof but not having any waterproof makeup remover at home

Sisters who are still not answering their cell phones

Trying to brush your hair after 4 cans of Aqua Net

Sisters who do not respond to calls or texts on their cell phones

Body glitter in your ears

Sisters who—WHY HAVE A CELL PHONE IF YOU WILL NOT ANSWER IT?

23

madscara

As soon as Sophia stormed off, Ava knew she’d made a mistake. Or more like a hundred.

She’d climbed off the bottle three steps behind Sophia and run after her, wanting to apologize, but by the time Ava clattered down the stairs from the stage Sophia had completely disappeared.

Ava ducked back into the trailer, but hearing footsteps approaching the front she’d grabbed her cell phone and gone out the back door turning left toward the mall at the end of the promenade. She couldn’t think straight but she was certain of one thing: she had to get away. She absolutely couldn’t face the thunderstorm of wrath that was about to be unleashed on her and Sophia.

It was all her fault. She was trembling, numb with shock and horror at what she’d done. What had possessed her? Why had she said all those things at that precise moment? Why hadn’t she done it after? Or before?

Maybe that was the mistake, keeping it bottled up so long. Maybe, she thought, you should sometimes read the hidden message.

That made her laugh for a second, and then start to cry. Not the regular kind of tears but the hard sobbing kind that feel like they could rattle your bones right out of you. Unable to see through her tears, she blundered over to the low wall outside the mall and sat down, burying her head in her skirt.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. “You can’t take your break here.”

Ava sniffled and looked up from her skirt. “What?”

The man in front of her was dressed completely in silver, from his platform boots to his leggings to his double-breasted jacket, top hat, and sunglasses that dangled from his fingers which, like every other inch of exposed skin, were covered in silver makeup. Ava blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“This is my patch?” he said, drawing a square with his finger. “I know a lot of you newbies think you can just muscle in, but don’t try muscling in on Slade.”

“I’m not muscling in on Slade,” Ava said, trying to hold back her tears. “I was just lo-lo-looking for a place to sit.”

“Right. Dressed like that.” He bent down. “Look sweetheart, it looks like you’re in a mood and I don’t want to sound harsh, but this is my profession. Sure I work
VIP
celebrity parties and I have a human fountain outfit that the
LA Weekly
said was ‘original’ but basically this”—he waved an arm over his outfit like a magician—“is how I put food on my table. So as much as I’d like to take pity on you, I just can’t afford to be softhearted. I fought for this primo spot and if I let you squat on it, then people will think Slade has gone soft and everyone will try.”

Ava realized he thought she was trying to cut into his profits as a street performer. “This”—she pointed to her dress—“is from an event. Over there.” She pointed behind her in the direction she’d come from. “There are tents and a wind machine.”

Slade said, “Well that’s nice, sweetheart. Why don’t you just toddle back there.” He put his arm under her elbow to help her up.

“Nooo!”
Ava wailed, causing Slade to step back. “I can’t.” She leaned toward him. “They’re going to come after me. I don’t know what the punishment is for running away from them. What do you think? I signed something but I don’t remember what it said. Do I have to give them money? Can they arrest me? Sophia always told me not to sign things before I read them, but I didn’t listen! Now can they charge me with theft?” She went on, looking down at the expensive gown and shoes. “Whose clothes are these?”

Slade’s expression had changed from skeptical to concerned. “Did you hit your head while you were getting away?”

“My sister and I—it was like a show? It was supposed to be the best day of our lives but I ruined it. I should have waited but I
had
to bring it up. Why?” Ava hit herself in the head. “I should have waited. But there we were on the bottle and I had to ask and then, just when the sailors came to pull us out, she—she left. And now she’s gone. I should have read the message.”

Ava was relieved when Slade said, “I understand perfectly,” and sat down next to her. In an unnaturally cheery voice he said, “What you need to do is go back to the place you came from.”

“I thought you understood. I can’t. They’ll—” Her eyes got huge with panic. “If they arrest me, who will watch Popcorn?”

Slade smiled encouragingly. “I’m sure there is someone you can call.” He held out his hand. “Why don’t you give me your phone and we’ll find someone.”

Ava started to shake her head when the mall sound system played the opening chords of “L.A. Sky” and she hesitated.

“Aah,”
Slade said, reading her face. “You thought of someone.”

Ava pulled Dalton’s phone number up, then hesitated. “He won’t come. Especially after what I did to Sophia.”

“It can’t hurt to call him,” Slade said in that overly bright voice, the kind designed to keep a child or a crazy person from having a meltdown.

Ava said, “I don’t think—” but Slade pulled the phone out of her hand. Using his regular voice, he said, “I’m doing this for your own good,” and pushed call.

“Hello, is this Dalton Cute?” Slade asked, reading the name from Ava’s contacts.

Ava dropped her head back into her lap and covered it with her arms.