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“Barbara Ann Copeland speaking,” she answered, her cultured, exaggerated Southern drawl in full effect.
I took a deep breath. “Hi, Grandmother. It’s Bree.”
There was a short pause. “Well, this is a surprise. It would just make my day if this were you coming to your senses. Please tell me it is.”
I massaged my temples with one hand as Vinh squeezed my knee in silent support. Better to get straight to it. “I’m calling because I came to get my things, and, well. The trailer is gone.”
I wondered how long she’d wanted a permanent room at Fortuna and when exactly she’d negotiated Room 717 for herself. Would she lose it now that I’d quit? Somehow, I doubted it.
“Well, perhaps this is a lesson on keeping your word.”
“You’re right. I should have come when I said or told you that I would be delayed. And you shouldn’t have taken away my things without telling me.”
I glanced up at Vinh, drawing comfort from his presence as the bad kind of butterflies swarmed in my stomach, feeling more like angry hornets.
“And who, might I ask, provided you with everything you own, including the roof over your head, for most of your life?”
This was getting nowhere. “Where is everything, Grandmother?” I purposefully avoided saying “my things,” knowing that would set her off.
“I guess you’ll have to meet with me to talk about it, my charm. How about tomorrow? Dinner at Diana at 5:30?”
Eating a steak dinner at a restaurant I used to waitress at in a casino I had just quit being the mascot for with the woman who had conspired to lock me into a three-year contract working with the man who she paid to leave me—all on my new boyfriend’s thirtieth birthday?
It sounded like the most unfortunate possible round of the board game Clue.
“I can’t do tomorrow, Grandmother, and I’d rather not be at Fortuna right now. Could we meet on Thursday at a restaurant in Bay Springs instead?” It was on the tip of my tongue to invite her to the cottage, as Liem and I were calling it, but the idea of bringing her negativity into my new space was abhorrent.
“Well. You’ve made it clear what is—and what is not—important to you. Now, I have places to be. For your comfort, I will be at the Big House tomorrow at dinnertime. If you’d like to speak about your things, I will see you then.”
The silence went on for a few moments before I pulled my phone away to see that she’d hung up.
I offered Vinh a grim, tight-lipped smile. “Looks like I’m gonna have to borrow some more of your clothes.”
46
BREE
Liem was apparently a beast with a Cricut machine.
I’d about resigned myself to another evening on Vinh’s boat and another night of pretending the world didn’t exist when Liem had shown up with freshly customized Halloween shirts for each of us.
Mine was a long-sleeved black shirt with a badass drawing in all neon colors of a goddess nearly identical to Fortuna, except the blindfold was off and grasped in the same hand that held a sword while the other hand gripped a set of scales, which were weighing skulls. The entire image was drawn as if on a tarot card with “LADY JUSTICE” written across the bottom.
“You don’t like it.”
My head snapped up. “Why would you think that?”
“You’ve been staring at it for a really long time, and you look like you might cry?”
I blinked and touched my face, and yeah. There was some moisture there.
“I love it. I can’t believe you made these today.”
He looked relieved and pleased. “Just a quick trip to the craft store for shirts. I drew the design on my tablet and printed it on vinyl. It may not hold up well in the machine, so hand-wash it if you don’t want it peeling.”
I nodded and peeked over at the shirt Vinh hadn’t unfolded yet. “What’s on yours? And where are we wearing these?”
“Come on, bro. Put it on,” he urged Vinh.
