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He had spent the morning reminding them that they were to be on their best behavior. Lissa was not to play with her hair. Jaimie was not to swing her feet under the table. Emily was not to speak before thinking. She had a bad habit of doing that.
It had been all but inevitable that something truly awful would happen that day.
It had come in the form of a seemingly simple question.
Midway through the endless lunch, one of the general’s distinguished guests, a much-beribboned French officer, had smiled at them the way some adults smile at children. To call the curve of his mouth under the shadow of a bristly mustache “condescending” would not have come close.
“Well,” he had said, “after all these days of dining on our glorious French food, mes jeunes filles, what is the very best dish you have eaten?”
The general had beamed at them.
They had looked at each other, meaningful glances that translated into a pact of incipient teenage rebellion.
“Speak up,” their father had said. “Jaimie? Lissa? Emily? Emily. Tell us your favorite French dish, child. What is it, hmm? Blanquette de Veau? Cassoulet? Pot au feu?”
Defiance had glinted in Emily’s eyes. She thought of where the three of them had spent a guilty hour that afternoon.
“Big Macs and frites,” she’d replied.
Back home, that might have gotten a laugh but not here, in the gastronomic capital of the world.
Their father’s face had turned purple.
“My daughter has an unusual sense of humor,” he’d said.
The only good thing that had come of the incident was that he’d sent them home the very next day. It had also earned her praise from her sisters and cheers from her big brothers after Lissa told them the story.
Thinking back, she found herself trying not to smile.
“What?” Marco said softly, dipping his head to hers.
She looked at him, wanting to share it—but she couldn’t.
For the first time, she let herself think about how she’d lied to him, if not directly than surely indirectly. It was a textbook example of guilt by omission.
He thought she was struggling to get ahead.
She was struggling to leave her old life behind.
He thought he was expanding her world. That, at least, was true, but not in the ways he believed.
“Emily?”
He took her hand under the table. She looked into his dark eyes. Her stomach dropped to her toes.
Forget that he thought she was someone she wasn’t.
The real problem was what she wanted to be, the woman he took to his bed.
The lyrics from one of those old songs she used to play at the Tune-In floated into her head.
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered…
In other words, she was in deep, deep trouble.
******
Miraculously, she got through the rest of the evening playing the role of knowledgeable administrative assistant.
