Page 1 of Semantics

PROLOGUE

Having her whole life planned out for her from the moment of her conception had played all sorts of tricks on Violet’s mind. Being born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a well-off family with a history, had meant that she was destined for greatness and was also expected to fall in line, which was the difficult balance people like Violet had to manage. She both had to build upon the family legacy and set herself apart from it, but do that only in a way that would be approved by said family. She’d done her best to achieve that balance, but it had been difficult.

For starters, Violet was gay, and that alone had been a whole thing. Her not-exactly-conservative-but-in-no-way-liberal parents hadn’t been big fans of her not being their perfectly heterosexual daughter, and Violet had done her best to compensate for that disappointment because that was what it felt like to her: she had disappointed them by being gay, not marrying a man from their social circle, and not having two of his very white, polo-shirt-wearing, tennis-playing, future-Republican children who would, in turn, run the family business, marry someone of the opposite gender, and have their own two children to continue the cycle.

Yes, she could still get married. Yes, she could still have children. Yes, they could still wear polo shirts, play tennis, and even marry someone of the opposite gender if that was what they wanted for themselves, but Violet knew that marrying a woman wasn’t something her parents had planned or wanted for her, which meant she had to work twice as hard to make things up to them, assuming she ever could.

Young Violet hadn’t consciously realized that that had been, at least in part, where her drive came from, but as she’d gotten older, she’d figured that out and planned to budget a lot of money for her much-needed therapy fund.

She’d been valedictorian at her very small and very expensive private school and had then gone on to attend Yale, which was the family school, through her junior year. They even had a building named after the Russell family, and her grandfather had ensured that it wouldn’t be something frivolous, like an auditorium or cafeteria.

Then, for her senior year, wanting a little adventure before heading back home and going into her family-required MBA program, Violet had intentionally researched semester abroad programs. After experiencing very few parties in college and only joining the sorority her mother had been a part of because she was a legacy and they had to let her in as much as she had to join, she’d wanted something different than her usual, excessively boring life. She’d chosen a semester in Amsterdam when she’d found the university that had a unique and challenging business program while also being in one of the biggest party towns in the world – or, at least, that was what she’d heard about it. She’d been nervous about going, but she’d known it was the right thing to do for herself before she recommitted to the plan her family had had for her since that stick had turned blue.

Arriving at Schiphol airport, she was grateful that the school had another student from the university pick up the other students who would be joining her in the program, so she grabbed her bags from the carousel and found the woman holding up the sign scrolling through her phone.

“Hey,” someone greeted her when she joined the small group.

“Hey,” she replied, trying not to use her normal greeting, which would have been a more professional, ‘Hello,’ and going with a more age-appropriate greeting.

“I’m Arlowe. You’re in this computer science program, too?”

“No, I’m in the business program,” Violet replied and looked around frantically, worried that she’d missed where she was supposed to stand. “Is this the wrong group?”

“It’s all the same group. You’re good,” the woman with the sign said. “We’re still missing a couple of people, so we’ll wait for them and then go. You can use the bathroom now if you need to.”

“Oh, cool. Thanks,” Arlowe replied.

“I went on the plane before we landed,” she said.

“I’ve known you for, like, six seconds, and that does not surprise me somehow.” Arlowe chuckled. “Will you watch my bags…”

Violet realized, when Arlowe paused and looked at her expectantly, that she still hadn’t given her her name.

“Oh. Violet. Violet Russell.”

“Nice to meet you. Will you watch my bags, Violet Russell?”

“Sure,” she replied.

“Am I late?” another female student hurried up to them and asked the disinterested woman with the sign.

“Nope. On time. You are?”

“Enya Callaghan.”

“Enya?” the sign woman asked with a curious eyebrow.

“My family is very Irish,” Enya replied.

“Great,” the woman stated and looked back down at her phone.

“Hi. I’m Violet. Business program. You?”

“Oh, hi. Enya. Linguistics.”

“Linguistics?”

“Yeah. I have always loved languages, and, it turns out, I’m pretty good at them, so I’m majoring in linguistics.”