Even walking through her own house she glides, every step choreographed. On days like this, when they aren’t expecting to see someone, she still puts on her full face of makeup.
Juliette’s maternal grandparents died when she was very young, but she visited them once. They had a nice house and a rowdy dog. The carpets needed vacuuming. They spoke loudly, and Grandpa swore at the TV when his football team was losing. They had this bizarre way of always touching each other—hands on shoulders, quick hugs, casually putting an arm around someone. The whole time her mother sat stiffly on the couch with a look of deep embarrassment on her face. Juliette didn’t understand then, but she thinks she does now—how her mother is so controlled because she is afraid that if she relaxes, she will slip up, and the friends she plays tennis with will somehow sense the electrician’s daughter under all that cashmere and silk.
Juliette’s hands move along the scales by rote. Her mother and Emma are speaking quietly; she can’t make out the words. Then Emma’s voice lifts—“You’re a complete fucking hypocrite!”—and footsteps stomp up the stairs.
“Emma Palmer, get back down here!” her mother shouts, but then she follows, her footsteps quieter but no less angry. A door slams. Juliette lets her fingers go still on the keys, frustration rising in her chest. Emma is always fighting with Mom. It would be one thing if she were the only one to bear the consequences, but it all comes crashing down on the rest of them—because if Emma isn’t perfect, Juliette had better be twice as perfect.
She hears the murmured tones of another voice down the hall. Her father, in his study. Who is he talking to?
She ought to keep playing, but her hands ache, and so does her head. She’s running on only a few hours of sleep. She knows she’s stretching herself too thin, but what choice does she have? At least with the end of school, she has a few weeks before she has to worry about keeping her grades up again. Soon enough, though, college will start. She’ll be commuting in—no way would Irene Palmer let her eldest daughter move away for college, out of reach. Which means nothing will change. She will be watched every moment.
She stands, stretching her fingers, shaking out her wrists. Dad is still talking. Curious, knowing she shouldn’t, she pads over toward the study door.
“That’s not what we agreed to. I can’t just leave this stuff sitting on my trucks. I’m taking a big risk here,” he says. A pause, as if the other person is talking. “Fine. One week. But it’s going to cost you.”
She hurries away before he hangs up. Her stomach feels pinched. She knows she’s heard something she shouldn’t have.
She starts the scales again. The study door opens. In his house slippers, her father walks down the hall without hurry. She forces her mind to remain fixed on the movements of her fingers. His hand falls to her shoulder.
“Beautiful,” he says. She doesn’t stop.
A scent twines around her, escaping from his clothes. Jasmine and amber. She knows the woman the scent belongs to. She’s seen her, in the passenger seat of her father’s car. At the office. At a restaurant in the next town over. Kissing his neck. Sliding her hands over his chest. Laughing like he’s the most brilliant man in the world. She’s young. Twenty-three? Twenty-four? Not much older than Juliette, Emma pointed out, when she whispered the secret to her, side by side in the tree house as Daphne slept soundly beside them.
Juliette keeps thinking of how beautiful the girl was, with her shining hair and her dark eyeliner and the laugh that bared her long throat. Juliette’s mother isn’t beautiful. She’s the kind of person you call beautiful because she is thin and has good teeth and an expensive haircut.
Everyone always says Juliette looks just like her mother.
Her father tucks her hair behind her ear. “You look nice, with your hair down like that. You should wear it that way more often,” he says.
“You should remember to take a shower after you go into the office on the weekend,” she says softly.
He goes quiet. She freezes. She knows that quiet. His hand drops to her shoulder again, his fingers tightening. She breathes quietly, not moving, not making a sound, and curses herself. She knows better than to provoke her father.
“Keep your nose out of my business,” he says. She relaxes a fraction, though not so he can see. When he gets truly angry, there aren’t any words or warnings.
“Randolph.” Her mother comes back into the room. Her hair looks mussed, like she’s been raking her hand through it.