Traded_Brody and Kara by Tess Thompson

Author:Tess Thompson [Thompson, Tess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 4kids5cats Editions
Published: 2018-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kara

SEVERAL DAYS LATER, Kara’s stomach fluttered as she watched Brody pour wine. He’d shoved his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. As he poured, the muscles of his forearm flexed. She yearned to fold her fingers around his wrist.

He sat back at the table and patted his lean stomach. “Okay, confession time. That whole-wheat spaghetti wasn’t bad.”

“I’m glad you approve.” Under the soft lights of the dining room, his eyes were dark green. In other lights they appeared to be the color of acorns. Whatever color they were, they drew her in until she forgot everything else. “After I graduated from college, I decided it was time to learn how to cook like my mother had.”

“Tell me about her.”

Kara hesitated, stumped. How was it possible to describe a woman who had been gone since Kara was a child? The familiar shame crept up her spine. She couldn’t remember enough about her. “I was so young when she died. I don’t have a lot of memories. She liked to cook. Her parents were from Italy. Our kitchen always smelled of garlic and onions and Italian spices. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I try to conjure up a memory that’s buried in my subconscious, but I never get much. There are days I have to look at her photograph to remember what she looked like.” She closed her eyes as a sudden image leapt to life. “When she laughed, she threw back her head. And she smelled of Gucci perfume.” Kara opened her eyes and took a sip of wine. “When I’m at a department store, I always stop at the counter to sniff it from a bottle.” She halted, afraid to unleash the tears that burned her eyelids.

“I love that,” Brody said. “Smells are such a conduit to memory. The smell of grass reminds me of my dad.”

“Yes, and music. When she left my father, we moved in with my grandparents in Philly. My grandmother was always playing Frank Sinatra records. Every time I hear one, I’m transported back to their cozy living room. One time, right before she died, I think anyway, she and I danced around the room to “The Way You Look Tonight.” It’s the most romantic song in the world.”

“It’s on the list, for sure,” he said.

“When she died, I had to go back to live with my father, so it was a double loss because I was torn from my grandparents. Ironic, because he promptly sent me off to boarding school.”

“If he didn’t want you, why didn’t you stay with your grandparents?”

“It seems logical, doesn’t it? He was controlling. Enormously so. To him, letting my grandparents take me was admitting defeat. Truthfully, although it wasn’t for the right reasons, it was better for me to go to a girls’ boarding school. My grandparents were elderly and not up for taking on a ten-year-old girl, although they wanted to. But they came to visit me at school every semester until they died when I was in high school.

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