The Watcher Girl(3)
“I’m Bliss.” She extends a manicured hand and offers a disarming smile. Her eyes are small but pretty, the darkest ocean blue and set deep behind a fringe of thick lashes. Her features are angled, German perhaps, a contrast against the silky-soft blonde hair piled on the top of her oblong head. Dare I say, she’d give my mother a run for her money in the looks department. But knowing my father, that’s exactly why he’s with her. He’s always loved pretty, shiny things. “It’s so wonderful to finally meet you.”
“Your eggs are burning.” I don’t mean to be rude, but I know how my dad is when it comes to his food. Spoiled by years of my mother’s perfectionistic ways in this very kitchen, the man has standards.
Without wasting a second, Bliss spins on her bare feet and pulls their breakfast from the fiery depths of burned-food hell before flicking off the gas burner.
“Oops.” She laughs a humbled laugh, brushing a pale tendril from her forehead. “That’s what I get for trying to multitask.”
The human brain isn’t capable of multitasking. It’s a proven fact. She—a Princeton-educated-psychotherapist-turned-life-coach-slash-meditation-guru—should know this.
“Join us?” Bliss points to the unset table in the nook. “I know your father’s anxious to catch up with you—and me . . . I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like I know you already . . . but I have so many questions. Just dying to pick your brain.”
She’s rambling, saying the kinds of things a person doesn’t normally say to another upon first meeting. Is she nervous? I’ve been told some people find me intimidating, that my presence has a heaviness to it. It’s quite the contrast from Bliss’s lighter-than-air exuberance.
“Hope that’s okay,” she continues. Her movements are easy and relaxed. She’s a sunny day of a human being. Clear and bright-eyed. Tepid, soothing voice. “I’m a curious person. Drives your father crazy sometimes, but I find everyone so . . . interesting.”
Well, look at that.
We have something in common already.
Years ago, when this woman walked into my father’s life, I scraped the internet in search of everything I could find. And with a name like Bliss Diamond, it wasn’t that hard.
At first I assumed she was a retired adult film star, and given my father’s past dalliances, I didn’t think I was that far off.
But I assumed wrong.
Bliss Diamond—at least the internet version of Bliss Diamond—was a neohippie, self-made, meditation-guru influencer with a social media following that numbered close to a million. She’s the antithesis of my father’s usual bimbo Barbie, young-enough-to-be-his-daughter fare. Though with the help of fillers, Botox, and her natural lit-from-within vibe, she appears years younger than her legal age of forty-six. Five years ago, she successfully self-published a book on “aging from within.”
Now that I’ve seen her in person, I’m thinking I should give it a read.
“Maybe another time?” I’m lacking the energy to be social this morning. I force a smile as I search for a coffee mug in the cupboard where my mother once kept them . . . only to be met with bottles of ibuprofen, jars of manuka honey and elderberry syrups, and various herbal tinctures. “Could you point me to the mugs?”
Bliss retrieves a ceramic teacup from a stainless steel carousel next to the sink, one that was hiding in plain sight this entire time. None of the mugs match, and their kitschy, exotic patterns suggest they’ve been collected from all over the world. My mother would gasp at the clash of color against her muted, neutral, classic kitchen.
Handing it to me, she lifts a natural brow. “At least join us for coffee?”
Her eyes are tender as they hold my gaze, and her lips relax into a hopeful smile.
I’ve never liked any of my father’s girlfriends, and I don’t intend to start now, but she’s making this the tiniest bit challenging. It’s next to impossible to be cruel to someone who has shown you nothing but kindness.
“Good morning, good morning.” My father appears out of nowhere, his hair damp from his shower. “Bliss.” He rests a hand on her hip and leans in to deposit a peck on her cheek before facing me. “Grace, how’d you sleep?”
I can’t help but wonder what he’s told her about me. Does he point out the fact that I’m adopted? Unlike Sebastian and Rose? Does he tell her why they adopted me? That my mother convinced him she was infertile because she wasn’t ready to have kids? Or does he simply state that I’m his oldest child and then shrug off any questions about why we look nothing alike or why I’m so different from my well-adjusted younger brother and sister?
I roll the empty teacup in my hand as the two of them study me.
I loathe being on the spot, examined under an amateur microscope. The average person has no idea how to look beneath the surface, how to peel back layers upon layers of body language, how to read between the lines of the spoken word.
And even if I’m to believe everything the internet says about Bliss Diamond—and I don’t—I doubt she’s versed enough to take one look at me and think she has a snowball’s chance in hell of figuring me out.
“Slept well. Thank you.” I point to the mirrored gold espresso machine. “Don’t want to be in your way. Was just going to grab a coffee and a shower and get to work.”