Falling Into Place
“You sure are awfully quiet,” Charles remarked as he drove Ella back to the house. His voice brought her head around, the cityscape blurring in the corner of her eye as she realized she hadn’t seen any of it anyway.
“Sorry. Just lost in thought.” She smiled, thinking for once the thoughts she’d been lost in were productive and satisfying, not terrifying and pessimistic.
“Did your meeting go well, then?” he asked, his tone conveying he was making conversation, not attempting to be nosy.
“It really did. As soon as I get home, I’m going to start making some plans for the future. Fae is… amazing.” She’d had such a great conversation with the artist about how Ella could use her paintings to launch herself into the art world. If she wanted to, Ella could use that platform to begin her own graphic design company. Or she could stick with visual arts. She already had ideas for paintings of her own, and Fae had offered to give her private lessons to improve her skills. The idea that Fae Ward could teach her to paint the same sort of magnificent works of art as Ella had discovered in her attic was enough to make her genuinely smile about something other than Rome for the first time in months. And the fact that she’d inspired Fae to start painting again was also remarkable.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Charles said, his expression conveying moderate pleasure. Ella knew him well enough already to understand that was about as excited as Charles got about anything.
“It is. You’ll probably be driving me to see her a lot in the future. I hope that’s okay. Or I guess I could drive myself. Or get a driver….”
“I’ll be happy to drive you,” Charles assured her.
“Cool.” Ella didn’t really want to drive herself in LA traffic anyway, and the idea of hiring someone else wasn’t appealing anyway. The fewer people who knew the truth, the better. “Charles, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he said, though he didn’t sound thrilled about the inquiry.
“You know who I am—don’t you?”
He looked at her out of the side of his eye for a second before slowly nodding. “I think so.”
“Then you know my real name isn’t Cindy? Right?”
Again, he nodded.
She sighed, glad that he was on the same page as her but still frustrated at her dilemma. “Do you think I look like a Cindy? I mean… I didn’t pick that name for myself. Not that most people do pick a name for themselves. But do you think I need to change it? Again?”
They were stopped at a light, so Charles took a moment to turn and look at her before turning back to traffic and following the taxi in front of him through the light. “I don’t really think Cindy suits you much. You need something a little more sophisticated. A little more… elegant.”
Ella felt her face light up at the compliments. So Charles thought she seemed sophisticated and elegant? That was nice to know. “I was thinking a professional artist, even a professional art dealer should be called something a little more exotic, don’t you think?”
Charles shrugged. “Yeah, probably so.”
“Something… sparkly. Like a rare jewel.”
“So… why not Jewel? Or Ruby? Or Sapphire?”
“Sapphire?” Ella repeated, trying not to laugh at any of his suggestions. “Is that a name?”
“Hell if I know. Anything can be a name these days. This is LA. There are people named Apple. And North.”
“True.” She had heard of some celebrities naming their children some odd things. “I like Jewel, but that seems a little pretentious.”
“Julia? Julianna? Juliet?”
“Juliet?” Ella repeated. “Now that would be fitting wouldn’t it? But I’d have to change my last name, too, if I chose that, wouldn’t I?” She remembered Juliet being one of the names Bart had given her when they were on the run.
“Sure, I guess so. If you’re going with the Shakespeare theme, may as well go the whole way. Wasn’t Montague Romeo’s last name?” Charles asked.
“I think so. I think that’s why Bart picked it for me at one point. He thought he was being funny.”
“Okay, so in the play, if Juliet would’ve lived, she would’ve been Juliet Montague, right? You’re like her--except you did live. Why not? Why not be the girl who came back from death--the girl who walked out of the tomb?”
Ella listened, her eyebrows arched, as she considered what the overly-serious, yet apparently profound, security guard had to say. Had that been what Bart was doing, too, or had he just been trying to get a chuckle out of her? “Do you think my father will suspect it’s me if he hears a name like that?” she asked. Would Lloyd Sinders be clever enough to put two and two together?
“Hell if I know. Do most people even know Romeo’s last name?”
“No. In fact, most people probably don’t even know who wrote Romeo and Juliet, not anymore anyhow.”
“So… I don’t know, girly. Maybe your old man will figure it out. Maybe not. I’m just here to make suggestions.”
Ella put her hand on his shoulder. “It was a good one. I especially like what you said about me being the girl who lived, the girl who walked out of the tomb. That’s how I’ve felt this whole time, like someone who died and came back to life. Lost and afraid but ready to make myself into something new, someone I couldn’t have been before, if I hadn’t gone through that experience.” Outside, the city was turning into beach, and Ella realized she was going back into hiding, but this time, she was taking a small piece of the world back with her, thanks to her two new friends.
“You can be whoever you wanna be, Mrs. V.,” Charles reminded her. “The world is just gonna have to get ready for you.”
Ella giggled. She’d never thought of herself as a force to be reckoned with, but Charles had a point. If she was going to be someone else, she may as well be someone fierce. Someone who knew what she wanted and was willing to grab it with both hands. “Thanks, Charles. You’re the best.”
She turned to look at him and noted his cheeks were slightly pink. He shrugged but didn’t comment, and she looked away, glad she’d decided to let him drive her. This new world was beginning to reveal itself to her, slowly, but it was happening just the same. He was right. The world had better get ready because Juliet Montague was about to take it by storm.
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