Page 93 of Why Cheese?
I feel whole holding him.
“Are you back for the night?” Cheddy asks.
“I…um.” I left my mother passed out under the covers. At two A.M. I snuck out of our room like a bandit in the night. But only after I shoved my suitcase under the blanket on my cot.
“We’ve all missed you. Cam, Brie… Roq too, not that he’ll admit it.”
Hugging Brie’s painting tight, I gaze up into Cheddy’s eyes. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to pop in and say hello.”
“Eee.” He shakes his arms back and forth in glee, then he escorts me like a gentleman to the door. Just before he guides me inside, he bends over to say, “And maybe get in a quick threeway while you’re here.”
If not for Cheddy’s arm around me, I’d have walked right into the door in shock. Instead, he helps me though, then calls out, “Brie! Look who’s back.”
“So help me if that raccoon has stolen your mop again…” Brie rises and shakes back his scattered hair. The light catches on those baby blue eyes and, as they land on me, he smiles brighter than the sun. “Violette!”
I have not one but two very excited men doting on me. Cheddy keeps an arm draped around my waist while Brie reaches for my hands. “Oh my goodness, we were afraid. I was afraid I’d never see you again. Cam, however…” His rapid-fire sentences come to a halt as he spots why he can’t hold my hands. “What’s that?”
“It’s your painting,” Cheddy says before I can think of a single acceptable explanation.
“Oh. I, um, wondered where it went.” Brie glances back to the wall bereft of his art.
Say something. Anything other than your mother said you were ugly and threw it away.
“I took it home with me. To the hotel. I…I missed you. And at first, I thought oh, well, at least I can look at your painting while I’m there. But then I got to worrying what if you missed your painting? You might want it to stay here instead.”
Brie’s frown lightens almost instantly. He keeps bobbing his head as if he’s waiting for the opportunity to rush through my babble and kiss me. “Really?”
“Should I put it on the wall…?” I lift it to rehang it before I blanch. If my mom spots it she might do something awful like shred it.
“No.” Brie steps in. He stares at his work, then presses it to my chest. “Keep it. Maybe I’ll make you a new one of me to go with it. Once I’ve finished cleaning this place to impossible standards, of course.”
An overwhelming urge to commiserate warps through me at Brie’s flagrant sarcasm. Trying to live up to my mother’s standards is impossible—and yet I keep trying. “I’m sorry about all of this. I didn’t think she’d come here. She never leaves home. She doesn’t even own a car. I…”
I let them down. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Violette. We don’t blame you.”
“It’s the she-beast’s fault,” Cheddy cries out. “How does a beautiful flower sprout from such a harridan harpy?”
That’s my mother.The sharp response stings on my tongue. I should reprimand him and defend her. Because she’s my mom, my family. Instead of facing off with Cheddy, I catch Brie’s eye. He’s brushing the tip of his finger over his painting, his face contorted in a mess of emotions. Then he stares at me and they all fade to sorrow.
“Where…where are Cam and Roq?”
“Oh, they’ll want to see you’re here. Especially Roq.”
I grit my teeth. How many ways has Roq cursed my name over the past week? He’d be right to do it though. I did renege on our deal even if I didn’t want to.
“They’re in the basement since they don’t get to be janitors,” Cheddy says. He tugs open the trapdoor and peers down into the cellar. “Hello!”
No one responds. “Ah, they’re probably in the vault. Come on.”
I peer back out through the big windows. It’s easy to forget they’re there giving every passerby or store across the street a look into my cheese fantasy world. How many have taken stock of the four strange men in this shop? What if one of them tells—?
“Vi?” Cheddy peeks his head out of the gap. “Are you coming?” he asks instead of demanding it.
“Yes. What about you, Brie?”
“Let me just finish this floor, and I’ll meet you down there,” Brie calls.
