Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 103.2: 1968, Georgina

Chapter 103.2: 1968, Georgina

In front of me, Sasha was waving a little sugar packet back and forth in his hand, shaking it to settle the sugar I presumed. All of a sudden it sailed by my head, and I reacted long after it had hit something in the living room beyond.

He smiled at me as I raised my eyebrow.

"Sweet'N Low," he shrugged, picking up another differently colored sugar packet from the container on the middle of the Formica table.

I picked one up, staring at the words. "What's wrong with it?" I asked, poising my fingers to rip it open to put into my coffee.

"I eat real sugar." He said this as if proclaiming something important.

"There's a difference?" The white stuff rained into my coffee as I swept the packet side to side.

"Sure there is."

I put the rim of my coffee cup to my lips, sipping. Sure tasted fine to me. "I don't taste it."

"Ganya says its like those ready-made meals. Artificial. I don't want to eat something like that."

"Oh, so Ganya says." It was clear now.

"Mhm, he does."

"Is Ganya coming to my party?" I felt child-like with excitement now. Maybe everybody gets child-like on their birthday. What you expect is so different from any other day. Rainbow balloons, streamers, cake. Oh, cake. "Who's getting my cake?" I asked this without waiting to hear Sasha's answer, my face still on the brown liquid in my mug, sipping.

He didn't answer me, and I looked up at him, smiling. But he wasn't smiling.

"Sasha?" I asked, still smiling at him. "What's wrong? Did you get the burned part?" I stared down at his toast, still untouched on his plate. I knew he liked to eat around it, eating the best parts of breakfast first. This breakfast had been particularly good, being all of my favorite things, just for me on my birthday.

"Um, no, he's not."

"Hm?" I stabbed a fried potato with my fork. "What?" My voice was still friendly when clearly his was not. It was too odd, too quick.

"Ganya's not coming. He's going to be at the office. Because... Georgina, um..." His voice had taken a stern tone.

"The office?" My potato paused on its way to my mouth. What was Sasha talking about? Ganya hadn't been to an office in about five years. Certainly not the office. It couldn't be that office.

"Georgina, they found him."

My smile paused like my potato. Awkward. My stomach had gone about six feet below my chair. Little knowings were drifting around my head, like potato hash floating around my brain and blocking the passages, making me unable to think.

"Found who?" I asked. Reality was coming in like red, color filling everything where black and white had been. A non-reality becoming strange and blurry.

"Darling, you didn't know?" He sounded devastated.

"Found who?"

"Georgina, no."

My mouth was open slightly. I was going dumb.

"Found...what..." I put my fork down with a small clatter. His silence was now deafening. My happy birthday dream was gone. Replaced with his sad stare at me...

"Georgina, they found...they found him. You know. You have to know. Frankie must've..."

He was looking down at his almost empty plate now. My brain still thought he was staring at his burnt toast, simply not wanting to eat it. It was too surreal otherwise.

"Frankie must have what?" I asked quietly, numbly.

"I don't know. Did he say something?"

I knew where this was going even though he wasn't saying anything. I swallowed, glad he wasn't looking at me, because I felt...guilty. Guilty, even though I hadn't done anything. My hands found my face, and they tilted my face down to the table, looking down and staring at the red of it, studying the metal edge, counting the number of ridges.

No, it wasn't true. I did know, but it wasn't true, right? Wasn't it? Nobody had said a goddamned thing. I'd waited for them to say something that morning, anything, but nobody said a goddamned word before this. And now this. On my birthday. Didn't it ever stop? When was the end?

"No," I said quietly still. I wanted to get up and leave. If I could get up and leave, run out the door and slam it, I would. But I couldn't do any such thing. Stuck in this matching red Formica chair, my wheelchair all the way over there next to the kitchen sink in the corner. I was trapped and I couldn't process this.

No. No, the truth was...

"Oh, he didn't? Are you sure? Think back. I don't know, Georgina. Please say something."

Sasha sounded desperate now. Desperate for what? Desperate for Frankie to have been involved, that he'd been involved in the murder of...

"Georgina, this is important. Its important. Luciano was murdered. You know, that... The doctor who... His wife filed a missing person's and- There was motive, Georgina. Don't you understand? There was motive for Frankie to do that. He's the only one who had a-"

My hands slammed the table and he jumped, stopping his words in their tracks. How dare he say these things to me. On my birthday, of all days.

The truth was that Paulie had said something. That briefness I'd had, when I'd thought Avi had come into the apartment so late at night a week ago. I wasn't sure, but now. Those things they'd said.

I stared down Sasha across from me. He was staring at me, looking like he was about to cry. His face was so unimaginably desperate. I knew what his motivations were. How scared he looked. I was scared, too, but did that mean I was going to betray...

"I don't know shit," I whispered to him menacingly. There was a slight pause as he continued to stare at me. "Now, I'm sorry that Ganya had to come out of retirement because of somebody. I'm really sorry that he's not going to be at the party. But we have to get ready for the party. That's what day it is."

I was so mad I was almost shaking. How could Sasha betray me like this? And Paulie, he was...what was he... I couldn't comprehend it and I didn't want to. It was all too much. Too much for me to comprehend. We'd just been laughing together. Talking about sugar. He'd made me potatoes.

Now somebody was dead, and he thought...

I wanted to throw everything at him. Make him take it back. I didn't want to talk about it. I couldn't. How dare he. How dare he say that about Frankie?

"Okay, Georgina." That's all he could say to me. And those were the last words we spoke to each other that afternoon.