Chapter 8-1
1390 Words
Chapter 8
Perrin had the drawings spread down the entire length of her workbench. She’d had to get them back from Jerimy, because the last of the designs were being stubborn. She just couldn’t see them.
The heavy colors and threads of hope and failure in the lineage of the Overlord and the Empress. The vile reds and blacks of the court Magister and his cohorts in the clergy. The opera had set them as almost pure evil, bent on the destruction of the royal lineage and replacing them with their own line. The Magister would bring about the ultimate downfall of the Tragic Prince. His snare would fail to catch Tamara as the young Empress-to-be.
But the arranged-marriage Princess, and the Prince’s one True Love were eluding her. These were the two women who tore the Tragic Prince in two directions, ultimately allowing the Magister’s untimely blade to make his end.
Once she had the Princess, then the Maid Confessor and Queen Mother should follow easily enough. But at the moment, nothing about any of the four of them was being easy. Nothing!
She’d tried most of her tricks. Sketching, painting, pulling pieces randomly out of the scrap bag and stitching them together on the embroidery machine until something came of it.
And not a decent idea.
“Perrin,” Raquel stuck her head in. “You have a visitor.”
She almost cried out in relief. A customer needing a special dress, or a friend, she didn’t care. She knew it couldn’t be Bill, he had one opera coming down and meetings about getting the set construction for Ascension back on schedule. He said he’d be frantic all week.
“Hi, Perrin,” Tamara peeked around from behind Raquel.
“Hey, you! Come here!” Without thinking Perrin had thrown her arms wide.
Tamara eyed them for a moment, then came forward and accepted the hug. Perrin kept it brief, as she would if just meeting some friend on the street. Bill hadn’t been kidding, the girl was so self-conscious of every nuance of being thirteen. Of course, Perrin was also the woman who’d kissed her dad.
“So, did your dad drop you off?” She wanted to ask where he was, why hadn’t he at least come in to say hello, how was he. He’d been so busy that she actually hadn’t seen him since the night she and Cassidy had attended Turandot. They’d barely traded late night texts after the kids were in bed. But she thought it better not to ask. It was best to appear completely neutral on the topic of her dad.
“No, he didn’t,” a little hesitant. Then in a rush to block Perrin’s next question, “I was hoping you could show me more about design and sewing. I really want to—”
Perrin held up a hand to cut her off. She too had once been a teenage girl. Her life had been nothing like Tamara’s, but she knew the tones of voice that had and hadn’t gotten her out of trouble. The first part was a clear lie, even if the rest of it sounded true enough.
Keep it light, she told herself.
“Wow, girl! You just told a whopper, didn’t you?”
Tamara blanched but struggled on valiantly. “No. I really wanted to learn how you made those costumes. I don’t get how you…” Her voice petered out as it became clear that Perrin wasn’t buying the distraction for a second.
Before she could make further excuses, Perrin held up her hand.
Tamara wisely closed her mouth.
“Okay, first you sit and listen to the world according to Perrin. Then you get two choices.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but she climbed up on the stool across the cutting table, dropping her school pack on the floor.
“Your dad doesn’t know you’re here.” She didn’t make it a question.
“Gretchen’s.”
“And when he shows up and you aren’t at Gretchen’s, how much trouble will you have found?”
Tamara shrunk down in her seat. “Lots. Seriously grounded at least.”
“Girl, he’s going to put one of those house-arrest GPS ankle bracelets on you and never let you out of his sight again. He loves you so much that he’ll probably end up in jail for punching anyone who gets in his way while he’s trying to find you.”
“No way… ” Suddenly she didn’t look so self-assured.
“Way!” Perrin informed her. “That’s assuming he doesn’t have a heart attack from worrying himself sick about you first. Lost, maybe missing in the Big Bad City.”
“I’m old enough to get around Seattle on my own if I want to. Besides, he’s always at work. What does he care about—”
“You have no idea how much he cares. His whole world revolves around raising you two. He’s so afraid he’s going to screw up, that’s probably what makes him screw up half the time.”
Tamara appeared to be mulling that one over seriously.
“So, time for your two choices,” Perrin informed her.
“Am I going to like either one of them?”
“Not a chance.”
It took some negotiation, before they ended up with a compromise. Perrin would call to break the ice, then hand it off to Tamara.
She dialed Bill’s cell and put it on speaker phone. Only after she did so, did she think that maybe dialing his number from memory hadn’t been the best choice. Thankfully, Tamara appeared too miserable to notice. With each ring, Tamara cringed down further on the stool.
“Hi Perrin. I have to be quick. I’m sorry, but I’m really busy right now. Gods but I miss you.”
Tamara heard that one loud and clear. Her head shot up and she faced Perrin rather than continuing to study the chips in her nail polish.
“Uh, Bill. I think I may have just screwed up. I have you on speakerphone.”
There was a pause, “Who else is there?”
Perrin nodded to Tamara to go ahead. She had to repeat the gesture to get some action.
“Uh, hi Dad.”
“What?!” His voice roared out of the phone and echoed about Perrin’s design space. If his daughter had needed any proof of what Perrin had told her, his tone said it all. She positively cowered, in shame rather than fear, Perrin was glad to see.
“Bill,” Perrin cut him off. “Before you lay in, I’ve already done a good job of making her feel like a total s**t. She understands what she did wrong. How about giving her a one-time ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card?”
There was a long silence. So long that Tamara started cringing again.
“Is she okay there with you? I could probably find someone to come and—” His voice was tight, but he was holding onto control. Barely.
“She’s fine with me, Bill. I won’t let her out of my sight. You have Jaspar?”
“Yeah. The little thug just shook me down for a buck for the soda machine but I’ll bet he’s getting a candy bar instead.”
Tamara nodded her agreement.
“His sister agrees, candy it is. Take as long as you need, Bill.”
“Thanks, Perrin, you’re absolutely wonderf— Aw, crap! Explaining this is another problem I’ve left in your lap. Tamara, give her a chance. Sorry about that, gotta run.” And he was gone before she could even reach out to cut the connection.
Tamara was eyeing her carefully.
“Look, girl, I got you off the hook this one time. You gonna throw me to the wolves?”
Tamara considered that for a while and then shrugged that maybe, just maybe they had a fair trade.
Perrin could see the next question building, but was not at all ready for it when it finally arrived.
“You going to marry my dad?”
Perrin managed a laugh. “Whoa there! I’ve only kissed him twice, wait, three times. We’re barely dating. We haven’t even gone out to dinner together, if you don’t count the time you guys were here for pizza.”
“Is he good?”
Perrin rested her elbow on the table and her chin on her palm and inspected her interrogator. How did you deal with a kid? A kid who has probably spent the last four years doing her best to be mother to a young boy and a comfort to her own father? Truth, she decided. She hadn’t any basis to go on, so she would simply always tell the truth. It was the only option she could think of that had any chance of success.
“I mean, is he like you said, ‘the right boy’?” Tamara added another question over Perrin’s silence.
“Tamara, honey. You’ve gotta make a promise to Perrin.”
“What?”
“Stop asking such hard questions, please?”
It earned her a tentative smile but no promises. Guess that would have to do.
“Is he good? He’s almost as good a kisser as he is a dad, which is pretty incredible. Is he the right boy? I have no idea in the world. The other question I have to ask, ‘Am I the right girl?’ I can’t believe that I am.”
Tamara did another of her deep thought things before responding. “I don’t know the answer either, but I can kinda see how you might be.”
Man oh man. And she’d thought the questions were tough.
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