Me, Cinderella? Part 6

I flushed even more, shifting uncomfortably.

"You know," I said. Eliot paused, and I could not tell what emotion it was that flitted across his brow before disappearing. When he spoke, his voice was low.

"I'm sorry we started off the way we did, Brynn," Eliot said. "You did very well on the test. You deserve the prize as much as anyone."

"Thank you," I said. My heart pounded with a mix of desire and embarra.s.sment.

Eliot licked his lips before speaking, and I felt my body respond to the sight of his full mouth, so warm against my fingers that night. My entire face burned with the memory.

"I wanted also to apologize for my behavior toward you," Eliot continued. "I behaved unprofessionally."

"You didn't know..." My words trailed off as I looked into Eliot's stormy eyes. He was holding something back, and I could hear the unspoken words echoing between us.

"Let me a.s.sure you that nothing of the sort will happen again."

Eliot stood up, his eyes looking away, toward the math department.

My mouth dropped open but, as always, I lacked the words to express myself properly. How could I be anything but ecstatic to win the internship prize? But Eliot's a.s.surance only pierced my heart. Nothing of the sort will happen again. The words struck me to the core despite my joy at winning. I had never wanted much, never had much, but it had been such an excitement, such a thrill to find that I wanted him! And now, with my victory, I had a.s.sured myself that he would be securely out of reach.

I had said goodbye to Shannon and left the apartment we had shared for the past two years with a mixture of excitement and nervousness in my heart. Now, back at my grandmother's before leaving for Hungary, I felt like a child again, about to leave home for the first time. With torn emotions, I packed my bag in the tiny bedroom I had shared with my Nagy growing up. Her house dwindled amid the others on the rural street where she lived, tucked away into the California brush. Not able to afford much s.p.a.ce, she had strung a curtain across the room just as she had when I was young so that I could have my privacy in the bed that was only a few feet from hers.

"Brynn!" Her voice called out to me from the yard. I looked out of the window. She had hauled a load of vegetables out of the small garden and placed them on the steps. Her long white braid made a sharp contrast to her dark, ankle-length dress. Although she smiled and laughed, ever since my mother died, my Nagy wore clothes of mourning, and sometimes her smile didn't reach her eyes.

"I'm going to the market to pick up some meat, would you like anything?"

"No thanks," I said, waving at her. "Should I prep anything?"

"Prep?"

"Prepare. Like, peeling."

"Oh yes, peeling! Yes, you can peel the carrots. I leave them here."

She put the vegetable basket next to the back door and disappeared around the corner of the house. I heard the rattling engine start up, a grinding of the gears as she turned out of the driveway and onto the road, and then only silence.

I breathed deeply, putting the last of my clothes in the duffel bag. I placed my favorite book on top-Creatures of Mythology and Legend-and tucked the picture of my mother into the side pocket of the suitcase. She loved reading stories to me when I was young, and I would beg her to tell them again and again, until she grew tired of the old myths and began to make up her own. My fingers traced the letters of the t.i.tle on the old book, and then I zipped up the bag, cinching it tight.

Bzzzzzzzz.

My phone vibrated on the coffee table. At first I thought it might be Mark calling about the internship. My Nagy was planning to visit a sick friend tomorrow, and so I had begged the internship coordinator to let me arrive a few days early so that I wouldn't be a ha.s.sle to her. Mark was jealous that I got to arrive in Budapest before him, but I'm sure he would be dying for me to tell him all about it.

I picked up the phone and my breath caught when I saw whose name was on the screen. From my father I only ever got one phone call on my birthday, and one at Christmas, even though at the end of our short, awkward conversations he always said he would call me soon. This was... unexpected, to say the least. I set my jaw and answered the phone.

"Hi, dad."

"Brynn, hey, how are you?" His voice sounded fake, like it always did when he called. Like he had been rehearsing sounding happy and supportive, like a real dad would sound. Sometimes I wondered if his wife gave him acting lessons before he picked up the phone.

"I'm fine."

"I hear you're going to Hungary. Your grandmother told me."

"Yeah." I tried to sound happy, I really did. It was just so hard to put on the same show that had been going on for the past thirteen years between us. Sometimes I just wanted to scream at him. You abandoned me, I'd say. Why are you still pretending like you care? I did want to tell him, tell anyone about the awesome prize I had won. But he didn't care, not really, and he wouldn't understand how important it was for me to go there. To see where she was buried. You never went, I felt like saying. He had no excuses, either. A famous, globetrotting wife and all the money in the world to spend, but he had never been to Hungary to see her grave.

"That's great! Liza is going to Italy this spring for a modeling show."

My eyebrows knitted across my forehead. Always about them. Liza and Susie, each more perfect than the other. Both modeled: one swimsuit, one catwalk. Both inherited their mother's high cheekbones and delicate facial structure. In contrast, I looked dumpy and squat-anyone would, I guess. But of course, that wasn't the worst of it.

"Oh yeah?"

"That's not far. Maybe you two could meet and catch up."

Catch up? The thought of seeing Liza again curdled my stomach. The brief time spent living with that family had torn me apart inside, and I never, ever wanted a reminder of it.

"Yeah. Maybe." I tried to keep the venom out of my voice.

"How is your grandmother?"

"She's fine."

"Good... good. Well, I just wanted to wish you good luck. What are you doing in Hungary, anyway?"

"It's a math internship." For one second, I hoped that my dad would actually care about something I did. The prize I had worked so hard for.

"Ha, you and math! You know me, I never could understand numbers."

"Yeah." You couldn't understand me either. You never tried.

"Well, be careful," he said. "What happened with your mother-"

"Dad-"

"I told her not to go-"

"Dad!" My heart pounded in my chest and my fingers curled tightly around the phone. He always got under my skin with his words, but this was too much.

"Brynn," my dad said. "You know what happened-"

"I don't know!" My eyes burned hot with the threat of tears. "I don't know what happened! n.o.body does!"

"Brynn, I'm sorry," he said. His voice seemed to back down. "I didn't mean to say that."

I couldn't speak, my throat was so tight with anger. An image of my mom flashed through my mind-a silent, black monster tearing her to pieces from the shadows. The silence in the phone held for so long that I thought the call had dropped.

"Okay, well, love you, Brynn." He waited for my response, but I wasn't going to give him one.

"I'll call you again soon," he said.

"Sure."

The phone screen went blank, and I realized that my hand was shaking as I set the phone down. I didn't know how he could pretend that everything was normal between us. He had tortured me with his words, and never apologized, never, not once- I pushed the back door open and walked outside. The evening air chilled my skin, but I didn't even notice in my heated anger. The cypress tree in the back of the yard had grown some more since I went away to college. My grandmother and I had planted it right after my mother died-to remind us of her always, Nagy said-and although it had started out the same height as eight-year-old me, now its sweet-smelling branches towered over my head. I reached out to touch the bark, my fingers still trembling. My stomach turned at the thought of leaving California, of leaving my Nagy behind and with her everything I knew and loved. But then I thought of what-and who-would be waiting for me in Hungary. Just seeing Eliot's face in my mind calmed me down after the horrible conversation with my dad. I breathed more easily as I touched my hand to the heart of the tree.

"Hi mom," I said. I let myself sink down to the patch of gra.s.s next to the cypress. A ladybug crawled over a thin blade of gra.s.s, and I lay my finger down in front of it, letting the small beetle-backed creature traipse over my skin before it uncurled its wings and hovered gently away. It always made me feel strange to begin talking to my mom, but once I started it was always okay. Like she could hear me.

"I'm really nervous about this trip, mom. I know I should just be proud of myself for winning the prize, but I'm scared too. And there's this guy..."

I stopped, unsure if I should say anything. I laughed once, nervously, and looked around. Only the brush overheard our conversation.

"He's really nice, and he loves music, and he loves Satie. You'd like him, mom, he played your favorite song."

Hot tears came out of nowhere, running down my cheeks. I didn't bother to wipe them. Gone was the anger I had felt while talking with my dad. All that was left was a gentle sorrow. The dissonant notes of the Gymnopedie played low in my mind.

"We can't be together, but it's just nice to know that I can like someone. And someone can like me... like that. n.o.body ever looked at me like that before."

I thought of Eliot's eyes on me and my body shamed me by reacting instantly to the memory. A heat spread through me, and I brushed the wetness from my cheeks.

"Anyway, I'm coming to visit you, mom. It's been a long time since you left but I'm finally coming." My voice cracked, and a host of terrible images flew through my mind like blackbirds on wing. I shook them away and reached forward, pressing my hand into the cool bark.

"I can't wait to see you, mom. I love you."

Fate was often cruel to me. My hips were too round to wear a sleek princess's gown, and I could never imagine myself in any fairy tale that did not end in tragedy. How could I? All of my life I had known sorrow, and it became too easy to retreat from reality into academics when I needed to.

The wicked mother and stepsisters, both perfectly beautiful, were real enough. Hissing spite at me between breaths, they convinced my father that I was inferior. He hated me, I knew it, because I reminded him so much of her, of my mother. My mother had left him to go to her own mother in Hungary-I remember their arguments over her leaving- and that was how he remembered her. He must have thought that I would blame him for my mother's death, and to prevent that judgment from coming down upon him he made of me a monster. I was only a child.

Occasionally I remember the insults that have been thrown at me, either casually or in malice, and their barbs still p.r.i.c.k. The torment only ended when I left to live with my Nagy, when she came to America to rescue me, but the echoes of my stepfamily's words still resonate within me. After so much damage, I cannot fully trust words. Unlike mathematics, words can be twisted too easily to deceive, to cover up, to hurt. It pains me to write when I know I cannot write the truth as it is exactly. n.o.body can. So I do my best, and when I fail I go back to my proofs, the lines and numbers that match up perfectly and never, ever lie.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

My plane trip from California to London involved two layovers and an interminable amount of time over the Pacific Ocean spent behind three rows of high schoolers who apparently took international vacations every semester. They yelled back and forth about how much beer they planned to drink when they landed in England. I remembered the type from high school, but they were no less obnoxious now that I had graduated. Only two things kept me sane on the journey. One was the vague hope, now turned real, of visiting my mother's grave. The other-G.o.d save me- was the thought of Eliot's hot lips on my skin, his piercing blue eyes staring into mine. I thought of him and everything else melted away. I would have to be careful. I didn't want to lose my heart to someone I could never be with, but it seemed that I was already far, far gone.

At the London airport I got off of the packed plane gratefully, wiping my bleary eyes. I had only managed a few hours of sleep, and couldn't wait to be in Budapest and finished with my trip. I checked my transfer information with one of the agents at the gate. She took my ticket and frowned.

"Gate Oh-Thirty? Hmm. I don't know that one." Her voice sounded exceedingly British, and although my stomach jumped with nerves, her smooth voice settled it back down.

She took me over to the information desk through the mobs of people with cardboard cups of coffee in their hands. My body wanted to collapse and sleep, and the world had taken on a hazy sort of fuzz to its edges. I slung my bag to the ground. It seemed to have grown thirty pounds since the last layover.

"Do you know Gate Oh-Thirty?" she asked.

"Gate Oh-Thirty?" The older man sitting at the booth took up the ticket to examine it. "Oh yes, see here at the corner. It's one of the private hangars." He looked up at me with evident surprise and stood up from his chair. "I'll see you to your gate, miss."

"I can find it," I said, a bit annoyed. "Just tell me where it is."

"Not at all," the man said. He came around the booth and motioned the female agent away as he picked up my backpack.

"You don't have to-" I said, but the man already had the bag over his shoulder. He waved me on.

"Please, miss-ah, Tomlin," he said, checking my ticket once more. "Is the rest of your luggage already checked through?"

"Um, that's it," I said.

"Pardon?"

"That's all I have." Every belonging of mine was stuffed into that duffel bag.

"Of course. My apologies, Miss Tomlin." He walked briskly through the airport, even with my bag weighing on his shoulder. My sleepiness evaporated as I had to hurry to keep up.

We pa.s.sed through two terminals and I was beginning to think that we would walk the entire rest of the way to Hungary when the man motioned me through a doorway to the outside.

"Brrrr!" I wrapped my arms across my chest, shivering under my hoodie. Outside a freezing mist blanketed the morning, and we stood on the icy tarmac with salt like grit under our feet. A huge jet rolled right in front of us, heading toward another gate.

"Not too far now," the man said, and walked on, ignoring the airport workers who loaded suitcases onto a huge belted carousel. I followed meekly as we pa.s.sed underneath the extended walkways toward a small jet plane sitting on the side of the tarmac. The wind pelted my cheeks with wet snow.

"Um, I don't think..." I said, looking back to the airport with the 747s all lined up like fat geese on the side of the terminal. "Is this a mistake?"

The information agent shook his head.

"This is it," he said. He escorted me to the side of the plane. The body of the aircraft sloped down to the tail, a sleek aluminum figure with a small staircase attached to the side. Only three windows checkered the side of the plane-the smallest pa.s.senger plane I'd ever seen. Stamped on the tail was a large letter H in slanted text inscribed in a circle.

A man poked his head out of the side of the plane, a pilot's cap covering his light hair.

"The American girl! You're early!" He thumbed back into the plane. "We can board you now, though. Come on in!"

I stepped up the stairs and almost fell backwards onto the tarmac in surprise when I saw the inside of the plane. Plush leather seats lined the sides of the plane, and dim lights made the entire interior glow. Extended tables held bottles of wine and champagne in sunken ice buckets, and velvety blankets and pillows were plumped up on each seat. Large screens in front of each seat beckoned with menus of entertainment. And it was warm.

"I can't... this isn't..." I couldn't form a complete statement if I tried. "Is this...am I...the wrong terminal?"

The pilot laughed.

"You're Brynn, right?" He had a different, slangier British accent than the information agent, maybe what they called c.o.c.kney. "I'm Louis. Mr. Herceg told me about you."

"Eliot?" I slapped my hand over my mouth. I would have to stop calling him that.

"Nah, his brother, Otto," the pilot said, a grin creeping over his face. "You're talking about the mathematician one, right?"

"Right," I said, turning my head away to look at the screen. Pretending to examine it while the embarra.s.sment wore off. Why did it take me so long to stop blushing?

"This is his brother's plane," the pilot said.

"He has a brother?"

"You didn't know? Good lord! Otto Herceg is a a member of the national a.s.sembly in Hungary."

"National a.s.sembly?"