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I pressed the tape to alert the driver, and she stopped in time. Logan and
I leapt out the back doors onto Beverly Blvd, and the bus rumbled away.
The air was crisp, and in the moments of silence between cars whooshing
by, you could hear crickets.
“Come,” Logan said, holding out his hand. “I know the way from here.”
I took his hand, and we crossed Beverly into the residential zone, with
its massive, hundred-year-old houses set behind long, grassy front yards.
“What did your father say when he found out?” Logan asked.
“He never did. I put the urn back, put my dress on, and waited for the
wedding to end.”
“Were they worried?”
“I called from a pay phone. Told the staff I went for a walk and got lost.
But I was fine. They told my father I was home.”
“He believed you got lost?”
“Probably not. But I missed the wedding. He never forgave me for
that.”
“Never?”
“Basile Papillion wasn’t a forgiving guy.”
Before I reached “forgiving,” I realized the treachery of what I was
saying and lifted my voice to a jokey pitch. Because, so what? Was this
supposed to be a big deal? Was my father’s inner life any of my concern?
His forgiveness wasn’t withheld to make me suffer. It made him suffer
more.
Right?
After the wedding, I’d gone bad. I stopped coming home. I got into
trouble. I cursed and smoked and broke windows because of Bianca, not
Daddy.
It was her fault. All hers with her snooty little voice and the way she
pointed her pinkie when she drank her fucking tea. Tears of rage formed,
but I didn’t wipe them, or Logan would turn to me and see them. I didn’t
sniff, or he’d hear. I didn’t speak, or he’d know I’d run headlong into a
brick wall separating me from a pain I couldn’t look in the face.
“Hey,” Logan said from high up in his orbit, snapping his fingers. “Star.
You with me?”
“My mother called me Star Child.” I turned away to look at an obscene
Tudor in case Logan faced me and saw the tears that fell when I blinked.
“But your satellite just thinks you’re the star, Estella.”