8
Marta wasn’t happy with feeling like a bug targeted by a rifle’s laser-red sighting pointer. The townhouse was even more posh than their accents—a far cry from the flat above Mama’s pastry shop. Marta also wasn’t happy that she’d finally had to give up her first name to meet his parents.
They were Marta and George now. It took something away from them that she couldn’t identify. She wanted it back, that cloak of anonymity that she had worn for two wonderful weeks. Names made something already terribly important, even more so.
With George’s mother saying, “Marta this…” and “Marta that…” she felt cornered by the simple kindness of a fine hostess.
Alone together in George’s room, neither of them used the other’s name—not once—but it was only the slightest of respites. The end hung like
