Page 11 of Persephone's Curse
“It’s a big change,” Dad said, who didn’t like change and reacted poorly whenever Mom suggested any home renovations. The new living room set from a few summers ago had really thrown him for a loop and I still caught him occasionally turning around in a circle, eyeing everything with what I could only describe as the most extreme distrust.
“I think I’ll get bangs,” Clara said.
I actually saw Dad flinch.
“You’d look wonderful with bangs,” Mom said.
Evelyn stabbed at her mashed potatoes with unnecessary force. She was still not really speaking to Clara or me, and in general acting like a huge brat.
“I want to look French,” Clara said. “Or at least more French than I currently look. Will bangs do that?”
“Definitely,” Mom said. “Curtain bangs. Brigitte Bardot.”
“French?” Dad said.
“Everybody wants to look French,” I explained.
“I hate France,” he said.
“You don’t hate France,” Mom replied. “You’re thinking of Brussels. You had a nice time in France.”
He squinted, then nodded. “I hate Brussels.”
“You also don’t really hate Brussels. You just have a sour memory,” Mom said.
Dad tried to work out what that meant exactly, to have a sour memory, and Evelyn stabbed at her plate again. It must have been very unsatisfying, to stab at mashed potatoes, but we didn’t point that out.
“Evelyn, darling,” Mom said. “You haven’t had a bite to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“Am I sensing some…” Dad waved his fork back and forth between the three-out-of-four kids in front of him.
“I’m fine,” Clara said brightly.
“I’m great,” I said.
“I’m peachy,” Evelyn said.
Nobody in the history of the world has ever said they’re peachy and meant it, but Dad winked at me and said, “Idon’t want to look French,” and Evelyn managed the smallest of smiles at that.
We were all quiet when Bernadette entered the kitchen. Therewas a more formal dining room, but we always ate in the kitchen nook surrounded by windows. Bernadette was wearing old flannel pants and a white T-shirt with pinprick holes all over the sleeves and collar. With her pixie cut, her black eye, her one visible green iris—nowshelooked French.
“Bernadette, sweetheart,” Mom said.
“I got hungry,” she replied.
None of us knew what she’d talked to Mom and Dad about, just that she’d been in her room ever since.
“Fuck,”Clara said. “It looksamazing.”
“Language,” Dad said, without any real gumption.
“You like it?” Bernie asked, touching the ends of her hair.
“Iloveit,” Clara said. “You look so motherfucking—sorry, Dad—cool.”
“I’ve always wanted to do it,” Bernie said, then looked at me. “You talked me into it.”
