Page 79 of Clever Little Thing

Stella gives him a polite, puzzled look. Like he’s a foreigner struggling to ask for directions. She’d like to help him—if only he could make himself clear. Pete takes a moment to clean a smudge off his glasses. Then he gets up and lays his hands on her shoulders. “Stella, this is not the time to show off.”

“Yes atum yem—”

“JesusChrist!” Pete yells. He places his hands over his face, then chops at the air. He paces back and forth. I realize something: He doesn’t want to be Stella’s full-time parent. He doesn’t have the patience. He likes her better as Blanka, but she’s still not his perfect daughter. She’s never going to be a crown-braided cartwheel-turner like Lulu. She’ll never be simple, easy. He just wants Stella because he doesn’t like to lose. I store this realization away. Maybe I can use it. Because the video didn’t work, I have to come up with something else, and quickly. Rolfe is fed up.

“You both say this child is your daughter, yet you”—she points to me—“call her by a different name. Furthermore, she doesn’t resemble her passport picture, and neither of you speak her language.”

“Hold on!” I say. “Her grandmother speaks Armenian. She’s just parking the car.” I send a quick text telling Irina to ask for us at security. On second thought, I send an urgent question too.

“I would like to talk to my wife privately,” Pete says.

Grover looks at Rolfe, and they nod. “Five minutes.”

I follow Pete into the passage outside. “Make Stella stop this charade,” he tells me. “Otherwise, I promise you, Charlotte, I will make sure we both lose. I will not rest until child protective services know all about your mental illness. We’ll both lose custody. She’ll go to her nearest living relative.” He pauses. “My mother.”

“You don’t even want her,” I hiss. I thought I’d come up with the ultimate trick to defeat Pete, but it didn’t work, because I didn’t let myself see what he is capable of. I never dreamed he’d try to abduct Stella, or that he’d send her to his mother rather than let me have her. Now, to defeat him, I have to trulyseehim, as I’ve never letmyself before. His eyes look bloodshot in the harsh light, and his beard hides his firm jaw, his best feature, and somehow makes his mouth look greedy. How did I ever think this man was gorgeous?

He looks preoccupied, like he’s already conducting cost-benefit analyses, formulating a new plan. But just now, in the security area, when the police officer apprehended him and people held up their phones to record the scene, Pete froze. People profile him for business magazines. Antiplastic campaigners give him awards for his good work. Women hang on his every word. The taste of public disapproval is new.

His mother once told me that when Pete was little, if he hit another kid, she never scolded him in public. She got down on his level and asked him why he did it. According to her, his explanations always made sense. Pete believes that he always has a good reason, and he convinces other people of it too. But if that stopped—if people started judging him, instead of applauding—thatwould be the worst thing. Worse than losing his daughters.

“You’re right,” I say. “I’m not going to show that video to the police.”

“Thank you for being reasonable.”

“I’m sending it to Nathan. In fact, I’ll send it to everyone in Mycoship. Maybe the video won’t stand up in a court of law, but you’ll be judged in the court of public opinion. You won’t be able to keep your job, and I doubt Nathan can keep the company going without you.” Pete looks clammy now. I am a step ahead of him. At last. “I’ll send it to the press too. Everyone loves the story of a fall from grace. From green business mogul to child abuser—that’s a pretty big drop.”

Pete rakes his hands through his hair. When he talks, it’s not really addressed to me. It’s like he’s forgotten I’m there. “I put everything into that company,” he mutters. “Plastic is wrecking the ocean, but our packaging actually enriches the soil. It’s a revolutionary solution. A game changer.” His voice steadies. He’s convinced himself: he’ll give Stella up, because it’s for the greater good. He’s safely back on the moral high ground. He fixes me with his bloodshot blue eyes. “You get her. For now.”

My phone pings: Irina’s answer to my question.

When I go back into the room, Pete is crouched in front of Stella. “Daddy has a plane to catch, sweetie.”

“You’ll leave once we say so,” says Rolfe.

“Let him go,” I say. “This was a misunderstanding.”

Pete nods and turns back to Stella. “I’ll see you.” A lie, I hope. He opens his arms wide. But Stella stares at Pete, and the look on her face is enough to pin him to the spot. She doesn’t look like a little girl upset that her father is leaving. She looks like a grown woman, filled with righteous, bitter loathing. Blood pounds in my ears, just like the surf the day I learned of Blanka’s death: pummeling, smashing, grinding.

Pete staggers back. When he turns to leave the room, he looks like someone who has just opened a door to discover that his world is a stage set, blackness howling outside. Maybe that’s just the look of a man saying goodbye to his daughter forever. But I think perhaps, at last, he sees Blanka-in-Stella. I didn’t think he was capable of that.

Once he’s gone, Stella crumples to the floor, and I rush towards her.

I croon Irina’s answer to my question:“Im yerekha, im yerekha.”

My baby, my baby.

In answer to Rolfe’s look, I murmur, “I speak a word or two.”

I pull back to look at Stella’s face: her eyes are half-closed, only the white showing. She judders in my arms.

Mandy looks uneasy. “Is she OK? Do we need to call a doctor?”

“She’s fine. She’s going to be fine.” But her skin feels as cold as marble.

“Stella! My little one!” Irina bursts in, having miraculously found us down this maze of corridors. She directs a stream of Armenian endearments at us, and then barely takes a breath before berating Rolfe and Grove for detaining her daughter and granddaughter and letting Pete go. “I am thinking this is safe, nice country where child is well treated,” she snaps. “Maybe now I write letter to my MP.”

Rolfe and Grover let us go after we fill out an incident report, and I follow Irina to her car with Stella in my arms, the sound of her chattering teeth in my ear. On the way back, I take out the ponytail holders with the plastic bobbles, comb out her plaits with my fingers.

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