-julia-
I'm not ready. I'm not ready. I'm not ready.
Diane and I wait against the counters, the pressure building and building until I'm ready to scream. I wait for my mother to burst in. For a gun to fire. For a bomb to explode.
Anything. Anything.
I want something to react to. All the adrenaline pumping through me is building and it needs to go somewhere.
I'm about to relax, thinking that maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe Rosalina, it was her handwriting. just thought she saw someone. She's not the best with faces after all. I remember the time she went up to a random girl at the fair and hugged her because she thought it was me, not a stranger. Maybe it's all wrong.
A mistake.
But then the door opens and a woman slips through.
My mother.
She's not screaming or cursing or shouting threats or anything.
She just surveys the room with a cold stare.
Diane and I duck down below the counters. Can she see us over the counter tops? Are we hiding exactly where she can see us?
The entire kitchen stills. Everyone recognizes my mother. While I might have slipped past, everyone knows my mother's face. It's on every political poster and banner and pin. Her face is everywhere.
She is everywhere.
Mindy says, "Can we help you, ma'am?"
My mother responds in her calm, polite voice. The same voice that won her all the respect and love. "Yes, actually you can. I'm afraid that I lost my daughter. Julia. Do you know if she's here?"
I swear that every staff member glances over to where Diane and I hide.
I'm sure that they are doing the math in their heads, trying to make sense of the situation. Why are two family enemies hanging out together? Why would I be with Diane? Surely my mother must be furious. and for good reason, too.
My mother steps forward. Her heels click in the silence. "Are they over here?"
My hand goes to my handgun. Do I use it? Can I pull it out? Can I turn the safety off? Can I raise it and focus the sight on my mother's head? Can I pull the trigger?
Diane pops above the counter. Her voice is cold and hard, a fierce competition with my mother's. "Don't you dare take another step in my home."
I stand myself, not nearly as fearless as Diane. I keep my hand on my gun, the bulge in my waistband invisible behind the counter.
My mother steps forward, "There you are. I need to talk to you." Her voice is off. Of course it's off. She's furious and she's struggling so hard to keep it under control.
She says to the kitchen staff, "Do you think I could have a minute? It will only be a minute. I just need to talk to my daughter and her little friend."
Diane shakes her head, "Don't leave. Don't you have duties that you need to take care of?"
They can't leave. They are the only witnesses. If something happens to us, who will be able to tell the truth?
But the staff follows my mother's orders because my mother is Marcia Quintana and Diane is just Diane.
They leave the room. filling out the door one by one. I try to catch one of their eyes so that I can silently plead, but they stumble out of the room with their eyes on the floor. Mindy looks up at the last second and I just shake my head a tiny bit.
She opens her mouth and just shrugs. She's too afraid. Too afraid to stand up. She closes the door behind her as she leaves.
My mother surveys the room to make sure that it's empty and then runs to hug me. I throw my hands up in defense, no idea what's happening. I expect to hear my mother whisper curses and threats in my ear, but instead she begins to sob.
Diane catches my eye over my mother's shoulder. She shakes her head. I can't fall for this. Whatever this is.
My mother sobs and pulls away, "Julia, listen to me. Don't listen to whatever Diane is saying, because she won't believe me. And after everything that I've done to her, I don't blame her for hating me. I hate myself too. But you have to believe me. I am not...I am not...I am just a small part of this. A helpless part. There's so much more to this than you realize. This isn't just me. I'm not the one making the decisions her. Sure. I might have supported them at first. They were getting rid of my enemies. Why wouldn't I support them? But then you became involved and then it all became clear. Everything that I was doing. how wrong it was. It's not okay, Julia. And you are in serious danger. Serious, serious danger."
I blink, trying to make sense of the words flying out of my mother's mouth. "What are you talking about? Who is them? What are you a part of?"
"I can't say, I just can't say. They'll know and then I...I don't know what will happen. But you need to run. You need to run, and take Diane with you. I don't care what it takes to run. You just need to go. You aren't safe. You aren't safe and I don't know. This is all my fault and..." My mother is falling apart before my very eyes. I've seen her snap in anger. I've seen her snap in frustration and desperation to win a court trial. But never have I seen her so scared. My mother is never scared. My mother is the one who causes people to be afraid. Who is this person that is able to do this to her?
I try to find Diane's eye, but my mother steps in front so that I can't see.
My mother's eyes bore into mine and I can see that something isn't quite right. Something is broken. Unhinged. My mother is not all here. Something has driven her to the edge. Fear? Desperation? Anger?
She says, "You have to listen to me. You need to run to the woods. Wait an hour. If I'm not there by the end of the hour, you need to keep running. Travel through the streets. Just keep walking. Keep moving. Go to Kalynordia. You know where that is, I'm sure. Straight north. Keep going until you cross the border. It will be difficult without any papers. but you are a smart girl. I'm sure you will come up with a way. Go and don't stop going. Don't turn back. Don't second guess yourself."
I shake my head, "Mom I don't know. I don't know if can do this."
"What's holding you back?"
"I have friends and family and.."
"Your friends are nothing to you if you are dead. Just keep going. You can worry about them once the danger has passed. I will find you. If I don't...assume that I am dead."
"Mother, I..."
She hugs me, breaking me off from my words. Tears fill my eyes because I am confused and terrified and frustrated and...
My mother says, "I love you, Julia. I do. I know these last days have been confusing. I don't even recognize myself anymore. But I love you. I always have and I always will. Now run."
My mother looks at me one last time as though she will never see me again and hurries out of the kitchen.
Diane and I are suddenly alone.
I turn to Diane, "What do we do? I have no idea what that was."
"Do we believe her?"
"I don't know. I don't know what that was or who that was or what think and..." I'm hyperventilating. The room is disappearing and I can't think and I think the entire world might be spinning.
Diane slaps me across the face, "Don't you dare leave my right now. Think straight. What do we do?"
I start to cry and I don't know why I'm crying but I know that I shouldn't be crying. "I don't know. You decide. You decide. I don't, I can't..."
Diane huffs in frustration. "We run, right? We go to to woods. There's no harm there. We hide. We wait and see what happens. We regroup. We think things through."
I bob my head, "Yes. We go to the woods and think. And think and decide there."
Diane nods and presses her lips together. She grabs me by the wrist and drags me out of the house. We exit through the back door and the rush of cold night air sends some sense into me. I gasp and shake my head, as if that will get rid of all the pressing fear and terror.
Diane says, "Julia, I would really like it if you would pull yourself together. I really need some help here."
I nod, "I'm working on it."
We duck into the woods and sticks and bushes scratch at our faces and our legs and our arms but I don't feel it as we push further and further into the woods.
Further away from my mother, from the party, from the stress, from the fear.
Finally Diane stops. She's gasping for breath.
She stares at me. "Are you thinking straight now?"
I nod, "I think."
"What do we do? Was your mother telling the truth? Was it all some game?"
"I don't know. I've never seen my mother look so...unhinged before. She wasn't entirely there. I don't know. I think she might have been telling the truth. But she might not have been. I don't understand my mother and I won't pretend to."
"But if she is telling the truth, we don't want to risk whatever she was talking about. Somebody else is after us?"
I say, "If anyone is able to scare my mother that much, we should terrified of that person. I don't know who could possibly be that horrible, but if they are true, we should be running right now."
Diane says, "We wait out the hour. We see if your mother comes. If she doesn't we run. If she does, we asses the situation and then we run or stay. This might just be your mother's way of luring us out into the woods to kill us."
I pat my guns at my hip, "We do have back up.
"Unless she takes you out. Maybe when she hugged you, she felt them. Maybe she was just searching you down for weapons."
I freeze. "Or putting a weapon on me."
Diane stiffens. "You don't think..."
I throw my shirt off over my head and pull my skirt down to my knees and whip it away. I have no time to be vain. I'm in my tights and a undershirt. Could my mother have gotten something down my shirt? I try to think back to when she was hugging but I can't remember. I was too petrified to pay attention to what my mother was doing.
I rip off my tank top just to be sure and throw it to the ground. I'm in my bra and nylons, while Diane just shakes her head.
She says, "What do we do? Do you think it's a mic? A bomb? Poison?"
"I don't know. We clear the area. Still within viewing distance. Maybe it's a tracker. We wait to see what happens."
"What if your mother was telling the truth? What if we should be running?"
"Then we just pray that we don't get caught. I sure don't want some evil mastermind to see my in my underwear, now do I."
Diane shakes her head and leads me to the woods. We sit behind a particularly large tree, our backs to my thrown off clothes. Hopefully my mother will come and reveal all her plans, hopefully outloud, to us without her knowing. I wish my mother had the bad habit of mumbling or talking out loud, perhaps when she was thinking about her plans.
But my mother is apparently too perfect for that.
Diane whispers, "Above all Plan A."
I shake my head, "That's turning out to be even harder than I thought. And I thought it was going to be pretty difficult."
Diane says, "That's what happens when you hang out with criminals with me."
I grin at her, "Why are we joking when we are so close to dying?"
She shrugs, "Coping mechanism?"