Chapter 3
Amanda, she starts slowly, retracting her steps to the exact precision of that day: same dance-floor, same outfit, even the same companion who leaves early, as it was the first time.
Her friend-yet-to-be, so young, so immature, so passionate.
Time is strange, re-visiting it, traveling inside your head.. even more. Buses are slow and solid, prices - strangely cheap, streets - full of shady characters.
*
Only there is extra dresses, in her backpack. Red and green, silk and silver, sparkling and tempting. Earrings, dangling, promising.
Only there is invitation secured, with rather-famous widely-known-in-narrow-circles pseudo-relatives artists-cum-musicians soon after midnight, right before dawn.
Only there is precise timing..
**
..inviting and seducing the other sibling as well and leading her away from that narcissistic "mother's" influence, the ultimate revenge;
..dressing her in green and glamour, complimenting her (and, oh, how sibling's head is spinning from compliments in the tender age of 17, how easy to change her, her life.. and with a precision, extreme precision, not to go wrong),
..and ruthlessly forking her life, the little damsel's destiny, in entirely different direction,
***
..handing her, the sibling, the entrance into bohemian mayhem, family of her own, freedom from sick expectations of sibling's mother, who acted once upon a time with false hospitality, as if welcoming Amanda in the family, then berating her son for "making such a dire mistake and marrying so young".
The hypocrisy! That is the most terrible sin in Amanda's books.
*****
.. Amanda, she grants the sibling the freedom to live her own life, in green silk and silver earrings, in art of her choosing, in permission to create her own art as well as own family, on the silver plate and prettily painted.
...all that for chance of revenge that will come in a year and a half, for chance of taking away both her children, for offense this mother is yet to commit.
Amanda takes revenge seldom, but really seriously. This time.. she had it coming, she did.
*****
- Cher oncle .. longtemps sans voir. Merci pour l'invitation! Tellement heureux d'être ici, enfin.*
- Je vous en prie, laissez-moi vous présenter Marie. Elle est si jolie, non ? Marie, Madeleine, m'a-t-elle dit.
J'ai donc pris la liberté de l'emmener avec moi.**