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In a cloud of bespoke Guerlain, specially prepared for her for the past three decades by the French fashion house, Candace Clarice Fontainebleau Lamarque, since she seemed to finally have settled on a few last names she liked—CC, Candace, that bitch, but neverCandy—swept into the room in a fuchsia boa and a tightly fitting yellow dress. It showed off her statuesque figure to perfection. Tall, slim, long-limbed, and graceful as the ballerina she had once aspired to become, Candace shook her long, blonde hair away from the angular face that was so much like Magdalene’s, and mother and daughter stared at each other for a moment.
Dyed platinum-blonde hair and preposterous fashion sense aside, Magdalene felt as if she was looking into the mirror of her future, thirty years from now. The symmetry took her by surprise. She was exactly the age Candace had been when they’d thrown Magdalene out of Dragons. Forty six. She wondered what she would have done differently in her mother’s place thirty years ago, then wanted to laugh, because the answer was surely everything.
Still, being her mother’s spitting image had always been both a blessing and a curse. If her grandmother was to be believed, she had absolutely won the genetic lottery. Her father had been described to her as a little troll of a man countless times. But this meant she was also spared any and all surprises—including any pleasant ones.
She ran her hand surreptitiously up and down her neck, left bare by the cut of her dress, and tried not to think about how, a few years from now, she’d likely be the one covering it up with scarves.
Her mother, clearly in a mind-reading mode, took one look from where she was pouring herself a brandy and threw a nonchalant, “Hermes will be your best friend, my girl. But you still have years and years to pick your scarves.”
She proceeded to perch on the sofa opposite Magdalene with impeccable posture. When the phone rang again, she scrunched her nose with such disdain, it was almost comical, and dropped another bombshell.
“I never had any issues with your friends, Magdalene. But there are friends, and then there isthis.” A vague hand gesture towards the phone was all the explanation Magdalene got.
“George is doing her job, mother. She just wants to help.” Magdalene picked up the useless fountain pen and closed it. She had been daydreaming, that much her mother was right about. Regardless of whatever bug had crawled up her… bonnet, regarding George, of all people.
“Oh, I’m sure she’d love to give you a hand alright.”
Magdalene’s mouth fell open. Her mother hadn’t just gone there, had she? She couldn’t quite believe her ears, so she decided she must have misheard. Meanwhile, Candace tsked, her face inscrutable, then waved her hand again, and continued.
“George is…” At her mother’s silence, Magdalene raised her eyes, only to run headlong into Candace’s speculative stare. “… not important. What has you uncomfortable?”
Yes, today was definitely comeuppance day. And what had Magdalene expected? For her mother to allow her to show up on her doorstep and stay with her for days without any explanation? Other people might have parents who would have been happy for their child to merely spend time with them–in their gigantic space with 13 bedrooms where, if Candace wished to never even see Magdalene, she absolutely could.
Except Candace was not those other parents. Candace was Candace, and Magdalene’s time was up. She relaxed her shoulders—one had been taught to never show predatory animals any fear, after all—and threw her mother a bone.
“I was offered Dragons.”
Saying the four words out loud felt strange, yet right. Like they belonged in a sentence in that exact order, spoken out loud.
She was offered Dragons.
Magdalene closed her eyes and let the sound settle around her. When she opened them again, Candace simply continued to take small sips of her favored twenty-five-year-old brandy and stare at Magdalene. The only outward reaction to her hearing the news was the slight narrowing of her eyes.
“I will start in a few weeks, once all the details are settled.”
“Is that worthless ex-husband of yours in on this, too?”
Magdalene couldn’t help but laugh at her mother’s cutting remark.
“I find it hilarious that he absolutely adores you, and you think him worthless.”
Candace finally set down the crystal tumbler and looked past Magdalene towards the fireplace mantel, symbolic in its bareness. In fact, all the abundant mantels—be it in this new house or any of the other places her mother had inhabited—had been empty. No mementoes or family photographs for Candace.
“That man would adore Satan himself if it meant he could maintain a connection to you. I assume he took whatever those foolish men on that ridiculous board of that godforsaken school threw at him just to be able to stay in your orbit.”
Well, her mother was just landing blow after blow today.
“Mother—”
“Don’t ‘mother’ me, Magdalene. I have my lunches with him, and I don’t poison his tea. I don’t think you can ask for more. Your grandmother would have resorted to arsenic by now.”
“For being annoying?” Magdalene stood and wandered over to the large windows. The view of the massive park behind the mansion was more suitable for something akin to Pemberley or another estate in the English countryside, rather than this gaudy monstrosity in Massachusetts.
“For hurting you.”
The swift turn to once again face her mother almost gave her whiplash.
Well, damn.
