Page 10 of Mama Si's Paradise

“How sad,” Mama Si said, though she was smiling still. “But I have the most important question for you next.” She drew in a deep breath like she was preparing to ask it, then slowly said, “Are you in love, doll?”

My eyes closed for a moment as if I was trying to find the heartbreak I should have been feeling inside because I’d caught my boyfriend cheating on me just that morning.

It wasn’t there.

“Well, are you?”

Mama Si was waiting for my answer. I shook my head. “No.” I wasn’t in love. I didn’t think I’d ever been in love a day in my life.

The woman then took a step back and let those strangeeyes scroll down the length of me. “I’m afraid the housekeeping position is no longer available, Autumn Hayes.”

It was like a slap to my face, confirming everything I knew even before I stepped into this place.Of coursethe housekeeping position wasn’t available anymore. “Oh.”

“But,” Mama Si said, raising a gloved finger at my face. The glove was part of her dress, one with it, and you could tell how long her fingernails were underneath that satin fabric.

“But there is another position open in my Paradise, doll, and I want to offer it to you. If you want to hear about it, follow me.”

With a wink, she turned around and walked away, and the woman carrying her umbrella went with her.

Everyone else in the room straightened their shoulders andbreathed,moved, went back to their tables and their jobs.

The woman who’d been interviewing me turned to me with a deep sigh. She looked at me like…like she wassorryfor me.

“Well? What’s it going to be? You heard Mama Si. We don’t have all day,” said the one who’d met me at the door, looking down at me like I now suddenly disgusted her.

I didn’t know what the right thing to do was. I had no clue what I even wanted—what did I wake up in the morning for?

Nothing. I woke up for nothing but a silly dream that I could one day, somehow, havemy kingdom—just a place where I could do everything I’d always wanted to do. A place where I could paint and feed birds and play my own piano every single day, every waking hour.

How comical.

“Thanks for your time,” I somehow managed to say to the women.

Then I stepped outside and followed the blonde one with the colorful eyes as a way of defying my own self.

Three

The sun fellon the side of my face and it was even warmer than it had been when I first left Annabelle’s. Or maybe it was the fact that I was following a stranger who looked like a character out of a fairytale to…whereexactly was she taking me?

It didn’t matter. I was on my way. I was walking.

I wanted to fucking run—but she’d already stopped.

I had yet to slow my heartbeat, breathe in deeply and take in my surroundings. I had yet to understand the outcome of my actions. I was rebelling, it seemed, and apparently there is no time to questionhowyou’re rebelling when you are.

Consequences be damned—I was doing this. I was doing exactly what I knew for a fact I shouldn’t be doing, and that was exactly why I was doing it.

Those thoughts ran through my head until I stopped in front of Mama Si, while the woman holding her umbrella stayed behind her, silent as the trees at our sides. Trees—beautiful green trees, the gorgeous blue of the sky beyond them, and to the side, the ocean trying its best to separate itself.Trying to draw a line across the horizon, a darker line as if to say,I end here. I am not the sky, only the sea.

I wanted to draw a line like that, too, one that clearly separated me from the person I appeared to be. From the person that shared the same colors as me but wasnotme. It was simply who the world decided I was, and I just…let them. I let them decide.

Why do you wake up in the morning?

“Follow my eyes, doll.”

I blinked, turning away from the ocean and to Mama Si.

Colors. So many bright colors trapped in those black orbs. Shimmering so beautifully.

---