The Reluctant Heiress: A Novella(27)

Every cell in my body screams, You’re wrong! but defensiveness surges. Venom coats my tongue.

“Oh, was that woman earlier your soulmate, then? Or that blonde at LACMA, or the model on your lap at the club? You’re a coward, Bellizzi.”

He’s silent for a few counts. “Thank you for proving my point. Goodbye, Candace.”

“Sebastian—”

The line goes dead.





18





At breakfast the next morning, Nona says nothing about my puffy eyes, though two aspirin magically appear beside my plate when I leave the table to refill my coffee.

After we eat, she hands me a straw hat and puts me to work in the garden. We plant vegetables beginning with beans, beets, and carrots. Then cucumbers, summer squash, and the mandatory tomatoes. Finally, we plant basil, oregano, thyme, and sage.

Over the next four weeks, I spend a portion of every morning in the garden. Hunting weeds, aphids, and caterpillars, monitoring the drip sprinklers, and guiding tiny shoots of tomatoes, pole beans, and squash up their trellises.

At midday, I share lunch with my father and Nona in the big house. My father never asks why I’ve decided to stay in the guesthouse with Nona, and I don’t offer a reason. He’s gone a lot, anyway—playing golf, tennis, meeting friends for cocktails, lunches with old business associates. I don't know if he's seeing a woman, and I don’t ask.

The nights are the only challenging times, because when I close my eyes… Sebastian. The reason I haven’t moved into my old room is that I’ve become attached to sleeping in his bed. To the thrill of fictitious memories.

In the darkness and quiet, I torture myself with risks never taken, of a different past wherein I used to sneak into the guesthouse and into his bed on nights he was out late. In my fantasy, he comes home, buzzed and maybe already aroused from kissing a girl at a party. He finds me sleeping. Naked. For him.

I touch myself in the dark, climaxing fast every time. And then, as my body hums from his imaginary touch, I remember the things he said. The Candace I want doesn’t exist. And I wonder if he's right.

As more weeks pass and the weather begins warming, I spend afternoons either swimming, napping in the shade, or walking through the woods. Sometimes Nona joins me on my walks, but we don’t speak of Sebastian. We hardly speak at all, in fact, but it’s a peaceful quiet, without demands, deadlines, or expectations. The silence is important. Healing.

Slowly, I begin to search within for the thread that withered as my mother’s illness unfolded—the once-carefree version of myself. Candace of the skinned knees and midnight chocolate missions, with no worries outside of homework, homecoming, and soccer practice. The me that walked in the woods at night in a white gown.

I search, but I don’t find her.



The first week of June, I finally muster the courage to open the door of my mother’s art studio. Inside is a time capsule to the past. Paint-streaked tarps, half-finished canvases, palettes caked with layers of hard acrylics, and old brushes frozen and useless. Sponges, trays, knives, and the huge cabinet full of expired paints.

After opening the drapes and cracking the windows, I sit before a blank canvas in the corner of the room and think about how, in the summers, my mother used to try to wrangle all us kids into the studio to express ourselves. Despite her noble intentions, it quickly became clear that she couldn’t teach us anything except how to do whatever we wanted in whatever medium was appealing.

The boys invariably went for spray paints and acrylics while I loved charcoals. The classes—such as they were—never lasted more than a week before she threw up her hands and kicked us out. Until the next summer, when she’d try again.

Movement tickles my peripheral vision. I look over at my father, standing in the doorway.

“Here you are,” he says, smile faltering as he gazes around the space. “Wow, this sure brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I say shortly, and stand, brushing the dust off the back of my shorts.

As I walk over to close the windows, he says, “Leave them open. It’s pretty stale in here.”

“Sure,” I say, and beeline for the door. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

His gentle hand on my arm stops me. “Are you okay?” he asks worriedly.

I offer a bright smile. “Great, thanks.”

I can tell he’s not convinced, but he smiles back at me. “I won’t be here for dinner, actually. I wanted to let you know. I’m meeting a friend in the city.”

I stiffen, holding my smile with effort. “Okay, have fun. I’m going for a swim.”

Ducking past him, I walk quickly down the hallway, down two flights of stairs, around a corner, and through the living room to the back door. Once outside, my heart rate slows and I can breathe again.

A half-hour later, I’m on a lounge by the pool listening to Vera bitch about the man she’s been dating for the last three weeks. We chat every few days, and based on the pettiness of her complaints, he’s actually a pretty nice guy.

“Seriously, he takes longer to get ready in the morning than I do,” she says, finishing out the latest round of whining.

I smirk. “He’s a model, Vera. What did you expect?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. Anyway, enough about me. How’s the nervous breakdown going?”