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“You?” I questioned with real surprise. “Doesn’t Granda have final word on everything? He always did.”
“He’s old. I’ve been running things for years now, and you know the old man. Sometimes we butt heads.”
“I know you,” I said.
“Not nearly as well as you think you do, Bella-Beast.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“What should I call you then?”
I waited, breathless. What if he suddenly said the dreaded “Podge”? Or “Kitty”? For some reason I wanted to hear it in his faintly drawling voice.
“Plain Bella,” I said.
“Oh, never ‘plain’ Bella,” he protested. “Not when you’ve gone to so much trouble to look like this.”
My earlier peace had been shattered by his pointed comments. “What do you mean by that?”
“Why, merely the time and effort you take to look so good. Not to mention the surgery.”
I was almost stupid enough to ask, “what surgery?” I took a calming breath. “You’re right, it requires a certain amount of energy to maintain perfection. After all, I’m twenty-nine years old,” I said in triumph, for once remembering that Bella was a year older than I was.
“So you are,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say you were perfect. There’s a trace of the artificial about you that ruins the effect.”
He’s talking to Bella, I reminded myself, ignoring the odd hurt. He’s jabbing at his worst enemy, he’s just being Ian the Wretch. I had no reason to feel bad.
“Nature has its way with all of us sooner or later,” I said breezily. “Sooner or later, you’re going to lose all those brooding good looks and become a podgy old man.”
“Brooding good looks? Have you lost your mind, Bella-Beast? I’m your worst enemy.”
“Are you?”
His expression gave nothing away. “That’s for you to determine. And who are you calling podgy? You do like that word, don’t you?”
“What word? Podge?” I was demeaning Bella in his mind now, and I gladly threw myself under the bus. “It’s a useful word. It was Podge’s own fault that she got all butt-hurt about it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Kitty said it never bothered her.”
“If you believed that, then you’re a fool. No young girl wants to be called fat, even if she knows she isn’t!” In fact, the baby fat I’d held on to was merely a few pounds heavier than Bella’s naturally willowy frame, and she’d simply been joking, hadn’t she? And yet now I could finally admit it had stung.
“Then why did you call her that?” he shot back.
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or to cry. Ian was defending me, when all those years I thought everyone was oblivious to the cruelty of the name. Obviously, Bella was—I’d let my own feelings cloud my portrayal and I shouldn’t have.
“Oh, she and I had a talk about it,” I said airily. “All is forgiven.” In fact, I had forgiven Bella, over and over and over again.
But I was finding out new things during this masquerade, and I wondered whether I could ever forgive her again.
By the time I finished at the brand-new clinic in Santa Maria de Fe, I was feeling much more positive about Dr. Madhur. “If it’s a concussion, it’s a mild one,” he pronounced, after checking everything under the sun. “Stay away from alcohol for the next couple of weeks, and be aware of any confusion or odd behavior, but you should be just fine. Call any time if you have concerns.”
“What about caffeine?” I demanded, still holding a grudge.
“There’s no reason why you can’t have caffeine. Just moderation for a while, and you should be fine.”
“Tell that to Ian.” At least I’d kept Ian at the examination room door when he’d been entirely prepared to follow me inside. I slid off the table with a breezy smile. “I don’t suppose you have a back entrance to this place, do you?”
Dr. Madhur raised an eyebrow. “Not for patients,” he said stuffily.
