* * *
In the living room, there is Mother with a man. Not Chip. Not the Troll. A new man.
“Hello, Belle,” he says.
That voice. I’d know it anywhere.
I look up. Dark hair like a wave. White crooked smile. Blue-green eyes that could flash red any second.
“Tom,” I whisper.
Tom Cruise standing in our living room beside Mother. Smiling at me. “What are you doing here?”
Tom just blinks. He looks at me like he’s never seen me before.
“No, darling, this is Bryce,” Mother says. “He’s a film producer from LA.”
“Hello there, Belle. Your mother’s told me so much about you.” He puts out his hand for me to shake. Like we’ve never slow danced. Like he never left a bruise on my forehead with his lips. Like he’s never seen me before, he’s a stranger. I stare at his hand. The hand that touched my cheek, my hair, my shoulders. Acting like it never did.
“Belle,” Mother snaps, prompting me.
“Seth,” I whisper.
He just stares at me. He looks at Mother. Seth? “Belle, I told you, this is BRYCE. Sorry about this,” she tells him. He nods like he understands. “He thinks Mommy could be in his new movie, isn’t that exciting? And maybe we’ll move to LA for a bit.”
“Your mother’s very talented, Belle,” he says. “I think she’s a star.”
He smiles at Mother. And Mother smiles at him.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper. Why are you lying like this? I thought you hated lies. Is it because I didn’t let you kiss my lips? I was just nervous!
“Why?” Mother repeats. “Because it’s an opportunity, Sunshine. Wouldn’t you like to move to LA?”
Tom Cruise puts his arm around Mother’s white shoulder and smiles at me.
“No!” I shout.
And just like that he turns into someone else. Just a dark-haired man looking at me intently, with a question in his watery eyes. Not blue-green or red. Not Tom’s eyes at all.
I run out of the room. I run to my pink bedroom, where I shut the door.
“Sorry about that,” I hear Mother say. And she laughs her clucking laugh I hate, that sounds like her anger putting on a face, trying to sweep itself away.
“Don’t worry about it,” I hear not-Tom say. “She okay?”
“God knows. She might be playing pretend or something. She’s been going through a phase of some kind. Maybe because of her father. I don’t know. Who knows, you might be an evil wizard in her mind right now. Or a handsome prince.”
Not-Tom laughs. “Well, she’s uncovered my secret, then. I’m both an evil wizard and a handsome prince.”
And Mother laughs again too. “God, I wonder who I am.” I hear the sound of her lighter going click, click. The cigarette catching fire. A drag and then a breath. “Probably the evil bitch queen.”
And then not-Tom and Mother laugh together.
* * *
Dinner with Mother and not-Tom. Bryce. Is he really Bryce? Is he really not Tom? Hard to tell by the light of Mother’s candles. I said I wasn’t hungry, but Mother said, Do not do this to me, please. She forced me into an ugly green dress she’d bought me from the discount rack of Little Miss. Mother calls the ugly green olive, says it shows off my golden skin. I’m sitting beneath the painting she bought in a Metro station, all red slashes in a white sky. Grand-Maman says she doesn’t understand it. The painting or why Mother keeps buying this fancy trash instead of paying off her many debts. I’m watching not-Tom eat a snail Mother has cooked in garlic butter and served on a plate specially for eating snails. He and Mother are drinking wine that looks like blood. Smiling at me.
“Your mother tells me you’re Egyptian.”
I stare at Mother, who’s nodding at me from across the table. It’s going to be one of those nights. Where Mother wants to do what she calls show off. Can’t I show you off a little?
“Not me,” I say. “My father.”
“Well that’s you, too,” Mother says, and her voice is a smiling warning. “That’s why she’s so exotic-looking,” Mother says, her eyes still on my face, telling me, Please. For me? “Aren’t you?”
I stare at my plate of snails.
“That’s why,” not-Tom agrees, smiling.
“And beautiful. If it weren’t for the long face.”
“Even with the long face,” not-Tom offers politely.
“So jealous,” Mother says. Liar, I think. She’s wearing the scarab necklace and her red Dior. The same Dior Tom Cruise kissed me in. I watch the blue beetle shimmer on her white neck. Egypt is an accessory tonight. There will be honey-and-pistachio pastries later, which Mother will say she made, which she did not. She gets them from the Arab store, taking me with her because this is your heritage. I hate going there with her. Every dark eye on Mother, then on me. And Mother loving every minute.