The car stops under the Marigold's gold lights, and my legs still feel like they belong to somebody else.
Dante gets out first and doesn't offer me a hand. He just stands there watching me like I'm a bill he already paid.
Dante: Fix your face, Bettina. You look like you're going to a funeral.
The hall is full of men in good suits and women in bad perfume, and every single one of them turns to look at me.
Dante: Smile.
I smile, and it feels like my face is cracking right down the middle.
Dante: Better. Now walk like the room belongs to you.
The room belongs to him. Everybody standing in it knows that except me.
Alma finds us before the second table, and her eyes move over me like a coat she's thinking about buying and putting right back.
Alma: She looks different. What did you do to her hair?
Dante: Ask her something. Go on.
Alma: Fine. What was the name of your dog growing up, Bettina?
Bettina never had a dog. She had a hamster for two weeks and it died, and I can't say that out loud.
Lola: Buster.
Dante: Buster. That's a cute name for a dog that never fucking existed.
The table goes quiet. He says it loud enough for the next table, and a guest laughs into his glass like I told a joke.
Dante: One more. What did your mother call her daughter? Not Bettina. What did Rosa say when she wanted you?
My mouth is dry as paper. Rosa called me plenty of things and not one of them was nice.
Lola: Bean.
Dante: Bean. Is that right, Rosa? You call your daughter Bean?
My mother doesn't change her face at all.
She drinks instead, and that silence is her whole answer.
Dante: No? So my bride stands in my hall telling lies about her own life.
Dante: Look at her, all of you. A pretty dress and a mouth full of shit.
Dante: That's not a wife. That's a stray I let through the door.
Alma: A stray that shakes. Put it out in the alley.
He takes my wrist and closes his hand around it slow, and I feel the small bones grind together.
I make a noise I've never made before, and not one person at those tables says a word about it.
Dante: Excuse us.
The corridor behind the hall is cold and empty, and he puts me against the wall. Not gentle.
My shoulder hits the plaster and my teeth click, and my wrist is already turning purple where his fingers were.
Dante: Now. Try again. Who are you?
Dante: People lie to me every week. They cry every week too. It's boring, and I don't like being bored.
He says it quiet and waits, and quiet is somehow worse than yelling.
I should lie better. My family's whole life is built on lying and not getting caught, and I'm the one who never learned it right.
Lola: I'm Bettina. I'm just nervous, that's all.
Dante: Nervous. Sure.
Dante: I know where Enzo drinks his coffee. I know what he owes and who he owes it to.
Dante: I'd hate to invite him here and make him watch something he can't fix.
My stomach drops through the floor, because he said my father's name like a fact he checked a long time ago.
He doesn't blink. He just watches me work out how much he already knows.
Then he stops talking. One hand comes up to my jaw and he kisses me hard enough to hurt.
It isn't a wedding kiss. It's a warning with a tongue in it.
Dante: That's what a liar gets.
His hand slides under the loose fabric of the blouse I'm wearing under Bettina's dress, palm flat on the bare skin of my lower back.
Warm. Rough. Way too much, and nowhere near enough.
Dante: Say stop and I stop. Say it.
I don't say it. My fingers close on his shirt and I pull him in, and the low sound he makes runs down my spine.
His thumb drags up my spine once and then again, and my hips push off the wall like they have their own plan.
Lola: This is so fucked.
Dante: Yeah. It is.
Dante: Fix your lipstick. And when Alma asks the next question, answer it like it's the truest thing you ever said.
He walks back into the gold light, and I wipe Bettina's lipstick off my mouth and wonder what else of hers he can see through.