Chapter Two: The Longest Evening
1139 Words
Dinner was served at eight sharp, because Claudia believed punctuality was the only virtue poor people couldn’t fake.
Alara came down in the only dress she owned that still fit: black, high-necked, bought for her mother’s funeral six years ago and never replaced. The hem stopped mid-calf now, but it was clean and it didn’t belong to Linnea, so it would do.
Claudia’s eyes flicked over her once, lips pursing. “Charming. 2019 called; it wants its grief back.”
Linnea, in backless emerald silk that cost more than most cars, twirled for her father. “Daddy, do you like it? It’s from the new Saint Laurent drop. They only made twelve.”
Her father (tired, jet-lagged, smiling the way men smile when they know the price tag before they’re told) kissed Linnea’s cheek. “You look like a movie star, princess.”
Then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced at Alara. “You look… nice too, sweetheart.”
Alara sat in the chair a footman pulled out for her (the one at the far end of the table, closest to the kitchen door, where the draft lived). The footman was Tristan, the one who called her “ghost.” His fingers brushed her shoulder deliberately as he pushed the chair in. She didn’t flinch. She had stopped giving them reactions years ago.
Course after course arrived. Alara ate what was placed in front of her and tasted nothing.
Conversation floated above her head like expensive perfume.
Linnea’s new modeling contract.
Claudia’s charity gala.
The silent auction piece she’d “snagged” (a Basquiat no one else had dared bid against her on).
Her father nodded in all the right places, asked all the right questions. Every once in a while his gaze drifted to Alara, lingered half a second, then slid away again, guilty and helpless.
Linnea noticed. Linnea always noticed.
“Daddy,” she said suddenly, voice honeyed, “you should take me to Paris for Fashion Week next month. Alara won’t mind staying home. She hates crowds anyway.”
Alara’s fork paused halfway to her mouth.
Her father cleared his throat. “We’ll see, sweetheart. I have Singapore in February—”
“Oh, but Alara never gets to travel,” Linnea pressed, eyes wide with fake pity. “It’s so sad. She just stays here all alone while we’re off having lives.”
Claudia laughed lightly. “Linnea, darling, don’t tease. Alara has her little hobbies.”
Alara set her fork down. “Actually, I applied to the conservation program in Costa Rica. They accepted me. I leave in the spring if I can save the deposit.”
Silence crashed over the table.
Her father blinked. “Costa Rica? Alone?”
“It’s a reputable program,” Alara said quietly. “Six months working with sea turtles. Room and board covered. I only need airfare.”
Claudia’s smile could have frozen champagne. “How… ambitious.”
Linnea’s mouth actually fell open before she recovered. “You? In a jungle? You’d be eaten alive. Or worse, photographed.”
Her father rubbed his temple (the migraine starting). “We’ll talk about it later, Alara.”
Translation: the answer was no.
The rest of the meal passed in bright, brittle chatter. When the plates were cleared, Claudia announced brandy in the winter garden. Alara began to stand.
“Actually,” her father said, surprising everyone, “I’d like a word with Alara. In my study.”
Claudia’s eyebrows rose a fraction. Linnea looked like she’d bitten a lemon.
Alara followed her father down the hallway lined with ancestors who had never met her mother. The study smelled of leather and cedar, the same as when she was small and he used to let her fall asleep on the sofa while he worked.
He closed the door, gestured to the armchair. She sat. He didn’t.
He paced instead, hands in pockets.
“I saw the credit-card statements,” he said finally. “Claudia says you’ve been… difficult.”
Alara almost laughed. “Define difficult.”
“She says you refuse help from the staff. That you’re sullen. That you make the house feel—” He stopped, searching for the word Claudia had fed him. “—heavy.”
Alara looked at the man who used to push her on swings and felt something inside her chest calcify.
“I make the house feel heavy,” she repeated.
He sighed. “I know Claudia can be… sharp. But she’s given me stability. Linnea is—”
“My sister,” Alara finished. “Yes. I’m aware.”
He flinched. “I’m gone too much. I know that. But when I come home I want peace, Alara. Not tension.”
The words were gentle. They still cut deeper than anything Claudia had ever said.
“I understand,” Alara said. Her voice sounded like someone else’s. “I’ll try to be lighter.”
He looked relieved. Crossed the room, kissed the top of her head exactly once, the way he had when she was seven and scared of thunder.
“Thank you, princess.”
He left her there among the ghosts of his old life.
She stayed in the study until the house quieted. Until she heard Claudia and Linnea go up to bed, heels clicking like gunshots on marble.
Only then did she move.
She went to the kitchen for her father’s migraine pills (because Claudia would “forget” again tomorrow). The chef had left a single slice of chocolate tart on the counter with a Post-it: For A. – M. Mara, the pastry sous-chef, still risked her job in tiny ways.
Alara ate it standing up, tears falling silently into the ganache.
When she stepped outside to throw the wrapper in the exterior bin, the sky had finally decided to cry. Cold rain soaked her in seconds.
She was still holding the prescription list when the thunder cracked and she realized she would never make it to the pharmacy before it closed.
She stood in the downpour anyway, face tilted up, letting the rain wash the salt from her cheeks.
Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow she would go. Tomorrow she would start saving every cent, hide it where Claudia’s spies couldn’t find it, and one day she would buy that plane ticket and disappear into a jungle where no one knew her name.
The storm swallowed her promise.
She didn’t know yet that fate had already bought the ticket for her.
- Writer
