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I shrugged. Something about all of this didn’t feel right. It was a throwaway line, but I did wonder to myself whodidfind our mother, who was nothing more than a convenience store clerk in the Bronx. Who offered her an interview? What did they give her that made her think it would be acceptable to throw her daughter under the bus?
“Anyway,” Kate said. “It’s just one more thing Xavier could have helped with. It’s not like Mr. Moneybags couldn’t have requested a gag order or something.”
“Libel laws are different in England,” I said. “The press has a lot more freedom.”
Or at least, that’s what I’d been told when I’d brought it up to Xavier and his family members. They’d made it sound like there was nothing I could do.
I sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Fair enough. You can deal with her when you get home. Meanwhile, did you hear? Marie is going to Paris. And Joni was in the hospital this week.”
“What?” I covered my mouth in surprise. “Okay, back way,wayup. Start with Marie.”
“That’s the good news! Apparently, the main cook at that fancy house she works in announced an early retirement or something, so the family is fast-tracking Marie and sending her to study at the Cordon Bleu for a year. Marie’s gonna get Frenchified. She’s leaving next month.”
My heart squeezed with excitement for my little sister. Marie was the other wallflower in the family—maybe even shier than me. Constantly overshadowed by lively, flirtatious, and very beautiful Joni, who was less than a year younger than her, Marie had sort of sunk into her apparent homeliness at a very young age and never really bloomed.
The funny thing was that Marie wasn’tnotpretty, nor was she uninteresting either. She was good at her job—that I knew, having enjoyed the fruits of her labors at home when she cooked for us. She was quietly perceptive when she wasn’t busy picking on Joni, and she had habit of noticing things that no one else did about the world around her.
But Marie was also painfully she. She had few friends, spent most of her time in the kitchen, and barely went out. I’d never heard of my little sister having a bit of romance in her life, so living in the city of love for a year would be good for her. Great, even.
I hoped it would go better for her there than it had for me in London. But then again, she had a real purpose in going. Therein lay the difference.
“What happened to Joni?” I pressed.
Kate shrugged as she folded a sweater. “Dance injury, I think. Honestly, she didn’t want to talk about it. I think she’s embarrassed. But Lea says she basically holed up in her room at Nonna’s and wouldn’t come out for a week. She won’t eat or anything. Totally depressed.”
“ACL tear?” I wondered. “Floating kneecap?” That was the extent of my knowledge when it came to possible knee injuries.
“All I know is she came home with a giant knee brace and has to have surgery. The doctor says her professional dance career might be over.”
“Oh, God.” I clasped a hand to over my mouth in disbelief.
If Marie was the wallflower, Joni was born to perform. Always the center of attention, the baby in the family had struggled in school, to hold down jobs, really do anything other than dance. Dance was her life. Dance was her only real passion.
If Joni couldn’t dance, I didn’t want to think about what would become of her.
“Lord, and she just got a break, too,” I murmured. When I was about to leave, Joni announced she was going to be an understudy inChicago. It was her first real Broadway show, something she’d wanted since she was maybe five.
“I know,” Kate agreed. “She just got moved up to the main cast too, when another dancer broke her foot. Heartbreaking. Joni’s a brat sometimes, but no one deserves to have their dreams ripped out from under them like that.”
“Wow. Yeah.”
Guilt clenched my gut as I thought about my family. There was so much change afoot. Matthew leaving. Marie leaving. Joni healing.
And I was here, missing them all more than ever.
It felt strange to be hearing about this so distantly, knowing all this change was happening without my help. More than strange. It felt wrong.
Kate checked her watch, then looked back at the screen. “I have to get going, babe. I got a client coming in for a fitting in about ten minutes.”
“Is this the big shot client from Silicon Valley you were telling me about?” I teased. “Is he cute?”
“Not my type,” Kate said shortly. “But I have to get his stuff out for him. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure.”
“And Frankie?” she said just before I ended the call.
