I continue my trek from this curb to that one, dismiss the cabbie with his head out the car window. Can’t he see I’m walking here? Places to be and things to retrieve. His royal taxiness can wait. People use Uber now anyway. Or is it Lyft? Hard to keep up when you don’t live here anymore.
Dodging a puddle of melted snow and street grime, I hop up onto the final curb. Just a hundred more yards and . . . Well, it hasn’t changed, but what did I expect, for the thing to grow wings?
This is the part where I’d generally reach into my purse and reapply my lip gloss, pluck a stray eyebrow hair or two. But I travel lighter than a Fairy these days. Oh wow, did I just think a bad joke? I shake my head and approach the bottom step. You really must be tired, Ebony. You’re starting to sound corny.
Tide loves corny.
Sigh. I know.
I take the stone steps to the abandoned home in style. Never thought I’d find myself here again, standing before El’s brownstone on Eighty-First, seeking a way in. Not into her home, but into her life. Back then I believed I had it all figured out. I could sum up every goal into hurting her. But the blame game is so last year. Time to take on a new hobby. No longer out for revenge, I’m ready to avenge. Give me knee-high boots and a pair of black leather jeggings, because this girl’s ready to become a true Shield.
Out of habit I take the knocker and rap it three times. Listen. Nada. Good. First rule of breaking and entering? Appear as if you know what you’re doing. Look like you belong and no one will think otherwise.
The key’s in the same place she left it when we were here last—behind the loose knocker. My eyes roll because, hello, it may not be as cliché as a key beneath the mat, but this hiding place is so obvious.
When the door opens inward, the most freezing draft ever seems to explode in my face. Sheesh, it’s colder in here than it is out there. Kinda sad, really. I only lived in this city a few months, but El’s home was a source of warmth despite how much I despised her. Elizabeth would offer me tea and ask me where I was from. I’d make it up as I went along, of course, adding lie upon lie. As I creep through the lower level, our past conversations flood me, remorse weighing heavy with each one.
“Eliyana said your mother works in fashion, Ebony. I would love to meet her sometime.” Elizabeth sipped her Earl Grey, the tea tag fluttering with each tiny move.
I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eyes. Instead, I busied myself pretending to take interest in a Pottery Barn catalog on the kitchen counter. “Yeah. She likes to change styles a lot. What can I say?” It wasn’t really a lie. Tell me which part of that sentence isn’t actually true.
“Perhaps she and I can set up a coffee date. I might as well get to know—”
I flipped a catalog page, receiving a lovely little paper cut in the process. “She’s out of town quite often.” I didn’t hate interrupting. I was used to it. And again, which part of what I said was a lie? No part, exactly.
“Oh. Well, perhaps sometime when she is in town.” She stared me down over her teacup, tapping the ceramic with a fingernail and arching an eyebrow as if to say, “I’ll be watching you.”
It was no secret El’s mom didn’t like me. I didn’t use proper grammar in texts, and I never said please or thank you. If I ever see her again, I’ve already decided the first thing I’ll say.
“Thank you for showing me what a real mom looks like.”
I think of my most recent conversation with my own mother as I exit the kitchen and make my way down the hall. She didn’t offer me tea, or coffee, or so much as a glass of tap water. Her words run through my head with each step up the creaking stairs.
“You have become close with Tiernan’s illegitimate child, have you not?” my mother asked with a sneer.
I didn’t need to answer. I mean, given she can see right through me and all. Hate it, can’t help it.
I don’t have to go far when I reach the second floor. The first door on the right calls to me, inviting me to a place I’ve been many times but never truly appreciated.
The door with the crystal knob? El’s room. Been her room since before she could walk. A dose of outdated jealousy pours down my throat. I swallow, forcing it gone. Me, jealous of a seven-by-ten box? Yep, guess so. This was hers. She didn’t have to move. Never needed to run until Jasyn found her.
“Answer me, Ebony. Or will you insist on being difficult?”
She wanted an answer? Fine by me. “I am Tiernan’s illegitimate child too, Mother. Come on. Enough pretending. He didn’t love you any more than he loved Elizabeth.”
My response stung more than I wanted. I ignore the ache in my stomach, turn the crystal knob, and enter El’s space.
Must and the scent of unwashed clothes cloud the air. It’s like a time capsule in here, a museum of my sister as she was. A complete and utter hot mess. Not that I turned out much better. My room on the Upper East Side was anything but tidy. At least I had some organization to my clutter, though.
“This is just gross,” I mumble to myself, glad no one’s here to witness my snobbery. Which, by the way, I am trying to suppress. Give a girl a break. Sometimes you just have to say what’s on your mind, am I right?
Where to begin? “You don’t have all day, Ebony. Time to put that conniving but brilliant brain of yours to good use.” I start in on the closet. Shirts and sweaters slide off hangers, land in a heap on the wood floor. “Doesn’t she know sweaters should be folded?”
Swift but efficient, I rifle through more of her things. Dirty clothes lie scattered, but that’s about it. I check under her bed, inside her open backpack. With each drawer I open, Isabeau’s words sink deeper. Mallets to my already-butchered heart.
“He loved me,” she said, voice quavering though she tried to conceal it. “What we had was a love unrivaled.” The cool calm I’ve come to know returned to her words. Verity forbid she show a little emotion, lose a little control.
“He didn’t love you.” I clutched the broken compact inside my pocket. If anything, the discarded mirror was only more proof of my father’s indifference. “And he didn’t love me.” My heart raced. Was I really going to say what came next? “But I could’ve loved you, Mother.” And there it is. The little-girl plea I’ve been denying. “But you never let anyone in.”
Like me with El. And Tide. Anyone and everyone. Even Dennielle, who offered a warm bed and a good meal, couldn’t thaw my frost.
I rub my hands together, blowing hot air into them. Then I sit on El’s unmade bed, trying to envision the last time I saw her with what I’ve been sent to retrieve. But instead of focusing on my task, I allow the chill in the air to take me back to my mother’s chambers. Cold and bleak, they were perfect for the ice queen of the millennium.
When she offered me a stool beside her vanity, I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “I’ll stand, thanks.”
“Very well.” She sat on a chair directly before her mirror then. The scene became a flash forward of my future. She powdered her nose the same. Turned her face this way and that. Her high cheekbones belonged to me too. Was this my destiny?
“You and Elizabeth?” I continued. “You’re the same. Except not so much really. She actually loves her daughter.”
My mother glared at that and swiveled in her seat, tapping her long fingernails together. “You know nothing of love. You are a child.”
My skin crawls. I dig my nails into the rumpled bedsheets. Move things around on El’s dresser, lean over and peer behind it. A book gets knocked off and falls to the floor. Nothing.