Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 103.3: 1968, Georgina

Chapter 103.3: 1968, Georgina

Sasha left some time around five. He said he was going to bring Ganya some dinner, but I could read the lie. We hadn't spoken at all, and now he'd left. Paulie found me in the bedroom with my Louis Vuitton open, looking through it aimlessly.

We'd packed my suitcases and purse meticulously earlier in the week for Jersey. Paulie took such attention to detail. He'd even packed me an extra of my favorite shade of lipstick. I'd told him I'd only be gone a week or so, but he insisted.

Now Paulie was in the doorway. There was a big box under his arm wrapped in newspaper and a big red bow on it. He was smiling widely, and as I undid the brakes on my chair he came forward.

"Why, don't you look a picture," he beamed. "Perfect for your party. Is that a new dress? I haven't seen that green number before. You look like you belong in Hollywood."

"Oh," I said. A flash of Sasha's touch on my body as he'd put this dress on me this afternoon made me startle internally. I tried to shake it off by wheeling forward towards Paulie, but he kept grinning and indicated he wanted to sit on the bed.

"Here, I'll help you. Want to sit on the bed with me?" He seemed so happy. Somehow, I couldn't match him. I closed my eyes with my face pointing towards the window, pressing them for a long second. I breathed in.

Sasha's poison words came into my head. About Ganya at the office, about the murd-

"Come on, I've seen you do it. You can get on the bed. You need to open this right now!" So jolly he was. He was patting the bed now, on the side closest to me.

I didn't really want to join him on the bed. But I knew any pause could diminish his mood. Part of me wanted him to be this happy. The other part was...there were so many tangles and muddies of emotions going through my head that I didn't know what to make of it. Just a pause.

"Can't you do it?" Paulie was smiling, but his smile became smaller. I realized with a small jolt that I wasn't smiling, and had hardly said a thing to him since he came in. That maybe he still thought this was just my birthday. How happy he must be for that. Another flash came into my brain, of some weeks ago. It seemed so long ago.

It was an image of him in a bikini in my hospital room, celebrating his birthday with me. Had I been sour then? I couldn't remember.

"I'm sorry," I sighed. Apologizing. Apologizing for what?

"Not a problem. I can help you up."

I watched him get up and observed him drawing nearer to me. I could feel him before he put his hands on me, my body contracting a strangeness. A buzzing was going through my heart, as if it had become a hive as he gently pulled me forward.

My face scrunched and he was the one apologizing. Suddenly, I just wanted Frankie and I didn't know what to do. Helpless in the moment. It made me forget what I had learned this afternoon, just needing him in the pureness of my heart.

But as soon as I was on the bed I was struck with a grief. Mourning the man I had known and loved, met now with this stranger who I hardly knew. A stranger that Sasha had cooked up, Sasha and Ganya, and I just wanted it to be untrue.

Luckily, Paulie opened the box as my eyes watered appropriately by coincidence, and I was struck dumb for the second time today.

"Happy birthday," he grinned, the box's top so large it hid his body behind it save for his legs. "I hope you like it. I know I assumed this is what you wanted, and its really important but I thought...well I hope its okay?" He was studying my face. I could feel his gaze on me like fingers.