Mikalo's Fate (The Mikalo Chronicles) (12 page)

"What they're doing to you is just beyond decency, tact, good manners ... Just everything. Their behavior is despicable."

I started to feel my shoulders relax.

I hadn't even been aware they were so tense!

Taking a stab of my omelet -- until now I had merely looked at it, my appetite nowhere to be found despite how delicious the smattering of green onions festively covering the unctuous yellow looked --, I watched Deni as my words rolled through her mind.

"No," she then said with a small shake of her blonde curls. "I just can't wrap my head around it. It's really unbelievable."

"You see?" I said after a quick swallow. "It's not my imagination. Thank god."

She took a sip of coffee.

"Such a shame," she said, placing the cup back on the table.

I nodded, agreeing.

"I really did have high hopes for this," I said. "Was looking forward to, oh, I don't know, being part of a family or something. Was hoping that they'd embrace me with open arms and we'd have big Christmases and birthdays and I'd be Auntie Ronan or whatever.

"Very disappointing," I said, finishing my thought.

"It is very disappointing," she agreed. "And it's really sad that you lost your voice and couldn't defend yourself."

Oh shit.

"You know, that you had to just sit there and take it because you lost the ability to speak. I mean, that's what's really breaking my heart."

"Oh, c'mon," I said, defending myself. "You think I can just go in there and, what, argue with my future in-laws or something? You don't think that'd make me Bitch of the Year or something? Be rude?"

"You're afraid of being seen as rude?"

"Yes!" I snapped back.

"Are they?" she asked calmly.

I looked toward the restaurant, avoiding her gaze. Watched these Parisians, these regulars to the cafe as they sipped and read their papers or checked their phones. Or simply thought quietly as they finished off their breakfasts and started their days.

Deni waited, aware she had won.

I sighed.

"No," I finally said.

"And would the Ronan I know, the Ronan I love so very much, would she stand their quietly and take this kind of bullshit abuse if it came from a client or a boss or a friend?"

This was getting annoying.

"No," I said again.

Deni paused.

And then,

"Does Mikalo know this is happening?"

I nodded.

Yes. Yes, he does.

"And he allows it?" she asked.

He did, I realized.

I could see the blush coming to Deni's cheek, her anger rising.

She cleared her throat.

"Well," she snapped, "wedding or not, I am giving this Greek of yours a piece of my mind."

Deni was right, of course. I don't know what was going through Mikalo's mind, but he could have stepped in. Could have done something to mitigate the nightmare I'd been going through. Helped to ease my sense of loneliness and isolation by suggesting, perhaps even insisting, Nona and Silvestro and Caugina at least give me a chance.

He hadn't.

And that now worried me.

"How's that sister-in-law of his?" Deni was asking. "Caugina?"

"Yeah," I said quickly. "Caugina."

I hesitated, not sure where to begin.

Deni sat back, recognizing when I was shifting through the shit in order to find something good to start with.

"That good, huh?" she then said.

I took a healthy swallow of coffee. And then another.

Anything to keep from telling her about last night.

But she had to know. The prospect of not telling her wasn't even in the cards. Deni knew everything. I kept very few secrets from her.

That's why I loved her so much.

She knew me, warts and failings and fuck ups and all.

So I told her everything. The flight, the flipping of the magazine pages, the apartment over on the Avenue Foch, my postage stamp-sized room at The Ritz. I ate my omelet, sipped my coffee and told her everything, all while completely avoiding her gaze.

I knew if I looked in her eyes, I'd see anger. Rage, even.

I knew if I looked in her eyes, I'd see the beginnings of revenge.

And I wasn't sure I wanted to see that.

Growing quiet, my Caugina is a Horrible Bitch story now told, I waited, slightly afraid of the explosion to follow.

The words came, quiet and calm and not at all betraying what she truly felt.

"And this is the woman helping you with your wedding dress?"

I finally looked up, finding her eyes.

She was surprisingly calm. Too calm, I realized.

I nodded.

"Yes," I then said.

Deni crossed her arms across her chest, it now being her turn to look to the restaurant as she plotted and planned.

"Are you plotting and planning?" I found myself asking.

After a moment,

"No," she then said, turning to watch me once again. "If I do plot and plan, it'll only be after I see for myself how this woman, this Caugina, treats you. If she's a bitch, if she treats you like a piece of shit, then I'll plot and plan."

I almost smiled.

"How?" I asked and then immediately felt guilty.

To take such a strong interest in this, to feel such glee over the possibility of Caugina getting a taste of her own medicine, it felt somehow wrong. Immature. Catty.

But I didn't care.

"How would you ...?" I asked again, stopping myself.

"What does she treasure the most?" she asked.

"Besides money?"

"Besides money," Deni said. "What's really important to her is status. Feeling important. Better than everyone. Nothing would hurt her more than taking that away, right?"

Right.

Oh god, that was deviously brilliant.

"Make a few calls," Deni continued. "A few invitations to the social events of the season going missing. Taking her out of the front row at the couture shows and bumping her back to the third or fourth row. Her getting a decidedly, unmistakably, very chilly cold shoulder from the top of the top of the tippy-tippy-top her social circle. Little things like this would destroy her."

She took the final bite of her omelet, washing it down with the last of her coffee.

"First I want to see just how atrocious this Caugina is. If she's half as bad as I think, she'll be persona non grata within weeks."

I suddenly felt bad for Caugina. And then I remembered last night and got over it.

It's called karma.

"Where's Lucas?" I asked.

I hadn't seen her new boyfriend yet. The young, handsome secret she'd kept from me. The secret I had discovered that one day in Central Park after my encounter with Mikalo on the bench in broad daylight.

Well, shadowy dusk, at the very least.

"I thought he was coming with you," I said, finishing my thought.

A long silence as the handsome waiter silently took our plates from the table.

"L'addition, s'il vous pla
ît," I said, asking for the check
.

A small smile and a nod as he hurried away, the plates balancing precariously in his arms.

"He had to go back to the States," she finally said. "A work thing."

I wasn't convinced. But I also knew not to press. If she wanted to tell me what happened, she'd tell me. Until then, her secrets were her own.

I respected that.

"So," she continued. "When are you supposed to meet Caugina?"

"No idea," I said.

Deni glanced at me.

"No idea?"

"Nope. She said she'd have her people call me when she was ready to see me, or something like that."

"Bitch."

We laughed.

Unbelievably, my phone rang, the slender slip of plastic vibrating against the bare wood as the number flashed on the screen.

The familiar Greek country code. The stream of numbers following it ones I didn't recognize. Certainly wasn't Mikalo.

It could only be one other person.

Caugina.

"Here we go," I said to Deni as I answered.

A stern female voice barked out a series of brief orders, basically amounting to me meeting
the
Mrs. Delis in twenty minutes at the Lafayette Marriage Boutique in the Galeries Lafayette.

Click.

"A department store?" Deni asked, her jaw dropping. "She wants to buy your wedding dress at a department store?"

I sighed, suddenly aware my shoulders were back up by my ears.

No.

No, no, no, a million times no.

Grabbed from the nearby bargain rack, this monstrosity I was squeezed into was truly frightening.

Bedazzled with way too much cubic zirconia, the neck was choking me, the square shoulders overshot mine by at least six inches, the waist was so tight it cut into my skin, and the skirt, well, the skirt flared out very wide only to end right below my knee.

And it was an odd shade of sea green.

In truth, it was a bridesmaid's dress. That's if you really hated your bridesmaids and wanted to embarrass them to death.

But the message was unmistakable: I was not a bride. I was something less.

Then I remembered Caugina had chosen it.

"It is perfect," came the verdict, the now despised deep voice dripping with condescension.

"We will have this," she was then telling the salesgirl.

"No."

Deni stood nearby, watching me with a pained expression on her face.

An awkward silence fell.

"This is the one," Caugina said again, ignoring me, the hapless salesgirl not sure whether to move to wrap it up as quickly as possible or to wait and see what was being said next.

"No," Deni said again. "It is not."

Standing there barefoot and humiliated, avoiding my reflection in the mirror, I held my tongue.

"But she is the dream," Caugina insisted, refusing to look at Deni.

"That dress is a nightmare," Deni replied.

"The dress, it is good," Caugina said again.

"It is not," Deni repeated.

Then, to the salesgirl,

"You can go. We need to discuss this."

The salesgirl quickly left.

I could feel Caugina's cheeks grow red with rage.

"Ronan," Deni said, "go and take that off. Now."

"Yes," Caugina agreed, "I think we have found our dress."

Deni approached Caugina.

Caugina's back went up.

I remained glued to the spot, quite literally too afraid to move.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, Caugina," Deni was saying, "but there is no way in hell Ronan is leaving this store, this department store, mind you, with that monstrosity of a dress."

Caugina stared straight ahead, ignoring Deni, not deigning to look at her.

"It is not you to decide," she said through gritted teeth. "Who are you? You are but a friend of this no one here. A no one yourself. A nobody. Your opinion, this is not worth a listen to."

Deni stood, immaculately dressed, beautiful, obviously a women of means, and Caugina sat there bursting out of last season's couture, scared to death of this "no one".

Even drowning in a sea of atrocious green, I was loving every minute of this.

"I see," Deni said.

She walked over to her Birkin, reached inside and took out her phone.

Caugina smirked, prematurely celebrating her victory.

"Do you know Katherine Gallisandrino?" Deni asked, naming one of the most important women in any social circle anywhere. Wife of an heir to a fortune that reached back no less than five generations, she was the arbiter of who was In and who was Out.

"But of course I know Katherine," Caugina said, the condescension back in full force. "We are but the best of the friends."

The phone pressed to her ear, Deni offered a small smile.

"Hello, Katherine," she suddenly said into the phone. "I'm well, sweetheart. And you?"

She paused as she listened, the panicked look on Caugina's face absolutely priceless.

"I'm in Paris. Ronan's getting married. Yes, yes, of course. I will send her your love."

Caugina turned white, a thin, desperate smile on her blood red lips.

"I won't keep you, dear," Deni was saying, "but if you could take Caugina off your list, that'd be great."