Page 22 of Redline Communion

Apparently that isn’t funny to Odette.

I follow Carmen into the hall with half the dress pinned and the other half trying to slide off my shoulder. Something sharp catches me near the hip. I grab a handful of the skirt and keep moving.

“Mom.”

She reaches the stairs before I catch her arm.

“What’s happening with the boy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Too fast.

My mother is a lot of things, but she has never been good at lying quickly. She needs time to prepare a lie, dress it properly, and introduce it to the room like a distant cousin.

“You do. I watched you flinch.”

“I didn’t flinch.”

“You almost left your purse in there. You love that purse more than you love most people.”

“Lorelei.”

“What boy?”

She pulls her arm free and smooths her sleeve, though there’s nothing wrong with it. “Go finish your fitting.”

“Is this about Marcus?”

I haven’t said his name since the night they walked him into the dark. I haven’t even let myself think about it in a complete sentence. In my head, he’s been reduced to pieces: his hands, his voice, the back of his shirt disappearing between two men who wouldn’t look at me.

Saying his name puts him back together.

My mother goes still.

Not calm. Carmen is never this still when she’s calm. When she’s calm, she fixes things — a crooked picture, my collar, somebody else’s business.

This is her holding herself in place.

“You need to let this go,” she says.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have for you.”

“Everyone in this house keeps saying that like I’m eventually going to hear it enough times and go, Oh, okay, that clears everything up.”

“Lower your voice.”

“No.”

“Lorelei.”

“What happened to him?”

She looks past me toward the fitting room, where Helena has appeared in the doorway but has enough sense to stay there. Then her eyes return to mine.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking me to talk about.”