Below lies the eighth chapter of the full-length novel, The Girl with the Strawberry Eyes. If you’ve not read the first eight parts, I strongly suggest you go back and do so. You’ve the option of choosing either an EPUB file or a PDF, or reading the work in the space below. New chapters will be added every Wednesday. Cheers and Happy Reading.
The Plan
The words had exploded from Paginelle’s mouth before she could even think to stop them.
“Be quiet, Paginelle,” her father snapped. “Are you possessed, child? Why in God’s name would you dare interrupt our conversation?”
Paginelle knew that, if she wanted relative peace in the house later that evening, she had better not say a thing else. But how could she? The opening volley had already been fired, and in front of everybody. All present were expecting a follow-up, and if she failed to deliver, the moment would become far more wretched than it already was.
“Papa,” she said, “you let her do this to you every time—”
“The mouth on you, girl,” her father raged. “If I were a brute, I would come over there and thrash you with my belt.”
“Calm yourself, Babineaux,” said Lady Drusilla. “Let’s see what the girl has to say. Well, girl?” she said, turning to Paginelle. “What have you to say?”
Paginelle swallowed. Her throat suddenly felt a little too dry for speaking.
“Oh, come now,” said Lady Drusilla. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone shy. If you’re afraid of what your father might do, worry not: he’s not going to do a single thing as long as I’m here. In fact, he won’t do a single thing as long as I tell him not to do a single thing. It doesn’t matter where I’m standing. Isn’t that right, Babineaux?”
Paginelle’s father nodded as if his neck were caked with rust.
“There, you see?” said Lady Drusilla. “Now, please. Speak.”
Paginelle’s eyes bounced between her father and Lady Drusilla. She swallowed again and realized that her throat was still awfully dry.
“Do not feel the need to rush anything,” Lady Drusilla soothed. “Take your time. Say exactly what you want to say in exactly the way you feel it needs to be said.”
Paginelle’s father shot her a look that suggested if she knew what was good for her, she would speak quickly and correctly. Emphasis on correctly.
“It’s all right, Nelle,” Frost murmured, giving Paginelle’s elbow a light pinch. “If you didn’t need to say this, you wouldn’t have bothered saying anything at all.”
She was right. Of course she was. And so, after hearing those words, the next time Paginelle swallowed she discovered that he throat was wet enough for speech. Instinctively, she wanted to look at her toes, but that wasn’t going to do at all—not with what needed to be said. She noticed a black tulip growing through the thick packets of dust between the floorboards, but ignored that as well. She forced herself to gaze squarely at Lady Drusilla’s mask and allowed the words to flow as freely and honestly as she could: “I … I don’t appreciate how you’re stringing my father along, ma’am,” she said, “and would like for you to stop.”
“Stringing your father along?” said Lady Drusilla. “I’m not sure I quite understand.”
“You give him books,” said Paginelle. “Every time you come here, you give him books, and there’s always something in those books that inspires him. And—and then he starts working on a new Talent, or he might resume a Talent that he’d already given up on. And all he wants to do is work work work, even though it’s getting him—us—absolutely nowhere.” That last part made Paginelle wince, but it needed to be said. That part, especially, had needed to be said. “It just … never ends. I think … I know we could have a better life, but he spends so much time in his head that he can’t see anything past where we are.” She let out a breath that sounded more like a wheeze, and sagged a little. “I—I’m sorry. I’m talking too much. I know you’re probably really busy, and—”
“Not at all, child,” said Lady Drusilla. “I don’t think I can articulate just how grateful I am you’ve told me all of this. If I had known I was inadvertently causing you such hardship, I would have never….” Her words died away as she turned back to Paginelle’s father. “Well, what do you think, Babineaux? I obviously can’t continue giving you books if they’re ruining your daughter’s life.”
Mr. Babineaux’s eyes seared a few holes through Paginelle before he spoke. “Nobody is facing ruination,” he grunted. “The girl is simply being hyperbolic. We are perfectly fine, ma’am.”
“Aside from the unpaid bills?”
Mr. Babineaux’s jaw rippled and his scowl sharpened considerably, but he remained silent.
“I think,” said Lady Drusilla, “that, for the sake of your daughter, I ought to keep this book to myself.”
“What?” Mr. Babineaux cried. “No!”
“‘No’?” said Lady Drusilla, her voice hardening. “Since when do you tell me no, Babineaux?”
“A-apologies, ma’am,” Mr. Babineaux stammered. “I just—” He took a deep breath. “I just really need that book.”
“Nonsense,” said Lady Drusilla, swiftly returning the little blue book to the folds of her dress. “You have a daughter, Babineaux, who is clearly in need of far more attention than what you’ve been giving her.”
Mr. Babineaux held up a finger. “That isn’t true, ma’am.”
“So you’re calling your own daughter a liar,” said Lady Drusilla. “And me a fool for believing her.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all, ma’am,” Mr. Babineaux said through his teeth. “I don’t neglect my daughter, but I do really need that book. The success of one of my oldest and dearest projects depends on it.”
“Worry about the state of your home, Babineaux, not of your projects.”
“I can do both!”
“Clearly, you cannot. Three days, Babineaux. If you do not have the money by then, you’re going to have a very serious problem.”
Mr. Babineaux opened his mouth to say something more, but before he could utter a sound, Lady Drusilla had already spun on her heel and swept from the house.
As soon as the door had closed, Mr. Babineaux turned to Paginelle, his eyes burning like wildfires. “You—!”
“Ah, Mr. Babineaux?” said Frost sweetly, “dreadfully sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got to return home now.”
Some of the fire in Mr. Babineaux’s eyes lessened. “Of … of course you do,” he muttered. “Very well, I hope you have a safe—”
“And I’d like Paginelle to walk me to my car.”
Mr. Babineaux’s nostrils flared. “I beg your pardon?”
“Yes, I’d like it very much,” said Frost. “You wouldn’t mind terribly, would you?” A smile spread across her overbite.
Mr. Babineaux couldn’t quite look at her. “Of course not.”
“Come on, Nelle,” Frost said, hooking her arm with Paginelle’s. “I think I’ve kept my driver waiting long enough.”
Paginelle chanced one last glance at her father before being tugged out into the wintry evening.
“Oh, God,” she said once they were free from the house. “That was awful.”
“It certainly wasn’t enviable,” said Frost.
Paginelle felt lightheaded. “I—I can’t believe I said all the things I said.” She groaned and pressed her fingers against her temple. “And in front of Lady Drusilla, too!”
“They needed to be said,” Frost said with a small shrug. “Furthermore, I could tell that the saying of them was long overdue. You honestly can’t tell me you don’t think so, too.”
“Honestly?” said Paginelle. “I don’t know what to think.”
“How do you feel, then?”
“As if … as if the full-grown water buffalo that’s been sitting on my chest for the past fifteen years has finally decided to go bother somebody else.”
“Not the answer I was expecting, exactly,” Frost said with a little frown, “but it’s a step in the right direction. I think. Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “Can you hear that? It sounds like somebody is playing the violin.”
Indeed, the long, mournful notes of a lone stringed instrument had started to swirl through the chilly evening air.
“Viola,” Paginelle corrected. “And that would be my father. He always plays after really frustrating days. Which, in his case, pretty much means all of them.” The snow continued to fall, yet Frost stopped walking for a few moments and turned her ear towards the music. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “So melancholic and eloquent.… You know, the viola often gets such a bad rap—especially amongst those squeaky, onion-munching violinists—but I truly believe it is one of the most soulful instruments ever invented.”
“Do you know what piece of music he’s playing?” Paginelle wondered. “I’m asking for a friend.”
Frost listened for a few more moments before answering: “I haven’t the slightest. You mean you don’t know?”
Paginelle shrugged. “He never tells me anything; he just plays. I don’t know if he plays different pieces every night, or different parts from the same piece.”
“And you’ve never bothered to ask?”
“I don’t think he wants me to ask.”
“I see. Well, to be perfectly frank, symphonic classical music bores me almost to the point of murder. It’s nothing but opera at our house.”
“I’ve noticed,” said Paginelle.
“German when my father gets to the record player first—usually Wagner or Strauss; Schönberg if he’s feeling adventurous—and Russian when it’s my mother. Tchaikovsky with that woman, always Tchaikovsky. I suppose because they’re both secretly homesick? I don’t know. What I do know is that they would disown me if I were to ever suggest anything Italian. Or French. English? They’d have me shot.”
“Then I guess your parents are better off never meeting my father,” said Paginelle. “Because he’s been obsessed with this—this 18th-century Italian musician for, like, his entire life. Have you ever heard of Vincente Paginelli?”
Frost shook her head.
“Most people haven’t. He was apparently a god on the viola, but nobody respected him because he played viola instead of violin.”
“Well, life can’t be sugared chestnuts for everybody— Hold on a sprig, I’ve just realized: Paginelli. Paginelle. That’s not a coincidence, is it.”
“Nope, you got me,” Paginelle said with a little sigh. “I was named after a musician that probably seven people on the planet even know existed.”
Frost’s overbite peeked over her lip. “How much are you willing to bet that six of those seven are violists living in Italy?”
“I’d bet all of the money I have,” said Paginelle. “Which should be enough for you to buy one whole Whustor’s chocolate bar.”
Frost’s cheeks, which were already pink from the cold, grew redder still. “Oh, um— I hadn’t quite realized— That is to say, perhaps I ought not to have—”
“Don’t apologize,” Paginelle said. “The world is all about the haves and have nots, right? It’s only cliché because it’s true.”
“Regardless,” said Frost, “I really ought to apologize for having made what was decidedly a pleasant conversation so … very awkward.”
“The mode of the entire evening has been ‘awkward’,” Paginelle pointed out.
“Be that as it may,” Frost said, releasing a deep breath, “I still think I ought to—”
And at this point, Paginelle turned to her and looked straight into her eyes. “No, don’t apologize. Please. This has been amazing.”
“What … has been amazing?”
“Just talking,” said Paginelle. “About literally anything besides what happened back in the house.”
“Ah. I see. Still, I feel the need to apologize—”
“Alexandra—”
“Not for anything that was said today, but, ah…. I mean, you’ve been visiting my house for two years, and we’re only having our first real conversations today. Think about all of the things we could have talked about! Two years! Think about how therapeutic it could have all been.”
“Well, it’s just as much my fault, right?” said Paginelle. “Anyhow, there’s no point in dwelling on the past. I think that the best thing we can do is make up for lost time.”
“Oh, most definitely,” said Frost. “I’m already quite looking forward to tomorrow—”
“We don’t have to wait until tomorrow,” said Paginelle. “Why not tonight?”
Frost blinked. “Tonight?”
“Well, why not? My father is going to be in a crummy mood all night, and I really don’t want to have to deal with it. So … let’s meet.”
Frost’s brow furrowed as she turned something over in her mind, but eventually she said, “I think that’s a grand idea. Yes, let’s meet tonight. But where—?”
“Do you remember that abandoned railcar we saw on the way here?”
Frost nodded.
“I think that would be the perfect place. Say, 10PM?”
“Midnight,” said Frost. “That’s far more exciting.”
“Fine. Midnight at the railcar.”
“It’s a date!”
The plan having been made, the girls went their separate ways, each glancing back at least once at the other, through billows of wind and snow and mournful viola.
Many thanks for reading(!) And now, on to Chapter 9….
Or,
if you liked what you read, and would like to devour a completed work in one go, why not give my romantic novella, Knits, a gander? Get it here.
