Page 8 of Minha Dona

“No, but Mariana is. She seems surprisingly cool about what you’re doing with her best friend.”

“She is.” Helena thought for a moment. “No, I’m oversimplifying. She’s cool with it because I’m cool with it and Juliana’s cool with it. I suspect she’s dreading what might happen if it got difficult between us.”

Isabella was nodding. “Could it?”

“How do you mean?”

“I suppose, how’s all that going? You said at the weekend it was just fun, but is it really? It’s been a while now between you.”

Isabella asked it lightly, the way she always did when the subject came up. She knew that Helena and Juliana were in some kind of casual arrangement, Helena had told her that much, and she knew it had started through Juliana approaching Helena. She didn’t know the specifics and, to her credit, she didn’t push for them.

“It’s good. Casual. We enjoy each other.” Helena paused. “Mariana knows we’re seeing each other but she doesn’t know the details and I’d like to keep it that way. She’s my little sister, there are limits.”

“Understood. Lips sealed.” Isabella mimed zipping her mouth shut. “But… you didn’t really answer my question?”

Helena took a moment. “Juliana’s… oh, God, you know Juliana. She’s great fun and…” Helena felt her cheeks reddening. “She’s great fun in private too. If you follow.”

“Oh, I do.” Isabella was grinning. “I really do. So could it get serious?”

Helena shrugged. “I like her, but she’s not…” She trailed off.

“She’s not her,” Isabella finished for her.

“Yeah.”

Neither of them needed to say who her was. Isabella had been there from the beginning, or at least from as close to the beginning as Helena had allowed. She’d listened through the weeks after Houston, had watched Helena go through the motions of moving on, had noted with concern and without comment the way Helena checked her phone far too often in those weeks and jumped for her phone whenever a message notification came through.

Isabella knew that someone in Houston had got under Helena’s skin in a way that nobody else had managed. Ever. She knew it was a woman, though that was expected with Helena… Isabella had been complicit with trying to keep Helena’s first relationship out of sight of Helena’s parents from the start. She knew Houston had been intense and that Helena had feelings that went beyond the physical. She didn’t know the full extent of what had happened between them. Some things were Helena’s alone.

“It’s been nine months,” Isabella said gently. “Maybe you need to move on. Juliana’s nice, even with the whole Mariana thing.”

“I know… Juliana’s great but she’s great because it’s fun and easy. It’s just… it’s hard for me to accept that what happened in Houston wasn’t the start of something.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“Not really. She made partner a few months ago. I sent congratulations.” Helena pushed a piece of tomato around her bowl. “She said thank you.”

“That’s it?”

“It was warmer than that, obviously. But professional.”

Isabella reached across the table and squeezed Helena’s hand. “I’m going to say something and you’re not going to like it.”

“You always say that before you say something I don’t like.”

“Because it’s always true. Helena, you told me that you told this woman to take time to work things out. You told her to explore, to figure out what she wanted. You gave her space.” Isabella paused. “She’s taken the space, and maybe that’s your answer.”

Helena felt herself recoil from the truth that she’d suspected deep down. “Maybe.”

“I’m not saying she doesn’t care about you. From everything you’ve told me, what you had was real. But you can’t spend the rest of your life waiting for someone to text you back. You’ve got Juliana who is clearly into you, you’ve got half the eligible women in São Paulo who’d jump at the chance, not to mention the men if you wanted them. At some point you have to decide whether you’re waiting or you’re living.”

“I’m living,” Helena said, a little more sharply than she intended. “I work, I go out, I’m having fun with Juliana, I see my friends, I see my family. I’m not sitting in my apartment staring at my phone.”

“No, you’re not. But you’re comparing everyone to her, and that’s not fair on them or on you.” Isabella’s voice was gentle. “Whatever she was to you, whatever she could have been, you gave her the choice and she’s made it. Silence is a choice, Helena.”

Helena looked out of the window at the lunch crowd passing by, the usual mix of suited professionals and tourists, not to mention that breed of São Paulo socialite who seemed to exist in a permanent state of looking incredible while going nowhere in particular. She thought about what Isabella was saying and knew, in her rational mind, that it was right. Nine months was a long time. The communication between her and Caitlin had been professional and warm yet sparse: a congratulations here, a work-related question there, nothing that remotely suggested that Caitlin was lying awake at night thinking about Helena the way Helena lay awake thinking about her.

And yet.