"I don't
really have time for the whole ugly soap opera. I mean, the telenovela stuff has
got nothing on this." A raspy laugh. "Okay, the short version is that
she's a really distant cousin. She got hurt this winter, and someone who knows
somebody else saw her name on the paperwork and they started asking questions,
and my freakazoid relatives finally started talking, and somebody finally told
me. I mean, come on, I find out I have a girl cousin my own age that nobody
ever told me existed. Wouldn't you make contact? Us against the world kind of
thing?"
Su-Ma's instinctive
response was to say Sue-Marie no longer worked here, or she had found the phone
or borrowed it, or a dozen other weak lies that might just work if this
previously unknown, very distant cousin was as uncomfortable as she sounded. She
could just say this was a wrong number. After all, chances were this alleged cousin
was just as bad as the rest of the family and she had really only made contact
because she thought she could profit from the connection. After all, so many
people seemed to think the Arc Foundation was made out of money, and they all
wanted a share.
Yet what if this
girl felt just as unwanted, unwelcome, awkward and inconvenient as Su-Ma had
been made to feel, growing up? She was quite ready to believe someone in her
attenuated, easily offended family had known there was another girl she could
have grown up with. They had denied the two of them a chance at a pleasant
family situation.
"Everybody
calls me Su-Ma," she said instead, and stopped with the toes of her
sneakers against the edge of the long reflecting pool fountain one level down
from the patio.
Silence.
Maybe this cousin
had changed her mind.
"Uh -- hi, Su-Ma. I'm Nia. Short for Lavinia. They named me for Great-great-granny Cooper-Smythe." An awkward, raspy laugh. "Did they even tell you about her?"
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