Page 81 of Pierced

“I mean, it makes her sound as though she’s a flower that can’t thrive in her current habitat, but that perhaps the suitor is the kind gardener who helps her find the light and soil and allows her to bloom and flourish. That’s nice. I like that.”

She stares out the window for a moment, considering. The way the sun is shining through, I can see her reflection in the glass. “So,” she says, “In your version, the flower is incapable of thriving on its own and needs the help of a man to reach its potential?”

I bite at my bottom lip. “So! Let’s talk about you, then!”

She laughs, and I feel something like relief.

“Sure,” she says. “Shoot.”

“Um…” I don’t actually know what I want to ask all of a sudden. I go with an obvious one. “Do you have any siblings?” She shakes her head ‘no.’ It’s such a guarded head shake that I decide I’m going to have to give a little to get a little. Maybe opening up to her will cause her to feel easier doing the same. So…

“Hey, did you know I had a sister?” I ask.

“Yes, of course I did.”

“Really? You did? How? Did I tell you?”

She shakes her head again, “Your mother.”

“Paulette told you that?” She nods. “When?”

“Two Thanksgivings ago, at your house when you hosted the orphans’ ball.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“... Was she drunk?”

“Maybe a bit. Not sloppy.”

I’ll be damned. “What did she tell you, exactly?”

She twists her head to half look at me and half not. “That you had an older sister who died when you were three.”

“Yep. That’s accurate. She say any more than that?”

“Um. That she was eight. That she drowned. That she liked to read. That she used to make you wear dresses.”

“Well... OK, let’s all just... I’d call them ‘frocks,’ but… what do you want? We lived in France.”

She smiles. Then she says, “Do you remember her at all?”

“Who? My sister?”

She nods.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I say, “Oh, yeah. Hundred percent.”

“Really?”

“Yup. I remember everything about her. I remember the way she laughed. I remember the way she ran. I remember how she ate her poulet… that means chicken.”

“I know what it means. How? How did she eat it?”

“Like this.” I put the Escalade on Super Cruise and let autopilot take over while I illustrate the dainty way Michelle would cut her meat, using only her thumb and index finger. And how, instead of transferring the fork into her dominant hand, like I do, she’d keep it in the same hand she braced it with to cut it and lift it carefully to her mouth. And then she’d bite it playfully free from the tines as if to let you know that the whole process was just a show.

Myrtle laughs at the sight of me emulating an eight-year-old girl eating her supper. I’ll choose to believe that she’s laughing because she can’t believe how goddamn good my impression is rather than because she thinks I look silly. Because—and there’s no way for her to know this, but it’s true—it is a goddamn good impression.